Free Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by Z. Z. Packer Page B

stopped the yakking before it got to this!”
    The class applauded.
    “Sit down, Sheba.”
    “Make me,” Sheba said.
    Lynnea considered this. Why couldn’t she make Sheba sit down? Wasn’t that one of the basic things a teacher should be able to do? “Well, Sheba. You can leave with April. Out.”
    “I’ll get out. I don’t care no more. Sick a this class.”
    Lynnea sighed. “Well, get out.” She’d felt that up until now, up until Sheba’s absences, she and Sheba had been a team: a crazy, lopsided one, but a team nonetheless. For a moment, she dared to meet Sheba’s gaze head-on, and in that moment thought they’d reached some sort of détente of stares. It was then that Lynnea knew she would have gladly endured Sheba telling her off, cursing her out, stomping her foot, as long as Sheba stayed. Stay, she wanted to plead, but Sheba was the one to twist her eyes away first, and Lynnea heard herself say, “GET OUT!”
    And so Sheba made a production of leaving: stashing papers intoher notebook with grand, though haphazard, flourishes, slamming each book onto her desk before stuffing it into her bag. April’s eyes followed Sheba slamming books and she began packing her supplies as well. Just as the girls got to the door, the guidance counselor arrived.
    “Ms. Davis. I’m here for Sheba.”
    “That was fast. I was just sending her out. April needs to go, too.”
    The guidance counselor turned to April and narrowed his eyes with mock seriousness, “April, what you doing getting in trouble? I thought we put a end to that.” He winked at April as though to remind her of a secret deal.
    April tottered her head and flashed a set of lipstick-stained horse-teeth for him.
    “Oh Mistah Knight!”
    Mr. Knight straightened to all his six-five bulk and resumed his guidance-counselor voice for Lynnea. “I wasn’t coming here to take Sheba to the principal’s office. She’s got a doctor’s appointment, but I’ll take both these young ladies downstairs.” They left chattering on either side of him.
    As soon as they had gone, Ebony, the girl who’d hit Lynnea, cheerily called out, “Miz Day-vis!”
    “Yes, Ebony. What do you want?”
    “You don’t know Sheba got a baby in the oven?”
    Lynnea tried not to let her surprise show. “That’s not a matter for classroom discussion.”
    The students thought it was a perfect matter for discussion.
    “Uhh uhhn!” one girl squealed. “Sheba pregnant! No she didn’t go and get knocked up!”
    “And she a big girl, too,” one boy said. “I’d be afraid to steer that wheel.”

    A FEW days before the winter break, while she was sitting in her car thinking, she spotted Sheba through the frost of her windshield. Sheba was watching the boys’ basketball game, her hands clutching the chain-link that fenced in the basketball court. Though Sheba was no less than a few feet away from a crowd of people, she looked utterly alone. Winter was beginning to chill the air but Sheba still wore miniskirts, fishnet stockings, high heels.
    Lynnea tried to see what it was that Sheba saw, but when she looked at the basketball court all she saw was gray concrete, the long-faded free-throw line, the school mascot painted in the center so weathered and chipped that the whole thing looked like an ancient mosaic. The boys who smoked weed all through the fall had vanished, leaving behind two short, skinny boys playing a hard, fast game. Perhaps Sheba only cared about the boys. More likely than not, she cared about how hard they were playing, that they could want to win so badly that neither dared back down.
    Lynnea got out of her car and walked over to Sheba. A few students she recognized looked at her, but she pretended not to see them. “C’mon,” Lynnea said, “I’ll give you a ride home.”
    Sheba looked at Lynnea with annoyance, then resignation, as though she’d weighed her options and had decided she might as well get a free ride. Sheba walked with Lynnea to the parking lot,