The Earring

Book 2 Part 1

Faith steered with one hand while she retrieved the Goggle map from the passenger seat.

The B & B was in West Monroe, a ways from ULM, but it looked like a pretty straight shot across town between the two. Faith assumed that she would find Kyra by hanging out on campus near the nursing building.

"Maybe one day I'll be able to afford a vehicle with a talking GPS," she complained aloud, as she anchored the map to the center of the steering wheel with her thumbs.

Faith had highlighted the exit number and easily made if off of I-20 and onto Mill Street. A few blocks and a turn later she found herself in front of the restored Rose Lee Inn built in the 1890's. The ivory stucco walls were pristine. The large arched windows on the second floor promised light-filled rooms. She had picked the Inn partially because of the name. Since she had been reading her mother's journal, 'rose' had taken on a new meaning. The five guest rooms were all on the second floor, with the bottom floor converted into an antique shop. All of the rooms were decorated with period antiques but with the modern addition of a private bathroom. The picture of her room showed an antique bed covered with a rose-patterned quilt positioned near a brick wall. Natural light spilled through a window overlooking a street lined with antique shops.

When she searched for accommodations in the Monroe area, Faith could have found a room nearer the campus, but she thought she might need some distance. She also wanted a place of relative solitude. She still wasn't ready for crowds congregating around a swimming pool or a noisy breakfast room filled with vacationers. The available accommodations in the university area were all large national chains with hundreds of cookie cutter rooms. The B&B more suited her mood.

Now Faith sat in front of the Inn, tired from her five-hour drive. She grabbed her suitcase from the trunk and claimed her room. After splashing some water on her face, she moved her car to the rear parking area before wandering along the neighborhood streets until she found a hole-in-the wall diner with a courtyard behind. After eating, she felt revived. Since it was now almost 4pm, she decided to wait until the next morning to explore ULM. Instead, she browsed through a few antique shops before returning to the Inn. In her room, she flipped on the television and watched the evening news and then settled down with book two of her Mama's journal.

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MISPLACED

"Like a misplaced earring, the motives for marriage can be lost in the routines of life."

Despite my distasteful initiation into secondary teaching, I decided to look for employment in the classroom. I presumed that substituting differed from teaching, because with my daily presence students would soon tire of their tedious games and accept me as the classroom authority. I was confident that I could win their hearts and perhaps even challenge their minds. The decision also may have hinged upon the fact that I obtained a degree in secondary education as a backup, in case I could not find gainful employment in the field of journalism. Since the small town where we landed had no newspaper, I opted for plan B.

Much to my surprise, I loved teaching. I liked looking for creative ways to get my students to enjoy social studies. My greatest pleasures, though, came from acting as sponsor to the student newspaper and teaching sociology.

As the sociology teacher, I led my students to experience the concepts we studied. Since some of my newspaper staff took sociology, our antics found their way into the publication.

When we studied mass hysteria, we staged two fire drills. The first was a normal exercise, so we could record the demeanor of the crowd and the time it took to execute. The second was more dramatic and designed to give the impression of an actual emergency.