Letting Loose. Joanne Skerrett
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FACE TO FACE
A black Range Rover pulled up to where I was standing. My heart lurched, then my stomach tightened. He was taller than I thought he would be. Darker than in his picture. He had cut his hair. He looked neat and handsome. Crisp white T-shirt, blue shorts. Tevas. Oh. My. God.
I don’t know when or how I ended up kissing this guy I’d never met before, but that was just how it went down. I guess I was that kind of girl, after all. When I finally came up for air, he looked at me and laughed. “How was the flight?”
“Long,” I said, embarrassed.
Then he kissed me again, this time harder…
Books by Joanne Skerrett
SHE WHO SHOPS
SUGAR VS. SPICE
LETTING LOOSE
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
LETTING LOOSE
Joanne Skerrett
For both my grandmothers—who, like Dominica,
were sweet and fair; rich and rare.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to the Almighty for creating such an amazing place and all the blessings that come along with my heritage. Thanks to my family, friends and colleagues for your continued love and support. And, of course, my most talented editor, John Scognamiglio, and my agent, Frank Weimann.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
Chapter 1
“Ms. Wilson takes it from the back!”
I whirled around from the chalkboard. What the…?! I knew that voice and its owner was going down today! I’d had it with these little brats.
“Who said that?” I wanted to scream, but I’m the adult here, the professional.
The classroom of thirty ninth graders rippled with repressed giggles, but no one was going to answer my question. They looked at me, none trying to appear particularly innocent or guilty. They knew and I knew that Treyon Dicks said it. Since he came back from his third or fifty-ninth stint in juvenile detention hall, Treyon’s been cruisin’ for a bruisin’ from me. Sometimes I think I’d like to let him have it, jail sentence be damned. But listen to me; who says “cruisin’ for a bruisin’” anymore? That’s the problem right there. These kids don’t respect me. I’m just not “down” enough.
I could walk into any of my colleagues’ classes right now and there’d be a lovefest going on. They’d probably be sitting in a circle, holding hands, and reading Proust out loud. But that never happens in Ms. Wilson’s class. It’s like my kids can sniff the eau de wannabe public school teacher that I wear every day. I’m supposed to be a refugee from a posh private school who doesn’t really want to be in this vast urban educational complex. But I do. I really do. Sometimes. Yes, I miss the genius students at my old school, the two swimming pools, lacrosse games, landscaped grounds, parents who care—at least the normal ones. But I don’t miss the awful incident that brought me to this place. And I shouldn’t even think about that right now. I need to just fit in and do a good job. Shape up or ship out, like my father used to say.
The rows of chairs and desks facing me were beginning to rock with laughter. I searched their faces, trying to affect my most serious warning face. No one would speak up.
Speak to me! But I got only averted eyes and giggles because I was freaking Amelia Wilson, lover of Shakespeare, Milton, Donne, Morrison, Hughes, Walker, Countee Cullen, Nella Larsen. I don’t get Donald Goines or Jay-Z. I keep misspelling Ludacris. It’s ludicrous. And I’ll never gain my students’ respect although I’ve been in this school for over a year. I’ll just keep getting dissed (do people still say that?) day in and day out. But I can fight back!
“Okay, Treyon.” I put the eraser and the chalk down on the desk. I’d give him a chance to apologize. If he gets suspended again, God only knows what kind of trouble he’ll get into. The last time he pulled something like this—he drew a picture of two people having sex, doggy style—he was kicked out of school for three days. It was three days of relative calm and serenity for me; my twenty-nine other kids come with their own myriad problems. But I did worry about Treyon. I worried that he might get into a fight because he wasn’t in school. That he might get hit by a bus. That he would come to some violent, tragic end and it would have been all my fault because I had gotten him suspended. But I just didn’t know what else to do with this kid…. I didn’t tell him, but I was quite impressed with the quality of the drawing, though.
“You can apologize or you can go to the principal’s office.” I tried to smile, mainly to mollify him. What I really wanted to do was leap across the rows of desks and chairs, grab his skinny neck, and throw him out the window.
“I ain’t apologizin’.” His head lifted in defiance. “I ain’t said nothin’.”
Okay. This was how it was going to be. I had my instructions from Mr. Bell and I would follow them. This was last period and I was not going to make the last few minutes of my day go up in a plume of angry smoke.
“Fine. Go to Mr. Bell’s office then.”
He got up from his seat, grumbling as he gathered up his heavy goose-down jacket. He’s lucky I didn’t have the burly security guy escort him out.
“Bitch!” he mumbled, slamming the door hard.
The rest of the class went silent.
I took a deep breath and went back to writing down the homework assignment on the chalkboard: Read the first four chapters of The Grapes of Wrath. I didn’t care that they thought it was too much. I didn’t care if they hated me and were plotting my death at the bus stop every day. I didn’t care. I didn’t care. All I knew was that when I was in ninth grade, my teacher would assign us the whole book, not four measly chapters.
“We go’n have a quiz or sum’n?”