Crystal Grader by Tag Cavello (read my book txt) 📕

“Sure I do! I just ain’t got no house!”

About thirty minutes into the meeting an incident in the kitchen stirred up even more turmoil. A woman feeling under the weather vomited onto a tray of cup-cakes just as it came time to serve them. Crystal later learned that her name was Eva Banks, a volunteer baker from Willard. Her accident deprived the farmers meeting of the only food it had. A lot of bellies were now defenseless against the strong coffee. Ulcers began to flare up. Groans about needing to go to the bathroom. Several of the men began to pass gas, tainting the air with a green smell.

“We have a bathroom,” Hannah protested, gaping at a man in the back row who had just released a loud fart.

“Yeah, one,” Jarett told her. Crystal could see him getting more nervous by the second. “And Graham Johns has been in there for ten minutes.” His hand flapped over the audience. “These guys are getting ready to shit their brains out. Pardon my language. We’re about to have a hell of a mess on our hands—it’s not funny!”

This last was directed straight at Crystal, whose amusement had begun to bubble over. Jarett watched her continue to laugh. His lip quivered…then conceded defeat with a smile of its own.

“Okay it’s funny. But it’s also a travesty, wouldn’t you think?” He jumped as another man near the back let out a braying plume of stink. It seemed to be the final push needed to send him over the edge. “God it’s not funny! We need help!”

Hannah covered her nose. “I can’t breathe! What are we gonna do?”

“Gentlemen please!” Jarett called, raising his arms. “I’m sorry about the cup-cakes! But if we could all take a few deep breaths and relax I’m sure things will be fine!”

“My stomach!” someone yelled. “I drank two cups of coffee thinking there’d be cake to go with it! Now I feel like the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl!”

Crystal looked at all the uncomfortable faces and decided she had seen enough. Still grinning, she made her way down to the podium. She was too short for it. Her head barely reached over the microphone. No matter. After several taps on it with her finger she got everyone’s attention.

“Okay!” she called out. Feedback whined. “Okay,” she repeated, a little more softly. “I think it best under the circumstances to postpone the meeting.”

“Here! Here!” Bill said, clutching his abdomen.

“My friend Mr. Powell will arrange a date and time for us to try again.” Crystal stood on tip-toe to get a better look at the crowd. “But in the meantime I need a show of hands. Who here hasn’t had any coffee tonight?”

Four sets of fingers from opposite ends of the gathering went up.

“Okay, beautiful. I need the four of you to assist with getting the rest out to their trucks. Is there anyone here who feels too sick to drive?” Her eyes searched the room; no one responded. “Even more beautiful. So let’s do what Jarett says and stay calm. Don’t poop your pants. Or if you do,” she added, “wait until you’re outside.”

Cautious, hesitant laughter spread over the room. Then came the squeaking of chairs as everyone stood up to leave. Crystal saw Jarett bolt to help one of the older gents into the hall. There was more farting, more belching.

“That’s it,” Crystal said into the mic. “Nice and easy.” Never in her life had she felt more like laughing and crying at the same time. “Everyone’s going to be just fine.”

The cold air outside proved helpful as well. Once exposed to it the men, instead of jumping into their trucks and racing home, took time under the stars to relish its clear, clean embrace. Some even began to look comfortable again. There were nods in Jarett’s direction. Tipped caps.

“Young lady, you were exactly what the doctor ordered,” said a burly man in denim to Crystal. “Thank you for keeping your head.”

Crystal raised one of her mittened hands. “Hey, we all get sick once in awhile.”

“Well you take care gettin’ home. Don’t let this guy”—he gave Jarett a friendly pat—“drive too fast.”

“No. In fact I need to get a decent meal into him before he goes to bed. That goes for you too, Hannah,” she called over to her sister.

“Aye-aye, Captain!”

Jarett was silent as they walked to the car, but Crystal thought she could guess how he felt. One glance into his brown eyes gave her more warmth than any winter coat could provide.

Hannah jumped into the back and slammed the door. Crystal walked round to the passenger side. Jarett looked at her over the hood, stopped for a moment…

And told her he loved her.

Not right out loud. At this stage in their relationship that would have been awkward no matter what the circumstances. Yet Crystal didn’t need to hear it. The best words from the heart come through the eyes. So she believed. And in that moment Jarett’s eyes recited poetry, with a delicate smile to serve as both rhythm and rhyme to the melody of his message.

I love you, he whispered.

And then the moment was gone. Gone, but like a fossilized flower on a tundra of rock, substantiated for all eternity.

10

The birthday kiss did not arrive on time.

But that was okay. Crystal’s birthday—Valentine’s Day—fell on a Saturday, which didn’t occur to her until it was too late to arrange any special visits to the Jackson farm. Not that it would have been possible. Lucretia baked a yellow cake with chocolate frosting and put up a few balloons around the kitchen table. Then she and Hannah sang the happy birthday song as Crystal drew a deep breath and blew as hard as she could at twelve flickering cake candles. Only ten went out.

“Boo!” Hannah said.

Crystal smiled and told her to be quiet before puffing out the oppositionists.

Next to her were three presents—two from Lucretia and one from Hannah. She tore open Hannah’s first. It was a cook-book.

“101 Cupcake Recipes,” Crystal read aloud. “Very funny, you.”

Hannah curtsied. “You’re welcome.”

The first present from Lucretia was a tiny pair of silver ear-rings shaped like scissors. They shined in Crystal’s hand, small yet somehow assertive. She liked them immediately.

“I saw those at the mall and wham,” her mom said, “I knew they were for you.”

“They’re very cool, Mom. I love them.”

Present number two turned out to be another pair—these Ray-Ban Wayfarers, in the classic green. Crystal opened the box with her mouth open, not quite able to believe what she was seeing. A black case fell into her hand. The inside was lined with red felt.

“Well?” Lucretia said. “Put them on! I want to see what a hundred and fifty dollars looks like on my daughter’s face.”

They were the most comfortable pair of shades Crystal had ever worn. It was as if a piece of her, lost for many years, had finally been found and returned to its proper place. She smiled up at her mom. Lucretia, now tinged over in dark green, smiled back.

“Audrey. Freaking. Hepburn.”

“I love these like you would not believe, Mom. Thank you.”

“Do I get a hug?”

“Hell yes, you get a hug!”

“Hey!”

Crystal put her arms around her and kissed her on the cheek. She thanked Hannah again for the cook-book. Then, still wearing the Ray-Bans, she cut the cake, and they sat down and talked about work, and school, and the final episode of Sex and the City.

“Twelve years old,” Lucretia said, as though realizing it for the first time. “High school in two years. My God.”

“What comes after high school?” Hannah asked.

“College. But before then I’m hoping Crystal figures out what she wants to do with her life.”

Crystal’s fork paused halfway to her lips. She already knew what she wanted out of life. To Lucretia it should have been obvious.

“I’m going to be a writer,” she said.

“Maybe,” her mom replied. “But you don’t go to college and major in creative writing. That’s a waste of time. Your main focus needs to be practical.”

“God, what’s practical these days?”

“Doctors. Lawyers.”

A piece of cake went smoothly down Crystal’s throat. “Oh yeah. That’s me all over.”

“Auto mechanics,” Hannah put in with a laugh.

“Wow you guys can see right through me.”

“How’s your trigonometry coming?” Lucretia suddenly asked in an odd tone of voice.

Crystal looked at her for a moment before shrugging her shoulders. “Not too bad. I’m about middle of the road compared to everyone else in my class.”

“Do you like your teacher?”

“Mr. Emmons?” She blinked. The fork scraped chocolate off the side of her plate. “I don’t know. Not really. Why?”

Lucretia shrugged back. “I didn’t like hardly any of my teachers in school. Maybe you could become a teacher. Maybe your kids will like you.”

“No way,” Crystal said. “Teaching is for people who can’t do. That will never be me.”

She looked at both mother and sister, waiting for a response. When none came she took off her new glasses and repeated the promise.

“That will never be me.”

***

“But I’m teaching you,” Jarett Powell said two days later in front of his fireplace. “Does that mean I can’t do?”

There was a tiny radio on the mantelpiece. He reached up and snapped it on. That was it. End of today’s lesson.

“I’m not really sure what I meant when I said that,” Crystal admitted. “I mean I’m teaching Lucy and Lucy’s teaching me. We both do just fine.”

Her eyes went back to the manuscript they were working on. None of the words on it seemed willing to give them a place to hide. Black lines of type danced without warmth across the page. Crystal had related the story of her birthday party to Jarett as a means to break the ice for her kiss. Instead, it had coated things with a new layer of frost. Her jab at teachers had offended him, caused him to rise from the couch and stoke the fireplace. The flames had risen as per instruction, but the frost remained.

“I know I didn’t mean you, Jarett,” she said, desperate to get the train back on its track. “It was just something I blurted out because the idea of being a teacher seems so…”

Ridiculous, she almost said, which would have been bad.

“Remote.”

Jarett put the stoking tool back on its rack. “You meant what you said.”

“I didn’t.”

He smiled, which caused her chest to loosen. Here was evidence that the error she’d made could at least be overcome.

“You may even be right,” he went on.

“But—“

“You know I haven’t put out a novel in two years?”

Crystal’s mouth snapped shut. Her head nodded. She did indeed know.

“Are you working on one now?” was the question that came next.

Jarett didn’t answer. His eyes went into the hearth and lingered as a weather report came over the radio.

“…expect clear skies during the week with daytime temperatures in the middle thirties…”

Placing the manuscript on the table, Crystal rose to her feet. From a fashion standpoint she had gone all out for this visit: a black sleeveless top with matching skirt, stockings, and dress shoes. Her eye-shadow was dark. The scissor-shaped ear-rings dangled from her lobes. All of this on the pretense that it was picture day at school…except that Jarett hadn’t asked any questions, which made her glad. Her first kiss would not come gift-wrapped with a lie.

“Jarett?”

She slipped the shoes off. Now visible through the stockings, her feet glided over the floor to where he stood. Still he wouldn’t look at her. The fire seemed more important. Or maybe it was something that burned there.

“Hey,” she said softly, “we don’t have to talk about it. Forget I asked.”

“…and now let’s move back into the music with an oldie from Don McClean. This one’s called Vincent…”

His head jerked, coming out of whatever reverie it had been in.