He removed the stethoscope and stepped back. “Continue the antibiotic for another ten days. Are you using a humidifier in his bedroom at night?”
“Always. If I don’t, he gets nosebleeds.”
Mike nodded. “Keep it up, at least through the winter.”
“Can I go outside during recess at school now?” Brent asked. “I’m tired of sitting in the library while everyone else gets to play.”
“If you bundle up well and don’t overdo it,” Mike said. “And don’t hesitate to call if you have any problems.”
“Thank you, Doctor. We will,” Sarah Jankowski promised.
Mike was washing his hands when Peggy bustled into the room. “The school is on line one.”
Telling himself there was no need to be too concerned, but heart racing all the same, he walked around the corner and picked up the phone there and punched the glowing button of line one. “This is Dr. Carter.”
“This is the school nurse. I’m afraid you need to come get Taylor.”
“What’s wrong? Is she sick?”
“She’s not sick, but she is hurt—though not badly. She’s been in a fight.”
“A fight?” His little girl? “Someone hit her?”
“From what I understand, she hit the boy first. Why don’t you come on down here and we’ll discuss it.”
He hung up and headed for his office, feet moving automatically, his mind spinning. “I have to go get Taylor from school,” he said as he passed the front desk, peeling off his lab coat as he walked. “Reschedule anyone you can. Apologize to everyone else.”
“What’s wrong?” Peggy called, but he was already out the back door to the parking lot.
At the school, the nurse, Mrs. Jenkins and the principal, Mr. Rouse, met Mike at the door to the office. “Taylor is fine,” Mr. Rouse reassured him. “Just a black eye and a few bruises.”
“What happened?” he asked. “What’s this about her hitting a boy?”
“They exchanged…words on the playground,” Mr. Rouse said. “And she hit him. Things escalated from there until two teachers pulled them apart.”
“How do you know she hit him first?” Mike asked, trying to wrap his mind around the picture of his daughter brawling in the schoolyard.
“We have several witnesses, including the two teachers.”
“They saw what was happening and didn’t stop it?”
“The last thing they expected was for your daughter to punch the boy.”
“It was a good, solid hit,” Mrs. Jenkins volunteered. “She split his lip.”
“Where is she?”
Taylor sat on the exam table in the nurse’s office, head down, feet dangling. One kneesock sagged, and there was a rip in the sleeve of her blouse. She looked up when they walked in, revealing a swollen left eye that was beginning to blacken. “Daddy!” she cried, and burst into noisy sobs.
He rushed over to her, cradling her head against his shoulder, handing her his handkerchief. “Calm down,” he said. “It’s all right.”
One soggy handkerchief and a glass of water later, she had calmed somewhat, though Mike was feeling more agitated by the minute. He examined the eye, which was swollen but not damaged. It probably hurt, though, and would turn all kinds of ugly colors before it healed. “Tell me what happened,” he said.
Still clinging to him, she looked at Mr. Rouse and Mrs. Jenkins, who stood with arms crossed, waiting. “You have to tell us,” Mike prompted.
“I was on the playground with Kira and Hannah, from my dance class. Some of the other girls wanted to see some moves, so we were showing them and Nathan walked by and said the others were pretty good, but I was too ugly to be a belly dancer. He made me so mad!”
Mike clenched his fists but forced himself to remain calm. They were talking about a boy here. “That’s why you hit him?”
She nodded. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t think about it or anything. I just wanted to stop his ugly grin.”
“Taylor, you can’t hit every person who says mean things to you.”
“I know.” She began to cry again, more quietly this time. “But he was wrong. He shouldn’t have said something so mean.”
Shaky with anger and frustration and helplessness, Mike looked at Mr. Rouse. “How’s the boy?”
“He’ll be fine. Though other boys will give him a hard time about getting beat up by a girl.” The principal’s expression sobered. “They’re both suspended for three days. It’s the automatic punishment for fighting.”
Mike nodded. “I’ll take Taylor home now.”
On the ride to his office, Taylor was sullen. “I’ll put something on that eye, then you’ll have to stay at the office until I finish seeing my patients for the day,” he said.
“Can’t I stay with Darcy?”
His hands tightened on the steering wheel. If it weren’t for Darcy and her belly dancing class, none of this would have happened. “Darcy has to work. We can’t impose on her because you did something wrong.”
“I said I was sorry.”
“I know you are. But what you did was absolutely unacceptable. People are going to say hurtful things to you. That’s life. You can’t solve your problems with violence.” He might have expected such behavior from a boy, but from a girl who still played with dolls and liked makeup and fancy shoes and all those feminine things? He shook his head.
At the clinic office, he was happy to turn her over to Peggy and Nicole, who clucked over her injured eye and commiserated about mean boys. Mike retreated to his office, where he donned his lab coat and stethoscope, but hesitated before returning to his patients. He picked up the phone and punched in Darcy’s number.
“Hello?” She answered on the fifth ring, out of breath. He pictured her in one of her skimpy outfits, cheeks flushed, hair mussed. The image was entirely too alluring.
“It’s Mike,” he said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“It’s okay. What’s up?”
“I’m calling to let you know Taylor won’t be in class this week.”
“Is she all right? She’s not sick, is she?”
“No, she’s not sick. But she’s grounded. She got into a fight at school and was suspended for three days.”
“A fight? Was she hurt?”
“She has a black eye. I think her feelings are hurt more than anything, though.”
“What happened?”
He told her about the boy, and his remark that Taylor wasn’t pretty enough to be a belly dancer.
“That’s horrible! What was this boy’s name?”
“Nate or Nathan something or other. I don’t re member.”
“Nathan Orosco.”
“Maybe. How did you know?”
“That’s the boy in her class she said she liked. She told us at dinner the other night. Don’t you remember?”
No. He had put the information right out of his mind because she was too young. “I don’t think she likes him anymore,” he said. “After he said that to her, she hauled off and hit him. Split his lip.” If Mike was lucky, the boy’s parents wouldn’t sue.
“Good for her for standing up for herself.”
“Darcy! She hit the boy. That’s no way to act.”
“No. And I don’t approve of fighting, but some times when we have strong feelings about something we act without thinking.”
He thought of the man he’d hit in the restaurant.
He certainly hadn’t been thinking that night. Was that kind of behavior hereditary? “You didn’t tell Taylor about that night at the restaurant, did you?” he asked.
“Of course not. But it is a good example of how emotions can sometimes carry us away.”
He’d let himself get carried away all right, his at traction to Darcy overriding common sense. “I’m not sure if Taylor should come back to your class.”
“Why not? She loves dancing and she’s doing so well.”
“If it weren’t for belly dancing, this never would have happened.”
“That’s ridiculous. Don’t you remember how boys are?”
“We’re not talking about the boy. We’re talking about Taylor.”
“This is about Taylor. That boy likes her, so he said the first thing he could think of to get her attention.
It’s classic male thinking.”
“How do you know so much about it? You weren’t a boy.”
“No, but I did give birth to one. And he acted the same way. He once told a girl he liked that she looked like a frog.”
“I still think it’s not a good idea to encourage Taylor by letting her continue to take dance.”
“And I think if it weren’t for dance class she wouldn’t have had the guts to stand up for herself. Yes, it was wrong for her to hit the boy. But do you remember how self-conscious she was about her looks when she first came to me? She still has a ways to go, but I’ll bet a few weeks ago if a boy she liked had said something to her like that it would have crushed her. At least now some part of her is telling her he’s wrong.”
“I don’t understand why she’s so hung up on her looks,” he said. “She’s a beautiful girl—and I’m not just saying that because I’m her father.”
“She
is
beautiful, but society puts a lot of pressure on girls—even Taylor’s age—to look and act a certain way. Girls are always comparing themselves, seeing where they don’t measure up.”
“Melissa and I have been careful not to raise Taylor to think like that.”
“That’s great, but unless you hide her in a cave she’s going to be exposed to it through television and movies and even at school. The best you can hope for is that other things—like my class—will offset that.”
“I think your class makes her think about it even more. I mean look at you. You’re gorgeous. Any girl is liable to feel intimidated by your looks.”
He hadn’t meant to say that, but then again, she must know how he felt about her, how most men probably felt about her.
“Thank you, but I don’t think I’m the problem here. If you take this away from Taylor she’ll hate you for it.”
“Part of being a parent is having your children hate you for looking after their best interests.”
“Mike, you’re upset right now. I’m upset, too. Keep Taylor home this week if you think that’s best, but please don’t pull her out of class altogether.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Can I talk to Taylor?”
“Not right now. She’s beginning to calm down and going through the story again would only upset her.”
“Why don’t you tell her to call me later, if she wants.”
“All right.”
“You can call me, too,” she said. “You know, if you need to blow off steam.”
“Or if I need any more insight into the male mind.”
She laughed, that light, musical sound that pierced him to the heart. He hung up, then sat for a long moment, staring at nothing. Maybe protecting Taylor wasn’t the only reason he wanted to pull her out of Darcy’s class. Discontinuing her dance lessons would make it easier for him to distance himself from Darcy, and from the intense feelings she kindled in him. It was too easy to forget himself when he was with her—to forget his responsibilities and obligations. Darcy made him feel good, but he wasn’t sure she was good for him, or for Taylor.
She was right that Taylor had changed since meeting Darcy.
He just wasn’t sure the change was for the best.
“He looked like he was going to cry,” Hannah said. “I thought he would, but he punched Taylor instead.”
“Then
she
started crying,” Kira added.
Darcy winced. “I imagine her eye hurt.” She wished she could have been there to comfort the girl after the boy she liked spoke so cruelly to her.
“I saw them taking her to the office,” Debby said. “Her eye was all swollen and purple. It did look like it hurt.”
“They’re both suspended and can’t come back to school until next week,” Hannah said.
What was Taylor doing during her suspension? Was she staying with a babysitter, or stuck in Mike’s office all day? Darcy would have gladly looked after the girl, if Mike had asked. But of course, he hadn’t asked, one more sign that he blamed her for what had happened.
“I still can’t believe Taylor hit him,” Hannah said.
“It doesn’t sound as if either one of them handled the situation well,” Darcy said carefully.
“I’ll bet he won’t say mean things to her again,” Debby said.
“Yes, but hitting people isn’t a good way to solve problems,” Darcy said. “What else could she have done?”
“She could have told a teacher he was being mean,” Zoe said.
“She could have ignored him,” Hannah suggested.
“She could have shown him a few more moves and proved she was a good dancer,” Kira said.
Darcy doubted Taylor would have had the nerve to dance for a boy like that, but she admired Kira’s attitude. “Those are all great suggestions,” she said. “Maybe you’ll remember them if anyone ever says ugly things to you. Now, speaking of good dancers, we’ve got a show to practice for.”
As they moved on to the dance they were learning for the recital, Darcy felt Taylor’s absence keenly. After the girls left, she took out the costume she’d been making for Taylor, thinking working on it would help her feel closer to the girl. But it only made Darcy miss her more.
Mike thought he knew how to handle this, but did he really? Men had such different attitudes than women when it came to things like this. She remembered when Riley was five. He’d been targeted by a bully at school, a bigger, older kid who pushed him around on the playground and took his lunch money.
Riley had grown sullen and silent at home, picking at his meals and not sleeping well. At first he’d refused to tell them what was wrong, but Darcy had pressed and finally the story came out. Darcy had vowed to go up to the school and confront the principal and Riley’s teacher, but Pete had held her back.
“He needs to learn how to handle this on his own,” he’d said.
“He’s only five years old!” she’d protested. He’d have time enough later to learn to be a man. Now, he was still her baby.
She’d talked to the principal and to the teacher. They’d been defensive at first, but the bully was sent to counseling and Riley was happy again.
Clearly, there were some things a child needed her mother for. But Darcy wasn’t Taylor’s mother. And no matter what Dave said, she wasn’t trying to make Taylor a substitute for Riley. Right now Taylor simply needed a woman who understood her and what she was going through.
Darcy put away her sewing and checked the clock. It was after seven, late enough Mike and Taylor would have finished supper but Taylor wouldn’t be in bed yet.
She stopped at the grocery store on the way to Mike’s house and bought flowers and a funny card she thought Taylor would like.
Mike was clearly surprised to see her. “Darcy! What are you doing here?”
“I came to see Taylor.” She held up the bouquet of flowers. “I thought she might need cheering up.”
He frowned. “She’s supposed to be grounded.”
“I understand. I’d still like to say hello and let her know we missed her in class today.”
His frown didn’t fade, but he stepped back and let her in. “She’s in her room.”
“How is she?” Darcy asked.
“I don’t know. She won’t talk to me.”
Taylor sat in front of her computer, her back to Darcy, earbuds blocking her hearing as she played the video game with the princesses, dragons and trolls. “Taylor?” Darcy said.
The girl turned and Darcy choked back a gasp. Her left eye was ringed with purple and black, the lid swollen almost shut. “Your poor eye!”
“It doesn’t hurt too much,” Taylor said. “Dad says the worst will be over by the time I go back to school Monday. My suspension is up Friday, but that’s a teacher’s work day.”
“I brought you these.” Darcy held out the flowers and card.
“Thanks.” Taylor took them and opened the card, smiling briefly. “I don’t have anything to put these in,” she said.
Darcy looked around and spotted a glass on the bedside table. It might have once held milk. She took it into the bathroom, rinsed it out and refilled it, then stuck the flowers in it. It was no professional arrangement, but it would do.
When Darcy returned to the bedroom, Taylor was sitting cross-legged on the bed. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be in class today,” she said.
“We missed you. We talked about nonviolent ways to respond when someone says mean things about us.”
Taylor looked even sadder. “I know I shouldn’t have hit him. And I said I was sorry.”
“It was Nathan, wasn’t it?” Darcy said. “The boy you like.”
“I don’t like him anymore. I never knew he was so mean.”
Darcy sat on the edge of the bed. She wanted to pull Taylor close in a hug, but was afraid if she did so they’d both burst into tears. Not that a good cry wouldn’t have been appropriate, but she didn’t want Mike to come in and accuse her of upsetting his daughter. She wondered if he was listening outside the door. In his place, she might have been.
“Boys, especially boys that age, have a hard time showing a girl they like her,” she said. “So they try to do things to get her attention—even mean things.”
“He said I was ugly.” Taylor bit her lip, blinking rapidly.
“This is going to sound weird,” Darcy said. “But guys are weird sometimes. And I think—maybe—
Nathan told you you were ugly because really, he thinks you’re pretty.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Yes. But people do stupid things sometimes. Fighting is stupid, too, don’t you think?”
She nodded. “I won’t do it again.”
“You’re a very pretty girl, Taylor. It’s good that you’re not vain about it, but you shouldn’t deny it, either.”
“I’m too skinny and I’m all scarred up.”
“No one sees those scars under your clothes. And you’re not as skinny as you used to be, either.” Darcy smiled. “In fact, I think you’re beginning to develop a figure.”
“Not like other girls.”
“You may be behind some of the other girls physically, but you’re catching up fast,” Darcy said. “It might not seem like it sometimes, but you’re growing up.”
Taylor blushed. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“My mom and I have talked about this stuff, but I still have questions…and she’s not here.”
“You can ask me anything.” Darcy felt such tenderness toward the girl it was all she could do not to pull her into her lap and cradle her, the way she had Riley when he was afraid or hurt or confused. But after all their talk of growing up, Taylor might think she was too old.
“What’s it like to get a period?” Taylor asked. “I mean, people say it doesn’t hurt, but how could it not?”
“I’ll try to explain, though your father is probably better at anatomy than I am.”
“It’s just too embarrassing to talk to my dad about this stuff,” Taylor said. “Besides, he’s a guy. How can he really know what he’s talking about if he’s never had one?”
“Good point.” There followed a conversation Darcy had never thought she’d have, about cramps and PMS and sanitary napkins and all the things involved with a girl growing into a woman. When she’d answered all of Taylor’s questions and the girl thanked her, Darcy did pull her close. “I’m glad I could be here for you,” she said. Since she’d lost Riley, she thought she might never feel so needed by someone else again. So trusted and, yes, loved.