Chapter 14
Backstroking
Star felt terrible. She drove in a daze, not knowing how she would react to Hayden when she saw him again. In spite of what Day said, she didn't want to go through with this. She didn't want Hayden to ever find out that she tried to trap him into a relationship just to use his political influence and connections. She liked him, and that's why she didn't want it to be this way. How would she pull back now? She was confused and angry for being in this position. She blamed both Abigail and Day for it. It was their idea from the beginning. They called her in at the last minute after they found out she was taking the position at Sewanee. They said it was a secret God sign and a blessing. To her it was more like a curse, and the weight of it on her was overpowering.
She finally decided that she would just keep her mouth shut and hope her Hayden feelings quelled some. She arrived at UT early enough to get a seat in the back and waited for class to begin. Hayden made it in 15 minutes before class time, but Star had been there for over 30 minutes. She had to have a back seat.
"Well, aren't you the early bird, Miss Star," he replied, pleased to see her again.
It had been two days, and he thought about her off and on for most of that time. Still, he finished a new political piece for the Jerusalem Council on human rights. The final presentation was to be at Easter, but they wanted to have a preview of it before the end of next week. He didn't expect to have to make many changes. He was excited that Jesus was going to be there. There were very few as up on human rights issues as Hayden. The title of the piece was "Equal and Free, All Citizens of Planet Earth."
"I just wanted to get a back seat that's all. You can change the rolls, right?" she asked, without a fleck of emotion and in a solid neutral tone.
Hayden noticed the cold tone and felt his stomach turn several times. It was obvious that something had changed. He didn't know her well enough to ask what. After all, if she felt blah today, who was he to try to analyze it?
He figured it as a personal-emotional thing and replied, "Sure, if that's what you want, I'll change it. I'll let you work it out with, let's see, George, oh no, our token football tackle and bully. Just sweet talk him. He doesn't have a chance," he remarked and laughed loudly, but not seeing even a hint of a smile from Star.
He continued, "Did you see my boy, Riley?" He knew she had to respond to that.
"Yes and the chancellor. He doesn't like you very much, does he?" she replied and smiled this time, then remembered how she shut him down.
"Oh, that liberal creep! No, he's a holdout from the dark ages, my era, like me."
"But you changed, he didn't," she said flatly.
"No, you're wrong. I was never a liberal. I fought against their ungodly ways then, and I'm still doing it now. It's more fun, now, since I have Jerusalem on my side."
"I thought it might be. I told him that if he continued to talk liberal trash, I'd report him to Jerusalem. I really hacked him off! I thought we're supposed to have believers running important places like that," she replied, then shut up quickly.
"Supposed to. Give credit where credit is due. Most all the teachers are solid as a Jesus rock. He's just a dinosaur. Too bad you didn't have an audience." He was tickled just thinking about it.
"I did, Riley and nine other students. Riley started a grand applause before the chancellor stormed out of the classroom."
"This is making my day, Star. Do you want to come over sometime this week? I'll cook some supper?" he suggested, almost too nervous to get out the question.
"No," she snapped and fiddled with her books nervously.
"No, just no? Busy, I guess?" he remarked as he tried to recover.
"No," she replied, then fiddled with her notebook this time.
He went deathly quiet. She was hurting him deeply and knew it. Nothing prepared her for how badly she felt right now. She felt like God was telling her not to do this, but she was committed. She couldn't do it the Abigail-Day way. It had to be her way.
"Excuse me a second," Hayden replied. "I have a test to copy."
After he left, she put her head on the desk and almost cried. Hayden was the only man she'd ever met that knew enough about her and her family to make her feel comfortable, and here she was closing him down. She felt like running away, after all, no class, no Hayden. Since she wasn't trying to trap him anymore, she didn't need his class; it was perfect.
A very bulked-up football tackle stood in front of her desk demanding, "Get up, girl! This desk is mine! Do it, now!"
Star stood up, and with her height, she was only a half-inch shorter than he was. It made him nervous as he stared directly into her eyes, and he heard a practiced, "No," then she sat down.
"Listen you overgrown weed, move!" he shouted as he swept her books off onto the floor.
She stood up again, not losing her cool, "Pick them up and put them back on my desk."
Several others had come in now and watched this standoff, then giggled about the little President's daughter getting hers.
Star asked him, "I hope that shirt you're wearing is strong enough to withstand being thrown with it."
She was getting ready to grab him by his shirt and toss him across the room. He continued to stare at her, and a look came over his face that was unfamiliar to her. She saw him staring directly into her eyes, almost, as if he were focusing on something in them or beyond them. With a strange look on his face, he fumbled on the floor, picked up her books and papers, much to the surprise and disappointment of the others. A student, who was hoping for more, approached him and whispered something to him.
His answer was pointblank, "Don't ask."
"Thank you, George," she said, skeptically, and sat down.
Before he turned to go sit down, she saw a reflection in his eyes that bothered her. He was now sitting as far from her as was possible. Star grabbed her purse and pulled out a makeup kit that she hadn't used since she was 13.
As she looked into the mirror, she exclaimed loudly, "Holy Johosephat!"
George turned to see her staring into the mirror and knew instantly what she was seeing. He spoke in agreement, "You're not just kidding, girl!"
Star hurriedly put on some old sunglasses and ran out of the classroom. She stuck her head back in and said, "George, the desk is all yours. Have a good life," as if to say, she wasn't coming back. Immediately, George started telling everyone what he saw with laughter mixed with fear.
Star ran directly into Hayden, almost knocking him down. "Whoa, Star, what's wrong? You look scared to death."
"Hayden, leave me alone! Haven't you got the message, yet!" she yelled at him and pushed him aside, then ran for the parking lot. What was happening to her? She remembered her friends in college who got red stars in their eyes. She remembered how some committed suicide, others became literal basket cases, and some had to be put in institutions. Others took her advice and wore contacts. She got in her Hummer and dumped her purse onto the seat next to her. She found the old address book; and after only a minute, she found the phone number of the optician who had taken care of all her friends.
She phoned; and after the third ring, an elderly lady answered, "Mrs. Hopkins, can I help you?"
"Mrs. Hopkins, is Doctor Hopkins in? May I talk to him?" she asked.
"It's Star, Mrs. Hopkins. Doctor Hopkins helped some of my friends with special contacts to handle an abnormality years ago in college. Mrs. Hopkins, I have to talk to your husband, please! It's an emergency!"
"I remember you. You're the President's daughter. You got my husband killed. They came to him two years after you left. He must have helped hundreds of your kind. He was just trying to help. They came to our house, and he made me hide in the closest. I heard them. They said he knew too much about them. They shot him dead. They shot my sweet, kind, wonderful Sam, and it's your fault! How dare you call me! You can take those red eyes and go to hell for what you did!" she screamed and hung up.
Star trembled and cried, sayin
g out-loud to herself, "I don't have red eyes, Mrs. Hopkins. Mine are like bright, white stars.” She drove to a local optician and forced herself into his busy calendar, determined to take care of this.
"Ma'am, you made my receptionist, who happens to be my wife, give you an appointment. Now, you won't let me look at your eyes. What's going on?" replied a rather middle-aged, squat man in a white doctor's smock.
"Doctor," she said as she stood up and looked down at him. "I don't have time to argue with you. I have a 500-silver certificate for your inconvenience and my attitude. I want two sets of contacts that are tinted as dark as you can get them, dark brown. Nothing is wrong with my eyes. They're 20-20. Tell me how much more you want, and I'll wait."
"I can have them for you in a couple hours. You'll have to wait or come back. They'll cost you 500 more for your attitude. Since you need them so badly, you'll have to pay my price. I don't know what's going on with you, but I'm not sure you're on the up and up."
"You're lucky I don't report you to Jerusalem for price gouging. It's against the law. I could have you closed down for this but forget it. Here's your money," she said as she peeled off several silver certificates and watched him drool with greed.
She figured the same thing must have been happening to Day, thus, the extra set. She just hoped her stars didn't get much bigger. As she sat in her car waiting for the lenses, she tried something. She stared into her mirror and started thinking about Hayden. She noticed that the star points were pulsating and reached the edges of her eyes the more she thought about him. She thought of something she hated, like liver. They shrunk down to a pinpoint. That was novel. She could always go around thinking about liver all the time. She thought about George and the incident, and they grew large again. They were controlled by how excited or emotional she became, including anger.
From her car, she kept dialing Day's room. After an hour of calling, Day picked up, "Star, is that you. What in the world just happened to us? I'm so scared. What can we do, wear sunglasses 24-hours a day?"
"Slow down, Sister. I just ordered you a pair of contacts that should work. I'll have them by the end of the day. You want to come and get them? You could always run into Riley. Don't distract him too much. He has a heavy first exam in my class tomorrow. Make sure he studies first before getting lip locked."
"Thank you, Sister. You're the greatest! And, you're so gross, lip locked, huh? Well, after his homework, right? Can I stay at your place tonight? I don't have a class until tomorrow. You got electricity now, don't you?"
"Yes, and hot running water. If you want, we can go down to the old, lower chambers where Abigail and Alex fell in love."
"Oh, neat. How is it going with Hayden?" she asked after feeling relieved about her eye dilemma, now.
"It's not. I'm not playing, Day. I'm not going back to his class, either. I'm not going to start a relationship this way. It's my choice. You and Abigail always said that. Well, I'm choosing not to. After today, I'll be lucky if he ever speaks to me again. I kind of lost it with him. My eyes changed just before his class started, and others saw it. Like I said. I'm not going back."
"But Star, we need his help to bring this all about. We need his intimate commitment to this," she begged.
"Well, little girl. If I were you, I'd try getting an intimate commitment some other way. It would take more than just a close friendship to sway him any particular direction. He's a very principled person. Actually, I like him a lot, and he loves our family because we're so much of his personal history fetish. If there were a way to start it some other way, a natural, slow, get-acquainted way, without strings, I'd do it. I like being around him. We seem to fit. He's comfortable. I need that kind of comfortable, but not Day-and- Abigail's way."
Day replied honestly, "You know, I'm not worried about it. God wants this done. I know He does. He'll lead us to getting the political connection some other way. I admire your stubbornness. You've always been the most independent of the two of us and the strongest. I'm jealous, but I love you for it."
"Thanks Sis’. Oh, I levitated the other day. Just thought I'd let you know," she bragged.
"You rat, you've caught up with me. How high did you go?" she asked, not expecting the answer.
"About 25 feet before I panicked and had to have Hayden help me off his stairs since I was hanging like a sack of potatoes."
"You were in Hayden's house? Did he see you?" she asked, puzzled and nosey.
"Yes and no. I drove him home from school because of the storm. We barely made it to his house," she replied calmly as she waited for more nosy questions.
"You really were in Red Fish? What was it like? Was it pretty? All Riley says is that it's nice. I bet it's more than nice!" she talked excitedly.
"It's beyond beautiful. It's like a piece of heaven on earth. It should be called a cathedral, a great, wonderful, beautiful cathedral. You have to see it in person. I imagine, you'll be seeing it more than I will, after today."
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Hayden's Ways
Hayden walked back into his class mystified by what happened. He started to take it personally, then didn't; it was just his way. He was so comfortable with himself that what others felt about him didn't matter, even Star. He did feel heaviness in his chest, a burning, that he felt was God sent, but he didn't know why. He figured that he'd better give her room. He decided that prayer for her was better right now than his obstinate, male intrusion into her privacy. At least, she was on his side against the chancellor. He laughed lightly to himself when he thought about it.
"That weird Tabor girl left class, Professor," George told Hayden.
"Well, from where you're sitting, it wasn't because you made her move. You tried to, I bet, didn't you, George?" he asked since he knew him all too well from a class two years ago. Hayden had flunked him for bullying another student.
"Yeah, but she turned science fiction on me, Professor. You should have seen it. Her eyes went wild. Bright spots like stars appeared in them. They kept getting bigger and bigger. It was creepy, Professor!" and the class joined in with George.
"Creepy, creepy, creepy," they all mumbled.
"Not creepy," he said to himself as he remembered the details of a historic report about the angels that appeared before the Day of the Dragons. They had star eyes, too. "Not creepy, angelic," and wondered even more what Star was about. Then, he remembered her hanging from the stair railing. "How did she get there? Did she fly? Was she really an angel? But, she grew up with Tabor and Abigail. What in the world is this all about?"
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