Still Rattled Read online

  “As if I could screw up worse than I did in high school.”

  “True.” He straightens. “Hey, if Kelsey is still around at Christmas…”

  “We’ll have even numbers again. I’ve already thought of that.”

  “Great. I was so not looking forward to tossing all of our names in a hat. I didn’t want to get one of you jerks.”

  “As long as I get Kelsey’s, it’ll work out.” I pat my coat. “I already got her gift.”

  Christian laughs. “I’ll let you take that up with the rest of the guys.”

  We start following Kelsey and Sean who are looking at what the different booths are selling. I want to take my friend’s place, but don’t want to be pushy. Besides, I kind of like watching her ass while she walks. Perfectly rounded and those cheeks would fit nicely in my hands. I also wouldn’t mind those legs wrapped around my hips.

  What the hell am I thinking? We’ve got a long way to go before I can even think about touching Kelsey’s pussy, let alone doing anything with it.

  There are so many things I’d love to buy, but they just aren’t in the budget. Even though I have a bit saved, it should stay saved and not spent on a whim, like a hand painted scarf.

  But, they were so beautiful.

  And, unnecessary. It wouldn’t feed me or keep me warm, so there was no reason to have it. It’s not at all like helping out a young family at Christmas. That was important and necessary. A flimsy scarf isn’t.

  “Hey,” Ryan says as he hurries over to us. “Baxter has a booth.”

  We all perk up and look around and he points to a far corner.

  “Pottery, paintings, jewelry,” he says as he leads us over.

  It’s a really nice display with pictures hanging and others stacked on the ground. In the center are tiers of ceramics, and at the side, a table covered in black cloth for the jewelry. Three women and four teens are standing around. The adult teachers, or counselors, or whoever they are, were not at Baxter when we attended. Alex and I stop and look at some of the pots. The two girls hang back, but one of the guys saunters over.

  “Don’t you think a painting would be better for brightening up those drab walls?”

  I blink at him. This kid is cocky and full of himself, and I bite back a chuckle.

  “Who says my walls are drab?” Alex counters.

  “All walls are drab without one of these.” He gestures to the stack of canvases.

  “Nah. I do my own paintings,” Alex dismissed him and picks up a pot.

  “What, you are painter?”

  Alex comes back on him in the same tough tone. “What, you claiming ta be?”

  The kid’s eyes go wide, just a fraction before he narrows them and that cocky grin is back in place.

  Alex has this kid’s number and I’m going to enjoy the show.

  “I’m not claiming anything. I’m speaking the truth.” The kid nods to the paintings. “Check them out and note the name. I’m going to be famous one day.”

  Alex hitches an eyebrow and slowly looks over each painting, then takes one and studies it. “Don’t you think the brush stroke is a little thick on this one?” Alex looks at the corner of the painting then back at the kid. “Louie.”

  “The brush stroke is as I intended it,” this Louie says, though a bit offended.

  Alex looks through them again. “You know, you’d be better suited for graphic than scenery.”

  Louie’s chin goes up. “The man can spot talent.” He struts around in a circle. “I’m going to be the best known street artist ever.”

  Alex sets the painting down. “Street art? Graffiti? You want to get arrested?”

  The kid most likely already has a record. I shouldn’t judge, but we all went to Baxter and a good number of us had a rap sheet. I’m not slamming the kid. Just a fact of life when you’ve lived on the street. And, Louie strikes me as a kid who lived there, and had to grow up and be tough early in life.

  “I’ll get permission. I’m not stupid.”

  “Louie, I don’t believe they’re interested in your paintings,” one of the girls said. “They were looking at the pottery first.” She glares at him.

  Ah, a little rivalry, which I rather enjoy. Just think, if all goes well, I might see these kids on campus.

  “All four of you go to Baxter?” Sean asks.

  They are in the Baxter booth. I doubt they’d get some other kids to sell their stuff. But, the students aren’t supposed to leave the campus either, so there is that. At least they didn’t when I went there.

  “Yeah. Why?” Louie asks.

  Christian leans in. “They didn’t let us outside the walls when we went there,” he says quietly.

  “You went to Baxter?” one of the girls asks with surprise and steps forward.

  “Yep,” Christian answers. “Graduated about five years ago. This one,” he nods to me, “almost four years ago.”

  Their eyes are wide as if they are shocked to see former students. I guess I get that, in a way.

  “Then you should do me a solid and get a painting,” Louie says.

  All I can do is laugh as Louie and Alex bicker over the price and brush strokes and I wander to the case with handmade jewelry. Some of the pieces are so delicate and others a bit more chunky. I didn’t know students made jewelry. Then again, I rarely left the music rooms.

  One particular piece, a metal heart that was broken but sewn together, is dangling by a delicate chain, and even though I should not be spending money on frivolous items, I know I must have it and fish my wallet out of my purse.

  After I let Louie talk me into getting one of his paintings, the guys buy pots and jewelry. The pots they’ll keep, but I suspect the jewelry will be Christmas gifts. It’s not so much that we want or need the art, but they are from Baxter students and I kind of like having their art back at the brownstone.

  I like Louie. He might be rough around the edges, but we all were at one time. Some of us still are, but he’s a decent kid, with a bright future if he goes to the right art school. I gave him my number and told him if I ever changed it that I’d let the school know so he can contact me if he decides to head to New York for school.

  I’m pretty sure he was on the streets as a kid, but he’s been at Baxter for a few years, and it never hurts to have the right kind of people having your back when you’re out in the world again.

  Louie puts an arm around his friend’s shoulders. “Me and Mick, we’re gonna stick together and stay out of trouble. I can promise you that.”

  I look back at my friends and nod. “That’s what we did.” I look at the two of them. “Keep the friends close that you trust and already know your garbage and you’ll do just fine.”

  I wait for Kelsey to finish paying for her necklace. She doesn’t have them wrap it up, but puts it on instead. It hits right beneath her collar bone and I study it. A metal heart that looks like it was broken and stitched back together. Delicate and pretty. Just like Kelsey, and I get why she wanted this one.

  “Marissa is going to love that a former student bought her necklace,” the young girl says quietly.

  “That’s probably why I like it as much as I do.” Kelsey fingers the heart. “It’s more than a piece of jewelry but comes from a deeper place.”

  Their eyes meet and the girls understand each other. They both have pain in the past, but they’re not letting it define who they are.

  “Hey, Kels,” Christian calls. “Interview in thirty.”

  She blows out a breath. “Then, I guess we should go.”

  I grab her hand again. “You got this.” I wink at her.

  Mrs. Robak hasn’t changed in the four years I’ve been gone. Well, three and a half. She still has straight, honey-brown hair and intense green eyes that see a lot more than you want them too.

  I guess people wouldn’t change in such a short bit of time. In the office with her is Mag Bradley. She works here full time now too. When I was in school, she spent her summers in the offices doing paperwork and stu
ff. She’d stop into classes sometimes, but not often. Mag is a Baxter, just like Mrs. Robak, and the family owns the school. Mag went to a normal high school and never had to worry about not having a family, or them kicking her out, or needing to avoid gangs and prostitution on the streets. But, I’m not judging them, because these two do a lot of work to keep this school going.

  “As you know,” Mrs. Robak says after we discuss what I did in college and make small talk, “the school year starts the first Tuesday after July 4th and goes until May 31st. Teachers have the entire month of June off, as well as a week in the fall, from December 23rd through January 2nd and a week in the spring.”

  I nod. I know the schedule. It was my schedule for over two years of my life. Except our breaks were just hanging out. The teachers got to leave here. I had no desire to leave Baxter for any reason.

  Was that why I wanted to teach here so badly? It was familiar. It’s where I got my shit together and where I finally felt safe.

  She glances at my transcripts again. “I see you majored in music, with a concentration in voice, and minored in English with education.” Mrs. Robak looks back up at me. “What about piano?”

  “I couldn’t fit it in my schedule, and I already know how to play.”

  “But you applied for a position that includes teaching piano.”

  I was hoping she wouldn’t notice that. “I taught piano to voice students who couldn’t afford tuition for classes but needed to learn how to play.”

  Mrs. Robak nods. “That’s a nice way to earn a little extra income.”

  “It helped.” It kept me from starving.

  “Do you plan to continue?”

  “No. I will begin student teaching after the first of the year. I’ll have to give up that and my part-time job at the bookstore.”

  Mrs. Robak leans back. “Two jobs and a full load of classes and you’re just shy of a 4.0.”

  My face heats. “I wasn’t going to mess up the chance I was given.”

  She places the papers back on the desk and leans back in her chair. “We always begin advertising for positions this time of year but usually don’t begin to interview until the spring.”

  “Why me and now?”

  She smiles. “The other applicants are going through a thorough background check before I even begin to consider them for an interview.”

  “I suppose you know my background.” At least it didn’t keep me from getting in the door.

  “It’s the very reason we want you here.”

  I sit up. She can’t be offering me the job? “Look,” Mag begins. “We get a lot of great teachers. You had some of them. But, we lose a lot too.”

  “Our contracts, at least the first one, is only for six months for that reason,” Mrs. Robak adds.

  A half a year contract?

  “A lot of them can’t cut it,” Mrs. Robak explains.

  “They want a normal school with normal kids,” Mag says with an apologetic smile.

  “They quit?”

  “Some can’t handle the anxiety attacks, meltdowns, or withdrawals, or understand why kids are behaving a certain way, or need to be out of class for a few days until meds are adjusted,” Mag says.

  “You’ve already sat in those classrooms. You applied already knowing what can happen in your classroom on any given day at any given time.”

  I hadn’t even thought about how some teachers may react if they come from a more sheltered world. If I try to look at it through their eyes, there had to have been some kind of culture shock.

  “It’s the reason you are at the top of our list,” Mrs. Robak says and my eyes pop open.

  “You have the credentials. All you need is the student teaching. You know what you’re getting, and we already know you.”

  “Wow.” I blow out a sigh.

  Mag grins. “So, if everything goes as we anticipate it will with your student teaching, we’d like you to start here the last week of June.”

  “You won’t need to be here the second week like the other teachers who need to go through orientation because you already know what we need to explain to them,” Mrs. Robak adds. “The week you will join us is to discuss rules and regulations of the school, confidentiality, and topics that are Baxter specific.”

  I just look from Mrs. Robak to Mag and back again. I can’t believe they’ve offered me the job. I hoped they would but was too scared to actually get my hopes up.

  “Well, you haven’t given us an answer.”

  “Yes!” I blurt out.

  Mag’s cellphone rings and she grabs it, then excuses herself.

  As I stand, Mrs. Robak’s phone rings. “It’s security.” She frowns and answers, then listens for a bit. “Let them look around, I’ll be down.” She clicks off the phone and looks at me. “Apparently there are six guys who have been wandering around the gallery. That’s not a problem, but they’ve been there a long time, checking their phones and just hanging out.”

  My face heats and I hope I didn’t just lose the job because I brought six guys with me to an interview. “They are Alex Dosek, Christian Sucato, Dylan White, Zachary Hawk, Ryan Stark, and Sean Vines.”

  Her eyes go wide as a sentimental smile forms. “Why would they be here?”

  “I saw them yesterday, and they insisted on driving me.”

  Mrs. Robak laughs. “We should probably go rescue them from the security guard.”

  I follow her outside and across the campus toward the gallery. You can enter it from inside the campus or the parking lot. Anyone entering from the parking lot can’t get to the campus without a special code because this place is locked down tighter than most jails.

  She stops and looks at me oddly. “Did you say Alex Dosek?”

  “Yeah.” I laugh.

  “How long have you been hanging out with him? The two of you used to hate each other.”

  “Since I ran into him yesterday.”

  She shakes her head and keeps walking. “The others. You were friends with them. Did you stay in touch after you left here?”

  I laugh. “Nope. I hadn’t seen them since they graduated until yesterday either.”

  She stops at the door and punches in a code. “Sometime you’ll have to tell me how running into them led them to driving you here!”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to go out and celebrate?” Zach asks as we pull down Kelsey’s street.

  “I may have the job now, but I still need to get through student teaching. After, we will celebrate.”

  We had wanted to attend the concert, and even though Mrs. Robak could vouch for us, strict rules are in place. Tickets have to be bought online and then a mini background check is done to make sure nobody who is out to harm or take a kid is in the audience. In the early days, abusive family members, gang leaders, and a few pimps had tried to take the kids from the school. Get their property back. Because of that, nobody enters the campus without being vetted.

  Sean’s the most disappointed, but he gets it. So, after grabbing a bite to eat we came back.

  Red lights flash and reflect off the windows in the van, and we all sit forward.

  “Shit!” Kelsey says from beside me. At least she’s sitting next to me on the way home, not that it matters since five other guys are in the van so we can’t really talk.

  “They’re at my building.”

  Sean pulls the van to a stop to let her out because there is no place to park.

  “I wonder what happened.” She grabs her bag and opens the door.

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “You don’t need to do that. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

  “I’ll find a place to park, or circle the block,” Sean says as we get out.

  A cop comes up to us as we head for the door.

  “You live here?” he asks us.

  “I do,” Kelsey answers. “What happened?”

  “Break-ins. All the apartments, except the two on the garden level. Doors kicked in, things taken.”

  Kelsey’s face
goes white as she heads for the door.

  “Hold up, Miss. We’ll take you up, but don’t touch anything.”

  She nods numbly. “Why would anyone break in during the middle of the day?”

  “College kids live here. If they didn’t go home for Thanksgiving, they were out shopping. Or, at the library studying. It was a risk, but nobody was home.”

  “They probably knocked on the doors first to see if anyone answered,” I said.

  The cop nods. “That’s what we’re thinking.”

  Another cop comes over and leads us up to Kelsey’s apartment. The door’s broken, the deadbolt doing no good whatsoever.

  I follow her inside and Kelsey sucks in a breath. The place has been tossed and the four doors off of the living area have been kicked in. I hadn’t really paid attention before, but this apartment isn’t that big. A basic kitchen and tiny living room with a couch and chair.

  She walks to the left and to the closest room and gasps again. I look over her shoulder. It’s as messy as the living room. Her bed is unmade and whatever was on her dresser is on the floor. To the left of the door is a walk in closet, but nothing’s hanging up or on the shelves anymore. Beyond that is a small bathroom.

  It’s great that she has a room to herself and a closet and bath, even if they are the size of a Cracker Jack box. Her one window looks out at a brick wall that I could reach out and touch if the window was open.

  Kelsey’s not saying anything, just slowly turns, a hand over her mouth, eyes wide.

  I put a hand at the small of her back. “You okay?”

  “My computer is gone. My crappy TV. Why would anyone want my crappy TV?”

  “Is there anything else that is missing?” the cop asks.

  She rushes into the closet and starts going through the clothes piled on the floor, tossing them to the side. The cop rushes after her.

  “We haven’t taken pictures in here. We need to process the scene for prints.”

  But, Kelsey doesn’t seem to hear him or care, because she’s on her knees, digging through piles of clothes, before she falls back on her heels, clutching a pink box, not much bigger than a shoe box to her chest.