Blind Squirrels

  Blind Squirrels

  By Jennifer Davis

  I would like to dedicate this book to all of my dear friends from high school and beyond. I would especially like to acknowledge Lisa Tillery, Amanda Guevara Rocha, and Marta Guevara. They will always be the Olivias in my life.

  Preface

  This story takes place in the fictional town of Foster’s Bank, Florida. Having grown up in Pensacola, Florida, I wanted to set my story in a similar locale. I chose the name Foster’s Bank from a piece of Pensacola’s history. Foster’s Bank is the name of a peninsula of land in Perdido Key where Fort McRee once stood. Fort McRee was one of three military forts that was built to protected Pensacola and Pensacola Bay. Fort McRee, now all but reduced to rubble by the weather, has fascinated me for a number of years. As a young girl, I visited the other two forts, Fort Barrancas on NAS Pensacola and Fort Pickens on Santa Rosa Island, many times, and I always heard about Fort McRee and longed to visit it as well. I finally got a chance as a young woman when my then husband, Dan Cowser, and I took a boat out through Big Lagoon towards Pensacola Bay. We happened upon Foster’s Bank quite by accident, but we were able to distinguish some of the old fort’s foundation. It was very exciting, and that experience has kept my interest in Fort McRee alive for all these years. I decided that naming my town after Fort McRee’s location would be my tribute to this historic place. I continued with this theme by naming the high school William McRee High, after the army engineer colonel the fort was named for. The rival high school, Bragg, was named for the general who was the commander of the Confederate forces in Pensacola. The alternative school mentioned, Brown, was named for the commander of the Union forces. Center Middle School came from one of the battery names at Fort McRee.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  Chapter 1

  Max was sitting in the garden again. It was my third time seeing him there this week. He seemed so troubled – almost vulnerable. It was difficult seeing him like this. The Max I knew was always assured – always in control. I wanted desperately to help, but that could never be. I couldn’t even let him know that I was there.

  As he rose to leave, I continued eating my lunch. Max walked past me and absentmindedly said hello. He didn’t recognize me – I had changed quite a bit in twenty years. He was different as well: his black hair, shorter and thinning on top, was turning gray; his boyish face was now rugged and worn. As I watched him walking away, a yearning came over me. It was a familiar feeling – one I had known almost since the first day I laid eyes on Max Savage.

  Even as I fought that old emotion, I realized that I would lose – that I wanted to lose. I told myself that my love for Max transcended all time and all things and to fight something that strong was useless. Very soon, I was experiencing those old “crush” symptoms – sweaty palms, nervousness, and urgent desire. Caught up in the nostalgia and savoring the way I was feeling, I found myself transported back to that hot August day in 1975...

  Chapter 2

  It was the first day of school, the first day of high school, the first day of the most miserable four years of my life.

  In my world, nothing could ever go right. I’m not talking about the simple things that most people experience. Not pimples. Not changing voices that squeak at the wrong time. No, I’m talking about terrible things. Things like a mother forcing her overweight, five foot tall daughter to wear a blue knit dress on the first day of school. The first day and I was ruined for the next four years. I knew that no one in high school would be able to forget that stuffed whale look that my mother insisted was so cute. Even the teachers would be laughing at me. Sensing that I was about to slip into my bedroom and change into jeans and a T-shirt, my mother quickly set me out on the front steps and told me to get to the bus stop.

  Bus stop! No one had said anything about riding a bus!

  I dawdled on the steps. We had only lived in this neighborhood a few weeks, and I didn’t know anyone that would be riding the bus. Most of my friends lived on the other side of town, and they were going to Bragg High, which they assured me was the coolest high school in town. I, on the other hand, was going to William McRee High School, and I had heard from my friends that it was a terrible school – complete with race riots and designated smoking areas. Still, my biggest fear wasn’t that some of the troublemakers were on our bus. My biggest fear was that I wouldn’t know anyone – on the bus or at school. I was terribly afraid of being alone. Alone and in a skin tight dress that made me look like a whale and feel like a misfit.

  While trying to decide if I could spend the next four years standing on our steps and hiding from my mother, someone stepped from behind a bush that was at the corner of our yard. It was a girl I had seen a few times walking up and down the street in front of my house.

  “Going to the bus stop?” she asked.

  “Uh – umm…,” I was terminally shy.

  “Come on. My name is Tracy Morton. I live over there,” she pointed back down the street towards a green house on the opposite side. “It’s my first day in high school. What about you?”

  I was beginning to feel a little more comfortable. Tracy was about the same size that I was, and she was friendly enough. Luckily for her, she didn’t have a sadistic mother. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. I slowly stepped off the steps, and the two of us began walking up the hill to the bus stop.

  Tracy was talkative to say the least. She had an older brother named Andy, and two sisters, Faye and Sheila. Andy was fifteen, Faye was eight, and Sheila was eleven. Tracy and I were the same age, thirteen, although her birthday was coming up in September, and mine wasn’t until December. All of this I learned while walking to the bus stop– and there were only two houses between my house and the stop.

  I wanted to tell Tracy my name and all about my older brother Rick who was in the Navy, but we had reached the bus stop – and all the other kids. There were seven people already on the corner. Tracy waved her hand at them: the tall stocky muscular girl, the blonde beauty, the lanky skinny boy and the pint-sized skinny boy, the overweight boy with pimples, the cute guy with long black hair, and the tall, tan Greek god that I fell in love with the second my eyes met his. Just then Tracy nudged me and said, “What did you say your name was?”

  “Katrina.” I was almost shaking with fear.

  Then suddenly, Tracy was talking again. Only this time she was helping to make this an awful and unforgettable moment in my life.

  “Hey, everybody, this is Katrina!”

  Now, everyone was looking at me, the blue stuffed whale. And the looks on their faces reflected my worst fear: this was going to be a long, embarrassing year at WMHS. At that moment, I decided something very important: I didn’t like Tracy one little bit.

  As I stood there wishing I could melt into the pavement, the cute guy with long hair came to my rescue.

  “I’m Max,” he began, “…and these are my friends.”

  Max went around introducing everyone. Johnny was the Greek god. Erma was the muscular girl. Sally was the beauty. The lanky skinny boy was Amos and the shorter one was Frank. The boy with the pimply face was Mason.

  Suddenly I wasn’t the center of attention anymore, and I didn’t feel quite so out of place. Out of this crowd, only Johnny and Max seemed perfect. After all, Tracy was chubby like me. Erma was ve
ry tall and built like a football player; Amos had buck teeth and a bad haircut; Frank looked as if he was about seven years old; Sally laughed like a hyena and had the voice of a little tiny girl. Poor Mason was plump, wore horn-rimmed glasses, and had pimples covering his face. Even a blue whale looked good next to him. But best of all, there didn’t seem to be any bullies at our stop.

  Before the bus arrived, we were joined by two more boys, Terrance and Dale. Terrance was tall and thin with dark brown hair hanging to his shoulders. He began talking to Max and Johnny and they all seemed to be good friends. Dale was shorter and muscular. I imagined that he was a football player. He had dirty blond hair that was in a flat-top. He stayed to himself and spoke to no one.

  As the bus finally roared around the corner at the bottom of the hill, another boy was approaching the stop from the direction of my house. Pointing in the boy’s direction, Tracy announced that we’d better watch out. “There’s Travis Cartwright,” she said in what seemed to be an agitated voice, “Or should I say Trouble?” As Travis drew nearer, he looked more and more like he belonged in reform school instead of high school. He looked much older than the other guys, even though I was sure Johnny and Max were 15 or older. He was sporting a thin mustache, and his long brown hair was a mound of curly knots. I guessed that he hadn’t washed it all summer long. He wore a shabby white T-shirt and faded jeans. A pack of cigarettes was rolled up in the sleeve of his shirt. Still, something about Travis was appealing. He somehow made me feel intimidated and passionate at the same time.

  Then the bus eased to a stop, and the door flew open. As I waited in line, I could hear laughter and jeering coming from the bus. Could they be laughing at the blue whale, I wondered. Finally, I stepped onto the bus, which seemed filled to capacity. Behind me, I could feel Travis’s hot breath on my neck as he pushed me and the others forward as though he owned the bus.

  Very few seats held less than three people. Johnny had found an empty seat, but Tracy had forced him to share it with her. I thought of sitting with the two of them, but I feared that Tracy and I might take up most of the seat. I certainly didn’t want my Greek god to dwell on my size. Just then, I noticed that the one black girl on the bus was sitting alone. I looked down at her, and she smiled up at me. She had the most sincere smile I had seen all day, and I quickly sat down beside her.

  I knew Travis was right on my tail, but I didn’t know he was taking that literally. Before I had a chance to get comfortable, Travis was shoving himself into what remained of our seat. I gave him a disapproving look, and he stared back at me straight in the eye. His dark brown eyes seemed to swallow me up, and I quickly turned away from him.

  I turned my face towards the black girl. She was a little chubby, with a round friendly face. Her hair was the darkest black. It was kinky and long; hanging down about half-way to her waist. Her skin was the color of the purest milk chocolate and her eyes were as black as her hair. She was wearing a white button-up blouse and brown polyester pants. Quite suddenly, I realized that I had met her before.

  “Did you go to Center Middle School?” she asked before I could.

  “Yes,” I answered. “I remember seeing you there.”

  “My name is Aurelia Damask. I started going to Center Middle right before the end of the year. Before that, I went to school in New York.”

  “Really? That’s really cool.”

  “It is really different there. A lot more people. My family sent me here to live with my aunt and uncle. That’s one of my cousins sitting in front of us. Millie, turn around–”

  The girl in front of us had reddish-blond hair that was in an afro. She turned around. I was surprised to find that she was very light skinned, a vast contrast to Aurelia, and I wasn’t quite sure if Aurelia was teasing me or if this truly was her cousin. Millie’s lips were very full, her eyes were the color of almonds, and she was thin and very beautiful. She and Aurelia couldn’t have been more different. All of a sudden I noticed that Millie had a scowl on her face.

  “Aurelia! I have told you not to call me Millie! My name is Dominique. Please call me that!”

  “Okay, whatever. I just wanted you to meet someone…oh, dear; I forgot to ask your name...”

  “My name is Katrina,” I answered.

  Dominique smiled at last. It was the same sincere smile Aurelia had. “Very nice to meet you, Katrina,” she said.

  “Same here, Dominique,” I answered.

  “You know,” Aurelia whispered, “her real name is Millie Dominique Damask.”

  We started having a quiet chat, and I knew that I had just made two friends. I learned that Aurelia was almost fourteen, and Dominique had just turned fifteen in June. Aurelia revealed that her parents were divorced and her mother couldn’t afford to keep Aurelia in New York with her. Aurelia had wanted to move in with her dad who lived in Pennsylvania, but both of her parents felt she should come to Foster’s Bank and live with her dad’s brother and his family.

  Just then, the bus came to an abrupt stop. I looked out the window, and we were in front of a school, but it wasn’t WMHS. It was Brown, the school for potential drop-outs and general no-goods. Panic set in. I was on the wrong bus – I couldn’t go to school here – What was I going to do? WMHS was bad, but Brown was the worst of the worst.

  No one moved, except Travis. He stood up, still wearing the same grimace. I sighed with relief as I realized we were only stopping to let Travis off. He began walking towards the front of the bus. My eyes followed his every step, although I wasn’t sure why. My brain was in a constant struggle against my eyes, but my eyes managed to stay on him until he was completely out of sight. After Travis reached the other side of the road and I couldn’t see him any longer, the bus started moving again. Regaining my composure, I scooted over in my seat and gave Aurelia some breathing space.

  As our conversation dwindled, I found I couldn’t take my mind off Travis. His demeanor was unnerving, yet I felt some kind of connection. I couldn’t explain why, but I hadn’t really minded when Travis had sat down beside me. I ultimately decided that it was hormones. Why else would a normal girl be attracted to a guy that was probably a future serial killer?

  Arriving at WMHS helped me forget Travis. As I stepped off the bus, my thoughts abruptly returned to my earlier fears. Sure, I had made two new friends in about ten minutes, but they couldn’t be with me always. I could only hope that I would meet up with some of my old friends from Center.

  Homeroom was a frightening experience. I knew absolutely no one. Katrina Kipling: alone and afraid. On one side of me sat a stocky, muscular guy named Kent Klingensmith. Yubi Kim, a cute Asian girl, sat in front of me. A sweet black guy named Harry Khan sat on the other side. Harry was the only one who spoke to me. He would eventually become my first friend in homeroom.

  My first period class was French. I recognized no one as I took a seat near the front. This class excited me most, so I wanted to be able to see and hear well. Then I saw a familiar face. Karen Frost, a girl I had known in the sixth grade, quickly took the empty desk beside me. Karen was slim and built like a boy – she hadn’t developed yet. She had short brown hair and a mass of freckles ran across the bridge of her nose. Karen had been one of my best friends in sixth grade, but we hadn’t seen each other at all since then. It was good to have her in my class.

  “Kat! I am so glad to see you. So, French together? We’ll have so much fun, don’t you think?”

  So what if I didn’t share Karen’s eternal peppiness? We could still be friends.

  Our teacher entered the classroom, and I barely managed to hide a smile and a snicker. Monsieur Guest, as he forced us to call him, was the spitting image of Captain Kangaroo – complete with a bushy mustache and a sweet round chubby face. I kept expecting Ping-Pong balls to fall on his head, or Bunny Rabbit to silently appear from behind his desk.

  “Bonjour, classe,” Monsieur Guest announced. Several students looked at him as though he were speaking a foreign language. The rest of us recited, “B
onjour, Monsieur.” We knew what to say because it was written on the chalk board and he pointed to it with his chalk.

  We spent the rest of the class learning the French pronunciation of our names. Some of us indulged in choosing new names, which Monsieur Guest allowed us to do if we would use them for the whole year. I became “Antoinette” and Karen chose “Paulette.” I had always loved the name Antoinette, and Karen just chose a name that seemed close to mine. Monsieur Guest seemed pleased with our choices, and, to prove it, he called us “Mademoiselles Frost and Kipling” for the rest of the year. No one, in class or otherwise, would ever actually call me “Antoinette,” but I had to write it on all my tests and papers.

  By second period, I had begun to feel a little easier about WMHS. After all, I hadn’t seen the first rebel flag, nor had I heard about any fights. Over all, WMHS seemed like a normal school, differing from Center Middle only in size. Best of all, no one had called me a whale – yet.

  Second period was Algebra. My teacher was Mr. Trent – a middle aged hippie with a ponytail and a Fu Manchu mustache. He was always dressed in bellbottom jeans and loud paisley shirts, but what I remember most is that he had a wonderful sense of humor. Erma from my bus stop was in my class. She had seemed nice enough at the bus stop, but here in the classroom, she was very loud-mouthed and her personality was quite abrasive. I began to think that she was the type that hit first and asked questions later.

  Mr. Trent gave us a test to see what we knew about algebra. I was the first one finished – math was always my strong point – but I was too shy to turn my paper in first. I was afraid Mr. Trent might think I finished first because I guessed at the answers. A boy named Tim was sitting right next to me. He finished right after I did and went to turn his test in, so I followed right behind him. Mr. Trent winked at me, and I began to blush. After I sat back in my seat, I wrote my friend Laura a note detailing all that had happened so far that morning.