Teacher's Pet [Elvis]

Chapter 14 - The Return of Some Familiar Feelings

Christmas passed, and now there were three days until the new year. I honestly didn't really celebrate the new year since it was just more time passing. Plus, it would be 1954. There wasn't really anything special about that year, not like the change of a decade or a century. I wouldn't see that until I was seventy-two.

"What will I be up to then? Maybe still teaching, hopefully, or retired," I said to myself as I sat on my bed, working on some lesson plans as most of my family was out of the house. We all were staying in the house, aside from Eddie, since he had to go home and be back at work. Dad had to be back at work as well, the same with Mom and Deena. Danny, Alice and Robin went out for lunch. I could hear Angela playing her violin in her room. We were the only family members at home.

The violin playing stopped, and I heard my sister leave her room. I thought she was going downstairs, but she ended up knocking on my and Deena's door. She poked her head in. "Hey. What are you up to?"

"Just lesson plans. Your playing was beautiful."

She came in and sat on the edge of what was my bed before I moved out. Angela was another sibling that took after Mom's side, like me. She was actually the sibling that looked most like me. "Thanks. I have to practice every day. I'm in a violin group at school, of a dozen students. We played at our Christmas concert. I'm also in the school orchestra."

"I know you are, and if you keep it up, you'll play professionally."

She gleamed a smiled that probably made boys turn their heads at her school. She wasn't interested in boys at the moment, unlike Robin. "I want to do that, I just don't know where or what I would play for. There are orchestras who play for movies. That would be neat to do."

"It would."

She studied me for a moment, and she cocked her head. "You okay?"

I looked up from what I was doing. "What do you mean? I'm fine."

"I mean... James suddenly showing up last week... That was out of the blue and completely uncalled for. If I didn't love my violin so much, I would whack him out of town."

I smirked at that, slightly amused. "I'm okay. I half expected him to contact me when I came home. I'm just glad he hasn't done so again since his visit last week. I don't need him barging into my life at the moment."

"Why?"

Elvis suddenly was all over my thoughts. "I just don't want to have to recall the hurtful memory of what we went through."

"And? There's something else. Or someone else. You said so. Robin and I are aching to know who this guy is, but we've never mentioned him since we didn't want to bother you, especially after James showed up. But I can't take it anymore. Who is he? I promise I won't tell Robin, unless you don't mind me doing so."

I pressed my lips together, unsure if I should tell her. She was better at keeping secrets, though. And I was dying to tell someone else about this. "Um... well, I can tell you, but don't tell anyone else. Only Deena knows who this guy is. And what he is."

Her whole face lighted with interest, and she sat more on my bed facing me, and my lesson plans were forgotten at the moment. "Ooo, do tell. If it's a secret, then..." Her brown eyes went wide. "No... oh my heavens, Abby! Is this guy a student? Is that why this is a total secret?"

She was pretty intuitive and smart. Well, she guessed it, so I might as well tell her. I took a breath, then revealed, "Yes." She covered her mouth in shock, her eyes still huge. "And please don't say a word of this. I'm already having a hard enough time trying to keep it from everyone at school, especially my boss, the principal. If he found out, I... Oh golly, I would be fired, and El—this student—would be expelled. I can't have that. But I also can't lie."