The Release

“Please, Dad, I’m your biggest fan,” the son said without missing a beat and turned toward their waiting car, a sardonic smile spreading across his thin lips.

CHAPTER ONE

Release Day

Lucy King leaned her right hip against the side of Mrs. Johnston’s metal desk. She held her black and white composition notebook with both hands and re-read the signs and posters taped to the wall for the sixtieth time since September: Shakespeare’s ubiquitous portrait with scripted letters underneath proclaiming, “Lord, what fools these mortals be who don’t turn in their homework!” and a picture in the shape of a dachshund, Groucho Marx’s famous inside-of-a-dog quote twisted along its insides.

Concrete poetry.

If you write a poem about a light bulb, you make the whole thing look like a light bulb.

Lucy might not have remembered the definition except Mrs. Johnston had crafted a giant red arrow pointing toward the dog and written “Concrete Poetry!!!” with three exclamation marks. Loose-leaf notebook paper hung precariously next to the Marx quote; it was a gathering of student samples with poems about cats that in no way resembled cats and a horrible poem about rainbows written in alternating gel-pens. The names on the papers were from students who had graduated years ago. Whether Mrs. Johnston failed to take them down from laziness or admiration was anyone’s guess.

A redheaded boy in a baseball hat and athletic shorts sat with Mrs. Johnston as she mumbled superlatives and then passed him back a notebook.

“So, let’s rewrite that topic sentence, AJ,” Mrs. Johnston said as he rose, stretched, and shuffled away. Then Lucy sank into the available chair and passed her own notebook to her teacher. Her English teacher didn’t even glance up at her as she poured over the pages, scratching them with red marks that looked like a star-circle crossbreed of a shape.

“Good, good,” Mrs. Johnston mumbled. A flourish. A star. A circle. A plus-sign. An ink blot where she had rested her pen while reading a passage. “Okay. Good. Thank you. Nice comments,” she said and then handed the notebook back with a smile.

“Thank you,” Lucy replied, but she stayed seated. “Um, Mrs. Johnston...I was wondering if I could grab my work from you?”

For a moment, Mrs. Johnston looked confused and then she grimaced and clicked her tongue. “That’s right, that’s right. Mexico? No, wait...it was more obscure. Tahiti? Fiji?”

A flame crept up Lucy’s cheeks and she lowered her head. “Seychelles.”

Mrs. Johnson put up a single finger and pointed at Lucy as she pivoted on her ergonomic office chair; leaning over a pile of paper, she brought up a search engine on her computer. When the results materialized, she whistled low and loud, shaking her head. “Wouldn’t Fiji have been closer?” her teacher asked attempting a joke, but the result just made her sound bitter.

“My dad won it,” Lucy answered.

“How?” Mrs. Johnston asked, curious and hopeful.

“Through work.”

She wrinkled her nose and waved a hand around the classroom without comment then turned back to Lucy. “Two full weeks? Jeez. Maybe this job would be better if they sent us all away for tropical vacations during the winter break!” Mrs. Johnston said with a boisterous laugh and the students raised their lazy heads to glance at her before huddling down over their notebooks again.

Lucy nodded and picked a piece of lint off her jeans; she rolled it into a tight little ball and then tossed it to the ground.

“We’re starting this,” Mrs. Johnston said and procured a tattered paperback from a stack by her desk. Its spine was reinforced with yellow tape and Lucy took the book from her and idly flipped through the pages. Someone had left a series of lipstick kisses across the title page in various shades next to the declaration: Derrick Chan Forever.

“Fahrenheit 451.” Lucy ran her hand across the cover. The image was bizarre; a man made of pages from a book buried his head while flames licked at his limbs. The title sounded vaguely familiar and she wondered if the novel sat among her family’s bookshelves in her father’s study, tucked between his science textbooks and National Geographic magazines and her mother’s beloved hardback editions of stuffy 19th century British authors: Dickens, Austen, the tragic Brontes.

“A classic,” Mrs. Johnston launched, her trademarked pout spreading across her plump lips. The bottom lip made an appearance when a student demonstrated an act of disrespect or before her lectures about their poor performances on tests. Like a moody second-grader, she would jut her lip out in protest. Lucy prepared herself for a lecture by taking a deep breath and dropping her eyes to piles of paper on the desk. “And, frankly, while our lessons will be no contest with Seychelles...I really wish you could be there for them. It wouldn’t be fair to extend the amount of time you have on this unit because you’re leaving on vacation. I hope you understand.” She pulled two papers out from a pile by her desk and handed them to Lucy. “An essay. Due when you return.”

“Not a problem,” Lucy replied in a faux-chipper tone, a rote and mandatory response to each of her teachers who handled the news of her vacation with a mixture of jealousy and anger. Those who opted for straight admonition usually said something along the lines of, “Don’t your parents value education? There is a lot of learning that takes place in two weeks.” At which point, Lucy would feel the heat rise to her cheeks, her unavoidable blush making its embarrassing appearance, and she would say, without a hint of impertinence, “If you’re upset about the trip, please call my father. I understand that my absence is a hardship.” All teachers, with that line, would mumble surrender, handing her legitimate or bogus work, waving her away, wishing her well, encouraging her to have fun—despite their clear desire that she have as little fun as possible.

Lucy held Fahrenheit 451, the essay assignment tucked into the center pages, and rose from her seat. Another student slithered behind her to present his notebook for grading and Lucy scooted out of the way; she walked back to her seat in relative silence.

The bell was minutes away, but her classmates were actively shoving papers and pencils into backpacks and messenger bags and lining up outside the door decorated with a “What are you reading?” sign and a pocket-chart where students were supposed to write the names of books they would recommend to other classmates. Someone had recommended “your mom written by me” and another had just drawn a crude picture of a penis, but two students took the task seriously with favorable endorsements for Harry Potter and some book about teen pregnancy.

Lucy’s cell vibrated in her pocket and she glanced at the screen. Salem. Like clockwork. She answered it and held it to her ear, unafraid of reprimand.

Salem’s voice carried on mid-argument with someone in the hallway. “I said just put it in my locker! Lula? Lula? You there?”

“I’m here, I’m here,” Lucy replied, answering to Salem’s nickname for her—an endearing take on the alliterative hell her parents saddled upon her at birth: Lucy Larkspur King. The Larkspur was generously hidden between two normal names, but she shivered to recall that the obscure moniker had almost been her first name. That was before her parents came to their senses and settled for something cute, simple, and normal.

“Meet me at our locker now,” Salem instructed and then ended the conversation. Lucy rolled her eyes at her own blind allegiance to Salem’s orders and elbowed her way to the front of Mrs. Johnston’s door, stopping long enough to remove the two offending reading suggestions and stuff them into her back pocket. It was a small gesture, but it was the right thing to do. Jealousy over the Seychelles notwithstanding, Mrs. Johnston was one of the good guys.