Chapter 8

Molly Malloy sat in Ruth Andrews’s kitchen the discussion concerned tenure for three teachers now completing their fourth year of teaching and by time spent in their positions now eligible.

“Melina Morrow has been innovative and well-liked by her students since she arrived at Shoreside Park Elementary, Ruth, and I definitely would, as the steward of the teacher’s union here in SP and as a colleague, would recommend her for tenure,” Molly looked up from the folder in front of her and scratched a bug bite on her bare thigh.

It was the middle of April, the school would be out for the summer in late May and teachers not attaining tenure would need time to shop their resumes to other districts. Molly was also currently recruiting for the lifeguard and beach control for the summer season which would begin for Shoreside Park just after the close of school.

For her, it is a seamless transition, a teacher in the nude on Friday, a lifeguard in the tower seat still nude the following Monday. The back burner agenda today was Molly Malloy seeking Ruth Andrews’s permission to recruit Wendy Ann Ingrid Farrell as a lifeguard for the summer.

“What about Martin Baker,” Ruth asked, “His seventh-grade classes seem to like him, even if he is a ‘textile teacher’ and he has shown ability in interesting all grades five through eight in Earth Sciences and Geology.” She paused, then added, “My one concern is that he does not seem to want to take on the extra duties most teachers have done. He does not sponsor a club nor coach a team and he seems to want to leave as soon as the final bell of the day rings.”

Molly responded, “His mother passed away when he was very young, and his dad was never in the picture as a parent. The father worked in Colorado for a mining company and sent money for his support but did not really want him. Fortunately, he was raised by a maiden aunt who basically gave up her life to become his surrogate mother. She is suffering from early-onset dementia. He has a caregiver for her during his work hours but rushes home to be with her after school and sits with her all night.

“He knows that in a year or two she will need full-time care in an institution, but for now and as long as he can he wishes to keep her in their home surrounded by the things with which she is familiar. He told me, ‘She gave me her whole life out of pure unselfish love. I love her with all my heart and the least I can do is allow her to have her normal life at home for as long as possible,’ and speaking with the other teachers and his students they respect his commitment to his aunt.”

“I see, well that changes my vote to in favor of retention, I was tempted to vote no tenure as I did not know his situation,” Ruth responded.

“That brings us to Laura Lonegan, Ruth, and truthfully, I am on the fence with her. I like her, she is a good teacher and was a fine section leader for the beach patrol the past two summers, my concern is her fourth graders seem to not respond to her discipline. Granted they were no angels when I had them as third-grade students, but, they seem to be getting even wilder as they age. If it is the kids and not the teacher I dread seeing this class hit puberty in a year or two.”

“Once she has tenure, her removal will be far more difficult, should it turn out it is HER and not the children. Perhaps I will call her in for a private interview and find out what issues she might be having, also I want to speak to the person Waif refers to as ‘The Source’ one Miss Veronica, ‘Ronnie’ Peters, that child has her fingers on more pulses and her thumbs in more pies than Clara Barton and Jack Horner combined.” Ruth said with a straight face, getting the appropriate giggle in response from Molly Malloy.

The older woman showed the younger to the outer porch when Molly turned back and asked, “Has Katherine reconsidered Waif becoming a lifeguard this summer? She has all of the qualifications, passing water safety instructor courses while with the high school swim team this year and Red Cross Life Saving. She does the beach run with the team every morning just for exercise and is a fit young woman. I don’t get Katherine’s objection,” Molly paused.

“Katherine still sees the girl as the frail, sickly underdeveloped child she was when she arrived on this doorstep last year. The fact Waif has grown five inches gained twelve pounds of muscle and is the picture of health does not dispel her mother’s memories of a sick-onto-death child.

“I am hoping that the twins and I can talk her into it before the hiring window closes. Speaking of growth spurts, have you seen the ‘bugs’ lately? Those girls had best be volleyball or basketball players with the height and thin reed bodies they are creating.” Ruth smiled and winked. Molly was assured of her lifeguard and at least two girls for the Shoreside Park recreational beach volleyball teams.

“I’m sorry, Kate, but this is the most important assignment I’ve been given in my military career and I am the best person for the job.” Keith Farrell told his wife by Skype. “It will take a minimum of two and a half more years. I feel it is best to put the city townhouse up for sale and put the contents in storage unless your mother can use furnishings for the shore place, and Barney wants to buy out my share of the business partnership. That will give you a bit more flexibility financially.”

Katherine Farrell had just heard that her husband was ‘tour extended’ by the military. The rebuilding portion of the mission in southwest Asia had begun and as a civil engineer in civilian life, as well as a project engineer for the Air Force, the Department of Defense had ordered his extension on active duty to oversee the rebuilding of highways and bridges damaged in the conflict.

“What about Waif and the twins, Keith? What should I do about your mother and her child interference case? Should I let Waif take the summer job on the beach? I need a little help here I feel overwhelmed.” Katherine was close to tears, she had expected Keith to be announcing a date for his return home, not an extension of almost three more years away from home.

“The girls will be fine, Kate, and Waif is more mature than you realize. If her doctors tell her it is okay, at her checkup later this month then, yes, she should get the experience and responsibility of the lifeguard job. My mother and her lawyers are going to use every trick they can to keep her out of prison, Kate. She already has been able to reduce the two counts of kidnapping to two counts of custodial interference and two counts of child endangerment. A good judge on a bad day might sentence her to a maximum of three years in prison on each count and have her serve them consecutively. But the odds are in favor of a concurrent sentence with no prison time less the time she spent in county jail already, wearing an ankle monitor and an order of no contact with the children. My JAG officer here has been advising me as to possibilities short of dragging the twins through a trial. His suggestion is to let her plea bargain her deal, avoid the twins having to testify in court against their grandmother and make a condition of the deal that she never has contact with her grandchildren again, even after the sentence is completed. I’d say if your lawyer stateside agrees, do it and get this matter resolved quickly while we can avoid the twins having to be deposed and possibly testify in open court.”

“I think I can agree to that, the twins were already anxious about having to tell what their grandmother did in court. I agree to sell the townhouse, Keith, but, and hear me out, there is a two-story seven bedroom four bath eleven room house up for sale two doors down from my mother. If we get the price we should for the townhouse, we can afford this one. I think my mother would relish the kids being close but not under her roof, Keith. They literally love her to death. It is exhausting her.

“The house is directly across the street from Bret and Ronnie Peters. It is zoned commercial/residential, so when you do come home you can set up a new engineering office right here. Do you remember me talking about Captain Don? It was his place. I think you can get a lot of business locally, Keith, we have our foot in the door already. Year-rounders’ here all know each other and Waif has been such an ice breaker in the community for us that we are already members in good standing in the community. If that meets with your approval may I place a bid on the home?”

“My mother bought us that townhouse as a wedding present almost twenty-two years ago. Now it is nothing but bad memories. I know I could not live there and I’m sure your mother did not think you, the kids, and ultimately, I would stay with her full time, so YES put the bid on the house. My share of the firm partnership will cover the house even if the townhouse doesn’t sell for a while.” Keith reassured his life partner. With plans in place, the family was prepared to move on.

Waif sat in the stands cheering on the track team as the girls ran the four-hundred-meter race. The Spring Break Sports Spectacular was in full fruition and her friend and fellow committed nudist Kelly Franks was running for the ‘Girl Gulls’ and at the two hundred meter split was in fourth place behind two textiles from Graftonville High School. The leader in the breakaway pack was Chelsea Looney, another Bayside Regional runner who also was a textile.

Kelly looked tired and Waif worried that she would drop further back and lose the breakaway group. As the race turned toward the three-hundred-meter point and the gun sounded announcing the final lap of the race everything changed. Kelly broke into her sprint and passed the two girls from Graftonville. She closed to within a body length of Chelsea before the leader realized she was there and then passed Chelsea on the inside just staying legally in the lane while doing it and finishing a stride and a half ahead of her clothed teammate.

Waif giggled to herself watching from the stands. She knew the bet that was between Chelsea, a senior, and Kelly a junior. Kelly wagered Chelsea that should Kelly win the race today Chelsea would surrender her rights to clothing until graduation. Chelsea having never lost to anyone from her own team or an opponent readily agreed and added if Kelly lost she would wear LOSER in marker across her naked butt.

Looking none too happy about it, Chelsea pulled off her running briefs and singlet and handed them to Kelly. Two Bayside girls stood naked on the platform when the race results were announced. Only the girl coming in second had tan lines. A clothed girl from Graftonville stood on the last spot.

Spring track and field and spring soccer competed for the athletic fields of Bayside at this time every year. Such was and is the Spring Break Sports Spectacular. Three sports, aquatics [swimming, diving, water polo], track and field, and soccer all competed on Bayside Regional’s campus for the ten days of the annual high school spring break. The track meet was the qualifier for the state championship finals held in late May. The round-robin girls’ soccer tournament began almost immediately upon the track meet closing. Eighteen teams, three soccer fields, and three games on each field Saturday. Winners advance and play each other on Sunday with Bayside girls taking the opponent position for the fifth game. Again winners advance to the Monday game, played on a Monday holiday. The rules state that should Bayside win their game Bayside does not go on to the trophy round. The three teams victorious in the last games are ranked by goals scored, goals scored against, and tiebreaker penalties.

This was the third and last high school sporting event that closed the town down for several days. Merchants who had to remain open kept the live feed from the Bayside Regional High School closed circuit television station on in their shops. Parents with sons and daughters competing in events were given time off of work to attend and cheer on the Screaming Gulls teams. It was not unusual to see a mother running to her daughter’s game on the soccer field while the father sat on the bleachers in the natatorium to cheer for the son who was a diver on the swim team. So it was with the loyalties of classmates and teammates.

Waif sat on the aluminum bleachers in the sun, stark naked, on a team towel from the swim team. She was between heats, having qualified for the two-hundred-meter breaststroke finals earlier in the morning. Her race would be called in an hour and she had a half-hour before returning to the pools to warm up.

Next, she would go in and watch Loretta dive her event on the ten-meter springboard. Then would come her warm-up and her race; with Hank, Kelly, and Loretta sitting in the bleachers rooting her on as she had done for them.

So intent on the goings-on happening field level that she did not hear the footfalls on the bleachers behind her, Waif was startled when Principal Suarez spoke her name from behind her left shoulder.

“We need to talk, Miss Farrell, not now, once school resumes next week. I would like for your mother and grandmother to be there when we have our chat.” The Principal of the school smiled when she spoke and added, “It is wonderful good news, so please do not worry or let this throw you off your pace for your swim, I do so want to see you add a varsity swimmer to your varsity “B” alongside your one from football.”

Waif had been voted a football varsity letter for her academic eligibility tutoring of Whale, Paul, and several other players. The letter she would win for swimming would not be honorary; she had competed the entire season, never finishing less than second in her two events. Today would be her last swim of the season.

Dorothy Suarez turned to walk up the steps of the stadium and Waif, now so used to the casual atmosphere of the school toward nudity actually noticed for the first time that the principal was nude.

Bayside had a tradition of both students and faculty participating in two theater productions annually. The first one in the fall had been an in-the-round production of the play ‘The Fantasticks.’ It was a fully textile production. It was performed during the nude in-school introductory period and none of the cast neither faculty nor student had been chosen for their nude month. While successful, it was agreed by most that it was nothing out of the ordinary, though the lead singers were given good reviews for their vocalization.

The Spring production of ‘HAIR,’ was the opposite. Performed fully with costumes for the first two nights and the nude portions kept in, the show drew huge audiences. Thursday and Friday nights, those in the cast who stripped off for the nude scenes remained so during bows and encores. The show closed its run Saturday with a matinee at three p.m. and an evening show at eight p.m. At the matinee, the entire cast stripped and took bows and encores naked. The evening performance was done fully nude to the delight of wives, parents, siblings, and neighbors of the teachers and students on stage. The local newspaper reviewed the performance and rated it ‘as enjoyable as any night of theater this writer has experienced.’

Bayside Regional High School was gaining a reputation as the pacesetter and an example of how in-school nudity should be done in policy and practice. Waif was credited as being the point of the arrow by setting the example of full-time committed nudity in public early on in the year and being supportive of others who tried it short term or ultimately like Waif fully committed to the nude lifestyle.

In the back of the playbill was an advertisement posted by the drama and theater department, “Come Join Us for ‘Most Happy Fella’ October 21-24.” Presale of tickets already six months in advance suggested added performances would be needed to accommodate the crowds. It was rumored that the Spring production would be, ‘Oh, Calcutta.’

Waif swam her event and won by an arm’s length. She then had to wait out a protest from the rival team complaining that she had an unfair advantage as she swam nude. The district sports committee for high school aquatics rendered an immediate ruling that Waif actually swam at a disadvantage as the sleek swimsuits worn by the opposing team were designed to lessen the drag in the water of the human body. The committee chairman suggested that in total fairness, perhaps the rival team girls should also swim the race nude and the results of the rematch would be considered the official race results.

The opponent team abruptly withdrew its protest. Waif giggled at that. Some of the girls on the other team were rather well-endowed. Without their girls tightly tucked into the Lycra swimsuits Waif could tell their times would be much slower.

Waif clinched her varsity swim letter and won a District medallion, not unlike an Olympian who would win for leading her team to the Division championship. To be fair all nineteen athletes on the swim squad received a medallion, but the first neck that was draped was Waif’s.

The Sports Dinner was uneventful; Whale and Waif danced and spent time with Katherine and Ruth at the dinner table. The younger ones went to excuse themselves and slip out for some alone time when Ruth Andrews stopped them. “There is no reason why, if you and Richard are going to be together tonight, Waif, you should think you need to go to some deserted portion of the beach. The two of you are welcome to stay at home in your room. Lock the door and no one will disturb you as the twins are staying with Ronnie and Brett Peters and Rita is with them.”

The odd thing about Whale and Waif was sex was not the be-all and end-all of their relationship. To look at them together was to see a pairing such as Michael Strahan alongside Kelly Ripa on television. Whale standing six feet four inches tall and Waif a mere five feet and almost three inches; Whale the rich café au lait of mixed racial parentage to Waif in her reddish blond ivory paleness. Old souls in young bodies the pair spent most of their time talking and cuddling. Occasionally when both felt comfortable sex would happen, but it was not nor had it ever been the driving force of their relationship. Tonight might be one of those nights as Richard Richards had been offered and had signed a letter of intent to play football for PFIT and would be leaving in mid-July for training camp at the university.

Ronnie Peters sat across from Ruth Andrews and sucked the thick milkshake through the straw, pausing only for the brain freeze to pass when she sucked too hard. Looking up and swinging her bare feet under the picnic table outside the ice cream shop she broke her silence. “Auntie Ruth, many of the kids in my grade level have younger brothers and sisters in Miss Lonegan’s class. I hear from my friends that the class has two really wild kids and they are both girls, Sophie Valenzuela and Melina Griffin, they somehow control the behavior of the other eighteen kids in the class. They get away with it because it is never done in front of the teacher and it is always a psyche-out form of bullying never physical. Also, Auntie Ruth, they act like angels in the class and always get good grades; that is why no one suspects they are behind what goes on.”

Ronnie paused and sucked down more of the thick semi-liquid mix in the large glass in front of her, “It’s like they will torment some other kid in the restroom or on the playground or in the line on the way to first class in the morning, and tease them about something personal and private. Once that kid is primed to the point that he or she will act up with the least provocation they stop. We kids in middle school have tried to get them to stop, but we cannot get the teachers to take a close look because they never do anything in front of an adult.

“Miss Lonegan can be a really good teacher. She just seems to catch the backlash of Sophie and Melina’s actions. Molly saw some of this last year, but the two were just getting started with their terror campaign. As they gather more information to use against the other kids, their power grows. Rumor is they have a digital camera or a phone that has pictures on it they have taken of kids caught in embarrassing acts. Urination, masturbation, and anything anal seem to be the focal point of their stash, but one really cute blond girl was caught with a finger up her nose at least once. She is Richie Boomer’s sister, he’s in my class, and Richie is trying to find that camera and put an end to all of this blackmail and manipulation.”