by Jeannie Watt
“Good article,” he agreed. His dad was going to hate it. “You’re going to reject it.”
“No.” He tossed the article onto a side table and went back to his computer. Joy stood where she was for a long moment, but when he refused to look up, she finally retreated.
THE PHONE RANG at 6:30 A.M. It had to be a wrong number. Callie had lain awake deep into the night and had finally fallen asleep sometime in the early hours of the morning. The last thing she needed was some jerk who couldn’t dial right waking her up. She grabbed the phone to stop the ringing, rolling over onto her back as she said hello in a voice that sounded as if she’d been out carousing for most of the night.
“Miss McCarran?”
Callie’s eyes popped open. Not a wrong number. “Yes?”
“This is Nelda Serrano from Wesley High. Would you be available to sub today?”
“I…uh…don’t think I have the license yet.”
“It came into the district office yesterday. Your personal copy should arrive soon.”
“Okay. Sure.” This was what she’d signed on for. “What time do I get there?”
“You’ll be subbing for Mr. Lightfoot, one of our English teachers, and you’ll need to be here no later than seven forty-five. Come to the office when you arrive.”
“Will do. Bye.”
Callie got out of bed and went into the bathroom, squinting at herself in the mirror. Was this really a good idea?
It was a paycheck and she wouldn’t mind one of those. Besides, as a serial temp, she was used to jumping in and fearlessly doing jobs with which she had only a passing familiarity. She couldn’t remember a job, though, that caused her such anxiety prior to arriving on-site. Usually she needed to see equipment she had no idea how to run—state-of-the-art copy machines and such—before she felt any real anxiety.
It was the kids.
What did she know about handling kids? And it didn’t help matters when she recalled classes during her own school days where the sub had been rather viciously terrorized. Had she taken part in those attacks? She certainly hoped not, but her memory was hazy. She did remember enjoying the spectacle…oy.
What had those subs done to provoke attack? she mused as she brushed her teeth. They’d shown vulnerability. Callie wouldn’t do that. No vulnerability.
An hour after the call, Callie parked the sputtering Neon in the faculty lot, hoping she qualified, and walked through the nearly empty halls to the office. Mrs. Serrano was waiting for her.
“Thank goodness. If you hadn’t been available, then the principal would have had to cover the class, which would have put me in charge of entertaining the discipline cases until he got back to the office.”
“You don’t like being the hammer?” Callie asked as she accepted a stack of papers from Mrs. Serrano.
“Not one bit.” The woman took a set of keys out of a metal cabinet and handed them to Callie. “You turn these in before you go home. Dismissal time for teachers is three-thirty.”
“Got it.”
“I’ll introduce you to some teachers in the neighboring rooms who can help you out. You went to school with Tanya Munro, I think, and your neighbor across the hall is Dane Gerard. The kids call him Great Dane.” Callie was curious to see what a guy called Great Dane looked like.
They stopped at a door around the corner and down the hall from the office—the room where Callie had had history class back in the day. Mrs. Serrano let Callie open the door, perhaps testing to see if she could manage, because the old lock was a touch sticky. Callie prevailed and entered the room.
Chaos. There were messy stacks of paper on every available surface. Piles of books. Old newspapers. Contents of the basket marked Turn In were heaped almost as tall as Callie, it seemed.
“Mr. Lightfoot is one of our more free-form teachers.”
“I, uh, can see that.” Callie started toward the desk that would be her home base for the remainder of the day.
“And, well…” She turned back to see Mrs. Serrano still hovering near the door, as though she wanted to get away quickly after delivering more bad news. “I’m not sure there’s a lesson plan.”
Callie’s eyes must have filled half of her face. A step-by-step plan was an absolute necessity. “I…” She couldn’t back out now. Could she? She might be able to push past Mrs. Serrano and outrun her down the hall….
“No worries,” the woman said quickly. “All the teachers have contingency plans in their file cabinet in case of unexpected absences such as this.”
“Was there an emergency?”
“Just a touch of the flu.” Callie got the feeling that Mrs. Serrano wasn’t buying Mr. Lightfoot’s story. “He plans to be back tomorrow.”
“Is it normal not to have a lesson plan?”
Mrs. Serrano let out a telling sigh. “It is for Mr. Lightfoot, but in general, no. Why don’t you just…” she sucked in a breath through her teeth “…check the top file drawer. There should be a red folder in there.”
Callie could almost hear the woman’s silent plea Please be there, please be there as she slid the drawer open. The red folder was there. Callie pulled it out, held it up. The secretary let out a sigh, then walked across the room to the cluttered desk.
“Wonderful. Now here’s the lesson-plan book.” Mrs. Serrano pulled a light green binder out from under a stack of creative-writing journals on the corner of the desk. “And there’s the grade book. Take attendance in that. The symbols are marked in the front.” The secretary’s head jerked up as the phone in the office started ringing. “I need to get back to the phones. Tanya and Dane aren’t here yet, but when they do arrive—”
“I’ll introduce myself. Thanks, Mrs. Serrano.”
A moment later, the secretary was gone. Callie opened the red folder. It contained word search puzzles. Okay. So far so good. She checked the lesson plan book and found the pages were blank for that week. Not so good. The grade book thankfully had names written in it, but no seating charts. She remembered hating them as a student, but right now they seemed like a very good idea. No luck.
Callie sat down behind the messy desk. She had no idea what grade she was teaching, but she had word searches, a grade book with names in it and the will to survive. What more did she need?
Dane Gerard, a tall man with sandy hair and a handsome face, leaned in the door to introduce himself. When he saw Callie he came on into the room. Callie was familiar with the drill. Small town, new single woman.
“Do you need help with anything?” he asked, shaking his head in commiseration as he surveyed the room.
“What grade am I teaching?”
His blue eyes came back to her. “Sophomores. They’re harmless.”
Harmless to him maybe. He was used to them.
“How about seating charts?”
“Phillip doesn’t believe in them.”
Good for Phillip. “Any helpful hints?” She was certain she’d have many questions as soon as the school day started, but she didn’t know the specifics yet.
“Watch your back?”
Callie smiled in spite of herself. “Thanks.”
“Just take attendance using these slips,” he held up a pad that had been sitting on the podium, “hand out the word-search puzzles and watch them work. That’s all you have to do.” There was a glint in his eyes as he said “It’ll be fine. Honest. The first time is the hardest, but once you get to know the kids, it’s a snap.”
“I have no choice but to believe you.” She leaned back against the white board, determined to relax. “So what do you do around here?”
Dane settled a hip on the desk and explained that he coached both boys’ and girls’ basketball and used to be a player himself. Now he taught algebra and calculus. He was also quite full of himself, but considering the circumstances, Callie thought it best to disregard that. She might need him soon.
The bell rang and Callie jumped. Dane pushed off from the desk.
“Give a yell if you need help,” he s
aid as he crossed the classroom. The first student came in the door just as Dane went out. “Ready or not, here they come.”
“Or not,” Callie muttered to herself.
She went to stand by the door because it seemed like the thing to do. The students continued to file into the room, eyeing her as if taking her measure. Callie was careful not to appear perky or enthusiastic, which she remembered as being sub-attack triggers. Instead she did her best to radiate quiet confidence.
Almost all of the boys were taller than she was and the majority of the girls better dressed. Callie’s yellow camp shirt and denim skirt seemed bland next to heeled ankle boots, skinny jeans and tops that in many cases were cut just a wee bit low. And everybody smelled good. She’d forgotten the maintenance that went into high school.
“Are you a sub?” a boy with two lip piercings asked as he sauntered past without waiting for an answer.
“You’re new,” commented a girl with a stylishly draped scarf who plopped down in the desk next to the door. She inspected Callie’s outfit as if she were Heidi Klum judging a runway contest.
“Actually, I went to school here.”
“Oh,” the girl replied, obviously less than impressed. Callie couldn’t really blame her, but she felt deflated.
By the time the second bell rang to start class, most of the students were in their desks, but a few were still milling around, talking to each other.
“Take your seats,” Callie said, remembering hearing her own teachers say that about a million times. What else had they said? The kids settled and she stared out over approximately thirty expressionless faces. Everyone was waiting for her to do something. Oh, boy.
“Mr. Lightfoot left some work,” she said with authority.
“Word searches?” one of them asked.
“You got it,” Callie replied.
“Who are you, anyway?” a tall girl near the front said.
“I’m…uh…Ms. McCarran.” She’d forgotten to write her name on the board and she wasn’t going to do it now. She knew better than to turn her back on them.
“You’d better take attendance.” The only boy in the room shorter than she was pointed to the pad Dane had showed her.
“Right.” Attendance. Callie began, sometimes having to repeat names two and three times before she heard the response. She was beginning to think they were doing it on purpose. Quiet confidence. She handed the word searches to the short boy and asked him to give them out. He’d barely gotten started when the classroom door burst open and a big kid in baggy pants and a black T-shirt strode in. He dropped his books on the desk with a loud bang and then jammed himself into the seat, his legs sprawling in front of him. He was a good five minutes late.
“Excuse me,” Callie said sharply, before she noticed a couple of kids in the front row shaking their heads.
“That’s Junior,” one of them whispered, as if it explained everything.
“Oooh-kay,” Callie said softly. Junior sat and stared into the distance while the rest of the students either got out pencils and started the word search or took a cue from their gigantic classmate and stared into space.
With the exception of Junior’s grand entrance, the period passed without incident and Junior left more quietly than he had arrived, but Callie remained on edge, waiting for…she didn’t know what. But whatever it was, she wanted to be ready.
The rest of the classes proved livelier, with chattier kids, possibly because they were finally waking up, and more personal questions, which she deflected with dry replies before she managed by some miracle and a lot of bluffing to get the students working or quiet. She had a few behavioral problems, but faced them down; a few boys who tried to hit on her, which she ignored. One helpful girl told her she didn’t need to be so jumpy. Callie hadn’t realized it showed, and made an effort to tone down her jumpiness.
Tyler Michaels, the guy who’d leered at Denise Logan in the café during Callie’s interview, was in one of her classes. Other than acting like an overly confident rich-kid-chick-magnet, he hadn’t been any kind of problem. But seeing him reminded her that Denise worked at the school in some tucked away office. Callie would have said hello earlier if she’d remembered, but she’d been thinking of little except surviving the day when she’d first arrived at the school.
When the teacher dismissal bell rang at three-thirty, Callie returned her keys to the office.
“Did you have a good day?” Mrs. Serrano asked politely.
“Pretty good,” Callie replied. Would she rather be a temp in an office? A seasonal store worker? A gofer/number cruncher during tax season? A backup butcher in a slaughterhouse? You bet. Unfortunately, those jobs were not available. So subbing it was. At least for now.
“Is Denise Logan here today?”
“She was,” Mrs. Serrano replied. “Her day ends at two o’clock.”
“Oh, that’s right.”
“Can I give her a message?”
“No,” Callie said. “I’ll see her next time I’m here.”
The Neon barely made it across town. And Wesley was not a very big town. She would have been sunk had she been in San Francisco or Denver. Callie had to get the car in to R&M Auto soon. Her two-hundred-dollar lease was turning out to be a bad investment.
When she got home, she took off her school clothes and tossed them in a heap in the closet. The school had no air-conditioning and the denim skirt and yellow cotton camp shirt were gross. She slipped into her tech pants, a cami and sandals, then went out the back door to get her bike. It wasn’t exactly where she’d left it. Either gremlins or Hobarts had been here. Shaking her head, she wheeled the contraption out the back gate into the alley and started the ten-block walk to Nathan’s house.
She’d walked only a few blocks when a car came up behind her, traveling slowly. Callie automatically moved up onto the sidewalk, but the engine continued to purr behind her. She cast a glance over her shoulder and saw a teenager driving one hell of a sports car.
“Hey,” the kid called out the passenger window. “Didn’t I see you at the school today?”
“Maybe,” Callie said without slowing. The car edged closer to the side of the street, still shadowing her.
“It’s hot.” He said the word hot in a way that set Callie’s teeth on edge. “I can give you a…ride to wherever you’re going.”
Oh, yeah. This kid thought he was a smooth one. “No, thanks.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.” Callie looked over at him again and suddenly recognized the kid—or rather she recognized him as being related to the boy who had annoyed Denise during their interview. This had to be Tyler Michaels’s older brother, Mitch. Well, he wasn’t going to harass her—even if he was Vince Michaels’s kid.
“Positive,” Callie called, putting her head down and walking as fast as she could with the disabled bike. The car continued to follow her.
“It must be hard pushing that bike. How about I push the bike and you drive the car?”
“How about you drive away and leave me alone?” Callie replied sharply.
To her surprise, Mitch Michaels laughed appreciatively.
“Have it your way. I’ll see you around.”
“Not if I see you first,” Callie muttered as the blue sports car cruised down the street and around the corner.
NATHAN WAS IN THE GARAGE, cleaning the grease off a gear. The radio was on, playing oldies, and he hadn’t heard her walk up the cement driveway in her rubber-soled sandals. She stood for a moment, watching him work, a frown of concentration pulling his dark eyebrows together. In spite of the heat, he was wearing long pants. She recalled the days when all he wore were cutoff jeans, slung low on his hips. He’d thought he was such a twig, but Callie had appreciated the long lean muscles that came from hundreds of miles put on his bike. And though he was still lean, he was anything but a twig. The muscles in his forearms flexed as he worked, making her even more aware of just how attractive he’d become.
And then he look
ed up, his blue eyes connecting with hers and for one brief second she felt as if she was eighteen again and in love with Nathan Marcenek. But his expression clouded and the moment was lost.
Callie wanted it back. She felt an odd welling of sadness and regret, very much like she’d been feeling as she mourned for Grace. She started pushing the flat-tired bike into the garage, her own muscles flexing with the effort. Somewhere in that tall, muscular body was her old friend Nate Marcenek. Yeah, she’d screwed him over, but she wanted to make amends. She wanted her friend back.
CALLIE MANHANDLED THE BIKE with its two flat tires into the garage, a V of sweat between her breasts and damp, dark blond tendrils curling around her face. She brushed the hair away from her forehead with her wrist.
“You pushed it all the way from your house?”
“I needed the exercise.”
He didn’t think so. She was fit and firm. Every part of her.
“Thanks for doing this,” she said, with a tentative half smile. She must have noticed his lack of response, though, because after a few seconds the smile faded.
He felt crummy, treating her like this, but he needed to stay in control. He needed to stop feeling this pull toward her, as if she was the Callie he’d fallen in love with. He studied her old bike. And it was indeed Callie’s old bike. The Trek 920. He probably still had parts for it in his heap of extra bike paraphernalia.
“It’s been in the shed for over a decade,” she said.
“A rough decade from the looks of it.”
“The shed isn’t totally weatherproof,” she agreed. “Dust in the summer, moisture in the winter.”
He put a hand on the tattered bar extenders and Callie let go as he examined the patient.
“I’m going to have to order some parts.”
“All right. Just tell me how much it costs.”
“You can count on it.” Twelve years ago he wouldn’t have dreamed of charging Callie. But that was twelve years ago and so much had changed.
Callie wandered over to the wall where he had his bikes hanging—two mountain bikes and a road bike. “These are nice. You’ve come up in the world, Nate.”
