Girl Meets Class Read online

  Empty. It was the third time I’d run out of gas in the last six months.

  I locked up and plodded down the residential street. Thunder muttered in the distance; the air was charged and damp.

  I was cutting across the Rose Hill College campus when the first raindrop plopped on my forehead. Within seconds, the skies opened, releasing torrents of water, sharp with bits of hail. I dashed across the slick grounds. By the time I arrived home, my lungs burned, my skin stung, and my t-shirt clung to me like a wetsuit.

  Inside, I checked my phone. No texts, but my father had left a message saying, “Sorry, Toni Lee. You spooked me so bad I felt like I had to call Corny. I know you’re mad, but this is for your own good. You don’t want to be totally dependent on your aunt for the rest of your life. Believe me—”

  Delete.

  “Chicken.”

  No doubt my father had requested an overseas sales trip so he wouldn’t have to be around for the fallout. And no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t put a positive spin on my new lowly circumstances. Unlike him, I had no experience being poor. And yes, I know it made me seem like a spoiled brat, but I wasn’t used to pinching pennies. I’d never saved a Bed, Bath and Beyond coupon, never bought a pair of used blue jeans at a thrift store, and never saved oil in used Crisco jars. To completely cut me off financially was like tossing a pampered Persian cat out into a back alley.

  And my father was one to talk to me about being dependent. His sister-in-law was his employer and the source of all his money. The only reason he owned a grand house like Tranquility Hall was because Aunt Cornelia had given it to my mother and him as a wedding present. Nowadays she also paid for the upkeep. Supposedly one of the last things my mother had said to her sister before she died was, “Please look after Porter. Lord knows he can’t take care of himself.”

  For the most part he was a token employee of Cornelia’s Southern Foods, getting away with as little work as possible. Before he’d married my mom he’d sold firewood and cut down trees for a living. Without my aunt’s money he’d be reduced to shaking down sofas for loose change.

  Aunt Cornelia had also left me a message. “You’re acting like an out-of-control toddler. Life goes on. It’s been eight months.”

  “Six months,” I whispered, deleting her message.

  Although it seemed like yesterday when my life changed. Back in February, I was about to embark on my first year on the pro tennis circuit. I’d played the game since I was nine, and when I was twelve, I went away to Weil Tennis Academy in Ojai, California for the rest of my schooling. Afterward, I won a scholarship to Georgia Southern and played on their tennis team.

  One brisk winter morning, I was playing a practice game with my hitting partner when I fell on the court and broke my wrist. The injury wasn’t so bad, but the treatment nearly did me in.

  Hours after receiving an anti-inflammatory shot, I got a staph infection that ballooned my wrist to three times its normal size. The infection was so bad my doctor feared I’d lose part of my arm. After being dosed with a round of antibiotics powerful enough to fell an elephant, the infection eventually receded, but my wrist was permanently weakened, and I could no longer play tennis.

  After my accident, I didn’t know who I was anymore. My whole life had been about tennis. For several weeks afterward I didn’t leave the house. I didn’t bathe, I quit eating, and I slept eighteen hours a day. My life seemed hollow and purposeless.

  At my family’s insistence I went on anti-depressants and eventually the worst of my torpor lifted. I started spending my days roaming Rose Hill’s shops or when I got bored with the local stores, I’d drive to Atlanta to browse in Phipps Plaza and or head to Charleston to hit the King Street shops. Nights were spent out at clubs and fancy restaurants, flirting with cute guys. Most evenings I didn’t get home until after midnight, and some nights I didn’t make it home at all.

  Shopping, partying, and day-tripping didn’t replace tennis but they helped to dull the pain. Now I wouldn’t even have those niceties. I also wouldn’t be able to help Joelle anymore. My friend’s student loan payment for nursing school was enormous. Every month I sent her a check for $500. I knew she’d grown to depend on it.

  It was almost impossible to imagine an existence without my hefty allowance. Money solved problems, smoothed feathers, and, in recent months, gave me a reason to emerge from my cozy cocoon of Egyptian cotton linens every morning and muddle through the day. The only thing it couldn’t do was give me back my tennis career.

  Six months later, I still dreamed of playing every night. I could feel the phantom grip of a racquet in my hand, hear the bounce of the ball against the clay court, and see it, fuzzy and fluorescent, eclipsing everything else as it soared toward me.

  Three

  The next morning I returned home after retrieving my stalled car. I stepped into my foyer and sensed an intruder. My muscles got as tense as piano wires, and I wondered if I should flee. Moments later I heard footsteps. Not a stealth creeping movement but a determined clacking of heels on hardware floors, followed by the scent of Red Door.

  Aunt Cornelia was peering into my pantry. She was wearing a green dress the color of a poisonous African tree frog. Her assistant, a sleek-haired female who wore a hands-free phone and horn-rimmed eyeglasses, sat at the kitchen table. Her fingernails were bitten down to skimpy crescents, and she kept shuffling and re-shuffling a stack of papers in front of her.

  “You know, most people keep food in their pantries,” Cornelia said when she saw me. “All I see is an expired box of baking soda and a package of Trojan ultra-ribbed Ecstasy condoms.”

  My cheeks burned. “Why are you here? Am I not even entitled to my privacy anymore?”

  “You didn’t return my phone call. What could I do but make a personal visit?”

  “I told you. There’s nothing more for us to say.”

  “How wrong you are.”

  What did she want from me? My first-born? A kidney? My platelets? Speaking of which, I wondered what platelets were going for these days. Or eggs? Maybe I could sell a dozen of mine since I didn’t plan on using them anytime soon.

  “You remind me so much of Nina. Stubborn even when it didn’t serve her.”

  Enough already. It always upset me when anyone compared me to my mother. I headed down the hall, intending to hole up in my bedroom until she left.

  “Have it your way,” she said. “I was planning to give you until the end of the month to leave this lovely condo but if you’re going to be pigheaded I expect you to vacate these premises within twenty-four hours.”

  I whirled around to face her. “You can’t do that. You’re required to give longer notice to evict someone.”

  “Not for squatters. As I recall, you’ve never paid a penny of rent here.”

  “Squatter? I’m not a squatter. I can’t believe…How could you…?”

  “Quit your sputtering, and sit by me.”

  I obeyed, but inside of me a category-four hurricane was howling.

  “When my sister died, I had no idea what to do with a four-year-old child,” my aunt said. “Raising a youngster was not in my life plan. Not with an entire company on my shoulders.”

  “Raising” wasn’t the right word; outsourcing was more like it. After my mother died, my father went on a Jack Daniels bender that ended in a nervous breakdown, a broken collarbone, and a ninety-day stay in rehab. While my father was drying out, Cornelia hired a nanny and tutor to see to my needs.

  She stayed in Atlanta and managed my life from a hundred and fifty miles away. Mostly we communicated through phone, fax, memo and later on, email and Skype.

  “You’ll be relieved to know I’m not abandoning you completely,” she said.

  “You’re not?” I felt a small surge of hope. Was it possible she’d just been trying to give me a good scare? If
so, her plan worked. I was so spooked I’d gnawed my bottom lip into shreds.

  “Of course not. You’re my only niece, after all, and we don’t want everyone to think you’re completely on the skids. Thus, I’ve decided I will continue to tithe to St. Andrews in your name. Five hundred dollars a month.”

  Whoopee, I thought.

  “There is one other thing.”

  “What?”

  “If you get a job, keep it for one year and stay out of trouble, you’ll receive…Hand me that contract, Kellie.” Her assistant swiftly surrendered the papers, and my aunt held them at an arm’s length; she was too vain to wear reading glasses.

  “You’ll receive…” she said again, and paused for dramatic effect.

  “Tell me.”

  “Five million dollars.”

  There was a long, stomach-churning silence. Surely I’d misheard.

  “Run that by me again?” Maybe she’d said five mink collars or five male scholars. Surely she hadn’t said—

  “I will continue to tithe in your name—”

  “No. The other thing.”

  Cornelia clapped her hands together. “It’s about time you started listening to me. Five million dollars. Quite the attention-getter, eh?”

  Damn straight. Even the assistant looked taken aback. “You’re serious?” I said.

  She suppressed a yawn. “Of course. As you know, beans have been extraordinarily good to this family. Five million is the amount I’d planned to leave you in my will and the rest will go to charity. Now you won’t have to wait until I die to get your inheritance, which is a happy occurrence, because I plan to outlast everyone.”

  My aunt had a habit of controlling people with her money. Although my daddy had never said as much, I was certain he never remarried because he feared my Aunt Cornelia might quit paying him an overinflated salary in exchange for hardly any work.

  Several years ago, as an incentive to get me to finish college, she’d dangled a Porsche Boxster and the services of a private tennis coach as carrots. This was the very same thing, just a much bigger carrot.

  “What’s the catch?”

  “You’re so suspicious. There’s no catch.” She handed me a black Montblanc pen. “My lawyer hammered out the terms. Look them over carefully and sign when ready.”

  “What about my father? Does he know about this?”

  “Yes, and he’s all for it.”

  She pushed the contract closer to me.

  I paged through it. Listed were dozens of offenses that would cause me to forfeit the money. She had covered every sin under the sun: loan sharking, vagrancy, joy-riding, tax evasion, firearm violation, drug use, moral turpitude, and bastardy. Another clause said I wasn’t allowed to sell my Porsche during the year for extra money, and I couldn’t accept cash from my father. Not that he ever had much extra; he was always covered up in his gambling losses. If I quit my job or was fired within the year, I’d forfeit the money.

  I continued to read. “Excessive alcohol consumption?”

  Knowing Cornelia, nibbling on a piece of rum cake might constitute excessive consumption. She never touched the stuff, except during the occasional communion.

  “Boozers are losers, I always say. But an occasional sip of cooking sherry won’t cost you your inheritance. An arrest for public drunkenness, on the other hand, will.”

  I pointed to a clause with the pen. “And I have to get a job within a month and you have to approve it.”

  “Correct.”

  “Is this your sneaky way of pushing me into nunnery?”

  She laughed. “As if they’d take you….I want you to choose something challenging. I don’t think you’d get much from selling jeans at the Gap or waiting tables at Hotties.”

  She meant Hooters. Which I’m sure was plenty challenging, what with having to fight off hordes of men while wearing sprayed-on orange shorts.

  “To make sure you follow the contract, I’m setting up a satellite office in Tranquility Hall to keep an eye on you. I’ll go back to Atlanta now and then, but for the most part, I’ll telecommute.”

  Her statement shocked me. If she intended to hang around Rose Hill for a year—a place she claimed was stuck in the Eisenhower era—it meant she was serious about monitoring my behavior. My every move would be on display like a firefly trapped in a jar. Still, for five million dollars, I suppose I could endure a chorus line of meddling aunts.

  “I didn’t mean to seem ungrateful earlier. I appreciate you giving me this wonderful opportunity.”

  She lifted her chin, and I could see the faint line of her creamy foundation. “What’s the point of having money if you can’t share it with your family?”

  I seized the pen, eager to sign.

  “There is one more thing you should know,” she said.

  I knew it! A catch.

  “I’ve added a final clause to the contract. If you fail, you’ll lose any chance of getting your inheritance. And if your father lives longer than me, I’ll set up a trust that will make it impossible for him to pass his money onto you.”

  It was a harsh stipulation, but I wasn’t worried. I had no intentions of failing.

  “Keep in mind your task might not be the cakewalk you think. Change is tricky for most people.”

  Not for me. Not for that kind of money. For five million dollars I would work three jobs, take celibacy vows, and recite the entirety of Revelation everyday while kneeling on a pile of cornmeal. Cornelia could have made the stakes much higher.

  “Who knows?” she said. “Maybe during the year you’ll even find another passion, one to replace tennis.”

  “Maybe,” I said, even though I doubted that would ever happen. Tennis was my passion, and I couldn’t imagine replacing it with anything else. It’d be like telling Stephen King he should forget about writing horror novels and start crocheting tea cozies.

  Four

  I knew finding a job was going to be a bear, but I didn’t think it was going to be impossible. After a week of nonstop searching I hadn’t gotten the tiniest of nibbles. I’d heard the economy was in bad shape but it’d never affected me before. Now it was up close and personal, like a guy with bad breath on a crowded elevator.

  One morning, ten days into my search, I attended a Professional Career Fair and spent ninety minutes lucklessly wandering around a convention center. Most of the jobs offered I’d never even heard of: systems analyst, histology manager, fiber optic installer. Weren’t there any normal jobs in the world? Ones that required only a warm body, an easy smile, and a flair for Pinterest?

  I continued fighting the crowds, ignoring my growling belly and aching feet, until I reached one of the last tables with a wall banner hanging above it that said, “Calling All College Graduates: The Teacher Corps Want You.”

  Didn’t people need a license and special degree to be a teacher? Still, the sign did say all college graduates welcome, and I fit that category, although just barely. Days after I’d received my diploma I kept checking it to make sure Georgia Southern hadn’t printed it with invisible ink.

  A woman manning the table explained to me the mission of Teacher Corps, saying it was an accelerated teacher training program for anyone with a degree, even general studies. The classes were held at Rose Hill College in the evenings, and it was possible to secure a job in the school system while completing the program.

  Teaching seemed like an easy gig, but would Aunt Cornelia approve? No telling. Maybe she wouldn’t think it was challenging enough, what with having summers free, vacation days galore, and going home at three o’clock to watch talk shows.

  The woman told me there were openings in math and special education.

  Math wasn’t my strong suit. I’d never balanced a checkbook before. My bank account was attached to my father’s, and Aunt Cornelia c
overed any overdrafts.

  “Tell me about the special education job.”

  “You’d be dealing with young people who have some mild learning and behavior disabilities. They need extra attention and your classes would be small. The position is at Harriet Hall High School.” She paused for a moment, waiting for my reaction.

  The name of the school meant nothing to me. I’d gone to a private school until I was twelve and then I attended the tennis academy. I wasn’t familiar with Rose Hill’s various high schools. None were located in my neighborhood.

  I was pleased to hear the opening would be at a high school. It’d be fun to go to proms, pep rallies, and football games. The students were close to my age, and we probably liked the same music and movies; it’d almost be like hanging out with my friends. I could be the easygoing teacher who sits on the edge of her desk and is beloved by all her charges.

  “I’m interested,” I said quickly.

  “You are?”

  She sounded a little surprised.

  “I’m sure you have hordes of other candidates but—”

  “You’ll have to interview with Dr. Lipton, the principal. Are you familiar with him?”

  “No.”

  “Dr. Lipton’s something of a celebrity in the school system and a gifted leader. People say he’ll be chosen as the new superintendent once Dr. Scott retires. I’ll set up an appointment with him at the Board of Education this afternoon.”

  I arrived at the Board of Ed, a nondescript brick building with a scorched-coffee smell and phones that continually rang. During a brief moment of quiet, I stated my business to the harried receptionist.