Calliope: Voice of the Writers
The Great Novel Race 2008:
Shattered Places
by Emily Craig
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Chapter 4
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It was the sound of sneakers squeaking on the cold tile floors that sent the familiar shiver up her spine again. The green hall stretched on forever, and like yesterday, she felt small and invisible, just another sheet of paper peeling from the wall behind her. She stayed that way for several minutes, and watched as the other students walked in and out of doorways, with big books clasped in their hands, and lumpy bags thrown over their backs. Just like yesterday… it reminded her of the song she had read about last night, and for a moment normality sank back again and let the secrets flood over. Not until his long, firm fingers clasped her arm, did she bounce back to reality, but long after the fingers had let go, and his strong hands hung down at his sides again, she still felt the warm touch. She tried to ignore it, twist the loose straps on her book bag to distract her.
“You look nice today,” he said sweetly, and yet as dryly as a textbook.
She had tried to look nice – for the first day of classes, of course. The khaki slacks she wore were new, or somewhat new. She had bough them four months ago, at a great sale, and now was only the third time she wore them.
It surprised her when he pinched the sleeve of her old blue shirt and said, just as dryly as before, “I like your threads.”
“Oh… um… thank you,” she said, twisting the strap on her bag even tighter.
He looked better, a true southern gentleman. His suit was brown, and underneath the crisp, but comfortable-looking blazer, he wore a matching vest. It made him look just like he was… it made him—
“You look like a writer,” she said.
He was about to walk away, then stopped, maybe surprised, but she really could not tell. When he looked back at her, he really seemed to be looking down into her being, searching for a little girl who knew… who knew the younger him, she guessed. But the moment was gone in an instant, and the older Andrew resurfaced. “And you look lost,” he said, almost sardonically like a dark hero from one of those paperback novels she used to read.
The tone in his voice thrilled her, but the words were disappointing. “I…I am lost. I’m trying to find the western civ classroom.”
He raised his head in recognition. “Western Civilization, hmm?”
“History… I’m not sure how good I’ll be at it.”
“You’ll be fine.”
She slid to him a quizzical look, a how-do-you-know look. She had devoured history book after history book in the lonely little apartment in Birmingham. She had wasted away the time with ancient Greeks and Romans, Dark Ages, and the rising world of Modern Day, and was still none the better.
“Besides,” he shrugged. “You learn more out of the classroom. Now if you want, I’ll show you where the room is.”
She followed close behind him, and again like the old times, wanted to reach out for his guiding—she stopped and let the thought pass her, lose itself somewhere in the crowd of students. When she looked back up, he in a doorway, his arm outstretched as he held the door opened for her. His strong adult frame nearly covered the whole length of the door. He was now a professor, now like the other men who used to tower above her when she was so little. Why did his age amaze (or terrify?) her so much? Was she not just as many years older, and had she not also grown several inches higher? She was a grown woman just as much as he was a grown man. She walked up to him and let the doorway frame them like a painting. But youth had so many less rules, so fewer consequences…
She thought he cocked his head, confused at her hesitance to go inside and find a seat somewhere in the already very packed room, but he stood as still as ever, assure of anything—or too laid-back to care at all. She finally stepped inside, ready to learn whatever this history course could offer. It was time to delve back, far back before yesterday, or the year before yesterday, or the century before the year. Far enough back where she could not play this horrid guessing game of hers.
But when he called her name, she did not hesitate for a moment. His eyes scanned the busy room as though it was much larger than it looked to her (and maybe it was larger to him, maybe years of countless memories had expanded it to an indefinite size), and then looked directly into her green eyes with his soft brown ones. “Have a good day, Kae.” He reached for the doorknob and gently began to close the door as though the space was her own and he was stepping out to give back her privacy. Before the door clicked, he said between the gap, “Enjoy the course.”
Sulkily, she found her way to an empty chair. It was the last one in the front, and was set all the way to the right. It would be easy to see and hear the professor, but not especially easy to take notes from the overhead. Still, she liked the corner and intended to permanently plant herself here. She set her bag down, removed what books and pen she would need, and slid into her chair, behind the little desk.
The room was cold and hard with white walls and a tan tiled floor. On one wall there were several long windows with glass panes long and mostly distorted that they disguised the outdoors into wavy sheets of blurred color. It was obvious that nothing had been updated in the past thirty to forty years, not from the windows to the shaky chairs to the long dark green chalk boards that covered the very front wall. For a moment her eyes danced from the windows to the board, unsure which fascinated her more. Like the sound of rubber soles squeaking in the hallways, there was something eerily familiar about those huge glass portals that separated the facts of the classroom from the never-ending possibilities of the outside. On the other hand, a chalky script scrawled from far left to far right of the dusty green boards pulled her at her attention as she tried to translate the crooked words: History, perhaps. Main…main street? Traver’s Prison, Hope’s Circle, and – Faye? Faye Swanner? Were these notes from an earlier class, or the professor’s own personal to-cover list, a wacky flood of key terms he meant to cover for the first day, perhaps. She let it slide, for the window attracted her attention once more.
There were no blinds on the windows, but something old and brittle seemed to hang from top to bottom, some memory she might forever forget if she did not grasp it now. Whatever happened here so long ago that left this silly feeling? It was a good thing, or a funny thing, or something so ridiculous and childlike, that it was now magical in this very adult world. A rainy day… handprints on the window…
The back door burst open with an energy so intense, it shattered every trace of quiet. His steps were long and quick, but his voice was deep and thick. “Now you no longer will call me Mr. Carmichael, but Dr. Carmichael.”
Kae thought that the applause might blow out the windows. What was this? History? Dull, tangled up history class? She scooted further back into her chair and took the man in, tried to make sense of his appearance (or lack thereof). He was scruffy, tousled, and unkempt, anything but a match for the straight exact lines of this typical, standard classroom. By the time he reached the chalk board, he had slipped right out of his black blazer and was now loosening his tie. He seemed unable to untie it, so he simply pulled his head out and tossed the silky blue stripes onto an otherwise cleared desk. His white dress shirt was crumpled in a mess of wrinkles.
“What time is it?” he asked, his bearded face twisted in a look of bewilderment.
“Late,” the class chorused. “You’re late – like last year.”
“No… I’m still on Florida time.”
They laughed, and one young man with glasses leaned back and pointed his pencil at the guilty professor. “Then you’re really late, because Florida is an hour ahead of us.”
Dr. Carmichael scanned the ceiling for truth, then shrugged. “Then I’m still on Scotland time.”
Well, he certainly sounded like it.
“You should talk in an American accent, Doug,” the guy with glasses suggested. He looked around for someone who would listen, and because Kae was the only one looking at him, he said to her, “It remarkably sounds a whole lot like his Scottish accent.”
Dr. Carmichael pointed a scolding finger. “Watch it,” he warned, and then under his breath but soaked in sarcasm, “It’s Dr. Doug to you.” Then his wide, glowing eyes darted like quick beams of light from boy to Kae, and for some reason it startled her. Soon, though, he seemed perfectly entranced with his chalkboard, and no matter what anyone said, he did not look up once. His hands flew in a strange, ordered frenzy as he erased words, added words, turned to a gym bag filled with books and ripped out a notepad. “Name call,” he announced, despite all the jokes the students were throwing. However, he didn’t say a word. He glanced at the pad, then back at the students, searching out a face for whatever name was first on the list, and then glanced back at the pad and scratched the name off. He went this way for a while, then suddenly stopped, looked up and squinted. “Anyone have any eyedrops?”
The students snickered.
“Ah, no matter,” he mumbled, and looked back down.
Kae glanced at everyone else and then back the professor and waited. He would stop again and seek her out from all the faces. She was new, so he would call for Katherine Danner.
Instead, he went on for a very long time, his eyes glued to the names. Finally he looked back up, waved his pen at her and simply said, “And class this is Kae Danner. She’s kinda new to Faye, so be nice.” He eyed some particular students in the front and said too seriously to be sincere, “And no funny business from all of you.”
The guy with glasses corrected him, “That’s y’all. We Alabamians say y’all.”
The class waited.
“Y’all,” the Scottish accent slurred.
Kae felt her face tickle with a grin. Then she checked herself and returned her focus back to the important matter. Her name, his knowledge of him, who had told him – and why would anyone want to have told him about her? Of course, she should know. Out of everyone else in this class, she seemed to be the only face he did not already know. Still, it was peculiar, like a violation of her privacy. She shifted her weight around in the chair. “I’m really not new to Faye,” she said in a voice clearly audible.
Some reason, it seemed to astonish him that she spoke. He slowly looked up from his notes, a dark crease on his brow, and then suddenly a grin broke out across his face. “You’re newer than I am, and that’s saying a lot. You do prefer Kae, or may we call you Katherine?”
She liked the sound of the latter, it seemed feminine and somehow secretive – like a part of her everyone did not know. She moved some loose hair out of her eyes and squared her shoulders. “It’s always Kae,” she said.
He nodded long and slow so that she could see every single whisker on his face and neck. “Katherine was my grandmother’s name.”
“Time for the Carmichael history…” someone mumbled.
He looked out over the crowd. “Don’t mock the Carmichael history,” he tried to say sternly, but a laugh rippled his voice. “It’s important stuff. My wife used to tell me that there’s nothing more important than a man’s history, than his enemy’s history, so you all better beware and listen up when I’m talking about it!”
“He looks like a construction worker, but he’s really a mass murderer,” someone else mumbled.
He laughed out loud. “Actually, I do think we had a murderer in the family, now that you’ve mentioned it… ah, but back, back to the present!” Then he frowned and stuck out his lips in deep thought. Kae tried to keep her respect, but it was growing more and more difficult. She watched him until he made a decision on his words, and continued, saying, “Let’s get back to the present… so we can then”—he waved his pen around in illustration—“get back to the past…which will then lead us forward to the present again!”
“Well done, Einstein!” said a blond guy.
“Well, I try,” he said, almost taking a bow, but he managed to refrain himself. “Okay, okay… so, you all know how it goes.” He looked at Kae with another deep frown. “Okay, everyone but Miss Danner knows how it goes, and Miss Danner, or Kae, it goes like this: before anything else, we like to familiarize ourselves with each other, but most specifically, the classroom. Before anything else…” He walked over to the overhead and as he slipped a translucent page onto the projector a few of the students began a drum roll by clapping their hands on top of their desks. He switched the projector on, and a blurry black and white image of a beautiful hotel flashed up onto the overhead. “Before anything else, we like to briefly” (the students snickered again at the word he chose) “cover the history of Faye.” He then looked from her to the guy with glasses and nodded. “Ted, will you please hit the lights?”
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