Crush

By Nicole Bailey Williams

A Teacher's Passion...
She's spent years teaching students English, changing their lives and igniting a love of learning. Her passion for her job is not only fueled by a love of teaching, but a desire to escape a lifetime of personal loneliness. A survivor of sexual assault, she's also mastered the art of "self-medicating" and looking for love in all the wrong places. All that changed the day Marley walked into her class. He was just as wounded as she. . . but there were just some lines a teacher didn't cross, especially when she knows the damage that can be caused by lines that are blurred too early.

That was then. This is now.

Time changes everything?
There's nothing young and innocent about Marley now. When she bumps into him many years later, Marley admits the crush he had on her has never gone away. And now that he's a man, he wants to help heal her broken heart. Can the student she knew become the man she loves? Is it even possible to accept love from such an unseemly source?

In her signature vignettes, Nicole Bailey-Williams returns with a riveting story of redemption after ruin and the indomitable nature of love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brown Girls Publishing
• Release date: Feb 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9781944359126

Nicole Bailey Williams

Nicole Bailey-Williams is the author of five previous books and many short stories. A Philadelphia native, she lives in New Jersey where she juggles family, mostly from her car, and food at her gourmet popcorn company.

Book preview

story.

Part I

2009

My Childhood

People talk about happy childhoods as if thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years, important years at that, can be rolled up into one ball. One word. Happy. For me, there were peaks and valleys, highs and lows that leveled out into a plain. And that plain simply allows me to reflect on times past without any overwhelming feeling, positive or negative. Or if one has the tendency toward depression like I do, that pit or peak colors the lenses with which we view everything, past, present, or future.

I once had a student…I believe she was in the building at the same time as you… and she was really a pessimist. Brilliant musical mind, great writer, but a pessimist nonetheless. I remember reading 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 with her. She completely embraced 1984 because she said that’s how life is. ‘Big Brother or some other dictator always conquers you in the end,’ she said, ‘so you might as well just lie down.’ The ending of Fahrenheit 451 felt too much like a fairy tale to her with its hope and optimism. I’d hardly call the book a fairy tale, but I remember being jarred when she made her contrast/comparisons of the two. I felt sad hearing her render her bleak analysis, so I tried to do something about it. I went to the kids’ section of a book store and found a book called something like Ten Things to Make You Happy. It was a kids’ book, and although she was sixteen, I was hoping to connect with the hope-filled kid in her, and I was trying to build her up.

Honey, I know this might seem silly, I said, but I hope that you can find something in here that will lift you up. One of the ten things deals with God, and I certainly don’t want you to think that I’m pushing religion on you. Your essay just sounded so sad, and I just want you to be happy.

The truth was, I really did want her to find God, but, of course, I couldn’t admit that to her. Truth be told, I’d seen quite a few students like her in my fifteen years of teaching, and I’d rather them find God than the razor blade, pipe, or pills, or any of the other things that people use to dull their pain. Interestingly, though, her parents, those same parents who fight all of the time and refuse to come to the table together so that they can eat as a family, would threaten to have my job if they thought that I was pushing God on their child. I know, I know, you don’t believe in God, but some of us need that guiding force to comfort us and to answer to. Well, anyway, I was just hoping that God would keep her company while her parents were downstairs screaming about the electricity bill or whatever else they constantly fought about. Maybe God would keep her from praying for death the way I used to.

Why did I pray for death? I don’t know. Extreme sadness. Loneliness. I don’t know. I think that some people are just born sad, and I was one of them. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have happy times. I do. But I wear those happy times like a trench coat made of newspaper. The trench coat analogy? You know, besides detectives in movies, no one really seems all that comfortable in trench coats. They’re just things that you put on when you have to, not on a regular basis. The newspaper analogy? At any moment, a gust of wind can come along and tear it from my body. Or a raindrop will fall. And, of course, they never fall alone, so before I can blink or get to a place of refuge, my happiness is drenched, and I’m left there without any cover.

It’s funny that I chose rain as a metaphor. I’ve come to love it over time, but I remember standing in my doorway as a little girl, watching the rain come down. I’d sing this song that went: ‘I’m lonely. I want somebody to play with me. I’m lonely. I want some-body to stay with me. Da-dadah, I’m lonely. I’m lonely. I’m lonely.’

Was I really lonely? Sure. I had an older brother. I said had. I meant have. He’s still alive, but sometimes I think that we’re pretty much dead. That’s the thing about brothers. They’re never really yours. First, their friends take them away from you. Then, their girlfriends and their wives. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a sister-in-law who is unthreatened and will put her arm around you and pull you into their family, knowing that you’ll recognize her place as the new primary female figure in his life. If you’re really lucky, you’ll have at least one blood sister, one who, though perhaps very different, is bound and devoted to you because of your blood. I got neither. So here I am, naked and dripping wet in the rain. With no one.

You? I don’t have you. You don’t know if you really want me. You’ll know more when I finish telling you my story. Then you can decide if you’ll come out in the rain with me. Or better yet, maybe we can find shelter together.

I probably shouldn’t have offered you that invitation. I’ve always valued words and tried to teach you the power of words. You can’t just go around tossing that word around. Love. What do you know about it anyway? I’m thirty-nine, and I still haven’t figured it out. You’re twenty-three, but you’re still so fresh and innocent. Well, maybe not innocent but emotionally inexperienced. How do you even know that I’m worthy of love? I mean, it seems like nobody else ever thought I was. Maybe they were right, you know? Even if I was worthy of love once long ago, I’ve done some pretty rotten things since then. I’m sure that I’ve cancelled out my lovability quotient by now. Don’t look at me that way. I know what you’re thinking. You’re remembering what I told you time and time again--that everyone is worthy of love. That was to build you up. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. You need to begin fresh of spirit and full of hope. Me, I’m old, dried up. My soul has withered. I’m just a shell. A shell with a wounded, dead spirit.

When did it die? It started when I was a little girl, around eight or nine. You see, when I was little, my mom had this friend who lived down the street. They were good friends, and we used to go down there to visit a lot. Her friend had a daughter who was three years older than I am. When my parents were going out for a few hours, I hung out at her house. We were mostly in the basement, watching TV and showing each other our latest additions to our dance routines. I was always asking questions about her brother with whom I was infatuated. Other than Foster Sylver—from this seventies group—to me, her brother was the finest thing on two legs. As much as I ogled him, when he passed through the room, I hardly said a word to him.

Anyway, I don’t remember the first time she felt me up. She took me or we went into the laundry room. I don’t know how long we were back there. I just remember her clammy, shaking hands down my pants and on my breasts. Since this is important imagery – remember her abuser’s hands were cold as snow or breath that smelled like raw onions or something. Oh, yeah, they were real breasts. I was practically born with them. When I was a baby, I got confused and nursed myself once. Just kidding, trying to bring humor to an uncomfortable subject. So yeah, that happened a few times. Mind you, it was at her house, and I went back, so what does that say about me? But, God, I was so young, and from there, part of my innocence was gone.

So that was when my soul probably began expiring.

From time to time, though, it felt full and somewhat fresh and relatively new. Those times were mostly when I was dancing.

I had dance lessons as a kid, and enrolling me was probably the best thing that my mother ever did for me. Dance and music are such a part of me, that I don’t ever remember life without them. To this day, I’ll try to find the rhythm in anything from a Celtic river dance to a Polka. Dancing to me is baring my soul under the glare of harsh lights and the scrutiny of an audience, many of whom would never don a leotard or tights if their lives depended on it. Sure, a two-step at a party would suffice, but a full out performance was out of the question. But for me, music and dance are just in my soul, and I’d die without them. Music is the only thing that I can hear fully. Words are like gibberish, and they float past me. That’s why I don’t take people’s discussions seriously. Talk is talk. Action is the thing. Action is real. And dance and movement are action. To me, dance is everything. It’s birth, seduction, innocence, creation, therapy, sin, and salvation all rolled into one. When I’m dancing, I know that I’m the tool for the soul’s expression.

I started taking lessons when I was three. Ballet. My teacher was Ms. Susan. Over time, she, along with many of the other teachers, became Aunt Susan. You know, the whole village thing. It didn’t mean that we were undisciplined and slacked off because we were comfortable. It was just the opposite. They pushed and prodded, and we responded.

I fell in love with the music, and I let it take over me. I’d listen to my teacher give instructions or watch as they demonstrated. I’d absorb the step almost instantly, and then, I’d perfect it, while giving it my own flavor, and I’d be happy. Then, I had to go to the changing room.

Regardless of the sport, the locker room is always the same. You’ve got the golden child who’s given all of the attention and playing time. You’ve got the second string there for support. Then, you’ve got the ugly stepsisters who just like to fuck with people. Excuse me. I know you’re not used to hearing me curse. Well, they used to fuck with me on the regular. I remember sitting on the bench one day while I was lacing up my sneakers after dance class. They surrounded me, which was a little bolder than usual. Most of the time they just talked loudly from the other side of the room. I don’t have to tell you what they said. You know what the general gist was, but this one time, I stood up for myself. I remember my words clearly. I said, ‘It’s not my fault that I’m more talented than you.’ They shut up and never said anything else to me. The funny thing was, I didn’t feel especially proud or happy that I’d defended myself. I just felt normal, like I should. I just wished that I had stood up for myself a ton of other times. What did Caesar say to Calpurnia about cowards dying a million little deaths before the one final death? Do you remember? You probably don’t. Your mind used to wander when we did Shakespeare. Well, anyway, the truly brave just die once. Lord knows that my soul has died over and over again. I don’t even know what you’re holding onto, baby. There’s hardly anything left.

You love me? Well, where the hell were you all of those times? Where were you with your sweet words all of those times when I was compromising myself just to hear someone say it? Where were you when all of those filthy fingers were defiling my flesh? There was no one to save me. My father was either working or stone-faced and silent. My mother, the epitome of a juggling black woman, was walking a tightrope, balancing everything that a wife and a mother has to balance.

And my brother was nowhere to be found. Living. While I was dying. Sometimes at the hands of his friends. I am cursed. But so much of it was my fault. I can’t play the perpetual victim because I’m not. You see, they started the ball rolling, but I kept it rolling. At any time, I could have bailed out.

Rolled to the gutter like a bowling ball off track. But I didn’t. I kept going at full speed. And now what do I have to show for it? I’m taped together. Fragmented. I put on a good front for my students. They never know that I can’t swallow the advice that I spoon up for them. It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just hard. I’ve done so much wrong.

Like what, you ask? Like the sex. I’m a reformed whore. A cleansed harlot. You once said that you don’t believe in reformed whores. Once a whore always a whore, you said. But then I turned the question back to you. With all of the death that you sprinkled in the wind in your past life, is there any hope for your salvation? You got quiet and when you spoke again, you simply said, I hope so. I hope so, too, because maybe I’ll see you on the other side, that’s the only way this thing can possibly work for us.

Why?

How can you ask why? Isn’t it as clear as day? I mean, the age thing is bad enough. I’m an older woman. You know in some communities, I’m old enough to be your mother. For real. Think about it. Rodney King got his ass kicked when I was a junior in college. You only know about him from the beginning of the Spike Lee movie. Nelson Mandela was released from prison during the spring semester of my freshman year. A girl named Cheryl hung a sign congratulating him by the public telephones on my floor of Virginia Cleveland Hall. Hell, were you even in high school during 9/11? There are so many years between us, you sweet boy.

I’m not being condescending, it’s just… Stop interrupting me. I’m trying to explain myself…That’s not what I’m doing. I’m not trying to justify the reasons you shouldn’t love me…I’m not. I mean, the age is just part of it. I mean, think about our relationship. It’s not like we met on neutral territory. This shit is a tainted as it gets. I was your teacher. I know the secrets you don’t tell others. I know the thoughts before you say them. I know you in a way that lovers never do. "…It wasn’t that long ago. How desperate do I look?

"…I do! It’s like I seduced you or something. This has got to be against somebody’s law. I’m almost positive of it.

…Oh you are? Positive that you love me, huh? It’s part of your mother fixation. You’re trying to lure her back, and you’re making the mental association between me and her. It’s a twist on the Oedipal complex.

…I’m not minimizing your feelings. I’m just helping you to make sense of them.

Really. You don’t know anything about me.

…I know it’s been four years since you first told me. Trust me. I’ve felt every agonizing second of it.

And I dropped my head, angry at myself for letting that slip out. I’d told myself that I wouldn’t give in, and I’d been good. I’d fought against my heart for all of those years, given in and gotten hurt, and now with one sentence, I’d made the wall that I’d tried to erect between us crumble like soft sand. And a tear slipped out.

Before I could wipe the tears from my eyes, I looked up and found him within breathing distance of me. His muscled arms pulled me in to him, and I felt the firmness of his stomach press against my own. He traced my tears with his tongue before kissing me with an urgency that was built up over years of longing, an urgency that mirrored my own. I felt all of my resolve melt away.

This beautiful god/man/baby put the world into his kiss, and my mind flickered with scenes of the creation and images of Achilles, Hercules, Sam son, Hannibal, Malcolm, Marvin Gaye, and every mighty man who had ever stepped off of the familiar path and trudged into new and dangerous territory. With all of