AUTHOR'S NOTES: For detailed notes and disclaimers, see part one.
The cafeteria, only hours earlier the scene of a major food fight, was now festooned with paper chains and balloons, filled with girls in formal dresses and guys in tuxedos. At the top of the room, a DJ was busy taking requests, while all along the side, Mr Dyrenforth kept a stern eye on the punch bowl. Miss Grant, Mrs Berg and Mr Shorofsky meanwhile were keeping an eye on the dancers, supposedly as chaperons. In reality, they were just keeping an indulgent eye on them, remembering what it felt like to be so young and so happy and to have your whole life in front of you.
They couldn't help but notice though, that while all her friends had dates, Nicole had come alone. It wasn't that she hadn't been asked, because she had. Contrary to her expectations, single motherhood had done nothing to stem her flow of admirers. She had come alone tonight by choice, something else that surprised her friends. None of them could fathom doing something like that.
Miss Grant sighed as she looked at her. Mr Shorofsky nodded wisely as he followed her gaze. "She does look rather lovely, does she not?"
Miss Grant only smiled in return. Nicole did indeed look beautiful, wearing a long, sleeveless velvet dress. It was a deep, dark shade of blue, clinging to every curve, and heads had turned when she walked in. But as always, she stood alone, talking to her friends when they came over, even laughing and joking, but dancing with none of them.
That was what she was doing now, looking on as all her friends slow-danced. She allowed herself a bitter reflection, that things could have been so different. One night was all it had taken to change her life completely - she didn't regret the night. Every now and again however, she had cause to regret the way things had turned out.
"I believe they're playing our song."
She jumped as she heard a voice behind her. Turning, she saw Leroy, wearing a tuxedo and a broad smile, looking, to her eyes, like the most handsome man in the place. He held out a hand to her, and wordlessly, she took it. "May I have this dance?"
She frowned slightly as she tried to place the first notes of the song, then gave him an answering smile as she heard the first words.
"Those high school days of telling tales and biting nails are gone...."
"You remembered..." she said. While she and Leroy were close, and they spent a lot of time together with Sarah, they rarely discussed her journal, or the things she had written there. That was something she had gone through, and shared with him, not to be discussed again.
"Of course I remembered," he told her, somewhat indignantly as he took her in his arms. "Do you know," he continued. "How hard it is to find that soundtrack? I searched for weeks..."
Nicole laughed and nodded as they moved in time to the music. Across the room, Ian and Reggie were taking a break from dancing, looking at them. Maxie and Jesse joined them, and together, they gazed at the couple.
"I didn't know Leroy was coming," Jesse observed.
"Yeah. I wonder what's going on there..." Ian thought aloud.
"Isn't it obvious?" Maxie asked. Three heads swivelled to look at her, as three sets of eyes narrowed in anticipation of what little gem of wisdom Maxie was about to impart now.
"Isn't what obvious?" Jesse demanded, when Maxie's pause got a little too long.
For once, Maxie, usually so composed and sure of herself, actually hesitated before she spoke. It was something that had been niggling at her for a while, but everything had finally chrystallised for her at that moment when she saw Nicole and Leroy dancing together. "That Leroy is Sarah's father," she said simply.
"What?" "You're crazy" Ian and Jesse spoke simultaneously, but Reggie looked at Maxie, then at the swaying couple on the dance floor, and thought about what Maxie was saying. And saw the sense in it, before Maxie even explained herself.
"What makes you think that?" Jesse continued.
"Like I say, it's obvious. First of all, the father has to be black. You only have to look at Sarah to know that."
"Which means it has to be Leroy, the only black guy in New York." Ian went heavy on the sarcasm.
Maxie fixed him with a withering stare which had the desired effect of shutting him up. "And none of us have ever bought the line that we didn't know him. I never knew Nicole, but look at the way we work here. It takes hard work to maintain a relationship outside of the school, even a friendship. Did Nicole really have the time to make a serious relationship work? And we know that it must have been a pretty serious relationship, or she never would have slept with the guy. She must've really cared."
"That still doesn't mean it's Leroy." Ian protested.
Jesse's mouth was open as if to add to Ian's protest, but Maxie's raised hand stopped him. "Someone she cared about. But if she cared about someone that much, if he was important enough to sleep with, conceive a child with, why not come out about it? Why not shout it from the rooftops? Tell everyone. Even if she was ashamed, we all make mistakes. Why hide it?" She paused, partly to allow the others time to think, partly for dramatic effect. "What would make Nicole hide her pregnancy?"
For the first time since Maxie had dropped her bombshell, Reggie spoke up. "To protect someone." She may or may not have been aware that she was speaking out loud.
Maxie soon reminded her. "Exactly!" She snapped her fingers triumphantly. "Now, let's suppose for a minute I'm right about Leroy being the father. Why would Nicole have to protect him?"
Now that she had caught the drift, Reggie could see exactly where Maxie was going, and got there ahead of her. "Because he was her teacher." She looked in turn at Maxie, Jesse and Ian, and nodding as if it all made sense to her. "He was her teacher," she repeated. "And if anyone found out that they were more than just friends, he could lose his job."
"And the rest," Maxie said. "Not only would he lose that job, he'd never teach again. Anywhere. And as an adult, with Nicole not being an adult, he could be prosecuted for statutory rape, if Nicole's parents were so inclined."
"Which they most definitely would have been." Jesse too was beginning to see the logic in Maxie's reasoning.
As was Ian. "So Nicole and Leroy are seein' each other on the sly. She gets pregnant. So to protect him, she goes into hiding. And presumably, she never tells her parents that he's the father."
Maxie was nodding, pleased that they were all agreeing with her. "I guess not, since Leroy isn't in jail somewhere."
"But Nicole said that we didn't know him -that he didn't go to our school," Jesse objected.
"No," Reggie said. "She said he wasn't a student at our school. I remember thinking that sounded funny. And Leroy wasn't a student at the time."
"There's one thing I don't get," Jesse was still thinking this through. "The Leroy I know would never have let Nicole leave town like that. He'd take responsibility for what happened, no matter what it cost him. He was touring when the baby was born....I don't think he'd do that."
"Maybe he didn't." Maxie shrugged. "Maybe he never knew."
"Because Nicole knew that if he did," Again, Reggie was way ahead of her, "He'd never let her leave. That he'd give up everything to stand by her."
"So she gave up everything to protect him," Jesse finished. "That's Nicole."
Their gazes swung back to Nicole and Leroy, still moving slowly to the music. Once Maxie had been pointed out everything to them, it was all so obvious, just as she had said. As someone who had never known Nicole back then, it was easier for her to see the truth when it was staring her in the face. The rest had been too close.
They weren't the only ones who were looking at Nicole and Leroy closely. Mr Shorofsky continued to smile indulgently, as did Mrs Berg. "I didn't know Leroy was here," Mrs Berg enthused. "Don't they look wonderful?"
Miss Grant however, wasn't smiling. Instead, she wore a worried look. "Yes...yes they do."
THE DAY AFTER
Miss Grant was on her own in the dance studio the next day, working up a number she was planning to use for an audition that week. Since it was summer, she was planning to use the time to get work, hopefully on Broadway. She'd be lying if she said she was concentrating fully on the dance though - she had far more pressing matters on her mind.
As the music ended, she heard clapping behind her, and turned to see a smiling Leroy, sitting on the piano stool beside the door. "Not bad at all," was his verdict.
"Why thank you Mr Johnson. All finished rehearsal for the day?"
Leroy shrugged, with a smile. "For all the good it did today. I was suffering from a lack of sleep."
"Yeah. I saw you at the prom." Miss Grant towelled herself off, and walked pensively to the stool. She sat down on the floor beside it and considered her next words carefully.
"Miss Grant, I know you got something to say. Otherwise you never would have rung me up and asked me to come down here." Seeing Miss Grant's pause, he continued. "Spit it out."
"I just noticed the way you were dancing with Nicole last night....the way you were looking at her...."
A dreamy smile lit up Leroy's face, and Miss Grant's heart sank as she noticed it. "Yeah. Didn't she look great?"
"Well, that's just it Leroy. I know Nicole, and I know she's a terrific girl. And I love her, I really do....but...."
"But what Miss Grant? C'mon, you can tell me."
"I just wonder about the wisdom of you getting involved with her. I know how wonderful she is, and how strong. But she has a daughter....and you're just starting out in life...." She laid a hand on Leroy's arm. "It may sound awful, but do you really want to raise a child that isn't your own?"
She was nervous as to how Leroy would interpret her words, which were meant as a caution for his own good. To her surprise, he only smiled. "Miss Grant..." he said slowly. "I think there's something you ought to know......"