Page 13 of Under His Sheets
A little girl with colorful hair ties in her braided hair peeked in, her round dark eyes obviously spooked by the boy running out of my room like a bat out of hell. “Boys, am I right? Always causing a ruckus!”
That made her smile. She carried her messenger bag in front of her as if to protect herself.
“Wait! Don’t tell me.” She froze in place, her smile gone. “You must be Lissette Lokoto?”
She nodded and took two steps closer.
I bowed to her and she laughed.
“Welcome to music lessons. What would you like to learn today?”
“I want to learn to sing like Beyonce.” She linked her fingers behind her back and swayed back and forth.
“All right. Beyonce is sure fantastic, but how about you learn to sing like Lissette Lokoto?”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, how about you learn to sing the best that Lissette Lokoto can sing, and if you want to sing Beyonce’s songs, well, that’s your choice. But I think all singers need to discover the voice of their soul, don’t you? And you find that by learning to sing all kinds of songs.”
She blinked a couple of times and then she nodded. “Uh-huh. I would like that, too.”
So we got down to it, and the moment she opened her mouth to sing, I knew Beyonce herself would have bowed to this little queen. She had an incredible instrument at a mere eleven years old. I got the tingles all over just thinking of what she and I could accomplish together.
Thanks a lot, Cecilia Galvan. You were right. I am a natural teacher.
The second week of teaching was exhilarating and exhausting at the same time. I wondered when the honeymoon period would end? These kids were different than the kids I’d taught during my student teaching, but all kids had the potential to get goofy, I knew that. Cecilia used to say, “Never Smile before Thanksgiving,” but since I’d started my job later in the year—and that holiday wasn’t even celebrated in this country—did I wait until after the winter holidays?
I spent some of my lunch periods eating in the cafeteria with the other teachers, but Thursday and Friday, I needed a break from peopling so I went outside for a walk. I may have been the front man of a band, but my introverted self could only handle somuch. The weather was decent, and with my old trusty cardigan it was warm enough. The school was a few blocks from the beach, a little far for me to walk on my lunch break, but I found a pedestrian bridge close by that I could stand on and see the Mediterranean Sea.
It was wild to think that I was living on the far side of the world from where I had grown up. Yes, I’d been all over the States and Europe with MoonCraft, but this was a whole new experience. I wasn’t just seeing the sights. I was embedded in a new community. I had new friends for the first time in a long time. Randall Sutter 2.0 was…pleasantly content.
I breathed in the fresh air and was about to return to the school when I looked down from the pedestrian bridge and saw two big black SUVs with tinted windows turning into the school parking lot. They stopped in the middle of the driveway and the drivers of both cars got out and opened the passenger doors, almost synchronized.
Out of the first car came a stocky, middle-aged man in a blazer with his thin hair buzzed to the scalp, and in the second car was Mr. Ferrer and a young woman, perhaps the stepmother Pere mentioned? Ferrer and the woman walked over to the older man, they greeted with kisses on the cheek, and then the two men launched into a heated conversation with lots of gesturing and frowning. The woman appeared bored, scrolling on her phone, only occasionally looking up.
I caught the sight of movement on the sidewalk in front of the school—and there was Alonso, slowly pushing his cart while casually glancing the way of the conversation. The men looked his way only briefly and then continued to talk.
A car pulled up and the driver honked when he couldn’t get past the SUVs. He climbed out of his sedan and stormed toward Ferrer and the other man. The SUV drivers—who looked like the quintessential action movie bodyguards—moved to block hisway, but then they allowed him into their conversation. There was finger pointing, and then he stormed away from Ferrer and the stocky man.
Alonso had continued walking and was now pushing his cart toward the driveway.What the heck? Why were they here in the middle of the day and arguing in the school parking lot? It wasn’t even pickup time.
Then I saw Lara come out of the doors and walk toward them as if on a mission, her flowing black skirt whipping around her high-heeled boots, her long black hair flicking behind her. That was my cue to stop spying and make my way back to campus to be sure Lara was…safe? What did I think I was going to do, bust into the scene like some sort of Jason Statham action star and save the day?
It didn’t matter. She might need backup, and while I fully believed that women were perfectly capable of standing up for themselves, everyone could use an ally. I took off at a jog, determined to be there in case she needed help. I took the steps down off of the pedestrian bridge two at a time, kept up a good pace down the street toward the school, and then slowed to a brisk walk as I turned the corner onto the driveway. I was hidden from view, as there were tall shrubs next to the school at the entrance…so Alonso didn’t see me approaching. He had a phone to his ear and was speaking in a low voice.
“Sí. Ambròs Vidal. Sí. I have pictures. No, the boy is inside the school. I cannot get close enough to tell, but the parent who approached them was unhappy, said the school parking lot was no place for separatist propaganda. Sí. Ah, merda. The principal is out now. I will go to her. I’ll meet you after. Sí. Adéu.”
No inglés my ass.
Something very strange was going on with Alonso. Who had he been talking—no,reportingto? And in English? This, plus the schedule I’d found in his office. The hair on the back of myneck stood up and I thought about what Madame Lahlou had said, about high-profile kids and the dangers of kidnapping. Was that what was going on here?
Was Alonso watching the Ferrers because he wanted Pere?
I didn’t have time to work out any more scenarios in my mind. I came around the bushes as Alonso approached Lara and spoke to her in Catalan. I think. I couldn’t make out enough words to tell what he was saying. She frowned and nodded to him, then turned to the parents.
“I welcome all members of our Frederick Douglass community to visit the school at appropriate times, but I’d appreciate it if you would hold your conversations off school grounds. Some of the parents have voiced concerns.”
Ferrer bowed dramatically to her. “No need to worry, senyora Trujillo-Perez,” he said, exaggerating the Spanish pronunciation of her name. “Senyor Vidal and I were just about to grab a café together. The school was a logical place to meet in the middle. Geographically it is central to us both.”
