Parma High by Lady Gwynedd.pdf

Parma High by Lady Gwynedd

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6611650/1/

Chapter One: A Freshening Breeze

'Give me freshening breeze, my boys,

A white and swelling sail,

A ship that cuts the dashing waves,

And weathers every gale.

What life is like a freshening breeze,

So free, so bold, so brave?

Seattle, Washington, June 30th. High: 60 F Low: 50 F Barometric Pressure 30.2

inHg*, Cloudy

"SCHOOL'S OUT FOR SUMMER!

SCHOOL'S OUT FOREVER!

SCHOOL'S BEEN BLOWN TO PIECES!

NO MORE PENCILS,

NO MORE BOOKS,

NO MORE TEACHER'S DIRTY LOOKS…"

Alice Cooper was blasting out of the quad speakers my ex-boyfriend had installed

in my truck and I was singing my heart out as I drove down the road. I, Isabella

Marie Swan, felt both liberated and guilty. I felt liberated because I was finally

leaving gloomy, cold and rainy state of Washington and was headed to the

sunshiny, warm, and tropical state of Florida. I felt guilty because I wasn't a

student anymore. Actually, I was supposedly the person that was going to be

giving those dirty looks since my brand new diploma said so. But hell, teachers

could celebrate the summer too, couldn't they?

And boy did I feel like celebrating. I had moved from Arizona to Washington the

beginning of my junior year of high school. Mom had just remarried and, though I

liked Phil Dwyer, my new step-father, being around honeymooners - especially if

one of them gave birth to you - well, that's just ick. So I asked my father Charlie,

who was also the police chief of the tiny town of Forks, if I could move in with

him for the last two years of high school and of course he was delighted.

I loved my Dad but I was perpetually cold and depressed living in Forks under a

continuous rain cloud most of the time, so when I applied for college I tried just

about every school that was located in an area whose temperature rarely went

below seventy degrees. Dad, because Dad was sensible, suggested that I also

apply in-state as a backup plan. You know - just in case.

Well, guess what? UDub gave me a full ride. The schools that accepted me in the

sunny south were pleased to have me if I was willing to pay full out-of-state

tuition and that was the deciding factor. I couldn't afford to go to a warmer,

sunnier school so it was four more years of purgatory, commonly known as the

State of Washington to me.

If you ignore the weather, Seattle is a nice city and I actually enjoyed living

there. I got a good education – summa cum laude in English Literature with a

minor in Secondary English Education thank you very much – and the four years

went by quickly. But you better believe when it came time for me to apply for a

teaching job I looked in warmer climes.

The only problem was as I was nearing graduation it was next to impossible to

find a job especially as an English teacher with no experience other than the

practicum and student teaching experiences required of all education students.

Seems like the boards of education country wide were reducing, cutting back, and

simply not hiring.

Dad invited me to live with him again.

That scared the crap out of me. No way was I going back to frigid Forks - just no.

Then, the kind citizens of the Sunshine State itself did a wondrous thing. They

voted in a mother f'ing amendment to their state constitution saying that no

classroom in any public school in Florida could have more than a certain number

of students. At the high school grades they were capping it at twenty-five. That

meant those lovely Floridians were forcing the hands of their sixty-seven county

school boards to hire more teachers. Many more.*

In one afternoon, I applied for a teaching job in every county in Florida that had

an on-line application and two weeks later I had three job offers. I picked the one

that was furthest south: Parma High School in Bishop County, mean temperature

seventy-five blessed degrees and only a handful of completely cloudy days in a

year.

The second thing I did was to break up with my boyfriend. Mike was a decent guy

and all but he wasn't interested in leaving his home state of Washington. Besides,

he'd become more of a habit lately than someone I consciously chose. We had

been dating for about two years and the fire was gone. I was beginning to

wonder if it ever had been there at all. When I accepted the Parma job I was

surprised that he was actually upset about it. Seems he had expected to settle

down with me. It took me a week to dissuade him from that idea.

Dad bought me a used Ford F-150 but it was in really good shape and only two

years old. He said it was my graduation present and I was grateful. I knew that

my old beater wouldn't have made it across the state line, never-the-less the

whole nation. And when you thought about it Florida was about as far away as

you could get from Washington without leaving the United States.

I had some money saved up and so I decided that I would drive across the

country as soon as I could get myself organized. Mike was making it difficult to be

in Seattle and it was the rainy season there any way. Did I mention that it was

always the rainy season in Seattle?

So anyway, two weeks after graduation I had packed up and was ready to hit the

road.

One thing I'll say about a long drive, besides scorfing up tons of little bottles of

shampoo and conditioner they give out at motels, is it gives a girl the chance to

think. The majority of my thoughts focused on what in the world was wrong with

me? Mike was a decent guy. He was good to me. He was easy to be around but

he was also easy to not be around at least for me. I never missed him when we

were away from each other although I was always glad to see him when we got

together again.

All my friends thought he was great, even Charlie. The only person who didn't

agree was my mother, Renée. She told me he was a drag. But then that wasn't

surprising. If my mother had been born a couple of decades earlier she'd have

been a hippie. Mike was too stodgy and conventional for her. It made me wonder

how she ever got hooked up with Charlie because those two words sort of defined

him. I suppose it did explain why she left him after I was born, though.

I couldn't help but think I may have made a mistake leaving Seattle after the first

panic passed. And panic is exactly what I felt when Mike disclosed that he always

planned to marry me. You know that fight or flight reflex? Well, it's real because I

couldn't get away fast enough. But now the few thousand miles I had put

between us got me to thinking that perhaps I was too hasty. Here I was running

away to a place I had never been, to be among people I had never met, doing a

job that I had never done. I must be crazy. A few times on my journey, I almost

decided to turn around but then I remembered that while I was living in

Washington my underwear of choice were long johns even in the summer and

honestly, I just couldn't face that again.

Jacksonville, Florida, July 8th. High 90 F, Low 72, F Barometric Pressure 31 inHg

Originally, I was planning to drive straight to Parma with no side trips but my

mother lived in Jacksonville now and though it was a little bit out of my way what

was two hours out of a 50 hour trip? So, when I crossed the Florida state line

instead of continuing south on I-75 I took a left on the I-10 and an hour later I

was pulling into the driveway of my mom's and step-father's bungalow.

I had called her the night before asking if I could come so she was prepared.

When I saw the sign out front, I was sorry I had given her a heads up.

"WELCOME HOME BELLY!" was spray painted on an old bed sheet hanging across

the front porch.

Geesh, Mom. Now all the neighbors were going to think someone had a reverse

lipo-suction or something. Phil and Renée were on the front porch yelling and

screaming in happiness – I hoped - to see me. Knowing my mother it could be

that she was screaming away the evil spirits that may have followed me from the

Pacific Northwest.

Both of them ran out and hugged me at the same time. Unfortunately, I hadn't

completely exited from the cab of my truck and we all ended up on the ground.

They didn't pay any attention to that; they were still hugging me as we rolled

around on the grass. This was normal for Renée. This is also why I didn't visit

them too often. I can only deal with so much crazy.

But actually it was good to be with them for the moment. I never realized how

much I missed my mother until I saw her again - sort of like I never missed Mike.

Really, it was just more proof that there must be something wrong with me.

They ushered me up off the lawn and into their little eclectic bungalow. There was

no place to sit in the living room just the floor. When I looked around Renée said,

"Oh, just pull up a pillow and sit wherever you want. Furniture is so conformist

and constricting."

That could mean they had to hock all their furniture to make rent or today they

really believed that The Man was out to get us all by the nefarious use of chairs

and sofas. I remember once when I was in middle school, The Man was

brainwashing us through the electrical currents in our homes so we didn't have

electricity for a few weeks. However, when Mom got her tax refund that year

suddenly The Man stopped using the electrical grid to control our minds. I've

always thought my mother's politics were completely situational.

"So Bella, why did you decide on Parma? That's old fogey-ville."

"Is it? All I cared about was that it was in the sub-tropics and they wanted me to

teach."

"Well, they roll up the streets after nine pm on the Gulf coast."

"That's not a problem for me."

"Oh, I forgot. You like dull," Renée scoffed.

"Now Mom, why do you say that?"

"Look at your boyfriend. Michael Newt or whatever? By the way, why isn't he

here with you?"

"It's Newton, Mom. Michael Newton. And about that… he's not my boyfriend

anymore. We broke up."

"FINALLY!"

"Mom…" I whined. She always was able to bring out the emo teen in me.

"Bella, he was all wrong for you."

I rolled my eyes.

"Truly, he was. When you were around him your aura wasn't just brown which is

bad enough, it was beige." Mom shuddered from the horribleness of my

unbecoming aurae.

"But now I think of it I could tell something was up with you, Bella. When you got

here today I could see your aura is not beige anymore, it's changing and

unsettled." She peered at the area around me as if she was trying to see more

clearly.

I was so used to this weirdness I didn't even sigh but I did sort of wonder what

her aura was. Tutti-frutti, perhaps?

Phil came into the living room with a bong. "In honor of your homecoming let's

have a celebratory toke."

"Thanks but no thanks. I can't be around that stuff, Phil."

"Why not? No one here is going to narc."

"Probably the first thing they'll do when I get to Parma is make me pee in a cup.

If pot shows up in my system I'll go on record as the having the shortest

employment in Bishop County history."

Surprisingly Mom spoke up, "She has a point, hon. Just go out on the back porch

and relax. I'll join you in a while."

"Okay. Remember though, this is good shit. May not last."

"Don't bogart the Columbian, honey," Mom called, "That's just rude." But Phil was

already out of the room.

"Mom, seriously where do you get those terms? You sound like a seventies teen

flick."

Renée just snorted and ignored my comment.

"So you dumped that dude, Bella. I am so surprised."

I shook my head, "I am not sure I did the right thing. Mike was a decent guy.

Maybe he was the one?"

Renée coughed in disbelief, "Maybe? Honey if he was the one there would be no

'maybe' about it. You would know. There would be something about him that just

won't let you go. Your spirit will recognize him before your mind will even know

he exists." She smiled and gazed off at nothing, a nostalgic look on her face.

I vainly tried to not roll my eyes. Renée was all into the metaphysical side of

reality. From my long years of living with her, I could tell you that she simply

liked to distort what was real to suit her own preferences. That got her in trouble

more than once, let me tell you.

Renée saw my expression and sighed, "You know Bella, I may be a fruit loop

about some things but I do know about this. Falling head over heels in love

happens. It just hasn't happened to you, yet. I was so afraid that you would

settle for 'comfortable' because you didn't believe there was an 'amazing' out

there for you."

She leaned forward, grabbed my hand and looked earnestly into my eyes, "Do

me a favor honey, don't 'settle.' Hold out for 'amazing.'"

Curiously, that phrase echoed in my head for the rest of the evening and on into

my dreams. Hold out for amazing. How I truly wished Renée was correct. But I

didn't know. Maybe there was something wrong with me that I couldn't feel that

spark. Maybe I was doomed to only to settle. Maybe I was so used to being

independent and self-reliant that feeling so intensely connected to another person

was beyond my capabilities.

Evidently The Man was forcing his conformist ways on the unsuspecting with

mattresses and box springs as well in the Dwyer household. After a night of

sleeping on a pallet I decided that my back couldn't take a longer visit. After

treating Renée and Phil to breakfast at Denny's, I headed for Parma.

Parma, Florida, July 9th. High 92 F, Low 75, F Barometric Pressure 30.4 inHg,

Clear

Six hours later, I was pulling in to the Bishop County School Board administrative

center. I figured they could direct me to some places to live and I wanted to ask

if it was okay for me to visit Parma High before I was actually required to be

there.

I walked up to the receptionist feeling pretty skuzzy after my drive and explained

what I wanted and she had me sign in and pressed a button so I could pass the

doors that led to the offices behind her. The first door on the left was the

personnel department.

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