At Risk of Being a Fool Read online

  At Risk of Being a Fool

  By Jeanette Cottrell

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright 2011 Jeanette Cottrell

  ISBN: 978-1-4657-4885-0

  Discover other titles by Jeanette Cottrell at

  www.jeanettecottrell.com

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author

  Dedication

  With love to my sisters:

  Susan Katie O’Brien, whose lively correspondence has been an anchor in my life for decades; and

  Jennie Lynn Cottrell, whose loving care for our father has earned her a permanent place on the family’s Angel List.

  Acknowledgments

  This book has many roots. In particular, I treasured my year of teaching in Youth Development, Inc.’s GED Program, of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Thanks also to Mary Ann Caldwell for her kindly shepherding. Mary Ann: I borrowed your initials for Mackie Sandoval’s name.

  I extend my sincere gratitude to the Nightingale Lane Memory Loss Facility of Arvada, Colorado, and Channel Point Village of Hoquiam, Washington. You gave my father’s final years the safety and dignity he sorely needed.

  Last but not least, I greatly appreciate the time and efforts of three people in the writing world who gave me the benefit of their knowledgeable eyes and willing hearts: C. J. Hannah, Monty Montee, and the late Fay Robinson. It’s difficult to believe I never met any of you except online, but I sure know those critiques! Ouch! And thank you!

  CHAPTER ONE

  A human tornado barreled across the parking lot. Jeanie McCoy, sitting behind her steering wheel, enjoyed the spectacle. Sorrel Quintana, the tornado, looked like a model for an arcade game heroine, with a lush figure, smoldering eyes, her every motion a symphony of controlled mayhem. Jeanie’s young grandson was enamored of such games. She wondered what Andy would make of Sorrel Quintana. Probably, he’d drool at a safe distance, peering around the edge of a dumpster. Andy was a child of great good sense. Sorrel, on the other hand—

  The car door flew open, and Sorrel landed on the seat with a thud, yanking the door closed an instant later. Jeanie noted the flushed cheeks and the quick rise and fall of her chest, and mentally backed off a pace.

  “Good,” she said. “I’m glad you found me.”

  “Can we get the hell out of here?” Sorrel set her electric-green vinyl purse against her thigh and snapped the safety belt in one smooth motion. She glared at the industrial gray building hulking in front of the car. “God, he’s a bastard.” Randy Firman, Sorrel’s parole officer, had an office tucked into gray stone anonymity scarcely a mile from the Oregon Capitol building.

  “Hmmm,” said Jeanie. “Sorry you had a rough time.” The newspaper crumpled under Sorrel’s shifting feet. “Let me get that out of your way.”

  Sorrel snatched the paper. “I’ve got it.” She shrugged herself into the corner against the door, half-facing Jeanie. The newspaper rustled, trapped under Sorrel’s lap belt. “Can we just go?” She caught Jeanie’s glance at the newspaper, and yanked it loose. “I’m folding it, all right? You happy?”

  “Yes, thank you.” Jeanie drove out of the parking lot, heading north. She glanced at Sorrel, wondering how much classwork she’d manage to get out of the girl today. Not much, likely.

  “What are you staring at?”

  “I was admiring your fingernails.” Thirty years of teaching had taught Jeanie McCoy a thing or two. Indirection and small surprises worked better than confrontation. And they were nice nails, perfectly shaped, probably glued on yesterday: Revlon’s finest, coated with poisonous green. Sorrel’s blouse, artfully decorated with large green sequins, spilled open in front, displaying an impressive cleavage. Darker green shadowed her eyes, shining with something indefinable, picking up the gloss of her raven-black hair. The earrings twirled lightly, a lacquered fantasia in green and bronze. How did she manage the artful effects under the rigors of life at Bright Futures Transition Facility for Girls? She must stash makeup everywhere: at school, in the van, and at work. Certainly, the buttons came undone in the step from the Bright Futures’ van to the sidewalk.

  Jeanie ruffled her own short white hair, still spattered with its original brown. “Your sense of style is better than mine ever was.”

  Sorrel’s face softened. The two bright spots in her cheeks faded. Mentally, Jeanie gave herself a point for defusing tension. Kherra had been right. Coaching students through their General Equivalency Diplomas, or GEDs, was infinitely preferable to sitting around the house, fretting about Edward. “Just toss the paper in the back. Sorrel?”

  Sorrel’s eyes were riveted on the paper.

  “Sorrel, is there a problem?”

  “No,” Sorrel said, a small strangled sound. Her reddened cheeks flushed deeply, then went sheet-white. She threw the paper into the back seat, flipped down the visor, and groped through her purse for lipstick.

  Jeanie turned into a narrow parking lot behind the pink stucco building. The administrative offices that housed the GED school were a conglomerate of public services and cheaply rented professional offices. The two-story building, painted an incongruous pink with white trim, always reminded Jeanie of a petrified birthday cake.

  “Sorrel, are you all right? You look ill.”

  “I’m fine.” Sorrel scrabbled her makeup together. She jumped out the door while the car was still rolling, and fled to the doorway.

  Jeanie slammed on the brakes. She’d probably run to the bathroom, to rebuild her armor in front of a larger mirror. Sorrel’s rages were legendary, but she hadn’t looked mad just now. She’d looked scared. Jeanie retrieved the newspaper, trying to steel her heart against her protective instinct. She’d fought the same battle on a daily basis for thirty years. She nearly always failed.

  Jeanie scanned the paper, still opened to the third page. After skimming interviews with legislators explaining a third round of social service budget cuts, she found the small article.

  EXPLOSION ON CONSTRUCTION SITE

  Salem, Oregon. An explosion at a north central Salem construction site critically wounded one man as a homemade explosive device exploded at five forty-five p.m. last evening. The blast severely injured Bryce Wogan and partially destroyed a truck owned by Delancey Brothers Contractors.

  The victim was found by Daniel Rivera, assistant foreman, and rushed to the Salem Hospital, where he is reported to be in critical condition. Police are conducting investigations. The work crew includes at least one minor presently engaged in a work-release program through the Oregon Youth Authority. Delancey Brothers Contractors has offered a reward for information leading to the conviction of the person or persons responsible.

  Jeanie’s eyes flew open wide. Delancey Brothers was one of the school’s business partners. And the “minor engaged in a work-release program” was Quinto, her spray-paint king. Ever since Mackie landed the job for him, all he could talk about was the construction site, and the “way cool” Mr. Rivera. And naturally, the newspaper jumped right onto him, prating about Youth Authority. Wouldn’t you know they’d pinpoint any teenager they could lay hands on, however vaguely connected? They always did it, and rarely trumpeted the teen’s innocence once proved.

  She grimaced at her leap of faith, denying logic. Teachers resisted thinking evil of their students. Sometimes, their apparent blindness made them look like hens flutterin
g sheltering wings over a nest full of buzzards. It was only natural for the media to jump on the connection, and of course the police would do the same. But she hated the instant assumption that an adolescent in trouble was the automatic suspect in the next crime occurring nearby. She understood it, but she hated it.

  Poor Quinto. He’d be devastated. Even if he knew nothing, he’d be running scared. But why was Sorrel afraid, too? The article really threw her for a loop.

  An engine rumbled to a stop parallel to the street curb. Mr. Matthews, the usual driver for the Dandridge House Residential Transition Facility for Boys, saw her when he was halfway out of the van’s driver’s seat. He raised a hand and heaved his perspiring bulk back into the seat, growling warnings to the three heads in the back seats.

  The van’s side door opened and slammed shut. Quinto walked towards the building, his head hanging. Galvanized, she stepped fast to catch up with him.

  ~*~

  Twenty minutes later, she meditated her approach while watching Quinto from the corner of her eye. He’d given her a hunted look, sidled into the room, and found a chair with its back to the wall. By the time she engaged her other students in some semblance of study, he’d covered his paper with frantic sketches and flipped the paper to the other side. She’d give him another five minutes, she decided, before trying to get any work out of him. Thirty years of experience had honed her reflexes, keeping students engaged and relatively contented. Now, however, those reflexes tripped her constantly. She’d had less than a month to unlearn thirty years of habits. She felt like a first-year teacher again. This batch of kids certainly kept her hopping.

  The problem must be my nose, Jeanie McCoy reflected.

  First, her uneducated nose had stumbled over Brynna. At nineteen, Brynna looked like a lost waif, a deceiving appearance for a girl with a razor-like tongue and the soul of a vampire. Biding her time, waiting for a chance to build rapport, Jeanie had seized on a perfect opportunity. Brynna had walked in smelling of sweet musk. Jeanie McCoy chirped, “New perfume, huh, Brynna? Interesting, what’s the brand?”

  How on earth, in all those years, had she missed the marijuana-recognition courses? Why hadn’t any of the trainers at the inservices brought marijuana for all the goody-two-shoes to sniff? Books on eye dilation and behavioral changes only went so far. Now there was a thought. Scratch-and-sniff books for educators: The Dummy’s Guide to Marijuana, Hashish, and Aerosols.

  Jeanie followed this performance by tripping over a drug dealer down the street and wishing him an expansive good morning. Later she mistook a small sack of leaves in the office for tea leaves and audibly mourned the lack of hot water.

  About then, the kids decided she was putting them on. No one could be that naïve. She’d wound up with a backhanded reputation for a jaded sort of street smarts. Quinto, in fact, had been admiring.

  “That Jeanie, she’s some wicked joker.”

  After that, “tea leaves” no longer appeared in the office and tricks died to a minimum. Nowadays, three weeks into class, she only contended with daily pandemonium.

  Jeanie McCoy, the wicked joker, aged fifty-eight, twisted her wedding ring and looked over her tiny kingdom with resigned frustration. There were six students, all between seventeen and twenty-one. Sorrel Quintana, Dillon Henley, Rosalie Perea, Tonio Valenzuela, Brynna Gallagher, and Joaquin a.k.a. Quinto Cervantes. All of them had criminal records for drugs, vandalism, and in two cases assault with intent. They worked in the mornings at various jobs, laboriously lined up by the inexhaustible Miss Mackie Sandoval. In the afternoons, they attended class with Jeanie, studying for the GED exams.

  Silently, she recited her mental tags: Sorrel, the Amazon; Dillon, the wolf; Rosalie, the random; Tonio, the still waters; Brynna, the vampire; Quinto, the artist.

  “Dillon, how’s it going?” she said to the “timber wolf” at the corner desk. Dillon had perfectly-waved brown hair and a Dick Tracy jaw on a face that stopped showing expression years before.

  “Percentages are a load of crap,” muttered Dillon.

  “A startling number of people agree with you,” she said, settling next to him. She demonstrated the technique again. Dillon tolerated education in five-minute spurts and no more. If she stayed near him beyond that, he jumped out of his seat to pace the floor. Like a wolf, he had a predatory look, rippling and hypnotic. She’d met hundreds of braggarts and show-offs, mouthy teenagers with heavy crusts and custard-cream fillings. Dillon, she knew instinctively, was for real.

  A swish of color caught her eye. Rosalie flitted through the room. Like an exotic hummingbird, she chose to light on whatever object took her fancy. “Rosalie, back to your seat.”

  “Sure.” Rosalie wandered in the general direction of her chair. “Hey, Quinto, that’s pretty.” Rosalie’s fingers brushed his paper lightly.

  “Yeah,” Quinto said. Under his hands, a rose bloomed in exquisite perfection. Usually, he drew faces. Rosalie’s thin, haggard beauty peered from many corners of his papers. Dillon’s face graced others, unmistakable threat clear in the angle of his head, the tension in his jaw. Quinto’s eye was far faster than his brain. The toe of his shoe tapped restlessly. Only his hand moved quickly and surely.

  A phone rang. Dillon pulled the tiny phone out of his coat pocket and flipped it open. “It’s me,” he said, as he’d said countless times in the last few weeks, sometimes several times in an afternoon. His eyes still on the math book, he held out the phone. Jeanie took it.

  “Hi, Randy, it’s Jeanie McCoy. He’s here.” Her eyes traveled to the clock over the door. “Yes, on the dot. He’s working just fine. What? Oh. Yes, I got Sorrel, no problem.” She switched off the phone, and set it on the desk. It was handy having Randy Firman as parole officer to both Dillon and Sorrel, though she doubted they’d agree. “Sorrel, put the mirror away.”

  Sorrel threw her a look of open-mouthed contempt. “In a minute, woman.”

  “It’s ‘Jeanie,’ not ‘woman.’”

  “All right, all right, girl. Jeanie.”

  Brynna snickered. Without looking, Jeanie knew Brynna wore the look of sly pleasure that ate at Sorrel like water torture. Drip, drip, drip. Brynna, you’ll be the death of me, Jeanie thought. Envy was part of the equation. Sorrel’s colorful extravagance suited her. Brynna’s surreptitious attempts along the same line only made her look like a hooker on the prowl.

  She sidestepped, shielding Sorrel from Brynna’s vulture act. Sorrel’s eyes dropped. Jeanie didn’t rush her. Slowly, I-was-about-to-do-this-anyway, you’re-not-pushing-me, Sorrel put away the mirror. She stood and stretched elaborately, sank back down, crossed her legs, and pulled her book closer.

  “So Brynna,” said Jeanie, “can I snitch a pretzel from you?”

  Startled, Brynna shoved the bag over. Jeanie slipped out a broken pretzel and slapped the bag shut, as though trapping a mouse. “Have to move fast,” she whispered, “so the calories don’t get out.”

  Brynna’s wide-eyed look faded perceptibly. The ghost of a chuckle escaped. Jeanie winked as she left, drawn by Quinto’s unnatural silence. She drew up a chair next to him. If she’d been in her high school classroom, with a student obviously upset, she’d have opened with a casual punch on the shoulder. Not here, though. Mackie had drilled her on that during those first watchful days. Never touch. Not ever.

  “Hey, Quinto. I heard there was some trouble at your work site. Are you doing okay?”

  His hand jerked. Seeming to move by itself, his hand shaded a rose petal. “Hmm.” A thorn sprouted from the rose’s stem, sharp and deadly.

  “Mackie said you were doing really well there. She’s proud of you.”

  Quinto’s face lightened. “Yeah, I done real good, Mr. Rivera said. Even the boss, the big guy.” Earnestly, Quinto’s eyes sought hers. “Only now, I can’t go for a while, ‘cause the boss, Mr. Wogan, he got hurt real bad.”

  “Yes, I read about that in the paper. An explosion?”

  His voice dropped. “Pipe bomb, cops
said. He’s hurt bad. One of his eyes got ripped out, and his hands are all—well, you know.”

  “I’m so sorry, Quinto. It must have been a terrible shock. Were you there when it happened?”

  “No. It was right after I left. See, Mr. Matthews, he comes for me every day, to take me back to the House.” The rose sprouted thorns, dark and savage. Drops of blood dripped from them. “Pipe bombs, they’re really bad, ‘cause they stick nails and stuff in them and they all go flying.” From the side of the rose, a nail shot out. Another arched higher. A third spiked into an unidentifiable mass, possibly human.

  Quinto’s face twisted. He threw the pencil across the room and sent the wadded paper after it. He buried his face in his arms. “Some of the guys thought he was mean, but he wasn’t so bad,” he said, voice muffled and cracked. “He was getting to like me, said I done good. It really means something, you know, when a guy like that says it. I was so happy when I left work, told Mr. Matthews all about it. And then, later on, the cops come.”

  “Quinto.” Jeanie’s hand edged out to touch him on the arm. She snatched it back. Never touch. “Quinto, I’m so sorry. Do you want make a card for him or something? Send one of your drawings to the hospital, so he knows how you feel?”

  “The cops think I done it.”

  “They do not! Quinto, don’t you even say such a thing.”

  “I worked there, I’m in a gang. I mean, I was in a gang.”

  “Quinto, you’re in the House now. You’re under someone’s eye all day long. The police know that. How could you possibly build a pipe bomb?”

  Quinto raised his head. The tear-streaked face looked oddly wise. “Shit, Jeanie, it don’t take nothing but a phone call to get a pipe bomb. There’s phones everywhere. I could of done it. Two minutes, that’s all.”

  “I guess I’m out of touch.”

  Quinto snorted softly. His half-smile pulled at her. “Hey, like that’s news? They think somebody brung it over, and I hid it by the truck. But I didn’t. Nobody touches that truck but Mr. Wogan. I did once, the first day, see, and he had a fit. Damn, I thought he was gonna hit me, or something, but it was just, you know, Mr. Rivera, he said Mr. Wogan really liked that truck a lot.”