Lauren almost jumped out of her seat as Mary Elliot opened the door to the classroom she was sitting in. “How has your afternoon been Lauren” Mary asked her friend as she walked in. Lauren was wondering what was going on as she answered, “Same old same old. I only had to threaten one student with detention to get them to behave today.” Lauren noticed a figure behind Mary in the corridor who disappeared almost as soon as she had seen them. She realized that it was Lonna and that unwittingly Mary had stopped from meeting up that afternoon. “That is an improvement,” Mary replied to Lauren. “What can I do for you?” Lauren asked. “I was just wondering what you are up to on Friday night? Me and some of the girls are getting together for a night out and I wondered as your friend if you wanted to come. That and I wanted to know what happened with your aunt last night.” Mary went on to say as she closed the door behind her so that the two friends could have a private conversation. Lauren still found it strange that the deputy principal of her school saw her as a friend and even stranger that she was beginning to think of Mary as a friend of hers as the door closed.
A few streets away from the school a young woman walked towards her destination. A young woman who would have loved to have heard the conversation that the two teachers were having. Lonna slowly walked towards the Rodriguez house for the second time this week knowing that yet again she would have to spend the night there. It wasn’t that she hadn’t enjoyed her time with Mrs Rodriguez the night before but right now she wished that she was heading the other way. It seemed to her as she walked that fate was working against her.
When she had last seen Lauren neither of them had come up with much to resolve the situation that they found themselves in. On top of that, she had now been stopped from talking to her the only other person on the planet who could understand what she was going through well some of it anyway. There had to be something she could do. Maybe she could look up Lauren’s phone number and be able to speak to her that way. She was sure that when she was the teacher in this situation she had a landline. Her aunt had insisted that she keep one just in case anything happened to her mobile. If only she could remember the number.
It had only been two days surely she had forgotten it. Granted she never called it and almost no one asked for it anymore. She couldn’t have forgotten it could she? She took the key to the Rodriguez front door out of her pocket and walked inside. She knew somehow that Mrs Rodriguez would not be there at that moment something about it was her first shift at work for the week but she didn’t recall her telling her that. She just knew. She dropped her bag in almost the same spot as she had the night before sat on the sofa and began to watch the TV.
Lauren had told Mary all the main details of the night before as they walked to the car park. After which the two women said farewell to each other for the evening. Lauren sat behind the wheel of the MX-5 for the second time that day. She was surprised that she was able to drive the car so easily given the fact that she had yet to pass her test. It was little things like this that were causing her to be concerned as to what was happening. Her age had already changed as had the way she thought about people and things. She remembered her thoughts about the student in her last class of the day. Not just him there was Mary as well. She was becoming more of a friend as this had gone on.
As she parked the car outside of her condo she then thought once again about what she was wearing. Just the day before she had real problems with an outfit like the one she was currently wearing. However, as the day went on she seemed to have less and less issues with it. Then today she had chosen this one even though there were pantsuits in the closet in her new bedroom. She still chose this skirt. She sat down in the kitchen to make a coffee and found a message waiting from her aunt apologizing for yesterday. “Well, that’s something.” She said out loud as she sipped her coffee and turned on the news to see what was happening in the world.
