After a long, arduous day of dealing with every obstacle her rowdy and incorrigible students could put in front of her, all Debra Stallings could think about, as she lugged herself out to the school parking lot, was to throw the two heavy leather bags full of homework in her arms into the backseat and then head home.
Scattershooting her mind, trying to decide which takeout place to order dinner from, Debra knew it would be a long night of grading papers and hoped her family would understand if all they got to eat was either Chinese or Italian on paper plates.
"MMMPPHH... you ain't as young as you used to be," Debra gasped as she tossed her book bags into the backseat and sat down behind the wheel.
Just as she was about to slip the key into the ignition, a large business sized envelope placed underneath her driver's side windshield wiper caught her attention.
"Those kids and their fundraising," Debra initially muttered, familiar with the students' practice of placing fliers for school related events on teachers' car windows.
"But that's an envelope... not a flier, " Debra said to herself, with a modest level of curiosity as she swung her feet back out the door so she could reach for the strange delivery.
Taking a look around the nearly vacant faculty lot to see if any of the remaining cars had a similar package on the windshield, Debra began to get a queasy feeling in her stomach when she saw that the few cars left had no such envelopes.
"Humm," Debra groaned as she stood up on her tippytoes to retrieve the delivery.
Cringing immediately from the tangible weight of the package, being a sales rep for Tupperware, Debra's next inclination was that it must be an order from one of her co-workers. Flipping the envelope over however, after she returned to the comfort of her driver's seat, a cross expression drifted across her demure features when she saw that it was addressed to ,"Mrs. Stallings".
"It must be from one of my students," Debra stoically whispered to herself.
Digging her right index finger into the seal, Debra carefully ripped the envelope open. From the moment the contents of the letter spilled out onto her lap, Debra Stallings lost all comprehension of space and time. Sitting in the driver's seat of the family's SUV, with the letter and its contents spread out across her lap and the bottom edge of the steering wheel, the married Mother of four felt as if she was stewing in front of the Gates of Hell as the reality of her situation slowly engulfed her.
Trying to tame her trembling hands enough to unfold the one page letter so she could study further the gravity of her newfound predicament, Debra anxiously pressed the note down against the front of her dark blue skirt and read the short but succinct offering.
It said simply, "As you can see, several items of interest pertaining to your indecent and hypocritical behavior has come to my attention. If you do not wish to have any of this material offered up to the general public, meet me at the truck stop motel out by I-79 at noon tomorrow to negotiate. "
Debra's already pale Victorian face turned a ghostly shade of white as the threat in the blunt message dug like a leech into her psyche. She didn't even have a chance to chalk the threat up to empty verbage when several Polaroid pictures spilled out of the envelope as well. Scouring her numb fingertips across the glossy squares of film, Debra immediately recognized the hazy images in the photos. An arctic chill infected her spine when the middle aged teacher began to piece together the depth of her peril.
Whoever had done this her had taken the time to take several Polaroids of the photos that Debra and her husband had concealed under their marital bed. Pictures of her in various stages of undress, playing with numerous large and imposing phallic instruments, and to her horror, even a few digital vid-cap camera scans from one of the home movies Debra and her husband had made.
Sitting there alone in the family vehicle, in the middle of the desolate school lot, Debra trembled in the driver's seat for nearly a half hour as the typed letter and photographic evidence of her "behind closed doors" indecency stared back at her from her lap.
To complicate the fear and helplessness she was already feeling, the sickening reality of violation that comes when you realize your house has been robbed also sunk like a led ball inside Debra's belly.
"Who could have done this... when... and... why," She cried loudly, dropping her forehead against the steering wheel until her stinging tears were dripping down on the paper and pictures below.
* * * * *
The trip home and subsequent evening was nothing more than a jumbled blur for the married woman. It took her Husband, Ben, asking her three separate times what was for dinner before Debra found the wherewithal to look up the Chinese takeout place's number and call them so her family could eat. It was a meal that Debra didn't even touch.
Repulsed and sickened by what was in the letter she received at school, Debra spent the entire night in a foggy abyss until her Husband finally cornered her and asked her what was wrong.
"Just a headache and a stomachache, Honey," Debra told him, as she rested in a heap under the covers, never once making eye contact with Ben, wishing she could just find a hole to crawl into.
Occasionally checking the digital clock on her nightstand, Debra couldn't help but count down the minutes until noon the next day when she had been summoned to appear at the seedy truck stop all the way on the other side of town, to answer for some sins that she was now brutally ashamed of. Even as her Husband snored away beside her, Debra forced herself to stay awake, scared to fall asleep for fear of what her nightmares might hold.
As the fear and uncertainty of darkness gave way to dawn however, the deep seeded fortitude of a woman who had successfully navigated her way into her mid thirties kicked in and Debra made the decision to ignore the threat, to go to school like she was supposed to do and to live her life in the face of the awful threat to her station in life.
Even though she was sleeping on the same bed that the thief had pilfered her and her Husband's most embarrassing possessions out from under, Debra Stallings found the strength to drag herself up, dress her kids, get them and her Husband ready for their day, collect herself for school as well and charge out the door to meet the day head on.
Despite all the positive thinking she could muster, Debra's workday turned out to be a surreal experience. Traipsing through the day with as much confidence and denial as she could, it didn't prevent the distraught teacher from looking hard at every male face she encountered, wondering if that person was the one responsible for the threatening letter on her windshield.
By the time noon had rolled around, Debra was a nervous wreck. Staring at the clock above her desk, Debra let out a audible sigh when the minute hand tipped the top of the hour, right along side the small hour hand.
"Nothing happened.... Thank God," Debra mouthed over and over as if she were a death row inmate that had just been given a stay.
* * * * *
