Chapter 1

(Lux)

The consequences of other people’s actions

“Boys, there will be no fighting in this classroom!” I declared as I strode purposefully down the row of tables to try and reach the two young men who’d squared off with one another.

In typical teenage boy fashion, they didn’t stop when I ordered them to. No, that would have been too easy. The one in the orange hoodie, Jaci, Joey, something like that, hauled off and shoved the boy with the blue and green shirt, whose elbow struck an open bottle of paint. Yellow erupted in a bright, sunny arc as it flew halfway across the room, splattering the people and papers in its wake. Fortunately, the tables were already splattered and bore the results of the years of paint, clay, markers and chalk that had been used by the previous art teacher, Mrs. Granger, whose students were fond of pointing out to me that I was not.

Yeah, I got it. It sucked when your favorite teacher retired. I’d been faced with that myself during my junior year of high school, after being fortunate enough to have Mrs. Stimple as my art teacher, and favorite teacher out of all the instructors I’d ever taken a class with, from kindergarten until the year before I graduated. I’d even begged her to wait two years, just two, and when she’d smiled and shaken her head at me, I’d gotten desperate.

Could you teach part time maybe, just my class? Please.

I’d begged.

And whined.

And drew something for her every day for the last two weeks before school let out for summer vacation.

The whole break, all I could think about was how much art class was going to suck when I got back to school, which was why I’d marched myself into the guidance counselor’s office on the first day after break and begged to be transferred to machine shop instead. It hadn’t been the same type of creation, but I’d learned a great deal about the maintenance and upkeep of my car.

Several people scrambled to back away from the wrestling students while others crowded around them. In this tight space it was hard to push in between bodies without risking injury to anyone, especially when they weren’t paying any attention to my instructions to move aside.

Dimy, I was aware of another disturbance on the other side of the room, but at this point I’d deal with that after I dealt with this bit of calamity. For fuck’s sake, I’d already been looking forward to winter break and spending it setting up my house so I could finally stop living out of boxes. It was never easy starting at a new school, but starting in the middle of a quarter, after a beloved teacher suffered a massive health crisis in the same year as another beloved teacher was on the mend following a hit and run was just not fair. Talk about starting behind the eight ball, but at least it had finally allowed me to get my foot through the door of a school system as something other than just a long-term substitute.

Thinking about setting up my apartment and my own room next year wasn’t going to help me with the current disaster going on in this one. I was finally able to nudge my way between the boys and get them pried apart, narrowly missing an elbow to the face in the process. Kickboxing had kept my reflexes honed, not that I’d ever had cause to use my training for anything but pummeling the heavy bag and the occasional bout of point sparring.

Keeping my body between the boys proved a bit challenging, even with my height, when one kept trying to get around me to get to the other. Maybe if I’d had more mass to go with the inches, I wouldn’t have to work so hard to keep them separated, but I’d always had too high of a metabolism to pack on much weight. It was a good thing too, with as much of a foodie as I was. Otherwise, instead of spending what little free time I had working on a series of drawings for my webcomic, I’d have needed to be on my bike, peddling off the meals I loved to make for myself. Would be easier not to overindulge if I had someone to share them with, but now that Frida had developed a love of trying out the recipes she encountered on her Tik-Tok feed, I’d wound up bringing home just as much food as I dropped off when I visited her.

Fortunately, the one in the blue shirt, damn it all when would I learn these children’s names, finally stopped struggling to get around me and stood with a hand pressed to his nose and blood running between his fingers, while the other stood glaring, fists clenched and muttered threats and profanity beneath his breath.

“Go to the nurses office,” I snapped at the bleeding student before he could take offense at what the other boy was saying and restart the battle. “And then go directly to the principal’s office.”

“Go ahead and take Josh to Mrs. Onisha,” Mr. St. George declared. “Bells about to ring. I’ll see about getting these guys to help pick up the worse of the mess and get their supplies put away.

When the man had stepped into the room I didn’t know, but it felt good to know that other teachers would have my back if things got out of hand. With Joshua, that’s what the hell the boy’s name was, stalking along beside me, we made our way towards the principal’s office, a sense of dread washing over me like I was the one in trouble.

Gods but I hoped I wasn’t. They still hadn’t voted on whether to extend my contract past the end of the year, the other reason I hadn’t been in that big of a hurry to finish cleaning. I knew there was a likelihood that they’d open the listening up in the hopes of finding a more experienced teacher, and if they found one, then I didn’t know how long I’d be able to afford to stay in Foggy Basin unless I found another source of employment. Somehow, I doubted there was much available for a failed art teacher with little skills aside from my ability to create goofy images and moderately passable stories. I’d already learned the hard way that subscriptions to my webcomics and the handful of matted prints and t-shirts I sold each month wouldn’t support me.

Not yet anyway. As soon as I was settled in, I had every intention of putting the business and advertisement classes I’d taken to good use while launching a solid promotional campaign to generate more interest in my work.

“Want to tell me why you saw the need to turn my classroom into a battleground?” I asked, deciding to turn my attention to the situation at hand, rather than stress about how this was going to look to the administration when they learned of what had taken place in my room.

“Tired of him talking shit about my mama is all,” the boy grumbled.

“Is it true?” I asked, holding my hand up when the boy whirled on me, fists clenched at his sides.

“If it’s not, then what does it matter what he says? It doesn’t change the fact that it’s a lie,” I explained. “And if it is true, then you need to find a way to come to grips with it and ask yourself why it upsets you so much to hear. If it’s denial, then that’s still a thing for you to deal with and not with your fists, either. You cannot go through life punching people if you don’t like something they have to say.”

“Would make me feel better,” Joshua muttered.

“Oh, I’m sure it would. But if we all went around trying to punch the stupid out of people, the world would be an even more violent and disturbing place than it already is.

“I guess.”

“Something tells me that you’re going to have about a week to think about that and more,” I said before depositing him with the principal after explaining what had taken place in class.

“I see,” the principal said, scowling at the young man while I waited for her to request that I step into her office with her to discuss all the ways I could have headed things off before they’d reached this point.

I would have, if I’d caught a whiff of what was going on, but I’d detected nothing. I’d been busy demonstrating to a student how to blend using watercolor pencils when the fight had jumped off.

“This is your third fight this quarter,” Mrs. Onisha declared as she shook her head at Bradly, then turned to face her secretary.

“Bernard, can you please get Bradly’s father on the phone,” Mrs. Onisha said. “I’m afraid this is not going to result in an in-school suspension this time. I believe that it is time we give serious consideration to transferring you to the alternative school.”

“Good!” Bradly snapped. “Maybe then people will leave me the hell alone.”

“Thank you for escorting him here, Mr. Sinclair,” Mrs. Onisha said. “I’ll take it from here.”

I took her words as a dismissal and fled like I’d been the one at risk of being transferred to a different school. Thank the goddess that was the final period, or I might need to take up vaping in my car in between classes the way Mr. Cavello, Mrs. Ried and half the student body did. The soft echo of wind chimes drifted from the phone in my pocket, and I quickly checked the message and smiled. My other reason for taking this position in Foggy Basin had been my best friend Frida, whose text was a math equation in images.

Two carts, the photos of their boxes each listing their names and strains and a big equal sign came before an image of a large pan of lasagna sitting beside a pitcher sized margarita. I sent back the thumbs up emoji, followed by the meme of a clock with its hand pointing to six, a bouncing margarita glass holding the hands together at the clock’s center. She sent back a sparkly smiley face that waved jazz hands at me, which was right about the moment I stepped back into my room to see that all but one student was gone.

Casey sat painstakingly trying to remove yellow splatters from his canvas with a little orange sponge.

“They wrecked it,” Casey said miserably, a few lone tears trickling down round cheeks as he stared up at me imploringly.

So much for ducking out of here fast. I stepped around behind him to get a better look, but things looked even worse from this vantage point. The canvas had been ground zero when the paint jar had touched down, the imprint of the container showing in the outline it had made on what had otherwise been an amazingly detailed image of a dolphin spinning in the spray made by the blowhole of the whale swimming just beneath the surface of the water. It had movement and a sense of swirling energy in the way he’d carefully chosen to paint the droplets.

Was it a masterpiece worthy of hanging in a fancy French gallery somewhere? No. But was it a hell of an impressive piece of work for a freshman in high school? Yes, yes it was. I prided myself on having an eye for details, but this young man had gotten even the barnacles on the whale to look authentic through a mix of colors and shading.

Unfortunately, it was also so splattered in yellow there was no way to remove it all without damaging the paint underneath.

“You’re right, they did,” I told him. “I’m sorry.”

“I’ll never have it ready by the end of the quarter if I have to start all over again. It took weeks to get this far.”

And that was the one drawback of putting all your eggs in a basket the way this student had done. There were two options for grading. You could create a portfolio of all the works you’d completed over the course of the quarter, and they would be graded as a collection, or you could bank your grade on one or two more detailed and technical pieces, and hope that it met or exceeded the teacher’s expectations.

Which this had.

“Under the circumstances, I am able to grade this as it stands, which would still be A work with all the effort and skill you displayed. You can use the last few classes to paint whatever you’d like without needing to worry about submitting anything else to me.”

“Thanks for the grade and all, but that doesn’t fix what to do about my sister’s Christmas present. I can’t afford to get her anything.”

“Do you have a place to paint at home?”

“Not where she’s not gonna see me doing it.”

“Right, okay, how about this,” I said as I strode to my desk and dug out the pad of yellow slips I’d yet to use.

I quickly wrote out five of them and handed them to the boy.

“You come down here during your study hall periods and work on a new painting,” I said. “When you run out, I’ll write you some more. Just make sure you go to your study hall and give one to the teacher there before you come down here, so you’re not marked absent, got it?”

“Got it! Oh my gosh, thanks Mr. Silvera.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Is it okay if I keep this?” the boy asked, gesturing to his ruined work.

“Of course, go ahead and hang it up so it can dry properly, and you can take it home with you next week.”

“Thanks.”

With a little wave, and a half smile he was gone, leaving me to shake my head and wish folks would think more about how their actions might affect others before they went and did something impulsive.

That poor kid hadn’t deserved to have something he’d worked so hard on destroyed by thoughtlessness and unnecessary violence.

Gathering my things and vowing to come in early on Monday to finish restoring the room to order, I decided that a weekend of relaxation was in order after the week I’d had. Some steaks on the grill, a book from his to be read pile, if I could find some gourmet popcorn seasonings, I'd pop a few batches and watch some of the movies I’d been meaning to stream.

I would not think about lesson plans or which influential artist to highlight. I would sip margaritas and maybe, if I was inspired, I’d finally set up my art desk and get my own supplies in order so I could get back to creating again before I lost any of my hard-won subscribers.

But first I’d grab Frida’s carts and collect that container of lasagna. It would make the perfect lunch for my weekend of blissful relaxation.

Now where the hell was the smoke shop again?

Glancing around, I couldn’t remember if I was supposed to take a right or a left on Grand Avenue if I wanted to go to the gas station. The smoke shop was adjacent to it, but I still hadn’t fully learned my way around town. It wasn’t that I was the absent professor type, I really wasn’t. More like the overly focused perfectionist type who tended to get too dialed in on things, to the detriment of others.

Like paying attention to where I was going.

Okay, so not a left. Got it. I’d remember that for next time.

My stomach was rumbling a demand for food by the time I spotted the sign, but all thoughts of getting in and out flew out the window the moment I laid eyes on the pink-haired man dancing to Clapton’s Slow Hand as he dusted shelves with a black feather duster and holy shit, was that a frilly apron he had on over skinny jeans and a tank top that showed off the wavy trio of mushrooms tattooed on the back of his shoulder.

He turned with a little flourish and flick of that feather duster, and when he saw me standing there, he doffed his imaginary cap and sketched a little bow at me before flashing me the biggest, warmest grin since I’d come to town, and I’d received a lot of them. The folks here were extremely welcoming, but nowhere I’d gone yet had put me in the path of anyone like the enigma that cocked a hip as his eyes raked down my body.

“Man, you look like you had a hell of a day,” The guy said, shaggy hair flopping into his eyes as he shook his head at me.

A sparkling rhinestone collar adorned his neck, the pink and clear stone shimmering whenever the light struck it. He wore matching ones around his wrists, wide and twinkling, but his smile, that shone brighter than anything.

“Why do you say that?”

“You’ve got yellow paint in your hair, on your tie, and in your beard, a couple flecks in your eyebrows too, damn. I’d ask if you were painting a house or something but that doesn’t go with the rest of what you’re wearing, so it was either a bad day, or you get off on having paint thrown all over you.”

Snorting, all I could do was look down at myself, shake my head, and hold out my hand.

“Lux,” I said, a little shocked by how long and delicate looking the pink-haired man’s hand was when he settled it into mine. “And I wish there had been a good time involved with how I wound up looking like this.”

“River. And it’s not too late you know.”

He was strong too, his handshake firm and not what I’d expected from someone that looked like River did. “For what?”

“Adding a bit of thrill to your night to make up for however the hell happened.”

Was he hitting on me just like that? Either he had the most finely tuned gaydar on the planet or we’d met somewhere, though I was certain I’d have remembered him if we’d hooked up before.

Not that I went around hooking up often, but before I’d landed this job, I hadn’t exactly had the kind of reputation I’d needed to worry about protecting.

“We just got these in and oh my, I tried one last weekend and whoa, talk about spicy…”

While he fanned himself with his hand, I struggled to keep up with the conversation and the fact that he hadn’t been flirting with me but setting the stage to introduce me to a new product.

Chocolate chili drops, guaranteed to take things from sweet to spicy in a heartbeat. The THC content was written on the front of the box, in bold letters, which meant that was one thrill I wasn’t going to be able to partake of anytime soon.

“Pass, and so not what I was hoping to see on the table,” I said, leveling my gaze at him in case he needed an extra nudge to catch on that I was interested, and mildly disappointed that it hadn’t been himself River was offering up.

“And what was?” River purred, winking as he rested his chin on his hand and studied me.

“Shooting some pool, having a couple of drinks, and maybe grabbing some food that won’t get me fired, off you think you’d be up for it.

“When and where?”

“Tomorrow night, six, at Pints.”

“Bet.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously, what? Didn’t expect me to take you up on it so now you’re scrambling for a way to back out? Don’t worry about it, you’re not the first to try and get a rise out of me, then trip over themselves back peddling when I called their bluff.”

“It wasn’t a bluff,” I blurted, halting the rest of his tirade. “I was just stunned; I never get a date that fast.”

“Not sure if that says something about you, or the people you’ve been asking.”

“Probably a little of both,” I admitted. “But I’d still love to meet up with you tomorrow.”

“It’s a date then,” River said, slowly appraising me again, “And something tells me it’s going to be an interesting one.”