Charly had already decided that he was a ladies man, with probably more women than he could handle or that was decent for any one man to have, and that devastatingly attractive smile proved it for her.
“I know Dr. Dorsett is still on vacation,” he said. “Who’s in charge on his absence?”
Charly would have thought he would know that, being the chief of police, but he apparently did not.
But then he continued. “And if you say Jesus,” he added, “I’ll pull out my revolver and shoot you on the spot.”
The board members, who’d had it up to here with Boone Ryan and his antics to begin with, recoiled at his politically-incorrect joke, but Charly couldn’t help it. She smiled.
Boone noticed her smile at the same time that he noticed the oddity of her presence. He purposely didn’t know much about Saint Christopher nowadays, although his parents had forced him to attend it in his youth. But even then he found the place to be a stuffy, closed institution that never had a black face in sight. Or, until recently, a poor white one. She had to be new in town.
Although Amos stood up after he asked who was in charge, Boone kept glancing over at the woman beside him.
“The principal is on vacation,” said Amos, “as you rightly stated. Therefore, I am in charge, sir.”
“And you are?” asked Boone.
Amos found it insulting that Boone didn’t know who he was, but it wasn’t surprising. Boone never bothered to get to know the law-abiding residents. From what Amos saw, he seemed to prefer to cast his lot with the law breakers. “I am Amos Yerkson, the vice-principal,” Amos said.
“And the lady beside you?” Boone couldn’t help but ask.
Amos knew exactly why that rascal asked. “I want to introduce you to our brand new dean of students, Miss Charlene Johnson.”
At first Boone was surprised. And then he smiled. “I’ll be damn,” he said. “Who would have thunk it? A woman dean at Saint Chris.”
“And a black no less,” Charly volunteered before she realized it, a remark that caused the whole of the front row to turn and look at her with disdain. And their old eyes said it all: it was one thing to think such a thing, but utterly rude to proclaim it!
Chief Ryan, however, laughed out loud. His men, including Dontay Culpepper, didn’t hold back either.
“Yeah,” Boone said to Charly, “that too.”
Charly gave another sweet smile and a lift of her eyebrows that made Boone feel as if he had an ally. Why he felt that way made no sense to him. But he felt it.
Now she had his attention. His tired, brownish-green eyes traveled down the length of her body the way they always did when he was sexually curious. She was a tall, voluptuously curvaceous, elegant-looking lady, he thought. And although she possessed a dramatically beautiful face, he was willing to bet she was one of those women who didn’t see herself that way.
He drew that conclusion, not because he was clairvoyant, but because of the ill-conceived clothing she wore. It was a nice-fitting, conservative skirt and blouse with a cardigan sweater to round out the package. It didn’t hide her boobs, they were too sizeable, but the blouse was buttoned up to the throat and the skirt nearly covered her calves. I mean really, he thought. She was a woman in her mid-thirties, if he had to guess, not some fifty year old. What on earth was she trying to hide?
“Are you new to Hemingway, Miss Johnson?” Boone asked her.
“Just arrived,” she said.
“Some welcome.”
“Yes,” Charly agreed. “And here I was expecting a tickertape parade.”
Boone laughed again. “I’ll bet these blue-haired old ladies in this joint are gonna love you,” he said snidely.
But Charly, for that brief moment in time, loved him, because his little reply caused those disdainful eyes on the front row to finally shift away from her, and back to him. Not that she was intimidated by those board members. She wasn’t in the least. But it was just that she was tired of being judged and deemed unworthy no matter where she went. Or what she said. She was tired of it. She was hoping this time would be different.
And like his assessment previously, he now had her attention too. He was a tall man. She was five-seven, but she believed him to be at least six-two, with a big, muscular body bordering on becoming slightly overweight; thick brown hair with touches of gray; hard, brownish-green eyes with a hazel look, and an interesting mouth. But his eyes, though attractive, weren’t kind, even when he was laughing. There was an overall unapproachableness about him to Charly.
“If you’re the VP,” Boone said to Amos, “and this lady here is the dean, who are the rest of these people?”
“You know exactly who we are, Boone Ryan,” Margaret said. “Don’t you dare insult us.”
It was true. Boone’s family wasn’t among the richest in the county, they were the richest in the county. He knew all of those board members very well. They were his family’s social circle.
“I didn’t say I didn’t know you, Maggie,” Boone responded. “But I have no idea what your role at Saint Christopher’s is.”
“We’re members of the board of directors,” Fritz said. “I am the chairman. Les is the Vice Chairman. And Maggie is, well, Maggie. She’s a board member. We run this school.”
Boone rolled his eyes. The members of his social circle ate up power like ordinary citizens ate their lunch, and it was repulsive to Boone. “You may run this school from the board perspective,” he said to Fritz, “but I need the day-to-day runners. I need to meet privately with the vice-principal and Miss Johnson.”
Margaret was shocked. “Her? What do you need to meet with her for? She just got here, literally, and she wouldn’t be here at all had it not been for your cousin’s insistence that we diversify our faculty.”
Boone knew which cousin she meant. Freddy, the mayor, was the cousin she meant. He was all of their bosses in a manner of speaking.
But for Charly, it was an eye-opener. She was, if Margaret Ackroyd was to be believed, an experiment in diversity. Like a token. Like somebody hoist upon them. Which, translated, meant that they were looking for her to fail.
She already knew, but knew even more starkly right then and there, that failure was not an option.
“Come with me,” Boone said to Amos and Charly despite Margaret’s protestations. Then he looked at the head cook. “You, too, Zelda,” he added, as he looked at the large white woman with big, pink, jowly cheeks.
Amos, Charly, and Zelda followed Boone and Dontay, one of his plainclothes detectives he also ordered to come with him, all the way up front to the main office. The main office was overcrowded with parents when they made it up front, and every parent was gravely concerned. They all were shouting for answers from Amos as he entered the office, and from Chief Ryan, too, but they both ignored them and continued walking. But Boone looked back at Dontay.
“Tell your fellow officers to get up here and control this crowd,” he ordered. “And don’t let anybody else in the building.”
“Yes, sir,” said Dontay.
“This entire school is a crime scene until I say it’s not. Got it?”
“Got it,” Dontay responded, and hurried to do as he was told.