The Loving Blue in Red States Collection

Loving Blue in Red States | Sweetwater, Texas | Anne Hagan-2-1

“HOW WAS YOUR CLASS mommy?” six year old Seth Jr. asked her as he wandered into the room where she was grading math papers and insinuated himself in her lap.

“You’re supposed to be in bed.,” she scolded him. “You have school in the morning. We can’t have Mrs. Stropich getting mad at me in the teachers lounge tomorrow because you’re asleep at your desk, now can we?”

“Lounge? What’s that?”

“That’s the place the teachers go to get away from all of you little hoodlums,” his grandmother said as she entered the room.

“Sorry baby,” she said to her daughter, “He got himself out of his bath and wandered down here on his own.”

Trudy Oakes eyed the boy up and down. “At least you picked out matching pajamas and put them on this time. Now then, tell your mother goodnight and march on back upstairs young man. I’ll be up to tuck you in, in just a minute. I need to talk to your mama for a second or two.”

Seth gave Emmie a quick peck on the cheek, wished her a goodnight then did as he was told.

She called after the boy, “I love you bunches.”

He stuck his face up to a gap between spindles in the stair railing and called back, “Love you bunches too mama!” then he scampered the rest of the way up.

“What’s up?” she asked her mother when she was sure the boy was out of earshot.

“Nothing important, dear. I just wondered how it went, myself.”

Emmie shrugged. “Fine, I guess. First night. Not much to tell.”

“You’re sure?”

Emmie squinted and looked at her mother. “Why, have you heard something different?”

Confusion clouded Trudy’s face. “No. Should I have? You seem awfully wound up tonight...not your usual self.”

“How on earth do you do that? You’ve only been in the room for two minutes!”

“A mother knows. One day, you’ll see exactly what I mean.”

Emmie thought of Seth and glanced toward the stairs. “There were a couple of things,” she said, looking back at Trudy. “Nothing important. A typical Texas male, for one, acting like they do sometimes.” She glanced back down at the math papers and twirled the red pencil she’d laid down on top of the stack when Seth showed up.

“What else?”

“Hmm? ”She looked back up at her mother.

“You said there were a couple of things.”

“Oh.” She looked down at the papers again quickly and then back up. “There was just a woman in the class that didn’t want to participate in my research, is all.”

Trudy nodded then leaned back against the desk and studied her daughter. “About that,” she said, after a time.

“What about it?”

“You’ll be all done but the shooting match in what, about three or four months, right?”

“The defense of my thesis of everything goes the way I expect with this last part? Yes.”

“And then what?”

“And then I try to get a position teaching at a university in Abilene or Dallas or...Austin.”

“Dallas? Austin?”

“Mom, we’ve talked about this. I don’t want to teach fourth grade in Sweetwater forever.”

“But what about Seth? He needs to grow up here, where his family is. He can’t do that in Dallas or in Austin. Now, if you’re in Abilene, he can...you can teach there and still live out here. What’s so bad about that?”

Emmie, putting off for a moment answering a question she felt like she’d already answered a thousand times before, raised her hands to her head and rubbed her temples. “I know Mom, I know. I just...I just have to go where the opportunity is. What if there isn’t anything for me in Abilene? It’s not as big as Dallas or Austin.” I just have to get away from here, she thought to herself. I have to get to somewhere where I can finally be myself.

“Think positive.”

That’s what I’m trying to do, Emmie thought

“The good Lord will provide, child. He always provides.”

And that’s what I’m afraid of...

Thursday Evening, September 8th

Emmie figured she’d be the first one in the classroom. She was mistaken. Cass was there waiting for her when she walked in.

The brunette stood by the desk Emmie had used the first night holding out a bright red apple in one hand and the signed release form in the other one.

“How long have you been standing there like that?”

“Well, hello to you too.”

Emmie didn’t respond. She put the laptop bag down on the chair and started unpacking it instead while Cass looked on, smiling.

Unable to bear the silence after more than a minute of it, Emmie broke it. “Did you get your homework done?”

“Of course, teach’. Wouldn’t want to come to your class unprepared now, would I?”

“It’s not my class.”

“You’re going for a Master’s in education though, right?”

Emmie nodded.

“So you’re planning on teaching at the college level someday; am I right?”

“Yes, but not this.”

“Let me guess; your BA is in English Lit?”

“No.” Emmie gave Cass a tight-lipped grin.

“Not going to tell me, eh?”

“It isn’t relevant.”

“For me to know?”

“No. It’s not relevant to my thesis. It was in early childhood education.” Her tone was brusque.

Cass shook her head. “Look, I’m trying to extend an olive branch here. We got off on the wrong foot the other day. I don’t have a problem with your research. I...I was just curious, is all. I brought these for you.” She held out the apple and the form again.

Emmie paused for a beat and then accepted the form. “Thanks,” she told her, “but you can keep the apple.”

“Suit yourself,” Cass said.

Emmie stared as the brunette polished it against her chest and then raised it for a bite and caught her looking. Embarrassed, she turned quickly away and busied herself with her computer.

Cass grinned broadly, turned and moved just a couple of desks down in the back row. She sat down, pulled out her text book and acted as though she hadn’t noticed a thing but she watched Emmie out of the corner of her eye as munched on the apple and pretended to read.

Emmie tried to look everywhere but at Cass.

“Okay folks,” Lucius said to the class, that’s a wrap for the first hour tonight. Take about a ten-minute break and then gather up in the hallway. I know you toured the turbine lab when you applied, but we’re going to have it to ourselves tonight and I’d like to take you over there and show you a few things you have to look forward to once we get some of the theory out of the way.”

Emmie stood and stretched as people started filing out of the room. She planned to give them a few minutes to use the restroom or take a smoke break and then she hoped to talk with a few of them informally in the hallway. She hazarded a glance to her left. Cass hadn’t budged.

Lucius made his way back to them. Addressing Cass first, he asked, “Don’t you want a break before we go over there?”

“Naw. I’m good, Lucius,” she half shrugged.

“Suit yourself but there’s no easy exit to the restroom once we start looking into the clean room.”

Cass just nodded his way. Emmie picked her own brain during the exchange, trying to recall the clean room from her personal tour of the facility with the department chair just days before.

“There’s a clean room for the turbine lab?” she asked him Fox when she just couldn’t picture it.

“Uh, yeah. Well, sort of. They share one with the sciences for testing lubrication mixtures and, uh, that sort of thing.”

Emmie wasn’t convinced that, that was the case at all but she didn’t feel right questioning Fox.

“Will you be going over with us...Ms. Warren?” Lucius asked her before she could frame any sort of a response at all.

“No, I don’t think so. I’ve seen it. A tour isn’t a good time for me to be poking around for answers to my questions. I’m sure they’re going to have plenty of questions for you. I’ll probably just head on home. I have...” she glanced sideways at Cass, “some things I need to take care of for tomorrow.”

“Oh. Okay then. I guess,” he glanced at Cass too, “I guess this is it. I’ll see you back here Tuesday, right?”

She nodded. “Tuesday.”

Once Lucius left the classroom, Cass rose. “I don’t care what you say. That man has a thing for you, baby girl. Too bad he’s clueless.” She headed toward the door.

“Excuse me?”

She stopped and half turned. “I said clueless.”

“I heard what you said. What did you mean by it?”

“You know exactly what I meant.” With that, she left too.

Friday Evening, September 9th

“Finally; halftime,” Emmie groaned to her, sister, her oldest sibling. She stood up from her seat in the ancient wooden bleachers and shook out her left leg. “I think it’s asleep.”

Her sister Cora leaned back and stretched her arms over her head. “It has been a real slow game, hasn’t it?”

“Lord, you aren’t kidding! Lowest scoring home opener I can remember.” Emmie rubbed the back of her thigh and watched the long line of fans snaking out of the lower stands toward the concession stand and the bathrooms. “Why do we always have to sit way up here, anyway? I could really go for a Coke but that line is going to take forever.”

“So we can have the rail to lean back on, silly and, besides, Tyler knows right where to find me in the crowd if he needs me.”

“He’s the quarterback. He’s not down there lookin’ for his mama!” Emmie chided Cora.

“Hey, you never know what’s going to happen.”

“Shush you! Don’t even say such things! If our mama were here, she’d give you what for.”

Cora ignored the warning. “If you really want a drink, you best be going. You might have a chance of making it through the line and back before kickoff. We start the second half with possession, remember?”

“I’m going, I’m going. I’ll tell you this though, if that left guard doesn’t start protecting a little better, you’re going to have one banged up kid on your hands tonight.”

Emmie joined the slow-moving line out of the stands, eventually reaching the track around the fenced in field. She shook her head in wonder as she looked down at the new cork running track. All this money on equipment and athletes, she thought, and none of it for the comfort of the fans.

“Hey Ms. Warren,” a pre-teen boy called out from over to her right in the second row up in the last section of the stands.

She nodded her head and sketched a wave at her former student then laughed as his buddy next to him elbowed him.

“What are ya’ hitting me for? She was my teacher in the third grade.”

“I thought I recognized you. You’re not wearing your glasses.”

Emmie’s head shot around to the left to find Cass walking along beside her.

“Where did you come from?”

“I told you; my nephew plays for the team. He sort of lives with me right now.”

“Sort of? You live in Sweetwater?” Emmie was puzzled and it showed in her tone.

“No, ah, Merkle. He’s a transfer here. His parents...actually, just my sister, is in Abilene. When his dad left them a couple of years ago, he got a little hard for her to handle...got a case of the ass, I guess you’d say.”

“Why isn’t he playing in Merkle then?”

“Their team was set. They wouldn’t take a walk on.”

“Oh.” Emmie continued on her way, not sure what else to say.

Cass kept close to her as they wound through the milling crowd. “Headed to the restroom?” she asked.

“Concession stand.”

“Me too.”

‘Just great,’ Emmie thought.

She reached the nearest stand about a half a step ahead of Cass. Taking her chances, she quickly chose a line and hoped it moved fast. She didn’t want to miss the second half kickoff. The other woman fell in behind her.

“So you’re a teacher?”

“Yes,” she answered without turning. She scanned the menu board instead wondering what Cora might want since she’d forgotten to ask.

“Third grade, I take it?”

“Fourth grade for the last couple of years.”

“How long have you been teaching...if you don’t mind my asking? I mean, you’re the one that ought to be asking me questions, I guess, but...anyway.”