“How old is she?” Grant asked.
“Old enough that if you misbehave she makes you stay after school and write sentences on the chalkboard,” Hailey shrugged. She gestured toward a small, square room the size of a large closet. “That’s the lunch room,” she informed Grant.
He glanced inside to see one long table with plastic, mismatched green, yellow and orange chairs spread around it.
“At lunchtime Maude sends her husband Jim over with the daily lunch special,” Hailey said. “He usually brings a jug of sweet tea with it.”
“What’s her name?” Grant whispered as he watched a girl walk by in short denim shorts, a red and white gingham top and pigtails, looking as though she had gotten lost on her way back to the set of Gilligan’s Island.
“Mary Ann,” Hailey answered casually.
Grant pinched himself on the arm, sure he had reached that point in the dream, right before you wake up, when what seems real begins to be filled with zany reminders that you’ve actually not somehow been transported to the set of Green Acres or been randomly dumped in the middle of Hazzard County, only to learn that you’ve been cast as Bo Duke, minus his General Lee.
“How many kids go to this school?” Grant asked cautiously.
“Twenty-five,” Hailey shrugged. “Eight in the senior class.”
Back in North Carolina there had been fifteen boys on Grant’s varsity basketball team alone. He scanned the pool of plaid and denim and realized he was looking at the entire student body.
A large boy clopped toward them, walking as though his feet were the size of snow skis. He was wearing dirty overalls, and, of course, a plaid, flannel shirt with the sleeves cut off, displaying an odd combination of muscle and flab.
When the husky country boy opened his mouth, Grant could only stare. His accent made Granny Miller’s thick as stew accent sound almost regal. “Hailey, Mrs. Simmons marked you tardy this mornin’, but she said she done talked to you yesterday at church and she knowd you got some friends from the city stayin’ at your place, so she said she figured you’d be here before class got started real good.”
“Well, I made it,” Hailey smiled. She turned to Grant. “Billy Wayne Harper this is Grant Cohen.”
Billy Wayne stuck his hand out to Grant.
“Hi, Billy,” Grant said, shaking his hand firmly.
“It’s Billy Wayne,” Billy Wayne said confused.
“I should have known,” Grant nodded.
“Where you from?” Billy Wayne asked.
“I’ve been a little bit of everywhere,” Grant replied.
“I figured it must be somewhere real far away,” Billy Wayne nodded, “‘cause you don’t sound much like the folks from around here.”
“By the grace of God,” Grant nodded without cracking a smile.
Hailey rolled her eyes.
Mrs. Simmons stood at the end of the hallway, ringing a handheld bell, and, when Billy Wayne took off running toward his class, Grant smiled at Hailey. “Run, Forrest, Run!”
Hailey slapped Grant’s arm, which, naturally, Grant took as a good sign.
Out of the corner of his eye, Grant noticed a tall boy wearing Wranglers and a University of Tennessee t-shirt, and he immediately pegged him as the leader of the pack. Grant watched as two boys he knew to be Joe John Jordan and Billy Wayne Harper followed behind their ringleader like two oversized lackeys. “Who is he?” Grant pointed.
“That’s Paul Mason,” Hailey offered. “His daddy is the town doctor, and his mama does all the sewing for everybody. She made that quilt that’s on my bed and the curtains in our living room. She used to make me little dresses until she realized I was never going to be caught dead in one of those frilly things, and she stopped wasting her time. Paul’s the captain of the basketball team, and me and him…no… he and I…however that goes…are the only two people to make straight A’s all the way from kindergarten through senior year. People say Joe John has done it too, but that’s only because he gets special treatment, his daddy being principal and all. I distinctly remember that he made a B in math the first quarter of sixth grade!”
“So you’re alleging that the good preacher lies about his son’s academic record?” Grant smirked.
“No, that’s not what I said,” Hailey rolled her eyes.
“You know, if you keep doing that, your eyes are going to get stuck like that,” Grant shrugged.
“And you’ll only have yourself and your big mouth to blame for it,” Hailey quipped.
Grant put his arm around Hailey’s shoulders. “Lead the way to class, Miss Hailey Jane.”
“Don’t make me smack you,” Hailey grumbled as she bumped Grant away with her hip.
Upon entering the classroom, Grant found a desk in the second row. Watching him help himself to it, Hailey put her hands on her hips. “Oh, I don’t think so; get out of my desk,” she insisted.
“I don’t see your name on it,” Grant shrugged.
Hailey took out her pencil and scribbled her name on the desktop. “Better?” she shrugged.
Grant shook his head and grinned. “I believe that’s called vandalizing school property…don’t make me take you to the principal’s office. He might arrest you or send you to confession…one or the other.”
“That’s cute, very cute, but that is my desk you’re hogging,” Hailey groaned. “I have sat in this desk since freshman year, Grant. Don’t mess with tradition.”
“So where do I sit?” Grant replied. “Or are you people as set in your ways when it comes to desks at school as you are about pews in church?”
“How in the world would you know anything about how I am regarding my place in the pew?” Hailey grumbled. “As I recall, you couldn’t be bothered to get out of bed in time to make it to services yesterday.”
“Well, maybe if Herbert had let me sleep in just a little while…” Grant protested.
