by R. S. Lively
"I know that. I mean, where is it?"
There's a long pause that is not encouraging. I was hoping for an immediate response that would make sense, and put me back at ease. Instead, I can feel the same confusion coming through the phone as I already feel.
"Where is it? Isn't it behind the house where Leon put it?"
"I think I would have noticed. I'm almost at the school. I'll talk to you later."
I toss my phone back into my bag, and turn into the faculty parking lot. The lot is tiny because of the vehicle restrictions, and I feel guilty even driving into it. I park as far in the back of the lot as I can for penance, and jump out. I'm rushing toward the side door of the school when I notice another car has come into the parking lot. Out of the corner of my eye, I see it forgo the available spots, heading to the back of the lot beyond my car, toward the brick storage building used by the sports teams. Curiosity slows me enough to watch the car start an awkward attempt to parallel park. It starts to back in, then shoots forward several feet, does what looks like a thirty-seven-point turn, heads into the spot front first, then pulls out again. It stops, and I hear the horn blast. Glancing at my watch, I decide the speeding induced by my stress about my missing car has shaved enough time off of my trip to the school I can spare some time to see if a new coworker has had a heart attack while parking.
I run over to the car, starting to reach for my phone again to call emergency services if I have to. As I'm approaching, though, I can see through the driver's side window, and I don't see the elderly teacher I expect. Instead, there is a woman likely a few years younger than me leaned back against the seat, one hand flattened on her chest and her eyes closed as she inhales and exhales deeply. I want to get her attention, but I worry about taping on the window and making whatever's happening worse. After a few seconds, she opens her eyes, but doesn't seem to notice me standing there. Her hands go back to the steering wheel, and she starts to try to park again. I jump out of the way as the front of the car swings toward me, and she screams as she sees me, letting go of the wheel. She turns the car off, and opens the door, spilling out like she can't wait to get away from the seat.
"Are you ok?" she cries.
"I'm fine. You didn't get anywhere near me. Are you ok?"
"Yeah," she says, nodding. She looks at her car. "Yeah."
"Are you sure? I thought you had a heart attack."
"Oh, no. No heart attack. I'm just ---" she looks at me with uncertainty. "Parallel parking scares me. It just got the better of me. I'm going to be fine."
She doesn't sound entirely convinced, but that's not what I'm thinking right now.
"Why are you parallel parking?" I ask.
She gestures toward the school.
"I'm a teacher," she says. "It's my first day."
"Mine, too," I say.
"All the parking spots say reserved," she said.
"For teachers," I say. "They are reserved for the teachers."
"Oh," she says, sounding both embarrassed and worried as she turns back to look at her car.
"I can park for you," I offer.
She looks back at me with hopeful eyes, and nods.
"Yes, please," she says.
I get into her car, start it, and slip into the spot beside my car. Handing her the keys, I start toward the school building.
"We better hurry," I say. "The students are going to be getting here any minute."
We start toward the door at a half-jogging pace.
"I felt so guilty even bringing my car," she says.
"Me, too," I agree.
"Did you know people aren't even supposed to have cars in the village?" she asks, sounding shocked. "I tried to drive straight down Main Street. And let me tell you," she shakes her head, "that went poorly."
I laugh.
"You aren't from around here, are you?"
"No," she admits. "I just moved here a few weeks ago."
"I didn't think I recognized you," I say. I stretch out my hand to her. "My name is Emma."
"Judy," she says, shaking my hand.
We reach the door, and grab onto the handle.
"Like Garland?" I ask.
Yanking the door open, I step aside to let Judy in first.
"Like Dench."
"Ah."
We're walking down the hallway toward the center of the building where a common area acts as a gathering place, cafeteria, and anything else creative teachers can think to do with it. The theater sits off this room. That's where I'm headed; back into the room that felt like a second home when I was a student here. I'm about to ask if Judy wants to grab coffee after school when something catches my attention out of the corner of my eye. Broad shoulders and thick dark hair. A deep, rolling laugh that is just this side of cocky, and makes it feel like the school is still under his command.
Grant Laurence.
Sudden realization hits me, and I feel my jaw tighten, and my eyes narrow. My fists clench at my sides, and I stalk toward him. I want to grab him by the back of his dark blue shirt, pull him around to face me, and rip him to shreds, but I force myself to maintain at least a hint of my dignity. It’s my first day of class. The last thing I need is to seem like Carrie has risen up and started a new career.
Instead, I stalk past him, shooting him an angry glare as I do. I gesture sharply with my head for him to follow me into the theater.
"You," I growl when the door has closed behind him, and we are alone. "You took my damn car."
"I didn't take your car," he says.
"Oh, really? So, it just got up and walked away?"
"I didn't take your car, Emma," he repeats. "Leon did."
I let out a sigh, rolling my eyes.
"You are such a jackass. Who the hell do you think you are? I told you I didn't want the car at Leon's place. So, do you want to explain to me why the car is at Leon's place?"
I'm seething now, and I hope no one out in the common area can hear me. All the frustration I've felt since the day I watched his Golden Boy image melt away to reveal the true arrogant, self-centered jerk beneath the talent, looks, and charm bubbles up and out of me without giving me a chance to control it. I've known since that day Mom was right when she said the Laurence brothers were different, that they weren't like us. They think they're better, that they are entitled to anything and everything they want no matter where they are, or who they're with. At least I see it in Grant. The oldest. The most impressive. The most revered. The most infuriating.
"Calm down, Emma. I just wanted to do something nice for you."
"By stealing my car?"
"I didn't steal your car. You are so dramatic. I guess that's appropriate, though."
"You had my car removed from my house without my knowledge, or my permission."
"It's not my fault you didn't notice a wrecker show up at your house and tow a car away from your driveway. You'd think you'd notice something like that. Leon said he figured when you didn't come running out of the house to stop him, it meant you were fine with it, so he just went right along."
That hadn't occurred to me until right now. How did I miss him taking the car? It's not like Leon is a delicate person.
"You always think you should have what you want, don't you?" I ask. "You can just go through life taking and pushing people around whenever it suits you."
"You know, Emma, you sure do make it hard to be nice to you. Have a good first day."
He turns and stalks out of the theater. I take a few strides to follow him. Catching the door slamming toward me, I lean out toward him.
“Don’t tell me what to do, Grant Laurence. You have a good first day!
That's when I notice not only have I caught the attention of several teachers, but a few students have filtered in as well. They're staring at me with open mouths and wide eyes, and I slap on a grin the size of the headache splitting through my brain. Throwing my arms open to my sides, I turn around in a slow circle to look at all of them.
"And that, ladies and gentlem
en, is what we call theater. I'm Ms. Barlow, the new drama teacher, and I hope all of you are intrigued by my moment of performance art, and will be joining me for theater class or drama club. Have a fantastic first day!"
Keeping my head up and the smile stretching so hard across my face it's making my cheeks hurt, I disappear backward into the theater. I don't have a class for the first period of the day, and I hoped to spend the time preparing my lessons, and setting up a few of the ice-breaker games we used to play when I was in this department. Now I'm just hoping by the end of the period I'm no longer shaking, and have gotten over my humiliation.
I don't realize Judy followed me until I'm standing in the middle of the stage. She climbs up the short set of steps to the side of the stage, and walks toward me.
"Wow," she says. "You only said two sentences, but I want to know the rest of the story. All that emotion was really impressive. You sure had me fooled. When did you prepare that?"
I plant my hands on my hips, my head falling back as I look up at the lights, most of them still waiting to be turned on.
"I didn't prepare it," I admit.
"That was improv?" she gasps.
"That was real," I say. "I just yelled something totally nonsensical at a man in front of my brand new coworkers and impressionable young students. And you know what else?"
"What?" Judy asks. "The school doesn't even have a drama club."
Chapter Six
Emma
Two weeks later…
I've seen Grant eleven times in the last two weeks. Not that I'm counting. We haven't said anything to each other, and the looks we've exchanged could probably best be described as chilly. But it still makes my skin crawl to think about him being around so much. I don't even know why he's here. No one else seems to, either. Since many of the teachers who were in place when I came to school here have now been phased out and replaced by people who were classmates of mine, the school has become a hotbed of much of the same meaningless gossip and whispering that surrounded the Laurence family back then. Only this time it's being conjured in minds with a decade more experience in the world, and infinitely more cattiness. Anyone who thinks teenagers have the lock on snark and surliness hasn't met a bitter unmarried woman in her late twenties coming to full grips with the reality that her high school crush really did never notice her boobs in her push-up bra, and still isn't going to give her his letterman's jacket.
Grant has been intermittently roaming the halls since classes started, but never on any sort of schedule. He'll show up, then be gone for a few days, only to show up again. Some of those days I will see him two or three times, and others just once. It's rarely in the same place, and there's never any indication of what he might be doing. He's obviously not teaching a class, but the only person I've seen him talking to since the first day of school is Mrs. Burke, the vice principal who was secretary when we were in school.
I had hoped him having to rescue me from my broken down car, and then our showdown over it, would have reached my cosmic quota for interacting with him. My car was back at my mother's house by the time I got home from school that day, but my quota is apparently still not filled. Which is particularly evident in this specific moment as I'm crushed between his back and Judy in the middle of the lunch line. The first teacher newsletter of the year proclaimed all adult faculty were to show unity with the students by going through the lunch line and eating in the cafeteria twice a week. This is only the third time going through the ritual, but I'm already seeing serious flaws in the plan. Not the least of which is being smashed up against Grant, who as of now I still don't think is faculty, by students who don't understand the capacity of a lunch line continuing to crush their way into the alcove, compressing the rest of the line in the process. I'm trying as hard as I can to focus on the aggravation of the situation, instead of how the heady smell of Grant's cologne and the heat coming off his body is reminding me of my recurring dream of him bending me over a table right in this very room and filling me fast and hard.
Seeing him dip his finger in the whipped cream swirled on top of his dessert and lick it off is not helping.
Finally, the line bounces me through, and I'm able to take my salad and peanut butter cookie, and escape from the tight space out into the rest of the cafeteria. The sound in here is deafening, even though the entire student body of the school numbers fewer than the graduating class of the school where I did my student teaching. I don't remember it being this loud. I'm getting old. I wait for Judy to make it out of the line alive, and we head toward the furthest table at the edge of the cafeteria. Sitting there means we are complying with the rules of eating in the cafeteria with the students, but keeping the actual infiltration of the teenagers at a minimum. Judy and I have become fast friends, and I'm thankful to have her around. Since she's not originally from Magnolia Falls – I recently learned she moved here to care for her ailing great-grandmother, a woman I remember as the librarian when I was in preschool – I don't feel as awkward with her. She doesn't have any of the expectations of me that those who I grew up with do, and because her grandparents went rogue and left Magnolia Falls after having her mother, she has some of that scarlet letter thing going for her, too. Only her letter is an 'O' for 'Outsider', and mine is a 'T' for 'Told You So'.
The top of the clamshell package for my glob of tuna salad pops open as I set my red plastic tray on the table. Negotiating sitting on one of the little round stools bolted to the tables always feels like a feat to me. I have visions of missing center one time, and the entire table folding up.
"I don't understand how you can eat that," Judy says, eyeing my tuna with all the pleasure of the Grinch listening to the Whos.
"Well, I am intending on taking it out of the plastic," I say.
"She just doesn't understand the value of a slice of good old-fashioned school pizza."
I look up and see Grant standing at the side of the table. He had made it out of the line before me, and I assumed he had wandered off to find his own table.
"What are you doing here?" I ask.
Grant looks at Judy.
"Is this seat taken?"
She's looking at him like she'd like to dip him in her pudding cup. I narrow my eyes at her, but she doesn't notice. Instead, she nods slowly.
"By you," she says slowly.
Smooth.
"Great."
He sits down two little circle stools down from me, and I glare at him.
"What are you doing here?" I ask again. "And why are you eating that?"
"Because it's delicious," Grant says.
He picks up the soggy slice of pizza, tilts his head back like he's still sixteen, and takes a bite. Judy sighs, and I roll my eyes at her. Just this morning she finished telling me about the online boyfriend she has who may or may not know her name, or the fact that she is female. We need to work on getting her priorities straight.
"You know as well as I do it's not," I say. “Besides, since when does the spoiled rich boy eat school lunch? You're not even a teacher here."
"So, I'm spoiled now?" he asks, some of the playfulness gone from his expression.
"Haven't you always been?" I ask.
"You didn't used to think so."
Our eyes lock as things that don't need to be spoken pass between us.
"Um," Judy says awkwardly. "I'm going to go get some Jell-O. Can I interest anyone in a parfait? Brownie? No? Just me? OK."
She walks away, and Grant leans slightly toward me.
"I don't really give a damn what you think about my family and their money, even though they never treated you like anything less than them. But I will have you know I'm not some lazy ass who just sits around siphoning off them. I have my own business, and it is very successful. I could never use a cent of the Laurence money, and it would have no impact on my lifestyle. So, no, I'm not a spoiled little rich boy."
"Fine," I say. "I apologize."
"Thank you," he says, straightening, and taking another bite of his pi
zza. His eyes slide over to my tuna as I dump it out onto the rest of my salad. "That's still fucking disgusting, by the way."
"What is it that you do?" I ask. "What's this business you started?"
I don't really care, but I'm trying hard to at least be civil.
"No one told you about it?" he asks, sounding stunned I somehow escaped the fruitful Magnolia Falls grapevine.
I take a bite of my salad.
"No," I say. "My mother said something about you starting a business, but she didn't tell me what it was."
"I'm a bucket list concierge," he says.
I stare at him for a few blinks. He doesn't elaborate.
"You're a what?" I ask.
"A bucket list concierge," he repeats. "The company is called DreamMakers, Inc. My brothers and I help people fulfill their bucket lists. That's actually why I'm here."
His expression says he expects me to be impressed, but I am decidedly not.
"You're trolling the retirement home for new clients?" I ask.
"No. Mrs. Burke has me working on a surprise for Mr. Bernheimer. He's retiring this year."
"What kind of surprise?" I ask.
" I'm doing research and designing the event."
My eyes narrow at him.
"Are you serious?" I ask.
"Yes," he says. "Is there a problem with that? It’s a surprise, though, so don’t mention it to anyone."
"Yes, there's a problem with that," I say. "I'm the theater teacher, and that means I'm also the head of the student activities committee. Events fall under that category."
"Well, fortunately for me, I guess, this isn't a student activity. It's for Mr. Bernheimer, and anyone else out of his class I can get together."
"I've already been working on honoring his retirement. I just had a meeting with Mrs. Burke about it."
Grant shrugs, taking the last bite of his pizza and standing.
"I guess she wasn't impressed by your plans," he says. "Or she just doesn't think you can handle something this important. I'm sure whatever you pull together will work with the main event just fine."