Ice (Shooting Stars 2)

I covered my face with my hands, rose and ran from the classroom. Miss Huba"s amazed voice was shut off by the door I slammed behind me.

I didn't go to chorus rehearsal. I went straight home. I was glad for once that Mama wasn't there to greet me. I dreaded her questions, her demands to know exactly why I had cut my chorus

rehearsal,especially with the concert coming up in a little over a month. She would dig and scratch until she got all of it out of me.

Of course, I felt terrible. Balwin had only tried to do me a favor, had only tried to help me with my future and now found himself not only the target of ridicule, but in trouble at school, probably for the first time I shivered thinking of what his father might do to him.

About an hour later, I heard Mama come home. She was mumbling to herself, not realizing I was already home. I let her go to her room and then I came out of mine, expecting to see her any moment and gearing myself up for her cross-examination. She didn't come out. I waited and waited and finally went to her door and peered in. She was in bed again and fast asleep with an opened bottle of aspirins on her night table. I decided it was best not to wake her.

When I started making some supper, I heard her call to me and I returned to her room. She had risen and gotten herself a cold washcloth, which she had over her forehead.

"This has been the worst hangover of my life," she moaned, never drink cheap gin again. Don't you ever do it. Ice. If you drink, insist your man buys you the best," she advised.

"I don't drink. Mama."

"Yeah, yeah, but you will someday," she insisted.

"Are you hungry?"

"Not with my stomach." she complained. "I tried to eat some lunch today and it nearly came up as soon as I swallowed, Just make me some coffee, will you, honey?" she asked.

I nodded and did so. I gave her a steaming mug of black coffee, which she sipped, closed her eyes, and sipped again. Then she looked up at me sharply.

"Where's your hardworking father?" she asked.

"He's doing a double shift today. Mama,"

"Figures. The day I need him around here, he's babysitting some department store."

She dropped her head to the pillow as if her head was a solid chunk of granite and closed her eyes.

"Get me two more aspirin s," she ordered.

After she swallowed them, she said she wanted to just sleep until next week.

I returned to the kitchen and continued making myself some supper. Before I sat down, however, there was a loud, strong knock on our front door. I listened and heard the knocking again.

"Yes?" I asked with the door closed.

"I'd l

ike to speak to you. Miss Goodman," I heard. The voice was strangely familiar. I churned through my memory desperately, frying to recall where I had heard it before and then realized. It was Balwin's father!

I looked back toward Mama's room, waiting to hear her ask who it was but she didn't call out to me.

"I'll just take up a few minutes of your time," I heard Balwin's father say.

With trembling fingers, I opened the door and stepped back to let him in.

He stood there gaping in at me. Dressed in his dark gray pin-striped three-piece suit and his tie with his gold cufflinks visible, he looked almost as alien in this building as someone from outer space. His lips were pressed tightly shut, which drew the skin on his chin into a small fold.

"Thank you," he said stepping forward. He gazed around as he closed the door behind him, nodding softly as if what he saw confirmed what he believed and expected.

"What do you want. Ms. Noble?" I asked.

I had already made up my mind to stay away from Balwin and would agree to it immediately as soon as he demanded it. I expected to hear his complaint, how I had caused his perfect student son to misbehave seriously for the first time ever. proving I was a bad influence on him.

"I'm here to ask for a favor," he began, "but not a favor I expect to be gratis," he quickly added.