Free Alone in the Classroom by Elizabeth Hay Page A

about calling herself Madame Pompadour. It was afterwards - after the children had sung their final chorus and the bags of treats were handed out, after the mothers had served the evening lunch of coffee, sandwiches, and cake and the room was cleared for dancing, after the caller had announced the first of many dances and everyone, even Parley, danced until two in the morning, after “Home, Sweet Home” had been played and everyone gathered up their things to leave - it was after this that Parley put his hand on Connie’s shoulder and asked her to stay behind. They would tidy up a bit. He took the broom to the scattered orange peels, nutshells, and cigarette butts on the floor, while she brushed crumbs and wrappings off the lunch table into a waste basket. Then he put aside the broom and came over to her and stood so close that she felt her knees give way a little. He put a small wrapped box into her hands.
    She had been aware of him all night - of his dapper head and shoulders moving slightly above the crowd. Sometimes she lost sight of him, whenever the dancing spilled out into the hallway. But more often than not, he was near Susan or Susan was near him, and her young face was back to its keyed-up look of being Tess, but pinker, wilder.
    Connie herself was an inspired gift-giver. When my father was twelve, he became the envy of every boy he knew, thanks to Connie, who had given him a full archery set, a real bow and real arrows. “I had a very good older sister,” he would say many years later.
    She opened Parley’s gift and found herself holding something from Paris in the palm of her hand. A souvenir he had picked up during his time in France, a miniature Eiffel Tower four inches tall. She didn’t know if she was more thrilled or alarmed.

    The drama club continued. It met every Wednesday at four. Wednesdays, then, were the one weekday when Connie was sure to be free of Parley’s company after school. On a Wednesday in January, to her surprise, Susan materialized beside her as she headed down the school steps.
    “No drama club today?”
    “My father needs me at the store.”
    Instead of slipping ahead, however, Susan stayed close. Once before, she had sought out Connie’s company. Whilerehearsing
Tess
, she had approached after school with a quiet question. “When Tess comes home pregnant, would her back have ached?”
    The girl struck Connie as inspired, over-aware of herself, and alone.
    “What play are you working on now, Susan?”
    “It’s not a play. It’s a story by Tolstoy.”
    “Ah, which one?”
    Susan pushed her knitted hat back off her forehead. Her face was tight, tense, reddened by the wind and the cold. ” ‘Master and the Man.’ “
    Looking across stubbled fields covered in thin snow, Connie said, “Do you like the drama club?”
    “Not anymore.”
    “Not anymore?”
    “No.”
    “Then you don’t have to go.”
    Susan raised her eyes to Connie’s.
    “It’s just a club, Susan. You can go or not. If you’ve lost interest, that’s allowed.”
    “But what would I say?”
    “Maybe your father needs you every Wednesday at the store?”
    She shook her head. That would mean talking to her father. She had never talked to her father in her life. She did as she was told, that’s all.
    They kept walking, the wind at their backs, snow underfoot.
    “He’s not God,” Connie said. “You’re the one with something special.”
    Susan dipped her head, unconvinced on both counts. And when is it ever convincing, the belief others have in your abilities? You know perfectly well they can’t see the mess inside you.
    They came to Graves Hardware, and before they parted Connie said, “
Why
don’t you like it anymore?”
    “I can’t do anything right. I don’t know why.”
    The next day, Parley buttonholed her as soon as she entered the school. “Susan.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “We waited for you. I sent everyone home. Next week we’ll have to work extra hard to make up for lost