Cold River (20 page)

“Really? What did you expect?”

Mandy stirred milk into her cereal and considered. “I think I expected someone round and soft. Big bosom. White hair. Dowager’s hump. Maybe even with a cane. She’s eighty years old, you know.”

Leesie grinned broadly. “Boy, were you in for a surprise! Do you know who I think she looks like? That movie star in those old-fashioned movies Grandma Steenburg used to make us watch. The one with the black hair and lavender eyes?”

Mandy frowned. “I haven’t a clue who you mean.”

“Oh, you know, she was in the one about the Southern girl who goes to Texas with the big, buff, rich guy who is determined to keep her under his thumb, and the studly cowboy is in love with her.
Giant.
That was the name of the movie.”

“Elizabeth Taylor? You think that Granny Timberlain looks like Elizabeth Taylor?”

“Yes. Look at the cheekbones and the eyebrows. And the black hair all done up on top of her head. She’s still beautiful, I think.”

“She’s had a lot of sorrow in her life. Her husband and two sons were killed in a logging accident, her son Benjamin was murdered, and her only daughter died five years ago of breast cancer.”

“Wow. That visit must have been a real downer.”

Mandy shook her head. “It wasn’t. She’s quite the lady. Indomitable.”

“What does that mean?”

“Unconquerable, unable to be subdued.

Leesie nodded. “And it rubs off, you know? That’s the way I feel when I’m there in her house.”

“Yeah. I’m gaining new respect for Mrs. Barlow.”

“The preacher’s wife?”

“Yes. When she asked me to visit Granny Timberlain, I thought it was because Granny was needy. I see now that Mrs. Barlow knew it was the other way around.”

Leesie laughed. “You, needy? I don’t think so.” After glancing at the clock, she said, “I’ve got to get my things together. Jake will be here in a minute.”

Mandy picked up the breakfast dishes and carried them to the sink. “Will you do something for me today?” she asked. “I need some modeling clay. Can you go by the art room and borrow some? I’ll return it next week.”

“Clay? What do you need that for?”

“It’s for a project I’m working on. Can you do that for me?”

“I suppose.” Leesie put on a jacket, picked up her backpack, and stood at the window to watch for her ride. “Oh, I forgot to tell you that Fran came by last night to see how you were doing. She was amazed when I told her you worked all afternoon. Heathcliff came by, too.”

Mandy closed the dishwasher and straightened up. “Heathcliff?”

“That dark guy. The one you were with the day I came.”

“Vince Lafitte. He came by last night?” Mandy picked up the spray bottle and a dishcloth and began to clean the stove.

“I told him you were in bed. By the way, what time did you give it up? I got home at seven and you were dead to the world.”

“Probably about six. What did Vince want?”

“He said he had to go out of town. Something about he couldn’t keep his date with you. Did you have a date?”

“He was going to come for dinner tonight. I had forgotten all about it.”

“There’s my ride. See you tonight. I’ll be home late. Got practice.”

Leesie slipped out the front door and was running down the steps by the time Mandy thought to ask, “Practice for what?”

As Mandy watched her sister climb into the pickup, Jake waved and Mandy returned the greeting. Then she hung the dishcloth on a peg at the end of the counter and went to search in the bookcase, finding what she needed in a corner of the bottom shelf. She put on her jacket and grabbed her purse, and just before leaving, she checked her reflection in the downstairs mirror. She still had dark circles under her eyes, but other than that, she was none the worse for her ordeal.

Arriving at the district office, Mandy saw a black Escalade parked in back. Vince sat inside, engrossed in something he was reading, and on a whim, she pulled up beside him. As she parked on the passenger side, he apparently didn’t notice her. She gathered up purse and book, hopped out, and went around to tap on his window. Surprised, he looked up, and immediately his face broke into that attractive smile.

He rolled down his window. “Mandy! I’ve been waiting for you.”

“You have? What for?”

“I wanted to see how you are. You were asleep when I came by last night.”

“I told you I wasn’t going to be fit for company. Want to come up to my office?”

He shook his head. “I’ve got to go.” He looked at his watch. “Right now, in fact. I just wanted to see you, say goodbye.”

“Where are you going?”

“Miami.”

“Miami! What in the world for?”

“I’ve got a job going sideways.”

Mandy shot him a puzzled look. “I thought they were supposed to come straight down. The buildings. Sideways would be a problem.”

Vince laughed. “It is a problem. I’ve got a superintendent that can’t— well, it would take too long to explain. The bottom line is I’ve got to go rescue the situation.” His eyes flicked to the side and back, and she turned to see what he was looking at. Grange’s old pickup had just pulled into the parking lot.

Turning back to Vince, she asked. “How long will you be gone?”

He shrugged. “Three, four days. As long as it takes to get the job done.”

“Well, have a good trip,” she said, backing away. “Give me a ring when you get home, and we’ll have you over to dinner.”

He flashed a grin and gave a thumbs up, and Mandy waved before turning to climb the porch stairs.

Grange, looking like a thundercloud, held the door for her.

Determined to be pleasant, Mandy smiled. “Thank you.” She went directly to her office and spent the first part of the morning getting prepared for the staff meeting, and when nine o’clock rolled around, she was ready.

She began by saying they would consider a section of the district policies each staff meeting and passed out a pre-test about policies for various communicable diseases and conditions ranging from impetigo through lice to TB. Then she used the pre-test to go over the policies in a teaching situation and warned that she would give the same test the next staff meeting as a post-test.

Midge, Mrs. Berman, and Mo all worked diligently on the pre-test, but Grange was obviously put off by the exercise. He seemed to answer randomly, then threw his pencil down, leaned back in his chair, and crossed his arms. As they went through the questions point by point, his brows grew lower, and his body language fairly shouted his discontent.

After that, Mandy asked Mo to make a presentation about the four elementary schools, detailing for the staff the things he had told her as they rode around the district. He passed around folders he had prepared, but as he stood in front of everyone, Grange’s scowl seemed to make him shrivel. Mo stumbled over sentences, left out conclusions he had drawn, skipped over important data, and generally made a hash of things.

Grange was no more cooperative during the portion where the resource room teachers from the four elementary schools joined them. As Mandy outlined her vision for the district, everyone seemed to take a cue from Grange. No one looked at her. They either doodled on the handout she had given, looked out the window, or in the case of Mrs. Reilly, sat with her eyes closed. The enthusiasm that had swept Mandy along ran out long before she had finished, and all she could do was grit her teeth and persevere. When she finally made her closing statements, there seemed to be a general feeling of relief, and people silently picked up their things and left. Only one teacher took Mandy’s handout.

Mandy erased the chalkboard and threw away the clever poster she had made about banning cracks for reading students to fall through. Then she picked up the handouts and carried them upstairs. As she passed Grange’s office, she poked her head in the open door and tried to keep her voice even as she said, “May I see you for a moment, please?”

He was still scowling. “I’m on my way to the high school.”

“It won’t take long.” She walked to her office without listening to his protestations and laid the stack of handouts on the corner of her desk. She didn’t sit down, standing instead by her desk, with her hand resting on the papers.

A long moment later, Grange followed her, stopping in the doorway.

“Step in, please, and close the door.”

He hesitated then did as she bid, but he stayed in front of the door, feet planted slightly apart, hands behind him.

Mandy let the silence lengthen. At last she said, “I went to see Granny Timberlain yesterday. I can’t believe that she would approve of the manners you just displayed in the staff meeting.”

“You’re going to lecture me on manners? What about professional courtesy?”

Mandy blinked. “What are you talking about?”

“This meeting. You’re off on your own personal little crusade without a word to me about it.

“Not so. I said last staff meeting that we’d be talking about a vision for a new reading program. I sent out the agenda for this meeting and asked if you wanted to add to it. I doubt if you even did me the courtesy of looking at it. If you wanted input, you could have had it. The signal I got from you was that you wanted nothing to do with anything I might be doing as far as the district was concerned.”

“You pretty much made it clear that this was your own little kingdom, and we lesser mortals weren’t welcome, except as peasants,” Grange said. “You didn’t ask me for input. You told me
you
were going to be explaining
your
program to the rest of us. If you had asked, I would have advised that you get the principals in here and get them on board if you want this to succeed. You’ll not do it without them.”

“My plan was to get the resource room people conversant with the program before presenting it to the principals, so they could advocate for it. Thanks to your example, they closed their minds before I even began talking.”

“I doubt that.”

“Oh? Let me ask you this: Did you carry away the handout that I gave you? Is it on your desk?”

He didn’t answer.

“I thought not.” She picked up the stack of papers and tossed them to the middle of the desk. “I handed out eight. There are six here. Mo took one, and Mrs. Reilly took one. Everyone else followed your lead.”

Grange changed his tactics. “And what was that about the lice and TB? How is that going to help educate the district if we cover those things in our staff meetings? It’s the people out in the field that need to go over that information.”

She picked up the meeting agenda. “If you’ll see number 5 on the agenda I sent you, it’s ‘Brainstorm ways to convey this information to the district.’”

“So, why didn’t we do that?”

“You had the meeting shut down. No one was going to offer an opinion on anything because they perceived you didn’t want it discussed.”

“That’s ridiculous!”

“Oh, is it? Do you know what you did to Mo? He prepared a superb presentation on the four elementary schools from a standpoint of budget and value received.” Mandy’s hands clenched into fists. “When he rode around with me on Monday, he was eloquent. But today, because you were so against everything,
everything
I had planned for the meeting, he was afraid to venture an idea in the face of your wrath.” Her voice began to quiver with indignation. “He’s a thinker, that man. He’s a district treasure, and I can see he’s not valued as he should be.”

Grange’s lip curled down in something very close to a sneer. “And upon what do you base that wild assumption?”

“Did you carry his excellently prepared folder back to your office to study? No? I thought not. Here it is.” She picked up the folder and held it out to Grange.

The moments dragged by as she stood with arm extended and chin up, her brown eyes locked with his blue ones. Finally, he stepped forward, took Mo’s handout, and turned to leave.

As he had his hand on the doorknob Mandy asked in a neutral tone, “Will you be at the high school all afternoon? Does your calendar reflect that?”

Grange muttered something under his breath and wrenched open the door, walked out, and closed it sharply behind him.

She tried not to smile as she sat at her computer and clicked first on district calendar and then on his blank page. “Oh, Mandy,” she said under her breath. “You really shouldn’t tease the man.” Just then, on the computer screen, all the afternoon hours were blocked out with the words “High School.” Immediately afterward, she saw him through the windows of her door as he stalked out of his office and across the mezzanine, pulling on his jacket as he went. She heard his tread down the stairs, and without conscious thought, she rose and stood at the window, waiting for him to appear from beneath the porch roof. When he emerged, she watched him stride across the parking lot. He stopped halfway and turned to look fiercely up at her window, impaling her with his gaze.

His jacket collar was turned up, and a breeze lifted the hair that hung over his forehead. He had a day’s growth of beard on his face that shadowed his jaw and accented the blue of his eyes. For a moment neither of them moved, but this time it was Mandy who turned away first. She walked to her desk and sat with her hands clasped between her knees as she stared at the calendar on her computer screen and waited for her heart to quit thundering in her chest.