Free The School of Beauty and Charm by Melanie Sumner Page A

my heart fluttered and thumped like a bird with a broken wing. Already, the blush was beginning. Would he kiss me?
    â€œWell, Rhoda,” he said. He kicked his feet up on his desk, leaned back in his chair, and laced his thick fingers behind his head. He looked at me, hard. His eyes were blue. It was just us, in the chalky room, shades drawn, fluorescent lights buzzing. Slowly, the fire in my chest flickered up to my neck, and then my cheeks, spreading out to my ears. Love! How could I tell him? He had to know my scorching agony—it was him! He was in me, burning and burning. The way he stomped to the board with his stub of chalk, how he scratched his neck, the ball turret gunner, and the aardvark . . . “You’re slacking off,” he said. “Any reason?”
    I gazed back at him. This was the moment. I could say, “Mr. Rutherford, I lust for you.” My face was on fire; my palms sweated; my loins ached. I opened my mouth. “Kiss me,” I wanted to say, and then he would stand up from his swivel chair, lift me onto the broad, battered old desk, and deflower me. He waited. My mouth closed, and then opened again.
    At last, my words came out. I said, “I dunno.”
    â€œI suggest you get off your butt and get back to work,” hesaid, and that was the end. His face closed. He was done with me. I was a child.
    As Henry swung us around the steep, precarious curves of Lookout Mountain, I envisioned Mr. Rutherford’s face as the news of my tragic death reached him. He’d be strong at school, tougher still at football practice, but when he went home to his little stone teacher’s cottage at the edge of the Bridgewater campus, he’d crumple. “Rhoda, Rhoda,” he’d moan into his wet pillow as his heavy chest shook with sobs. “Oh Rhoda, how I longed for your passionate surrender.” A suicide would be even better.
    At the bottom of the mountain, Henry pulled into a Sunoco. It was open. They were asking ninety-one cents a gallon. Henry pulled up to a tank and let the car idle for several minutes while he debated with himself. We watched him, waiting. He couldn’t do it.
    â€œOh Lawdee!” cried Florida as we pulled back out on the highway. The gas needle was pressed against the far left corner of the gauge. “We’re through!”
    â€œThat’s a racket,” Henry explained softly. “See, he knows that ole Bob up on the mountain is closed on Sunday—the two of them are in cahoots. Bob, you close on Sunday, and I’ll close on Monday, and we’ll wrap this thing up tight. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were first cousins.” The engine made a sound like a straw sucking up the last Coca-Cola from a bottle. “There’s another service station right up the road,” Henry said.
    When the Galaxie 500 finally hiccuped to a stop, Florida was the first one out. A string of yarn had gotten wound around herankle, and it caught in the door, but she whipped the harness off and without looking once behind her, set off down the highway. It was an empty road, the same gray as the sky.
    At the wheel, Henry said, “Headstrong!” He rolled his window down and called out angrily, “Florida!” but she didn’t even turn her head. In her Jacqueline Kennedy sunglasses and stretch pants, with a red scarf knotted under her chin, she looked just like a divorcée.
    â€œYou want me to go get her?” asked Roderick.
    â€œNo!” shouted Henry. “You all stay put. This family is loose as a goose. She’s going to get killed out there.” Again, he called for her out the window, but she was now a silhouette in the distance. He tried to start the engine, but it wouldn’t turn over. His face turned purple. Blue veins stood out on his neck and hands. “Loose as a goose!” he repeated, and then stepped out of the car, locking the door behind him. He looked furiously at the