A Stitch in Time Pt. 01

She pulled her hand down to pat me on the crotch before she walked out to re-open the library.

"So what can I get for you?" she asked when she returned.

I walked out of the library with Physics for Dummies, American History for Dummies, and Baseball for Dummies. I explained the last one by telling her that I was going to be doing some coaching this year and needed to know how to reach the novice players I'd be working with. I would have checked out Sex for Dummies, too, if they'd had it, but I thought it would be even harder to explain that one than the baseball book.

I spent the next two days studying, in between cleaning up my room. One of the things I discovered was the paper I'd turned in to Mrs. Palmer after my junior year, in a course on Contemporary Drama. It was an essay on "Murder in the Cathedral," by T. S. Eliot, and as I read it, I could see why I only got a C. I could have written this in ninth grade.

Apparently Mrs. Palmer had agreed. There it was, in black and white on the last page: "You could have written this in ninth grade, Patrick. It is at best average work for an eleventh grader; it is below average work for the eleventh grader I expected you to become."

I sat down hard on my bed. Talking Mrs. Palmer into letting me into her class wasn't going to be as easy as I'd thought. It wasn't until late Thursday afternoon that I came up with a plan for that one.

I kept on reading and working throughout Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, keeping my door locked against the chance that Tiff would come calling for some of what Lynn Edwards had gotten. I still couldn't imagine that I'd had sex with my father's new wife, even when she wasn't pregnant. The thought of doing it now almost made me gag. But apparently I was nothing if not a son of a bitch.

On Sunday morning I got up and started to get ready to go to church. I'd gone to church the week before, in my old life, and I was a bit surprised to find that I had nothing in my closet now that I could remotely call "church clothes." I put on my best pair of jeans and a halfway decent corduroy shirt, and met Jeanne in the hallway as she was coming out of her room.

"What do you think?" I asked her.

"About what?" she asked.

"This," I pointed to the outfit. "For church."

"You're going to church?" she asked. "You haven't been to church since Mom died."

"Well, maybe I want to go again," I said. I was stunned. I had three years of perfect attendance at Sunday School. Somewhere in my room there were three gold stars to prove it.

"No," she shook her head, "not in that."

"Why?" I asked.

"It's disrespectful," she said. "If you really want to go to church, buy something nice. God knows you can afford it. Now if you'll excuse me."

She stepped around me at the same time I heard a car pulling into the driveway. I walked back into my room and saw a well-used Corolla idling at the end of the front walk. Jeanne emerged from the house with a wave at the car and climbed into the passenger side as I tried to figure out who was driving. She looked very familiar. Oh, God. Cammie Rowe. It was Cammie Rowe, my first kiss. Jeanne said something to her and Cammie suddenly looked up to see me looking back down at her. I smiled and waved at her. She flipped me the bird and turned around to begin backing down the driveway.

to be continued