by Kristy Tate
“Love dust? What’s that?” Melanie asked.
“If you put in something—and it didn’t matter what it was—belonging to the person you love and ground it into powder, and then if you held the powder in your hand and blew a kiss in the wind, that person would fall in love with you.”
“I want to use that mill,” Megan said.
“Who would you make fall in love with you?” Melanie asked.
Megan flicked her scrub brush at Melanie. “Like I’d tell you!”
“Why wouldn’t you? Do I even know him?” Melanie asked.
“Everyone here knows him,” Nicole said and she shot Nora an unreadable look.
“Shut up, Nicole!” Megan scooped a handful of water out of her bucket and threw it in Nicole’s face.
“Ugh!” Nicole jumped to her feet and tossed her bucket of water at Megan.
“Girls! Girls!” Nora said. “Stop this!”
A golf cart rumbled up. “Now, kittens, no cat-fighting!” Billy drawled.
Megan and Nicole, both drenched, stopped fighting long enough to glance at Billy. Nicole looked a smidge repentant, but Megan climbed on a tombstone and launched herself at Nicole. They fell together in a heap. Megan rolled on top of Nicole, but then Nicole caught a handful of Megan’s long hair.
Megan howled and her face turned purple.
Billy, safe in his golf cart, laughed. “Happens every year,” he told Nora with a chuckle.
“Well, make it stop!” Nora said.
“That ain’t my job, it’s yours,” Billy said.
“Girls!” Nora stomped over to the girls, grabbed Megan under the arms and tried to pull her off Nicole’s chest, but Megan outweighed Nora by twenty pounds. The other girls got behind Nora to help pull. They all landed in a doggy pile, while Nicole and Megan wrestled on the ground beside them.
“What’s going on?” Cole demanded.
He ran for Nora, grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine, but those two—”
Still holding Nora’s hand, Cole turned to glower at the girls, but they had stopped fighting. They stood slightly apart, red-faced and panting. Nicole looked embarrassed, but the evil murderous glare in Megan’s eyes told Nora exactly who Megan was in love with.
AFTER SCHOOL THE NEXT day, Leslie came into Nora’s classroom, breathless. “Ms. Tommy,” she panted, “someone spilled something sticky out here on the floor. We need a mop!”
“Why are you telling me and not Hector?” Nora looked up from the exams she was correcting.
“No one can find Hector. Someone said he went home for the day.”
As far as Nora knew, Hector rarely went home. Not only did he and his wife Leona, the school cook, live at the school, they also ran a tight ship. Both of them liked everything in spit-spot shape. Of course, if Hector knew Nora had stood up—or sat by correcting papers—while stickiness remained on the floor, she’d probably never get her whiteboards cleaned again. Nora climbed to her feet and went to the janitorial closet in search of a mop. Instead, she found Cole holding a bucket up to the water spigot.
“Are you getting the mop?” Nora asked.
Cole nodded as he turned the faucet, making it too noisy to hear anything other than the rush of water. Nora went to pull the mop off its hook on the wall, but as soon as she stepped into the closet, the door swung closed and darkness filled the tiny space.
Cole must have turned off the water, because Nora heard him say, “What the hell?”
Nora dropped the broom mop and fumbled her way to the door, but in the process, she bumped into Cole. “So sorry,” she murmured.
He pressed against her and she flinched away from his warm scent. “I’m just looking for the light,” he said.
“I’m trying to find the door handle.” The door, with its a strip of light shining beneath it, was easy enough to find, but the handle proved elusive.
Cole switched on the light about the same time Nora found the doorknob. She twisted and pulled, but it didn’t move. “Is it locked? Why would it lock from the outside?”
“We keep it locked because of the cleaners and chemicals,” Cole said, looking hot and flustered. “Just to be safe.”
“Makes sense,” Nora said, feeling her own temperature rise.
“But what doesn’t make sense is why we’re locked in here,” Cole said. “I hope you’re not claustrophobic.”
“I’m not,” she said, “but still.” Without saying another word, she went to the door and beat on it with both fists. “Help!” she called. Repeatedly.
Taking a breath of air, she slid Cole a glance. He had his phone in his hand and he stared at the screen. “The lack of reception here never really bothered me. Until now.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Does this seem, at all, orchestrated to you? Because, I swear to you, I didn’t arrange this.”
“Of course not.” Nora backed up, her bottom hitting the counter.
“But I’m not exactly sad, either.” Cole slid his phone into his pants pocket. “Assuming, of course, that we make it out of here.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because whenever I try and to talk to you, you duck and hide.”
“I do not.” Nora looked at her feet.
“Yes, you do.” Cole put his finger under her chin and lifted her face so that she had to look him in the eye. “You’re avoiding me and I don’t know why.”
Nora swallowed. “That’s not true.” Her voice sounded harder than she meant it to.
Cole shrugged. “I can take a hint. You’re not interested. I felt there was something between us, but obviously, you feel differently. I get it.”
“It’s not that,” Nora said. “I am, or I was, but it’s complicated, and I don’t need complications right now.”
He nodded. “Okay, fine.”
She touched his hand. “We’re friends, right?”
“Right.”
Leaning against the far wall, as far as possible from Cole, she was hypersensitive to him. He didn’t say anything, but she still felt him. His nearness crackled like electricity. Her skin prickled. He smelled like soap. A really nice, lavender sort of soap. Which made her wonder if males should use lavender soap? Maybe it was Irena’s soap. Which made her think of bathing, which led to bathrooms, and the absence of such an important necessity...
Panic fluttered in Nora’s belly. She pounded on the door until her hands throbbed. She sat on the floor and used both of her feet to kick the door.
“Hello?” A voice from the outside. “Is someone in there?”
“Yes! It’s me, Nora!” Finally! She breathed a sigh of relief that all of her banging and yelling had actually been useful.
“And me,” Cole spoke said over her head. “Chad, is that you?”
“Are you hurt?” the voice asked.
“Only my feelings,” Cole said.
The knob rattled. “It’s locked,” Chad said. “I’ll go and get Hector.”
“It won’t be long now,” Cole told her.
Time stretched and slowed until it stood still.
“Hector here,” said a new, deeper voice. “Are you still there?”
“Where did you think we would go?” Nora rolled her eyes for the benefit of no one.
The door knob rattled. “It must be jammed,” Hector said. “That’s strange. I’ll have to go and get my tools so I can take the door off the hinges.”
“Hello?” Nora pressed her nose against the heavy metal doors and tried calling through them.
“Hello,” Cole said.
She rested her forehead on the doors. They It felt smooth, cold and solid.
“Talk to me,” Cole said. “We’ve been in here for almost a half-hour and I’m getting bored.”
They sat in silence for hours, or maybe a few minutes. Nora wasn’t sure which.
“What’s the worst thing that can happen?” Cole asked.
She knew exactly what the worst thing that could happen was.
She would have to designate a pee corner and she would have to squat and pee in front of Cole, her boss, possibly her brother, and quite literally the man of her dreams. She stood and fumbled in her purse for...anything.
“You think a Ttic Ttac is going to help?” Cole asked.
Nora didn’t answer him, but instead poured the contents of her purse out on the counter in search of something that to wedge the door open.
“What that?” Cole asked.
Nora hoped he wasn’t asking about her tampons. “What?” she asked.
He reached over her shoulder and pulled something off the shelf. “Someone left their phone in here and...it’s video recording us.” He pressed the camera app closed. “As soon as I figure out whose phone this is, she’s so expelled.”
“I don’t get it,” Nora said.
“I do,” Cole said through clenched teeth.
“Well, explain it to me.”
Cole scrolled through the phone, but, of course, there wasn’t reception or a Wi-Fi connection. He pocketed it. “I think I know who this belongs to.”
“Will you please tell me what’s going on?”
“Boss?” Hector’s voice called through the door. “Hold on. I’ll get you out of there in two secs.”
Cole pointed at the door. “I’ll tell you who I think set this up once we’re alone. Although, I bet if you think about it, you’ll be able to guess.”
“We’ve been alone for hours,” Nora said.
Cole chuckled and glanced at his watch. “Actually, it’s only been twenty minutes.”
“Time crawls when you’re having fun.”
“Nora,” Cole began.
Nora rubbed her eyes.
“This is all part of the complications you were trying to avoid, isn’t it?” Cole asked, his voice soft.
Nora nodded.
“You’re safe with me.”
“I know,” she said.
“But someone we know isn’t.”
“A student planted the phone,” Nora whispered.
Cole nodded. “I believe so.”
“They wanted to catch...some action?”
“You got it.”
“And then you’d have to fire me.”
“Or marry you,” Cole said in a lighter tone.
“I think the student in question was hoping for the former and not counting on the later.” Nora shook her head. “I can’t believe anyone would go to such lengths. And how did she think she’d ever get away with it? Her phone would just happen to be in the janitorial closet while we...?”
Cole laughed. “If this belongs to who I think it does, she’s way more aggressive than she is bright.”
“Will you be able to expel her?”
“With the help of a therapist? Absolutely.”
With a grunt, Hector lifted the door off the hinges. He greeted them with a broad smile. “What are you two doing?”
Good question.
I’m looking for my green suede shoes. It’s Saint Patrick’s Day and the shoes are part of my outfit. I look in my closet, the trunk of my car, and all through my trash, but the shoes remain elusive. I decide I need a new pair of green shoes and head to the mall, but when I walk through the wide doors, I find I’m not in a mall, but a television recording studio. A woman wearing a headset and carrying a clipboard rushes to me, takes my arm and guides me to a stool in front of a full-length mirror. I’m surrounded by stylists who fuss over my hair and make-up. I try to protest, but no one is listening. When they consider their work done, they pull me from the stool and push me onto the set. The lights are blinding, the heat intense, and beyond the lights and cameras is a live audience. I can feel their scrutiny and stares. Ellen DeGeneres waits for me in a comfy chair. She is wearing my green suede shoes.
From Nora’s Dream Journal
CHAPTER 10
With both Nora and Barry gone, the two end cottages stood empty and dark. Cole stood looking at them, wondering how so much could have gone wrong in so little time.
“She’ll be back,” Irena spoke said from behind him and wrapped an arm around his waist.
Cole leaned his head on the top of his mom’s. “How did you know what I was thinking?”
“Mother’s intuition?” she joked, but her voice sounded off. “Nora’s upset.”
“Yes.”
She gave him a little squeeze. “Come on, let’s go home. I need to check on my turkey to make sure it’s thawed before tomorrow.” They were hosting a Thanksgiving dinner for a few of the girls who weren’t going home for the holiday.
With his mom’s arm around his waist and his arm around her shoulders, Cole headed home.
“I need to talk to Nora.” She slid him a glance. “I don’t think I mentioned that I know her father.”
“You do?” Cole asked.
“Yes. In fact, I knew him quite well. Years ago, of course.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“I’ve been...” She sucked in a deep breath. She winked at him. “Sometimes it’s hard to own up to your past mistakes.”
“Her father was a mistake?”
“A really terrible mistake.”
“Are you going to tell Nora?”
“I will, as soon as she comes back. Although, I probably should talk to Weatherford first.”
“Who?”
“Her father.”
“What if she doesn’t come back?”
“She will.” His mom stopped in front of him and laid her hand on his cheek. “You know how much I love you, right?”
“Of course,” he said.
She patted his cheek and he leaned into her hand. “You know how much I love you, right?” He repeated her words, reached up, took her hand, and laced his fingers through hers. “I don’t care how many mistakes you’ve made.”
NORA LET HERSELF INTO her parents’ home. The chill inside was worse than outside and it cut through her sweater and seeped into her bones. Hefting her bag on to her shoulder, she slowly climbed the stairs to her childhood room. She paused outside her parents’ bedroom door and glanced in at the stark room. Of course, the room looked nothing like it had when Nora had left for college. Her mom liked to redecorate every seven years. She referred to the tossing out the old furniture and draperies as sluffing off old skin. “Like a snake,” her dad had once said.
“Or a molting bird,” Nora had joked.
But her mom hadn’t found it funny. “Everything needs a new breath of life,” her mom contended. She’d never used the same decorator twice. When Nora was really young, her bedroom had been a flower patch of Laura Ashley fabrics in pastels. One day while she was in high school, she’d come home to find a leopard print throw on her bed and a white bear fur rug on her floor.
“Don’t worry, it’s not real,” her mom had said.
“I want my old room back,” Nora had complained, disliking all the black and white geometric designs.
“But it’s not your room,” her mom had said. “It’s my room in my house. When you buy your own house, then you can have your own room and decorate it your way. Until then, be grateful you have a room.”
As soon as Nora went to college, the room where she had always slept had been converted into a home gym with a fold out futon. Now, Nora pushed open the door and tossed her overnight bag on the futon. She settled down beside it and pulled her laptop out of its case. Moments later, she typed out an email to her parents. “Tell me about Irena Rowling.” And then she sent a text to Blake. “Can you help me find a good private investigator?”
“YOU CAN DO THIS,” DARBY said the Sunday evening before school resumed after the long Thanksgiving weekend.
Nora sniffed as she stood at the stove in the tiny cottage, stir-frying vegetables. “I’m not sure I can.”
“You absolutely can.” Darby squeezed her shoulder.
“School starts tomorrow and I have to go back and try to act normal when being around him makes my whole body tingle!”
Darby smirked.
“I wouldn’t go back if it weren’t for the play. The girls have worked so hard already. They need to practice, and I want to be there for them.”
“You really like teaching, don’t you?”
“I love everything about it, except for Cole. He’s like a drug to me. I’ve never felt anything like it before.” Nora stood at the stove in the tiny cottage, stir-frying vegetables. A part of her dreaded seeing Cole, but a larger part of her was glad to be back. She founded it odd that she felt so much more at home in this tiny cottage than she ever had in her parents’ house.
“Poor Blake,” Darby said.
“Don’t feel sorry for him. This is partly his fault! If he’d been honest with me—”
“And himself,” Darby said.
“Yes, and himself...”
“He didn’t want to be gay,” Darby said.
“Well, for a long time I didn’t want to be tall! We don’t get everything we want.”
Darby chuckled. “It’s not really the same thing....”
“Do you want these vegetables or not?”
“Of course,” Darby said.
“Then you have to agree with everything I say!”
“Or you won’t feed me?”
“That’s right,” Nora said.
“Sweetie, I’m on your side.”
“You’re just saying that because you’re hungry.”
“I’m not hungry,” Darby said. “You wouldn’t believe how much food we ate.”
Nora dished up the two plates of food and sat at the table with her best friend. “I’m so glad you and Chad are together.”
Darby put her hand on Nora’s clenched fist and squeezed. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you and Cole and Chad and I...”
“Stop!” Nora pounded her fist on the table. “It can’t happen! It’s impossible!”
“Tell me again why you didn’t like the PI?” Darby asked.
“He was smarmy. He’d give me a tiny bit of information and then ask for more money.”
“You have money.”
“But I don’t like being scammed.”
