Shape of a Lie, Part 2

Shape of a Lie
Part 2 of 2
an4@anon.lelnet.com

The assembly was over. Everyone else had left. A few people, students mostly, 
had come up to the podium to speak with Alyssa and she had taken time to 
answer their questions. By the time she packed up her materials, the place 
was empty. She stuffed everything but the list of people- eight students, two 
faculty members- who wanted individual counselling, into her briefcase, and 
walked out the side door into the unseasonably warm night air.
    An hint of smoke still lingered in the air from the cigarettes of the 
departed. Alyssa smiled, liking the smell. She walked slowly across the dewy 
grass, pausing only long enough to light one last cigarette out in the open. 
Tomorrow it would be back to the rules. No doubt Busmias would look darkly on 
Alyssa's suggestion that she continue working only with the people on her 
list, but Alyssa didn't really care. If it came down to it, there would be 
other jobs in her life.
    Some things were not worth a paycheque.
    She made her way over to the faculty staff parking lot behind the main 
administration building. There was only one other car in the lot, a silver 
BMW convertible. The black rag top was down. There was no mistaking the car, 
or the spot it was parked in- the one with the new '˜Headmistress Only' sign.
    Busmias was just sitting in the car. Her head was down, and her shoulders 
were-
    Alyssa was far enough away that she could not be entirely sure, but she 
thought the woman might actually be crying.
    That seemed ridiculous, but Alyssa went in her direction anyway. She 
looked at the long cigarette in her hand, considered discarding it, and then 
decided against that. Instead she took a long draw on the cigarette and 
exhaled a long, tight stream of smoke that broke against the heavy air and 
clung to her, a moving cloud carried by a slight breeze like a protective 
globe.
    When she got a few metres from the car she called out.
    'Ms. Busmias ?'
    Busmias started, turned around, and the dim glow of distant arc-sodium 
lighting caught a few tears on her pleasant cheek.
    'Alyssa ?'
    Drawing on the cigarette, Alyssa waited until she had exhaled to speak.
    'What's wrong Ms. Busmias ?'
    'Call me Kelly, Alyssa.' She tilted her head towards the passenger seat. 
'Sit down for a moment.'
    Alyssa walked over, opened the car door, sat down, looked at Kelly, and 
then was duly shocked by what she saw.
    There was a pack of Marlboro Lights 100s in her lap. An unlit cigarette 
was in her right hand, a lighter in her left.
    'I can't do this.' Kelly sounded positively tortured, but Alyssa took no 
joy in it.
    She did crack wise, though. 'Smoking works better when you actually light 
the cigarette.'
    She regretted needling her, so she reached out with both hands, took the 
lighter, and waited for Kelly to lift the cigarette to her mouth, which she 
did.
    Alyssa lit it and the headmistress drew on it in an experienced way. She 
waited for Kelly to speak.
    'I started smoking two years ago. I was working as an assistant principle 
at this sweet little rural high school in Virginia. I was pursuing my Ph.D. 
and dreaming of a job like this. As you know, they let the assistant 
principle handle the disciplinary crap. Good cop bad cop. I liked being the 
bad cop. One afternoon- the second week of school- the soon to be 
valedictorian of the senior class came into my office at the end of the day. 
I had a report on my desk from one of my teachers. They'd seen this girl- 
April- lighting a cigarette as she was driving out of the parking lot. There 
was no smoking on school grounds, so it was pretty open and shut. A one-week 
suspension. But I'd been putting the meeting off all day because I didn't 
want to have to suspend her for a week. By the time she came into my office, 
the busses were loading up.'
    Kelly hesitated, smoking in the gap. Alyssa said nothing.
    'She was- is- the most gorgeous girl. Sweet as the day is long, a great 
kid- community service, student government, the whole thing. The sort of girl 
who goes on to a great college and the school district holds up as Miss 
Success Story. I didn't want to suspend her. It would have been a bad move 
politically. I think she must have sensed some weakness on my part, because 
after I gave her the speech about all the people she'd let down, about how 
she was setting a bad example, she just smiled and said '˜You've never 
smoked, have you ?''
    'That took some nerve,' Alyssa said. 
    Kelly smoked nervously, rushing her exhale, which Alyssa thought was a 
shame.
    'It did. Normally, I would have gotten angry at something like that- I 
have to admit that being questioned is not my strong suit. But I kept my 
temper and asked her what she meant. The biggest smile broke out across her 
face- it was like the sun rising. '˜If you smoked, you'd understand.' I 
bristled a little, but not for the usual reason. As an assistant principle- 
even after just two weeks, I'd heard '˜You don't understand' from enough 
kids to want to smack the next one who said it to me. But not her. I got the 
strangest impression that this seventeen year old girl knew something I 
didn't at the age of twenty-eight.'
    'Sounds like what I had said to you the other day. It's not about age. 
Smoking is about experience.'
    Trimming out of the car, Kelly brought the cigarette to her mouth in a 
more relaxed way. The inhale was slow and deep. The tip of the cigarette 
flared and then smoke poured forth from her pert nostrils. Alyssa felt 
herself turn gooey inside.
    'If you want to lecture me, I can stop telling the story.'
    Alyssa surprised herself by reaching out and patting Kelly's hand. As 
they touched, she felt a kinship with this other woman. They were not really 
that different, after all. Similar ages, shared occupation- and they were 
both smokers, although they had taken different paths.
    'Sorry.'
    Kelly gripped her hand, smiled, and exhaled, filling the space between 
them with more smoke.
    'I'm just being testy. I still can't believe I sat here where I knew you 
would find me-'
    Rather than saying anything, Alyssa opened the ashtray, stubbed out her 
cigarette, and lit another.
    'Anyway, instead of launching into my usual- by then I had developed a 
disciplinary style- angry retort about how I didn't need to understand why 
someone broke the rules, I just said '˜You were caught smoking on school 
grounds, weren't you ?' She kept right on smiling. '˜In my own car- well, 
Mom's car. That reminds me. I don't have the car today and there's no late 
bus to my house. Can you give me a ride ?''
    'That was a little cheeky.'
    'Yeah, it was.' Kelly finished her cigarette, stubbed it out.
    Alyssa picked up her pack and handed it to her and the headmistress took 
out another cigarette and let Alyssa light it for her. Her face glowed in the 
flame of the lighter and Kelly relaxed as the smoke took hold inside her. She 
held the cigarette up by her face the same way that Buffy had and Alyssa 
thought about telling Henry what an attractive smoker their boss was. There 
would be instant potential there.
    'I looked at April and said'We'll see if you still want a ride home 
after I suspend you for a week.' II expected her to react to that, but she 
didn't. She just kept smiling and then she managed to say what I was thinking 
without pissing me off. '˜Look, I don't want this to sound arrogant, but I 
know you don't want to suspend me. And I also know that if you understood 
what I was thinking when I drove off- in my mom's car-'˜ '˜On school grounds' 
I interrupted, and she just went on like hadn't spoken, '˜you'd understand 
why I did it.''
    ''I don't think that's very likely to happen,' I said, but we were both 
looking for something. She kept going. '˜Listen, it's a beautiful day and I 
live way out in the country. Let's make a deal-'˜ she paused to give me a 
chance to posture and say that I didn't make deals but I was too intrigued. 
'˜-once we get away from the school, you try one. Just one. If you still 
don't understand, then suspend me. If you do, give me a week of detention.''
    Kelly laughed, then smoked. 'If she had said, '˜we'll just forget about 
it,' that would have been the end of the discussion and I wouldn't be 
sitting here right now with you, smoking. She knew just how to play me.'
    'And you were curious ?'
    'Yes. I looked at her and said '˜How about you promise to not do it again 
and I give you that week of detention ?' I thought it would end there, that 
we'd found a way out. She got very serious, looked at me, and shook her head. 
'˜I can't make that promise and I really wish you had the opportunity to 
understand why.' I was surprised, so I decided to change tact. '˜Do your 
parents know that you smoke ?' I expected this would be game, set, and match. 
She was such a good kid that I was sure they didn't know. She laughed. This 
sweet, throaty laugh. '˜Of course. Do you think I'd smoke in my mother's car 
if they didn't know ? But you can ask her when we get to my house.''
    'You gave her a ride home.'
    Kelly nodded. 'I still wasn't thinking that I would actually smoke. I 
thought I'd take her home, explain the situation to her mother, work the suspe
nsion down to detention and that would be it.'
    'So what happened ?'
    Kelly trimmed, smoked, trimmed again.
    'We got about five miles from school, off the main road. She was 
fidgeting with her purse. I could tell she wanted a cigarette. So I looked at 
her and said '˜You can have a cigarette now, young lady, if you promise never 
to tell anyone I let you smoke in front of me.' She didn't waste any time. I 
turned my attention back to the road, but I was watching out of the corner of 
my eye. She was wearing dark sunglasses and with her ponytail blowing in the 
wind, as she took the cigarettes from her purse I thought she looked like she 
could easily be a college girl. I thought about how we looked together, 
driving down the road in my expensive new car and then she lit two 
cigarettes. She handed me one of them- and that's when I started smoking. I 
felt so cool. For the first time in my life, speeding down this back road, 
cigarette in my left hand. I felt all grown up. It was so weird. All the 
uptight tension, all the self-importance of my job- it all just drained away.'
    'Did you like it ?'
    'Hell yes. By the time we'd gotten to her house, she had just lit me a 
second one and we were talking and laughing. And her mother- the sweetest 
woman- and gorgeous, too. I sat in that house and smoked one cigarette after 
another- stayed for dinner, drank a few glasses of wine. I was hooked.'
    'And what did you do ?'
    'I gave her a week of personally supervised detention. Drove her home 
every day. I'm still friends with the family.'
    'So why the fuck did you come here and be Ms. No Smoking ?' Alyssa 
asked, angry now.
    'Because there was always a part of me that was ashamed at how easily I 
changed. Like a light switch flicking on.'
    'That's because when you knew what that girl knew, you liked smoking.'
    'I know that now. But I thought if I came here, if I was strict enough 
about the whole smoking thing, I could change myself back-'
    'Into what ? A non-smoker ?'
    'Well, not with the program you started tonight.'
    Alyssa frowned, smoked, frowned again. She brandished the list. 'I have 
eight students and two faculty who really do want to quit and I will work 
very diligently with them because that's what they want. Would you like me to 
add you to the list ?'
    Kelly laughed. 'Of course not.'

    Faith closed the door behind herself, sat down.
    Alyssa lit a cigarette.
    'Can I ?' Faith said, and Alyssa nodded. Faith took out a pack of Salem 
Lights 100s and lit one.
    'So what do you want to talk about today ?'
    'I wanted to thank you- everyone is so much happier now.'
    'Don't thank me. Thank Buffy and Busmias- they be the ones that came up 
with the new smoking policy.'
    'That's a terrible pun.'
    'I know. But it's true. They worked everything out. Buffy went to her 
with the feedback from the parents and students, and instead of acting like 
an uptight assistant principle, she responded to the requests of the people 
she services. That was a big step for her, you know. I wasn't sure she could 
do it but I've been really impressed. And the solution they came up with was 
an excellent one. It worked for you.'
    'I still don't understand that. My parents wouldn't give me permission 
to smoke at school, but they gave me permission to live in the smoking dorms.'
    'Well, I guess it's the difference between signing a piece of paper that 
says we let our daughter smoke and signing one that says you have friends 
that smoke.'
    Faith drew deeply on her cigarette, exhaled. 'That makes no sense.'
    'They're parents. They aren't supposed to make sense. My advice to you 
is to accept what you have an not argue about it, try to understand it, or 
change it. The important thing is that-'
    'I have what I want.'
    'So then, what should we talk about today ?'
    'Any chance of getting some boys in our all girl school ?'
    'You're on your own on that one, Faith,' Alyssa said with a smile.

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