by Kristy Tate
She picked up her phone. So what if she woke her parents? This was something she needed to know. If she was adopted, they should have told her about it a long, long time ago.
Memories of Cole flitted through her mind. She tried to sweep him away, but he refused to go. He haunted her like a ghost.
She started to press the buttons, but a sound stopped her. Cole’s laughter. She twisted in her seat and scanned the sidewalk for his familiar frame. She heard him but couldn’t see him. He really was haunting her!
She climbed from the car. A chilly breeze whipped between her legs. She pulled her sweater a little tighter when she heard him again. The sun had disappeared behind the distant foothills, but the moon had yet to rise. Twilight, thick with a cold marine layer, hung over the nearly deserted sidewalks. Nora leaned against her car, feeling foolish. But then she spotted him and a tall gorgeous blonde seated at a patio table at Cathy’s Café. The blonde laughed at something he said, laid her hand on his arm, leaned in, and kissed his cheek.
With a pounding heart, Nora turned her back on them. She put her phone in her pocket, climbed back in the car, and headed for her cottage.
ON THE NIGHT OF THE Harvest Moon Dance, Cole motioned for the teachers to follow him into an empty classroom. He flipped on the light switch and moved to the front of the room. While everyone huddled around him like offensive linemen would a quarterback, Nora hung back. Cole didn’t seem to notice.
“Remember no students can leave the gym without permission —except to use the restroom, of course,” Cole said. “Who are my restroom patrols?”
Barry Sprog and Darrel Poole raised their hands.
Cole nodded. “You know the drill.”
Barry and Darrel both gazed back at him with seriously intense gazes, looking as if they were braving battle -lines and not chaperoning a high school dance.
“Anyone trying to leave, or freak dancing, or scaling the walls—” Cole began.
“Scaling the walls?” Chad asked.
“It’s been done,” Darrel growled.
“Attempted,” Cole corrected her. “Anyway, any infraction will result in being quarantined.”
“Quarantined?” Nora asked.
“Yeah,” Barry whispered. “We’ve roped off a portion of the patio. Miscreants have to stay out there with me.”
“Chad, you and Hector are on grounds patrol.”
Hector and Chad both nodded as if they’d already been forewarned.
“Nora, you’re inside.”
“That’s the easiest job,” Darrel muttered. “I wonder how she got that!”
“Same way she got her teaching job,” Harris whispered.
“I can hear you,” Nora said, wondering if she could cast Darrel and Harris as Tweedledum and Tweedledee in her production of Alice in Wonderland.
Darrel and Harris pressed their lips together and they looked so similar Nora wanted to laugh—... until she caught a glimpse of Cole’s seriously intense expression.
“Here.” Missy slipped a small plastic box into Nora’s hand. Missy wore a tight red knit dress that accentuated the baby-bump that she typically hid beneath her artist smock.
“What’s this?” Nora whispered, studying the container of safety pins.
“You’ll see,” Missy said cryptically.
“Are we good?” Cole asked, his gaze sweeping the room.
“We’re not the people you need to worry about,” Barry said.
“This is going to be a disaster,” Darrel said.
“It always is,” Missy returned.
“The girls love it,” Cole said. “It’ll be fun,” he said appended with much less conviction. He opened the door and the teachers filed past.
The students had decorated the gym with scarecrows, hay bales, dried corn stalks, and a smattering of sunflowers. Red and white checked ribbons were tied to almost every vertical surface. A D.J. sat behind a giant sound system that boomed music throughout the room. Someone hit the lights and plunged the gym into darkness.
Cole and Irena stood just inside the doors. Maggie and a senior boy from Clinton Fields shuffled inside and took their places at the ticket table. Nora stood on her tiptoes to peek outside the window at the line of students snaking around the perimeter of the gym. She blinked back tears as a sudden painful memory hit her.
In sixth grade she had already been taller than most of her teachers. The only other boy in her grade that could match her height had been a kid named Brewster. The other kids had called him Bruiser because, he even at twelve, he was already on his way to becoming a thug. He’d been kicked out of the public schools for violence. Most people stayed out of his way, but Blake had stood up to him when he had teased Darby about being a scholarship kid. A fight had ensued and Blake had nearly been expelled.
Nora put Bruiser out of her thoughts as soon as the students started trickling in. She found a corner where she could watch the girls. She felt oddly protective of them as the boys from Clinton Field infiltrated the room. She fought her natural inclination to focus on Cole and tried to keep her back to him.
She spent most of the first hour utilizing Missy’s box of safety pins. After a few dances, many of the girls had their spaghetti straps pop off their dresses and Nora had to cobble the fabric back together. A cluster of girls hovered around a weeping girl in the corner of the gym. A group of guys hung around the refreshments table, sampling all the cookies. No one was scaling the walls, and as far as she could tell, no one was freak dancing. She thought everything was under control until she glanced out the window and spotted two boys climbing the trees.
Oh dear. She supposed that climbing trees was better than climbing the walls—or the girls—but still, being outside wasn’t allowed. She went to the window to look for Chad or Hector. When she couldn’t see either of them, she found Cole. Of course, she knew exactly where he was—as she always did whenever he was close. She seemed to have a built-in radar for just him. She sighed over her own stupidity even as she touched his arm to interrupt his conversation with a teacher from Clinton Fields.
Her cheeks flamed as he turned his full attention to her. “There are boys in the trees,” she told him.
“What?” He cupped his hand around his ear and drew closer.
“There are boys in the trees,” she repeated, straining to speak louder than the music.
He leaned in so close she could feel his warmth and smell his aftershave. “There’s joy in threes?”
“Boys. In. The. Tree.” Nora pointed at the open door.
Comprehension flooded his expression and he dashed outside. Nora watched him go, wondering what she could do to help, but then another girl with another broken spaghetti strap approached.
“These dresses aren’t a good idea, especially if you wear anything above a size B cup,” Nora told the girl. “You can see that, right? If not, you need to pay more attention in Dr. Sprog’s physics’ class.” She pulled the box of safety pins from her pocket, stuck one between her teeth and pulled on the strap so she could refasten it to the dress without sticking the girl with the pin. Nora recognized the girl from her freshman English class but failed to come up with her name. In the couple of weeks since she’d been there, she’d managed to learn a lot of the girls’ names, but the quieter ones were more difficult, which made her sad, since she identified with those the most.
The girl trembled beneath Nora’s fingers and tears welled in her eyes.
Remorse flooded Nora. “I’m sorry, sweetie, did I pinch you?”
The girl shook her head in response but didn’t take her eyes off the dance floor. Nora followed her gaze to where a freckled boy and Marissa Holden, a busty girl in Nora’s sophomore class, were grinding against each other.
“Oh!” Nora’s breath caught. “I think that’s...if not illegal, then it should be.” Nora looked around for Cole or Irena before remembering the boys in the tree. She squared her shoulders. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Can you quarantine them?” the girl said, her
voice barely audible above the music.
“Sure,” Nora responded hesitantly.
“But not together?”
“We don’t have two quarantines,” Nora said.
“They can’t be together!” the girl’s voice turned shrill.
“I think they can,” Nora muttered. “Obviously.”
The offending couple flew apart as Nora approached. “You, to quarantine,” she told the boy. “Marissa, come with me,” she said, taking the Marissa’s arm.
“We weren’t doing anything!” the boy said.
“Yes, I’m proud of you for keeping your clothes on,” Nora said, “even though you weren’t acting like they were.” She relaxed when she spotted a teacher from Clinton Fields weaving through the crowd toward them.
“Come on, Marissa,” Nora said. “Let’s go and talk to Dr. Rowling.”
Marissa harrumphed and threw the crying girl a boastful look. Nora wanted to shake her.
“I don’t mind talking to Dr. Rowling,” Marissa said.
“You probably don’t want to hear what he has to say,” Nora said.
Marissa smiled. “I think he’ll get my message just fine.”
“And what’s that?” Nora asked with hesitation.
“That I’m a woman,” she said with a smirk.
“What you were doing doesn’t make you a woman.” Nora steered Marissa through the crowded dance floor. When she reached the gym’s wide doors, she couldn’t see Cole, but she did find Irena.
“Cole asked me to bring any freak dancers to him,” Nora told Irena.
Irena raised her eyebrows and smiled at Marissa. “You know we can’t allow any lewd behavior.”
Marissa put her hand on her chest. “It wasn’t me, it was him. What was I supposed to do?”
“Step away,” Irena said.
“But I didn’t want to hurt his feelings!”
“What makes you so sure he has feelings?” Irena stepped closer and leaned in so she could speak with quieter intention. “If he did, he would have been more concerned about yours.” Irena put her arm around Marissa’s shoulders and drew her to a quiet corner.
Nora watched them go with mixed emotions. She didn’t want to eavesdrop, but she was half-jealous of Irena’s unmasked devotion to Marissa.
What would it have been like to have had a mother like Irena? Someone who cared? Someone invested? Her own mother had been there, but she’d always been so busy with one social obligation after another. A fundraiser for the church. A charitable event for the historical society. A dinner party for her father’s law partners. Nora had been at the end of her mother’s never-ending to-do list.
And her dad had been somewhere else.
She sucked in a deep breath and reminded herself that her parents loved her...as much as they were capable of loving anyone...or did they? Blake, the love of her life, had left her less than six months ago—and what had her parents done? They’d sailed away.
Someone touched her elbow. Cole.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
Nora glanced back at Marissa and Irena. “I think your mom has it under control.” She nodded at the nearby trees. “What happened to your Tarzans?”
Cole blew out a sigh. “Their mom is coming. She’s not happy. Until she gets here, they’re hanging in quarantine with Sprog.”
“The mom’s mad at the boys?”
He shook his head. “No, she’s mad at me. As far as she’s concerned, she paid for the boys to be at the dance. I tried to tell her we’re not a babysitting service and if the boys can’t behave, they can’t stay. Do you want to go for a walk?”
Nora glanced back at the kids wiggling and bouncing on the dance floor. “Will they be okay on their own?”
“They’re not on their own. There are half a dozen Clinton Field teachers in there. I could use a break and you look like you could, too.”
Nora nodded. She needed someone to rescue her from her dark thoughts, and she wanted that person to be Cole. Together, they weaved through the couples on the dance floor. As they passed by, a few kids pulled away from each other and tried to mask their guilty expressions. Nora tried to think back to high school and Blake. She’d loved him and known that he loved her, just not...like...that.
Cole rubbed her arm. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. He’s only being kind. She reminded herself of the blonde. After being in the stuffy and overcrowded gym, cold night air felt good, even if it stung a little when she inhaled.
Cole nodded at the tree where she’d spotted the boys. “That old thing is over a hundred years old.”
“I hope the boys didn’t hurt it.”
“I’m not sure they could, but still. It wasn’t safe for them or the tree.”
She wanted to lace her fingers through his, because she thought it was sweet that he not only cared about the boys but also about the tree.
“It’s hard to understand parents like that,” Cole said, shaking his head.
“She wanted a night out,” Nora said. “She thought she’d paid for one.”
“The boys didn’t want to be here, so obviously, they didn’t belong. A dance shouldn’t be a prison—even temporarily.” Cole spoke with conviction.
“Do you ever address the parents?” Nora asked.
He nodded. “On Parents’ Weekend.”
“Oh, when’s that?”
“Right before Halloween.”
Halloween. She’d been trying not to think of the holidays. How would she spend them? It would be her first without Blake. Would her parents be back in town? Maybe Darby would be willing to go on some adventure with her. She instinctively hugged herself.
Cole noticed. “Are you cold?”
She sniffed. “I’m fine. I would rather be out here than in there.”
As if he didn’t hear her, he took off his wool jacket and draped it over her shoulders. “Right now, so would I.” He chuckled. “You’ll think I’m a slacker of a principal, but I promise you, I don’t normally feel this way. I love my job.” He spoke with so much passion, Nora had to believe him.
She tucked her hand around his arm. “You’re an amazing principal,” she said. “But tonight—you’re not frustrated by the students. You’re mad at the parents. Actually, just one parent.”
He clenched his jaws. “I just don’t get people who think they can shuttle off their kids.”
“I take it Clinton Fields isn’t a boarding school.”
“No, it’s not.”
“So maybe more of those parents need a break from parenting.”
“You don’t have kids so that you can take a break from parenting.”
“I agree with you, but...” Nora thought about her own parents and all the nights she’d spent alone in her room while her parents threw parties that she wasn’t invited to in the living room, or held planning meetings for community events, or watched movies that they’d deemed inappropriate and said that “she wouldn’t like.” Maybe it wouldn’t have been so lonely if she’d had siblings or if they’d allowed her to even get a pet. She tightened her hold on Cole’s arm.
“But what?” Cole asked.
She shrugged. “We all have our limits.”
“But don’t you think that once you have kids, it’s no longer about you and what you want?”
“We don’t have kids so we don’t really know.” That came out wrong. She tripped over what to say. “I didn’t mean it to sound like you and I are going to have kids... I mean, I want to have kids.”
He grinned. “So do I. How many do you want?”
“I don’t know.” She thought back to her miscarriages and how Blake had begged her to stop trying.
“You would think that being a principal and being around teenagers would sour me, but it doesn’t. Not at all.”
“You’ll make a great dad.”
He bumped shoulders with her. “And you’ll make a great mom.” He stepped in front of her and brushed a strand of hair away from her face. They had wandered away from the sc
hool. The music from the gym was a low and distant beat. Steam from the horses’ breath rose in the night air and shrouded the stable in a milky haze. “I really need to fire you,” Cole said.
“Why?” Nora’s breath caught.
“So I can do this.” He leaned in to kiss her.
Nora skipped away. She should have seen this coming. But she didn’t want to stop it. But she had to. Didn’t she?
“Nora?”
“I’m sorry.” Her voice broke and tears spilled from her eyes. “I just can’t.” She ran for the cottage.
HE'S THERE AGAIN, THE boy from the riverbank. I recognize him as Cole. I try to speak to him. I follow him into a parking garage and climb into his car. He starts driving without speaking. I'm really frustrated. At first, I try talking to him, but eventually, I'm screaming. I don't know where we're going and decide I'll have to stay in the car until it runs out of gas.
From Nora's Dream Journal
CHAPTER 7
Nora managed to keep a safe, although awkward, distance from Cole for the next few weeks, but the upcoming Mothers’ Tea made her nervous. And she wasn’t the only one on pins and needles. From the snatches of the girls’ conversations she’d overheard, Nora knew that many of the girls were also wired.
The day before the dreaded event, Jolie Beckham lingered after class. Nora had papers to correct, and Jolie should have been joining the others in the cafeteria for lunch, but Jolie she shuffled to Nora’s desk looking like a lost puppy.
“I was wondering, is there something I can do to help out in the kitchen or something during the Mothers’ Tea?”
Nora quickly guessed that Jolie didn’t have a mother who would be attending. “You mean you want to help serve?”
Jolie nodded.
