“That Surprise Visit Make Me Happy” Part 2 Continues……
“So, what are you bringing for the bake sale on Sunday, JERRY? I hear you make a mean apple pie.”
I smiled.
“I think it will have to be apple pie Colin; it’s my mom’s recipe and the only thing I can bake that isn’t a disaster.”
He chuckled.
“Yeah, been there, done that. Ellen doesn’t let me into the kitchen anymore. She’ll be doing the baking for Sunday for us, she says she won’t take the chance of the whole town getting food poisoning.”
There was general laughter around our table in the teacher’s lounge. Everyone knew that Murdoch probably hadn’t cooked or baked an edible thing in his life. His wife Ellen was a powerhouse in most of the town’s charities, baking up a storm every time there was a donation drive or something to celebrate.
This time it was a bake sale for the Lutheran church youth program, and Murdoch had twisted my arm to participate. I suspected that it was part of principal Stewart’s plan to integrate me better into the community, both to increase the odds of keeping me on for next winter, but also to make it harder for the school board bigots to gain traction against me.
I had to agree it was a good strategy, so I went along with it.
I hadn’t been to the Lutheran church in well over a decade and it scared me. There were going to be a lot of old faces there, carrying old grudges.
It might get very awkward, it might get ugly, but the stubborn rebel in me refused to back down and be silenced.
It was a chance to show the assholes that they held no power over me anymore. If I showed them, I might just start to believe it myself.
There would be friendly faces there as well. Murdock and Ellen, Ellie, principal Stewart and a few of the teaching staff. The Junior class each year was drafted to the cause so there would be some of the kids I knew as well. The Jacks and some of my Dad’s old friends. I wasn’t friendless here, it only felt that way sometimes. I had burned a lot of bridges when it came to my former classmates and others who knew me in high school, so I didn’t have any close friends my age. Some of them probably still hated me.
Pamela popped into my mind unbidden. I shook her memory off.
“You’ll be fine.” Colin’s hand patted my shoulder as he picked up his cup of coffee with a friendly smile as the bell rang.
I smiled back at him. I guess some of my sadness and anxiety had been showing in my face. I knew I had allies here. Harper Michaels and some of the other younger teachers were from out of state and couldn’t care less that I was a lesbian. They had obviously all heard the stories about my rebellious years at the school when I arrived at the job but seemed more impressed than anything else that I was back.
Still, it’s true what they say about small town reputations; once it sticks, you can’t unstick it. And with most of the people in this town, mine was as sticky as it gets.
I got up and walked the busy halls to my office to meet Carol Benson, a newly arrived sophomore having problems fitting in, already being singled out by the popular crowd for reasons unknown.
I sighed.
Some things never changed.
—
Just after the final bell on Thursday, I was putting together a plan for next week when there was a knock on the open door. A tall girl with long blonde hair and a backpack on her shoulder stood in the doorway.
“Ms. Meyer?” she said, hesitantly.
“Yes? Please, come in.”
She looked like she was about to change her mind but then stepped inside and closed the door. She took the bag off her shoulder and sat down.
“Hi, I don’t think I’ve seen you in here before, you’re in Ms. Morgan’s homeroom, right? A Junior? What’s your name?”
“Yeah. Uhm, it’s Jenny. Jenny Olson.”
“Nice to meet you, Jenny. Would you like some water?” I poured her a glass from the pitcher on the desk. She didn’t say anything.
“So, Jenny, how can I help you?”
She was sitting on the edge of the chair, holding her bag on her knees like it was a protective wall. Something was bothering this girl.
The silence stretched on. I waited for her to be ready. It was sometimes best to say nothing and let them find their own way to explain the problem, whatever it was.
„Uhm… “
She was looking around, like she was avoiding meeting my eyes.
“…Is it true Ms. Meyer?”
“Is that true Jenny?”
She blushed and for a second, she looked scared. Then she looked at her fingers, fidgeting with the zipper on her backpack. I waited patiently, waiting for her to fill the silence.
“Uhm… is it true… that you’re… a lesbian?”
My hackles rose instantly, my tried and tested walls going up, and I almost told her instinctively that this was personal and none of her business.
But something made me hesitate. The tension in her shoulders, her obvious anxiety at asking the question.
Oh, God. She wasn’t being intrusive; she was being brave.
I took a calming breath.
“Yes, I am. Why do you ask?”
She looked up at me, anxious, her inner struggle suddenly written all over her face, and all but whispered.
“How do you know?”
I suddenly felt my younger self staring at me from her questioning eyes, pleading for help.
“Oh, Jenny… you…”
I was going to say something about how she could trust me, but something in those eyes told me she really needed an answer to that question. Something she could connect with.
“Well… I know because… I just feel it. It’s not easy to explain…”
How do you explain how you know who you are?
“Like… When I imagine myself having a family with someone I love, it’s always a woman that I see… her hand in mine, her ring on my finger.”
I took a deep breath. She was hanging on my every word.
“I know because of the silly, exciting butterflies I get in my stomach when I think of having a romantic date with a woman I like, sitting across the table from her at dinner, laughing with her, looking into her eyes. And I know because I never feel those same butterflies when I think of men.”
Jenny was listening, looking tense. An immense feeling of heavy responsibility gripped me like a vice. Please God, let me do this right.
A painful old memory of sitting in class, trying not to stare at my friend Pamela’s pretty eyes and cute lips pushed into my mind. It still hurts, after all these years.
So, I looked into Jenny’s searching eyes, and stripped bare my deepest wound in the hope that I could help her.