Triple Love Score

by Brandi Megan Granett

  “Can I show her my classroom?” Lynn asked.

  “Sure,” Scott said.

  “Can I show her your classroom?” Lynn asked.

  “Sure,” Scott said.

  “Can I—” Lynn started.

  “Eat your pancakes? Sure you can. Finish up. Then go get dressed.”

  “Can I use the shower?” Miranda asked.

  “Sure. Let me just come up and show you something first.”

  Scott waited while she got her things from her suitcase and followed her to the bathroom. He closed the door behind them and then loudly announced. “I’m just going to brush my teeth while you get a shower.”

  “Okay,” she answered back just as loudly.

  He giggled and pointed at the door. Miranda shrugged and turned on the shower. She slipped out of her clothes while he watched before following her into the shower.

  “Brushing your teeth, huh?” She turned her back to him letting the water from the shower soak her hair.

  “Allow me,” he whispered. He took her shampoo bottle from her hand. She listened to the pop of the lid and air escaping the bottle as he measured the right amount. When he placed his hands in her hair, she shuddered. He massaged her scalp deftly.

  Then he rinsed it out and took up a wide-toothed comb from the shower ledge and the bottle of conditioner. Like a salon expert, he combed the conditioner through her hair lifting it in sections to both rinse it and keep it tangle free.

  “Do you do cuts and color, too? I’m beginning to feel like I’m in a spa.” She leaned back a little. “Well, that’s something they don’t have at the spa.”

  “I wish we were getting married today,” he said. “Waiting is hard.”

  “That’s not the only thing,” she said, giggling.

  He picked up the soap and began lathering her back.

  “Let me,” she said. She took the soap and returned the favor. Savoring the opportunity to just touch him, all parts of him, she took her time. Behind his ears, the backs of his knees, his belly button. When he was a completely covered in soap, she took him in her arms again and shimmied back and forth, then turned around and repeated the motion, laughing as she did so.

  “See. Two for one.”

  “You really are smart,” he said, kissing the top of her head.

  Lynn began singing loudly along to a Justin Bieber song on the radio. “That’s our cue,” he said. “Can’t be late for school.”

  The school looked more like a sprawling ranch house than an elementary school. Ivy, green swaths of fungus, and an accumulation of last fall’s leaves concealed the low, sandstone-colored walls of the building within the landscape. Tall pine trees encircled the sprawling complex, the thick smell of their dropped needles hovered in the air.

  “It’s like a Hobbit house,” Scott said. “We focus heavily on nature and how it can teach us almost everything we need to know.”

  As if on cue, Lynn turned to face them as she skipped backwards up the school path and recited Joyce Kilmer’s poem, Tree. Miranda dropped Scott’s hand and skipped ahead to join her, chiming in on, “Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.”

  Then Lynn stopped and looked up at Miranda. “I wish you didn’t write poems,” she said. “If you were just a regular teacher like Daddy, you wouldn’t have to go anywhere.”

  “Oh, Lynn, I’m going to miss you, too. But you promised that you would text me, right?”

  “And Facebook,” she said. The smile started to inch back across Lynn’s face. “You’ll be like Ford Prefect in the Hitchhiker’s Guide, sending us updates.”

  “The Hitchhiker’s Guide?” Miranda asked.

  “Daddy read it to me at bedtime,” Lynn said.

  “I had to start her young,” Scott said, shrugging his shoulders.

  Miranda laughed, the sound carrying under the pine trees. Teachers and students still making their way from the parking lot stopped to look at them. But she didn’t care.

  “Family hug,” Scott called, just as loudly, and the three of them huddled forward for the sweetest embrace Miranda had ever enjoyed.

  “What’s this, what’s this?” an older woman in a purple tweed suit and very sensible loafers said.

  “Dr. Long,” Lynn said. “I want you to meet Miranda.”

  “I’m Patricia,” said Dr. Long, extending her hand.

  “I’m Miranda, but you probably know that.”

  Dr. Long slid her glasses off and squinted. “I know you,” she said. “You’re that Scrabble board poet, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, it appears that I am.”

  “Patricia, that’s why I needed the sub this morning. I’m taking Miranda to the airport. She’s going on a book tour. Forty-two days.”

  “Forty-two days—you must be quite popular for a poet,” Patricia said.

  “That’s what they are telling me, but we were in Turkey when all this happened, so I am just now trying to figure out what it all means.”

  Dr. Long extended a long plainly manicured finger and tapped Miranda on the nose. “It means, dear, that you are very lucky. Maybe when you are done being a famous poet, you could come back and teach here?”

  “Oh,” Miranda stammered. She looked about at the tide of children parting on either side of them, with their loud talking and big backpacks. “That’s something I never considered,” she said.

  “I think one elementary school teacher in the family is enough,” Scott said.

  The bell for classes rang, and Lynn sprinted off with the last pack of stragglers. “Bye, Randa,” she called. “Come see my classroom.” The sea of big backpacks swallowed her up and pushed her into the building.

  “Duty calls,” Dr. Long said, picking up the hand of the last wayward child that seemed more interested in the cracks in the sidewalk than entering the building.

  “So you do this?” Miranda asked.

  “Five days a week.”

  “And you love it?”

  “Some days I do. Some days I don’t. But I wanted to be near Lynn. I wanted to make sure she was safe. I couldn’t do that working twelve hours a day to protect other people’s money. Now, come see what I do so that I can get health insurance and apparently afford little else.” A bit of a harsh tone crept into his voice.

  Scott’s classroom looked much like any other classroom. Tables with diminutive chairs cluttered the area in front of a whiteboard. A carpeted area in the back of the room was littered with bean bag chairs and stray books. But instead of having bulletin boards featuring the spelling word of the week, the walls of the room were lined with music posters for various bands from a variety of venues from the 1960s to present. A Kiss poster, complete with Gene Simmons’ tongue, loomed over the white board. A poster for Jimi Hendrix in San Francisco abutted the light switch. Dave Matthews Band hung out with Willie Nelson by the coat rack. Cyndi Lauper in a plaid mini skirt graced the space over the reading nook. Five boxes of Scrabble sat on the shelf over the cubbies. Next to the door to the courtyard sat an entire stack of Frisbees. His classroom captured the essence of him. Miranda could see clearly what this place meant to him, and what leaving this wonderful school might mean for him and Lynn.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Scott said. “I play all of those bands for the kids.”

  “And you’re allowed? On the Road Again? From the Watchtower? Girls Just Wanna Have Fun?”

  “It’s a really progressive school. As a school, we vowed to include all the banned books we can into our classes. Student lunches are nut-free, and no plastic is allowed.”

  “But a little Hendrix is fine?”

  “Rock and roll never hurt nobody. Plus the hipster parents like it.”

  “Are you a hipster parent?” Miranda tapped his chest, before quickly stealing a kiss.

  “It depends, are you into that sort of thing?”

  “I don’t know yet. I never really considered the options. I only knew the lawyer variety. Where are the kids?”

  “They have Feelings and Dre
ams Assembly on Wednesdays. Everyone gets together to talk about how they feel and what they want to accomplish.”

  “And Linden knows this is what you do for a living? He doesn’t freak out or anything?”

  “Lynn wore my dad down. If it’s for her or about her, he doesn’t care. If I told him she needed me to be a circus clown, he would buy me the giant shoes and the big red nose. Although, leaving the family business did burn him a little; my great-grandfather started that firm. I think maybe he was jealous. He always wanted to own an ice cream store.”

  “I remember that. He was going to open it up in the Hamptons, but stay open all year serving whiskeys instead of ice cream in the winter.”

  “Can you imagine? My dad scooping ice cream?”

  “Not really. But I couldn’t imagine this either. Can I come back another time when the kids are here? I want to see you in action. But right now, we probably have to go.”

  “If we don’t peek in on Lynn’s room, I won’t hear the end of it.”

  Lynn’s class was still at Feelings and Dreams. Her teacher, Mrs. Kells, favored maps on her walls. Not any old maps—transit maps. From the Boston T to the London Underground to the Paris Metro. She even had one for the bus lines in Berkeley. “She’s a bit of a travel nut. One of those people who can take a backpack and passport and amuse themselves in Central America for three months. She thinks the world’s problems would be solved if we just travelled together,” Scott explained.

  “They would be solved,” Mrs. Kells said, entering the room with the pack of first-graders behind her. “Class, what values does public transportation provide?”

  “Cost savings, environmental benefits, and community,” the class called in unison as they found their way to their chairs. Lynn could barely stay seated in hers. She leaned forward waving her arm frantically.

  “Yes, Lynn,” Mrs. Kells finally said.

  Lynn let out a puff of air and a rush of words. “Can I introduce you to Miranda? She’s a poet, and she’s marrying my dad.”

  “Wonderful and welcome,” said Mrs. Kells. “Our tiny community could always benefit from another artist in residence.”

  Miranda suddenly felt her mouth go dry. All she could do was politely nod and wave as Scott pulled her gently toward the door.

  Scott pulled the car off the highway and started the circle loop around Newark Airport. He signaled left for the shortterm parking.

  “No, don’t,” Miranda said. “Just drop me off.”

  “But I can go in with you. I don’t have to be back to school until noon.”

  “If you get out of the car, I don’t think I’ll be able to leave. And I want to go. Every writer dreams about this trip.”

  “I wish it was me you dreamt about,” Scott said, kissing the back of her hand.

  Miranda watched a man in a crisp navy blue suit hand over his luggage to the skycap and then stride away purposefully. She used to be jealous of people like that. People who could just drop all their baggage and walk away with nothing more than a couple of credit cards and a Chapstick in their pocket. Imagine if she had done that at Thanksgiving. If she had called Avery and cancelled and jumped a plane to Ibiza, then none of this would be here. None of this would be happening.

  She couldn’t look at him, so she kept her eyes on the automatic doors that swallowed up a group of Korean tourists and more men in suits. “I’ve dreamt about you for as long as I can remember. My whole life I kept wishing you would notice me. See me not as your friend, not as Uncle Stanton’s and Aunt Louise’s daughter, but as me. When you came to my apartment, no prompting from our parents, I thought this is it, this is him finally seeing me. Then you disappeared. I watched for you online. I sent you a friend request that you never approved. I still waited. I still dreamed.”

  “But you weren’t waiting. You dated Ronan.”

  “I slept with Ronan. I didn’t really date him. And that was after Thanksgiving. After I saw you again and you freaked out on me about Lynn’s vitamins and not wanting any help. I thought okay, that’s all ruined, might as well start paying attention to someone who will notice me. But then everything changed. And as much as I want to stay in this story, I want to get on that plane today and find out the next chapter of that story. It’s like I want to read two books at exactly the same time.”

  Scott reached over and touched her shoulder. She finally broke her stare at the automatic doors and looked at him. “This story doesn’t end because you get on that plane. This story didn’t end because I disappeared. This story doesn’t end because you slept with Ronan. This story doesn’t end.”

  “All stories end,” Miranda said.

  “You can’t tell me that you really believe that.”

  “Maybe I do.”

  Scott settled back into his seat. “Does this mean you don’t think this is real? You don’t think that we are real?”

  Miranda didn’t want to answer that. She never wanted to believe in anything as much as she wanted to believe in this. But it all seemed too good to be true. “Scott, look at me,” she said. “Let’s be honest about this. Where will we live? What about Lynn and what’s best for her? We have to do this right. And that means there’s a lot we need to talk about first. Even this morning, what if Lynn had found us naked? Or worse, last night after we went to bed? What would we do then?”

  “We would have, I don’t know, explained something. People do this all the time.”

  “But they don’t do it right. And none of this changes how I feel about you. About this.” She gestured to the space between them. “I’ve always wanted this to be real. Can that be enough for now?”

  “I guess it will have to be. Can you promise me that you know I’m going to be here when you come back?”

  “You better be. How else will I get home from the airport?”

  “Oh, I see how it is. Kiss me, funny lady.”

  One kiss turned into two and then three and then four. Finally a stretch limo pulled alongside them. Miranda looked up and saw that the driver was staring at them.

  “I think we have company,” she said.

  Scott turned his head and waved at the guy, and then kissed her again. “So you really want to do this?”

  “I do,” Miranda said. “As much as I want to stay here, I want to see what this whole famous author deal looks like, too. I’ll email you the itinerary and text you all the time. And you’ll call me. A lot. Like we’re teenagers.”

  “Hey, that’s something we didn’t do as teenagers. We didn’t talk to each other on the phone.”

  “I would have died of embarrassment calling you.”

  “You’re over that now, right?” He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.

  “Yeah, pretty over that.”

  “So,” he said.

  “So,” she said. “I’m gonna do this.” She put her hand on the handle but didn’t move to open it.

  They sat like that for a while until a Port Authority cop pounded on the trunk. “Keep the lane moving,” he hollered. “No parking.”

  She leaned over and kissed him one last time and slipped out of the car. He jumped out and got her bag from the trunk. “I’m just going to turn and walk away,” she said. “Otherwise I won’t be able to go. I’ll text you once I get through security.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I love you.”

  “I love you,” she called over her shoulder. The first tear fell like a raindrop, staining her blouse. With her free hand, she wiped them away and kept walking.

  C H A P T E R

  IN THE CAB FROM THE AIRPORT to the hotel, Miranda composed an entry to Lynn. On the plane to Baltimore she devoured the Hitchhiker’s Guide in an attempt to discern Ford Prefect’s style. Writing to Lynn felt a bit like submitting a poem to the New Yorker or Harpers, like she had her whole career riding on its acceptance. “A note on American Planes,” she started. “They are crowded and loud, but the honey mustard pretzel bites are not to be missed. Within the airport, a mystery develops. Did your baggage ar
rive? Will it spin out on the baggage carousel, the big sister of the carnival’s wheel of fortune.”

  After she checked in, her phone binged with Lynn’s reply. “Do you like carnivals? What about the shore? Daddy says he is a pro at balloon popping. Says he used to win. All the time.”

  Miranda remembered walking the boardwalk with Scott and begging Linden and Stanton to part with a few more dollars to just play one more game. No matter how hard she tried, he always popped more balloons, knocked down more milk bottles, or scored higher in skee ball. She quickly typed to Lynn all about this.

  “But he always shares. So don’t be upset when he wins.”

  The first stop in Baltimore, an independent bookstore, featured a tall stack of Blocked Poet books alongside a collection of board games and thick heavy books for toddlers about farm animals.

  The bookseller shrugged her shoulder at the odd arrangement. “There are three things that sell well right now—things derived from the Internet, board games, and books for babies.”

  Miranda smiled politely and sipped at the slightly bitter latte the woman had given her. “I guess it makes sense.”

  “Does anything make sense?” the bookseller asked before walking away to tend to a customer at the counter.

  Her first event wasn’t a reading in a traditional sense. It was more of a live writing session, according to the emails sent by Kristen. Each stop would provide a Scrabble board. Miranda would talk about her process and any rules or order she used, and then she’d create a few samples. Kristen had even created some samples for her for each place. Baltimore had: Charm, City, Orioles, Crabs. Miranda envied the local color touch and sent Kristen a note of praise. It was up to Miranda to then photograph and post the specific creations, using the “appropriate filter” and “social media application” as per Ambrose. The crowd would be invited to throw out topics for Miranda to create from which she would then photograph and send out accordingly. Unlike most readings, tickets had been sold for many of the events, and Kristen collected some requests ahead of time. Each city on the stop had a cloud document listing the place and the possible subjects she might encounter. So far the one she couldn’t wrap her mind around was Sheep Dogs. Apparently neither could Kristen; this entry was followed by a question mark.