After a long and arduous day, Dusty wanted nothing more than to leave school behind. Tired of pointless lessons about the liberty bell or correct grammar. None of those things mattered to her. In fact, nothing seemed to matter anymore. She just wanted to lose herself in being Dusty Black, Head Cheerleader.
"A few of us are heading to the mall after school," Cora told her as they walked along the corridor. "You should come." She smiled. "Justin will be there," she teased.
"I can't." Dusty sighed.
"You can't?" Cora raised a disbelieving eyebrow at her best friend.
"I've got detention."
"Oh crap, yeah. I'm sorry, that sucks."
"Mmm."
"Why don't you come along afterwards?" Cora suggested hopefully.
"Can't." Dusty shook her head. "I've got to get back to take care of my brother."
"Where's your mom?" Cora asked.
"In France.".
"In France?" Cora's eyes widened with impressed interest.
"Yeah, Paris, out on a buying trip for Prada," Dusty explained.
"Oh, yeah, I forgot your mom works for Prada," Cora mused. "That's such an awesome job."
"I know."
"You're like, so lucky to have such a cool mom."
"Uh huh."
"My parents are both dentists. How boring is that?" Cora laughed. The girls waved farewell, and then Dusty headed back into the school.
The corridors were clearing as students filtered out to commence their evening. It felt strange to be at school after hours without a club to attend.
It wasn't the first detention Dusty had been given, but it was the first that had fallen outside of school hours.
Most teachers respected her cheerleading responsibilities, and kept her punishments to lunch break, or asked her to do some extracurricular work.
Ms. Quinn had been much harder on her. Dusty didn't doubt that she deserved the detention. She had spoken out of turn. She wouldn't be able to get away with quite as much in her class, and that worried her.
"Miss Black, good evening," Ms. Quinn greeted her as she entered the math classroom.
"There's nothing good about it," Dusty retorted, throwing her backpack down on a nearby desk and settling down. It was eerie to be in the empty classroom. All the neatly lined up desks sat empty, and the room stilled, apart from their breathing.
The late afternoon sunlight spilled through the windows, bathing the room in an ethereal golden glow.
"That's the spirit," Ms. Quinn joked.
"It's always best to be positive about these things." Dusty forced a smile and took out her workbook and pen.
"Before we start work, we need to talk about why you're here," Ms. Quinn said, leaning against her desk rather than sitting behind it, adopting that stance which all young teachers do when they're eager to connect with a student.
Give her a few years and she would sit behind it like all the others, thankful of the barrier it provided.
She is wearing a white sweater and a matching white skirt. Her outfit complimented her dark hair. and she smelled of vanilla, that sweetly innocent yet subtly sensual scent. She looked good, there was no doubt about it, but Dusty didn't care how she looked. At eighteen, she had almost perfected her apathy towards the same sex.
"I'm here because you gave me detention," Dusty said.
"But why did I give you detention?" Ms. Quinn pressed her further. Dusty squirmed beneath her scrutiny, fidgeting with her hair, which she'd chosen to wear in a braid, along with a pink gingham shirt, denim hot pants and black Converse sneakers.
"You gave me detention because I was rude to you." Dusty sighed.
"So you know what you did wrong, so why were you rude?" Ms. Quinn asked. She wasn't grilling her, she sounded genuinely interested in her explanation.
"I don't know." Dusty shrugged, adopting the petulant teenager approach.
"You don't know?" Ms. Quinn echoed. "Do you talk to all your teachers that way? With that lack of respect?"
"Sometimes," Dusty admitted.
"Don't you respect them?"
"Generally, no."
"No?" Ms. Quinn was surprised. "Why don't you respect them?"
"Because they haven't earned it yet." Dusty surprised herself with her answer and blushed. She'd heard those words before, many years ago, from her father. She didn't even realize she'd been thinking that way until that very moment.
"You should respect authority figures," Ms. Quinn said. "The teachers are here to try to help you."
"I don't need help," Dusty snapped at her.
"I think you do," Ms. Quinn stated, her eyes boring into hers.
"No, I'm fine. Stop doing the creepy caring teacher act." Dusty folded her arms across her chest and stuck her chin out.
"I'm not the one acting," Ms. Quinn said. "There's only us in here. You can stop pretending to be head cheerleader and just be yourself."
"Excuse me?" Dusty asked, incredulous at the accusation.
"I saw you at the game," Ms. Quinn said. "You couldn't have looked less enthused as you sat on the sidelines. Hardly your typical head cheerleader. Normally girls in your position are just oozing school spirit to the point where it's nauseating."
"Maybe I just felt ill." Dusty tried to defend herself but her voice faltered. "Maybe it was my period or something."
"Perhaps you don't really care about your football team," she suggested, studying her.
"Am I here to have my school spirit put on trial?"
"No."
"Then can we just get this over with? I need to get home."
"Big plans?" Ms. Quinn asked.
"Oh, huge, I get to look after my brother all evening while my mom works her second job." Dusty sighed and straightened in her chair, realizing that she had said too much.
She'd never before confided in someone about her home life, and it shocked her that she'd made such a revelation to Ms. Quinn, of all people. She seemed to notice her unease and didn't press her on the topic any further.
"Well, I threatened calculus, and I always make good on my threats," she told her, tossing her a calculus textbook, which had been perched on her desk.
Dusty grabbed it and surveyed the cover. She knew the book. She'd done the problems it contained before, not that she was about to tell her that.
"Have you done much calculus?" she asked her.
"Some," Dusty answered.
"Could you give me a practical example of its use?" Ms. Quinn asked.
"Race car driving," Dusty responded without missing a beat. "Calculus is used to determined fuel used over distance and speed as the variables are constantly changing, which makes other mathematical formulas unreliable."
"Yes. Very good." Ms. Quinn smiled.
Dusty opened the book and browsed through the problems inside. She realized after a few minutes that she was smiling to herself and felt an unusual sensation. She felt comfortable. It was the first time she had felt comfortable since joining West High four years ago, and the first time she had felt like herself.
Ms. Quinn watched her go through the textbook, delicately turning the pages, and found herself intrigued by her. On the outside, she was the obnoxious cheerleader who cared about no one but herself. But beneath that there was more going on, and she was determined to unlock the secrets within Dusty Black.
"Why don't you leave early?" Ms. Quinn suggested when they were forty-five minutes into the detention.
"Really?" Dusty asked, surprised. She was supposed to be there for an hour and a half.
"Yeah, I think you've learned your lesson."
"We'll see," Dusty responded.
"Have a nice evening with your brother," Ms. Quinn added as Dusty was almost out of the door. She froze and turned back to her. Her heart caught in her chest. She'd said too much, she knew that, and now Ms. Quinn could potentially ruin everything.
"I lied," she said. "I was hoping you'd take pity on me and let me finish early." She smirked at her. "My mom is actually in Paris right now, in France. She's a buyer for Prada."
"That's an impressive job," Ms. Quinn mused.
"Do you miss your mom when she's away?"
The question made Dusty's façade falter. She'd not been asked whether she missed anyone for a long time, and the suggestion made her feel light-headed. She gasped but managed to regain her composure. "I'll see you in math tomorrow," she said, unable to answer Ms. Quinn question because she didn't even allow herself to know the true answer to it.
"What does your dad do?" Ms. Quinn asked as Dusty was about to leave. Her body turned to stone upon hearing it, and her hands shook. She turned slowly to face her, Dusty eyes misting up with tears. "Never speak to me about my father," she told her, and fled from the classroom, her frantic footsteps echoing down the empty halls.
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