Letting Loose. Joanne Skerrett

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Lashelle. How’s it going?”

      She smiled and sat next to me. Lashelle was cute. But she had a huge butt. All the male students loved her because of it, plus she loved to show it off. But that ghetto booty just bugged the heck out of me. It was always up in everybody’s face. I mean, she wore tight skirts and too-small pants and her behind just hung out there. I didn’t think it was cute. Not that I have anything against big butts. I have one myself. But in relation to the rest of her, Lashelle’s butt was just proportionally disturbing. But what do I know? Whitney has told me time and time again that I can be a self-loathing sister. And Whitney, with her perfect size 4 butt, is up on those things much more than I am.

      I minimized the screen. I didn’t want Lashelle to see Drew’s e-mail. She was more plugged in to the gossip network than I was, and I didn’t want to become the subject of it.

      “So, I heard you and Treyon got into it on Friday.”

      “Nah, it wasn’t all that. You know he’s got a mouth on him. I just wasn’t in the mood for his crap.”

      She laughed widely, exposing her silver fillings. “Girl, you gotta learn to ignore those boys. They’re gonna act that way, you know.”

      I liked Lashelle for the most part, but she tended to be a teacher in and out of the classroom, even when she was around other teachers. I didn’t need her telling me how to interact with my students. I certainly did not tell her that she needed to be less familiar and friendly with hers. So I ignored her advice.

      “Anyway, a bunch of us are thinking of going to Mexico, Cabo San Lucas, for spring break. I just realized that we forgot to ask you.”

      Oh, give me a break! They didn’t forget to ask me. I was the newest teacher there, and I was still being hazed, it seemed, a year later. I’d been snubbed at lunches, ignored in hallways, you name it. The principal, my only ally, said that was the way they broke in the newbies. I guess I should have felt relieved that she was asking me on this trip. Maybe I was finally in the club. But I wasn’t going to Mexico with a bunch of people I already spend too much of my life with. Besides, who wants to go to Mexico on spring break along with all the other college students in the country?

      “Oh, I wish you’d told me sooner,” I said, trying to fake remorse. “But I’ve already made other plans.” Spring break was a month away. That was enough time to come up with alternate plans. But Lashelle would not be rebuffed that easily.

      Her penciled-in brows went up. “Oh, really? Where are you going?”

      I had to think fast. St. Tropez? No one would believe that.

      “Dominica,” I said quickly. Oh, I’m an idiot.

      “The Dominican Republic?” She looked incredulous.

      “No, it’s another…a small island in the West Indies. Former British colony…” I was beginning to sound like I’d memorized the data from the CIA World Factbook.

      She sniffed. “Oh, I see. What’s down there?”

      “Um…well…a friend of mine. We’re gonna do some hiking and…”

      She got up from the chair. “That sounds like fun.” She patted me on the shoulder and walked away. I was 100 percent sure she was off to spread the gossip.

      Oh, well. All I’d have to do was hunker down in my room during spring break so I wouldn’t run the risk of running into anyone who might spill my little secret. Hiking? Was I losing my mind?

      Chapter 8

      There were times when I felt totally beautiful, smart, content with all the decisions I’d ever made, and generally at peace with my life. Those times were very rare. For Whitney, however, the issue was when didn’t she feel that way? She wore optimism like her skin. I just didn’t get it. She didn’t have the right because her stuff was just messed up. Messed up!

      We waited forty frigid minutes before we were seated at an okay table at Stephanie’s. The place was very popular, on Newbury Street, and thus jumping on this Saturday night. Fine by me because the crackling excitement in the room was charging up my sputtering mood.

      Whitney was positively glowing and happy. The sex was that good, she said.

      Hmmm…Good sex. I’d stopped talking about sex with Whitney once things got out of control with bête noire. By out of control I mean once I’d started sleeping with him. I hadn’t planned it. But that’s what all adulterers and their coconspirators say, right? He was a stay-at-home dad who picked up and dropped off his boys every day at the school. He’d left the corporate rat race to stay home with his kids and pursue his dream of becoming a writer. He was living my dream. Although, I’ve never really written anything and I probably never will. But I like to think that if I ever got myself together that I could maybe someday write a great novel.

      We chatted about his son Trevor at first. Trevor was highly intelligent and belligerent, so there was much to talk about. Before I knew it, we started to talk about more personal things. Then every extramarital affair cliché one could ever dream up happened to me. I felt like I was living in a Danielle Steel novel. I let him lie to me, stand me up, make a fool out of me for a year and a half. Then his novel was published. The school, the surrounding neighborhood, everyone began to gossip about who the “temptress teacher” character could possibly be. It didn’t take long for them to figure it out; I was the only black female on the staff. The school asked me to leave because they were cutting back on costs, but I knew it was because the scandal was just too embarrassing. His wife left him temporarily and then came back once she threatened to beat the hell out of me and I apologized to her and vowed that I’d never go near him again. That had been my last brush with good sex. I really don’t miss it that much.

      “What are you going to have?” Whitney asked, frowning at the menu. She once had a slight weight problem. In her typical single-minded and focused way, she decided that she was going to lose weight and just up and did it. Six months later, she’d gone from a size 12 to a 4. I don’t think I ever heard her complain about being hungry or being sore from exercise.

      “I don’t know.” I looked around the restaurant. Everything was shimmering gold against black or deep brown. I loved the décor. People were laughing, eating. The food smelled delicious. I love Stephanie’s. I think I once saw Woody Allen in here, though I wasn’t sure.

      “So, anyway, he’s just so passionate about human rights. It’s a huge turn-on,” Whitney said.

      I sipped my virgin frosty drink. I got it that Max, the Tunisian, was passionate about human rights. What I didn’t get was the part that she’d quickly glossed over while we were sitting at the bar waiting for a table: The part about him personally protesting the PATRIOT Act by not reporting to Immigration as our paranoid government requires all Arab men to. To Whitney, this added to Max’s allure; it made him so brave, and “passionate.” To me, that was a bit too out there. And I would know. My roommates have not missed a hell-raising protest since I’ve known them. They burned Bill Gates in effigy in Seattle, slashed tires on a Ford Denali in Detroit, laid in coffins in Times Square before the Iraq invasion. I was quite familiar with civil disobedience in the name of political passions, but Kelly and James were U.S. citizens; this Max guy was on a student visa. For crying out loud, he was a frigging scientist at MIT. From Tunisia! Profile, anyone? I’m sorry, I told Whitney, he fit the terrorist stereotype to a T. She glared at me.

      “He is not a terrorist! Just because СКАЧАТЬ