Surrendered Hearts!

Brenda Meets the Kentwoods Heiress!

The moment she got into her car, she drove like the hounds of hell were on her neck. Her palms were sweaty and her tummy was churning wildly. Brenda paid no attention to where she was driving - every action seemed mechanical - she did not need conscious directions.

It was such a shock to discover the vehicle was stationary with the engine switched off. Her breathing hitched when she discovered where she was; Rudyard's Elementary School. Suddenly, she realized that all her previous stops had been leading up to this moment. Brenda had been gathering her nerves to bring herself here.

She opened the car door banging the door involuntarily behind her and crossed to the other side to the school's entrance. The kids were on lunchbreak and the school yard was crowded with children of all ages. Laughter and shouts reached her ears, tugging at her heart. She slowed down, scanning their carefree faces for a while before shaking her head and entering the building. Her long strides led her all the way to the principal's office.

Brenda’s nerves sent tremors all over her body as she approached the receptionist. The receptionist had a friendly but inquisitive face that immediately helped calm Brenda’s nerves a bit.

"Hello ma'am, am Brenda...Brenda Franklin. I used to live here some years back," she lied smoothly - just as she had lied about her surname. Brenda was forcing a jovial note to her voice, an attempt to hide the intense strain that was threatening to break the front she was putting up. "I've just moved back here and was thinking of enrolling my first grade son in your school."

"Hello to you Mrs?" she looked at her inquisitively.

"Miss," Brenda replied quickly wondering why that made her feel - guilty?

"Oh, welcome to Rudyard Elementary school miss Franklin. It would be an honour to enroll your son to our institution..." before she could go on, Brenda interjected.

"Am sorry, I don't meant to cut ypu off but I thought I'd check out the institution first before I made the final decision. Would it be alright if I wandered around the building?" she asked.

The woman hesitated, Brenda quickly added, "I won't be staying long - just checking out the layout. I promise I'll be less that half an hour tops and that includes not disrupting or intruding on any classes."

After a long inspecting gaze, the woman seemed to hesitate but she eventually smiled and said, "I see no harm in it."

"Oh, thank you so much," Brenda said as she retreated from the office, tension knotting her tummy afresh.

The hallways unlike the school yard was silent. She walked along the corridors her sandals making a dull patter that intruded on the stillness of the hallways. Brenda was gripped by the sensation that she should leave before it was too late. She kept telling herself that she should forget and walk away while she could and even every logical, sensible and practical bone in her body screamed at her to do exactly that but she was driven by an instinct that was much more elemental and primitive.

Her steps slowed, ‘why were there no kids in the hallways?’ she wondered as she reached the door to the first grade classroom. It stood open. Brenda hesitated for several tense moments before venturing inside. No one was in the room. She wandered to the rows of desks, her nose sniffing in the air hoping to catch a whiff of...’what? Her scent? Can you even remember?’ a voice inside her head taunted. She was too preoccupied that she did not hear the approaching footsteps outside the door.

“Hello?”

An inquiring inflection tinged the greeting that startled Brenda . She pivoted sharply, alarm showing on her face briefly, then disappearing when she saw the tall, slender, apparently very human blonde woman with books in her hand standing in the doorway. “Are you looking for Miss Gretchen?

“Miss Gretchen? The name meant nothing to Brenda, and for a minute there she couldn’t fathom why the young lady thought she would be looking for that person.

“Yes, Miss Gretchen teaches the first graders.” The reply was followed by a curious study of Brenda. “I guessed since you are in her class, you must be looking for her.”

“No, I...” Brenda paused feeling a bit stupid. She walked slowly towards the doorway where the blond woman stood. She looked to be only a few years older than Brenda but she could be way younger than her given their genetic difference. “I used to study here years ago,” Brenda lied.

There was an instant smile of understanding. “Oh, revisiting your childhood stomping grounds, huh?” the blonde woman teased, putting Brenda at ease.

“Something like that,” she grabbed onto the offered assumption.

“I’m Maria Gomez, in charge of the second graders,” the blonde teacher introduced herself.

“Brenda... Franklin,” she faltered almost forgetting the false surname she had earlier provided at the receptionist’s, though she was pretty sure no one would remember a Franklin.

“Are you visiting relatives?” Nothing in her indicated that she was trying to probe, merely asking out of a friendly interest.

“No, am on vacation and I just happened to pass through town.”

“Where do you live now, if you don’t mind my asking?” Her friendliness was staring to get on Brenda’s nerves, all she had wanted was...’what?’ ...the voice seemed to taunt but if she was being honest with herself, she could not really explain what she wanted by coming here.

“The company I work for gave me a transfer from their Phoenix Office to Houston a few months ago.” This was her first entirely truthful answer.

Maria seemed interested to know more but was afraid of asking so Brenda offered her an answer to satisfy her curiosity and maybe, just maybe, she thought she might learn something from her. “I work for an It firm, MetaCorp.” She realized with something akin to shock that it was quite a relief talking about her work as it provided her with the distraction she needed from the emotional overload and nerves she was experiencing as this was a totally unemotional topic.

“Technology.” Maria’s blue eyes widened expressively, she had nothing to add as this field seemed to be out of her league but she trued anyway, “that’s an interesting field.”

“Quite, it offers the challenges i need to keep growing in my career,” Brenda replied. “The pay is good as well as the benefits and I was really fortunate to be hired fresh out of college.”

“What was your major?”

“I majored in Mathematical science at the University of Edinburgh. “

“So this is your first trip back since you moved away?” Maria asked politely. Together they started to move out of the doorway onto the hallway as it had more room.

“More or less,” Brenda hedged on her reply. “My parents died in an accident when I was fifteen. After their deaths, I was shuffled back and forth between relatives until I started college.”

“That must have been really tough,” Maria offered sympathetically.

Brenda almost pinched herself, she had no idea what had come over her. Either she was going crazy or Maria had put her under some form of trance – she rarely if ever talked about her parents, not even to those close to her. She had endured pain and heartache alone, she always did and she was not about to include anyone in her emotions.

“Yes, well... I made it,” she declared on an indrawn breath glancing back at the open door of the classroom her mind back on the real reason she was here.

“Have you looked up any of your old school mates?” Maria changed the topic to one she felt would be more pleasant.

‘This is it!’

Brenda felt her heart lunge all the way to her tummy, “Not really – no. Most of them have probably relocated and about the only name I can still think of since they have been permanent residents of the area are the Kentwoods.”

She waited apprehensively for two very long seconds, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

“It does seem the Kentwoods family has been around that long,” the teacher agreed with a hearty laugh oblivious of Brenda’s agitation. “Actually, the heir to the Kentwoods is in my class of second graders.”

All colour drained from Brenda’s face. She felt her knees grow weak as the statement nearly ripped her apart but Maria seem unaware of the impact of her words.

“I guess I should properly refer to Lisa as an heiress,” Maria corrected herself.

‘It’s a girl!!!!’

“A girl? Her father is Mason Kentwood?” the inflection of her almost frozen voice made it a question, seeking the confirmation she’d pay anything to have.

“Yes –“ Maria planned to say more but she was interrupted by the shrill loud clammer of a bell ringing above their heads. She waited for it to stop ringing to explain to Brenda, “That’s the first bell, classes will be starting any second now,” she declared feeling almost sorry that she had to cut short their conversation. To Brenda it was an apparent cue that their chatter had come to an end and true to her assumption, seconds after the teacher’s remark there was a sound of running feet filling the hallways.

“Mrs Gomez! Mrs Gomez!” The excited voice of a child called to Maria.

Brenda started to turn, gl8mpsing a two headed child out of the corner of her eyes, the teacher murmured an aside to her innocently not knowing she had just dropped a bombshell. “That’s Lisa Kentwood.”