“Well, I do know that he wants you back in school,” she said. “And it would make me look pretty good if I could get you to go.”
“I knew it!”
“So what do you think?” Calla asked her. “Could you do this for me? It would really mean a lot.”
Jazleen hesitated. “If I did, you would owe me, big time!”
Calla nodded. She sent a wordless appeal to heaven that the payback would be worth it.
“Okay, I’ll try it,” Jazleen told her. “But I’m not promising to stick it out for the whole school year.”
Calla nodded calmly in agreement, but she felt a sense of elation. And she could hardly wait to share news of her success.
She went home and spent the rest of the afternoon taking care of household chores and glancing out the front window at every opportunity.
Finally she saw Landry going into his house. She hurriedly checked her hair and makeup and then walked over to his front door, as bold as brass. Maybe the whole neighborhood was watching, but she couldn’t have cared less.
He ushered her inside immediately.
“Where is your coat? It’s freezing out there.”
“I was too excited to grab it,” she admitted. “I had to come tell you. I planted a bulb today.”
He raised his eyebrows in surprise and grinned broadly at her.
“That’s great!”
“Jazleen has agreed to attend Cavitz Alternative and she’s willing to be involved in the book group.”
“Wow, you are a miracle worker,” he said.
Calla laughed and feigned a curtsy.
“Sit down. Let me fix you some...coffee? Hot tea? Hot chocolate?”
Calla opted for the last, which suited her mood perfectly. She felt like a kid just in from the cold on a winter afternoon.
Landry’s tiny kitchen was only big enough for one person to move around in. It was separated from the living room area by a narrow breakfast bar with two stools. Calla took a seat on one and watched him. The place was clean and neat, Spartan in the way that only a single man could be. His one concession to decoration was the pot of African violets growing underneath the fluorescent light above the counter.
Calla noticed that he prepared the chocolate the old-fashioned way, melting sugar and semisweet chunks into the milk. He stirred it carefully to heat it without allowing it to scorch.
“I always use instant,” she admitted.
He nodded. “I used to, too. But it’s so quick and easy, I was drinking more than my share.” Landry patted his midriff. “Most guys get forgiven for a beer gut at a certain age. I’m not sure that a hot chocolate paunch is ever acceptable.”
Calla smiled. In his shirtsleeves, Landry didn’t look in any danger of putting on weight. He was lean and trim, not heavily muscled like a man who spent a lot of time in the gym. Instead he had the firm body of a man who kept busy and active.
A rich scent filled the little kitchen as he poured the steaming hot chocolate in the saucepan into heavy mugs. He set both on the counter and then came around to sit on the stool next to Calla.
She tasted her drink and made an almost involuntary sound of pleasure. “Mmmm.”
Landry smiled.
“This is almost as good as the news that Jazleen is coming to school,” he said.
Calla chuckled. “It is that good.”
“Yes it is,” he agreed.
She took a sip of her chocolate, pleased. “So my job is done,” she said. “The rest is up to you and Literature for All of Us.”
“What?” Landry asked. “You’re thinking that your part is finished?”
“I’ve planted my bulb,” she pointed out. “Now all I have to do is wait for the springtime.”
He raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“I don’t think it quite works that way,” he told her.
“What do you mean?”
“Once you’ve got your bulb planted, you’re going to have to guard the ground where you put it,” he said. “You can’t let the rain wash it out or the squirrels dig it up or somebody pave over it with a concrete parking lot.”
Calla laughed. “I don’t think there’ll be any parking lots going up around Jazleen.”
Landry shook his head. “For every person trying to do the right thing for these kids, there’s another person who’s working against them and two more who just don’t care. You’ve gotten Jazleen this far. You have to be there for her until she can find her own way.”
“How am I going to do that?”
“I’ve got some ideas.”
“Okay, what?”
“Well, one thing that this program tries to do is to give these students the book club experience,” Landry said. “It takes volunteers to do that.”
“I can’t lead a book club,” Calla declared with certainty.
“That’s not what we need. The Literature for All of Us program sends trained leaders for the session. What we need are volunteers to set the ambiance, to provide the refreshments, to make it feel like the special event that it is. You could do that.”
“But I have a job,” she said.
He nodded. “Lots of employers want their employees to put in volunteer hours.”
“Dr. Walker isn’t a big corporation,” Calla insisted. “He has a small office. I’m not at all sure that I could get away.”
“Well, you can try,” Landry suggested.
“Yes,” she admitted. “I could try.”
“If you can turn Jazleen around, your boss ought to be easy by comparison.”
Calla chuckled. “I guess so,” she admitted.
“How did you convince Jazleen?” Landry asked.
Calla opened her mouth to reply and then hesitated.
“What?”
“It’s a little embarrassing,” she admitted. “She’s doing it as a favor to me.”
“A favor?”
She nodded. “Jazleen thinks I’m trying to impress you. So as a favor, she’s helping.”
“Oh, I see.” His dark eyes crinkled with humor, but his tone was low and sexy. “Well, I am impressed.”
Calla felt herself blushing. “Jazleen’s just so young,” she explained unnecessarily. “She doesn’t understand how two grown-up people can just...just enjoy each other’s company without any...any silly romance sort of stuff going on.”
His expression grew slightly more serious. He walked his fingers slowly across the smooth surface until they reached her hand, which he clasped gently in his own.
“No, no of course,” he whispered. “Two grown-up people like us. There would never be any silly romance stuff going on.”
Calla’s heart was beating so loudly she worried that he could hear it. Breathlessness was not a feeling to which she was accustomed.
Get a hold of yourself! she silently admonished. She wanted to move away from him. She could have easily freed her hand, but somehow she didn’t want to relinquish the warmth, the connection that he offered.
“I don’t... I don’t have flings or...or affairs or whatever you call it,” she told him.
Landry lowered his chin slightly. “I’m not sure I have a word for what I want to have with you. Whatever it is, it’s kind of a new thing for me.” He rose to his feet and took a step closer to her.
Calla stiffened her back.
“I don’t want to scare you,” he said. “I just want to kiss you.”
She didn’t know what she thought about that. Her brain seemed sluggish as her senses tightened into electric expectation.
Landry laid his palm across her jaw and raised her face toward him. His movements were slow, deliberate, as if he were drawing out the anticipation. Finally, she could no longer wait and she met his lips with her own.
He tast
ed like chocolate and Calla couldn’t get enough. She trembled in his arms. Landry wrapped her tightly in his embrace. She felt so safe, so cared for, so desired.
When their lips parted, he continued to hold her close. Calla buried her face into his neck and shoulder, taking in the wonderful masculine scent of him. Oh how she had missed this! She could no longer believe that she’d been willing to forego this, willing to say these feelings were only something from the past.
Landry stepped back and seated himself once more on the stool facing her. His expression was smoky with desire.
“Do you think I could get away with seducing you on Canasta Street in the middle of a Monday afternoon?”
“Uh...maybe,” she answered.
He laughed. “I take that as a challenge.”
CHAPTER
FIVE
Calla was genuinely surprised how easy her venture into school volunteering turned out to be. The book group was scheduled for Thursday mornings, which just happened to be Dr. Walker’s weekly match at the handball court. The office staff used that time to clear up paperwork and the doctor was completely fine with Calla staying a half hour later each afternoon to make up her share.
Jazleen was as good as her word. Monday morning, she made her way to Cavitz Alternative High School and filled out the paperwork to officially become a student again. Calla didn’t see any magical change in the girl. And when she asked, “How was school?” Jazleen’s responses always centered around whether or not she’d seen Landry that day, which was apparently what she thought Calla wanted to know.
On the first day of the book club, Calla found herself almost as leery of going to school as Jazleen had been. The building did not have a gathering place for students, a statue of a long-dead community hero or a motto in Latin over the doorway.
Cavitz Alternative was located in a corner building in the shadow of a busy expressway. It had once housed a dry-goods emporium, the name of which was still visible in the tile of the lobby. Calla was loaded down with what she hoped were the perfect accoutrements for a book club. She must have looked as out of place as she felt because a young woman stopped to help her.
“I need to find the book group.”
The woman nodded enthusiastically. “Second floor, study hall,” she told Calla, pointing toward the wide stairway in the back.
Struggling with all she had to carry, Calla wandered around until she found the elevator. She took it up one flight and then, after asking more directions, found herself in front of a door with a sheet of white paper identifying the location.
She tapped politely a couple of times before turning the knob. The room was empty. Calla set her bags on a nearby table and surveyed it slowly. Dingy, aged glass block provided light from the upper half of the two outside walls. There was an old but comfy-looking couch in one corner and a couple of mismatched armchairs. The center of the room was dominated by a functional-looking library table surrounded by chairs.
Calla immediately set to work. She dragged the table to the wall and rearranged the chairs to form a conversation circle around the couch. What the space needed was a coffee table, but of course there was nothing like that. She allowed disappointment to spark innovation and borrowed the metal wastepaper basket by the door. Hanging on the wall above it was a small bulletin board that held only two notes. One was a schedule for the room’s use, the other an admonition with exclamation points about cleaning up your own mess. Calla decided the room could do without both for a couple of hours. She set the bulletin board facedown across the top of the wastepaper basket to create an instant coffee table. From her bag she got out a table runner. It was too long, but it covered the width of the board perfectly. She folded it so that it hung down a few inches from the floor on either side. Calla liked the look. It was welcoming and cozy. She added a couple of candles for a centerpiece.
Her Sunday best tablecloth covered the big table next to the wall. She’d brought her nicest things. Most of them never got out of the cabinet except on Christmas. The Fosteria glass pitcher that had been her mother’s was soon filled with raspberry tea. The tray Mark had bought for her on a trip to Washington displayed the fancy finger sandwiches she’d made. There was a plate of apples that she’d carefully cut into leaf patterns and brushed with lemon juice. And for something sweet, she’d made a pineapple upside-down cake with red maraschino cherries in the centers of the rings.
She’d just finished laying out the forks and napkins when the door opened. A stylish young woman, short and round and wearing black jeans and a bright pink sweater, came through the door. She pulled a rolling bag that looked more like an oversized briefcase than a piece of luggage.
“Hi, I’m Lyssa,” she said. “I’m the group leader from Literature for All of Us.”
The two shook hands. “Calla Middleton, volunteer,” she said, by way of introduction.
“This looks lovely,” Lyssa said.
Calla smiled, pleased. “Well, Landry...uh, Mr. Sinclair said that you wanted it to be like a ladies’ book club. So, it seems you’ve got to have fancy food and nice tablecloths.”
“You’ve outdone yourself,” Lyssa said. “We usually just have juice and chips. I hope we can count on you coming every week.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Typically the volunteers make themselves scarce during the meeting,” Lyssa said.
Calla nodded. “I think that would be best. My son’s girlfriend is in this group and I’m sure she’ll settle in better without thinking I’m looking over her shoulder. I’ll find someplace to bide my time and then I’ll come back to clean up.”
Perhaps five minute later the girls began arriving and Calla made her exit. She passed Jazleen in the hallway. The girl sidled over to her and spoke in a furtive whisper.
“I just saw him go into the teachers’ lounge around the corner and all the way to the end of the hall.” The girl added a thumbs-up sign for emphasis.
Calla could only shake her head. But she did follow those directions. As she approached the door, it opened and Landry walked out. If he was surprised to see her, he gave no indication, just a wide grin of pleasure at having run into her.
“Have I discovered the truth about you, Mr. Landry?” she asked. “Are you one of those principals that hang out in the teachers’ lounge?”
“Not really. And none of my teachers get much lounging time.”
“But you’re here now.”
“Looking for you,” he admitted. “I thought you might be hanging out here while the book group is in session.”
“Actually Jazleen sent me in this direction,” Calla told him. “She saw you headed this way.”
Landry grinned. “I like that girl more and more,” he said, chuckling. “I wanted to give you a tour of our school.”
“Great.”
“The teachers’ lounge here is about what you’d expect,” he said, opening the door wide enough to peek in. “A coffeepot and a refrigerator. Not the complete comforts of home, but it works. And you are welcome to hang out here anytime.”
“Thanks.”
They began walking down the hallway. He kept his voice low so they wouldn’t disturb any classes in session.
“We have eighty-six students currently enrolled,” he said. “Ten teachers, six full-time and four part-time. We’ve got a staff of three, a few volunteers and a dozen trained mentors that are here on a regular basis.”
“That seems like a lot of people for so few students.”
“It’s a ten-to-one ratio, which is much better than a typical school,” Landry said. “But many of our students have been in our educational system for years without spending ten minutes with a teacher, so I figure it all evens out.”
He showed her an empty classroom that had only a half-dozen desks.
“We do both day and night classes,” he
said. “We try to accommodate varied schedules, so all the classes are small.”
Calla nodded.
“On the first floor we have our Family First program,” he said. “Right now we’re just providing child care for our students when they’re in class. We’re hoping to start up some regular parenting classes not only for our students and alumni, but for all the young parents in the neighborhood.”
“Wow,” Calla said.
“Our students face a lot of obstacles to education,” Landry said. “We try to figure out what they are and deal with them as effectively as we can.”
The tour included a tiny but up-to-date computer lab, the half-dozen shelves that made up the school’s lending library, and a former loading dock that had been turned into an experimental theater.
“Our students are from a media generation. They write the plays, perform the plays, provide the music and even capture it all on film.”
Calla couldn’t help but be impressed. “Jazleen is going to love it here,” she said. “I’m beginning to think this is where Nathan should have gone.”
Landry shook his head. “Nathan is a lucky guy. He’s smart, motivated and he had parents that had an eye to the future. He was going to flourish no matter what the educational element. Our students need a little more help to get them onto a more level playing field.”
In the stairwell, Landry took her hand. “Are you saving your Saturday night for me?”
She nodded.
“Good, can I have Friday night and all of Sunday, too?”
“You’re going to get very tired of me,” she warned.
He shook his head. “I can’t help myself. You’re like hard liquor, completely intoxicating and very addictive.”
By the time he took his leave they were back on the second floor in front of the study hall. The ninety-minute book club meeting was ending. Calla waited for the first few girls to leave before she made her way inside.
She spotted Jazleen immediately. A large girl, heavily pregnant, was talking to her. Jazleen’s face was completely blank, revealing nothing. When Jazleen caught sight of Calla, she immediately made an excuse to get away.
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