Pam wanted that for her, as well. “Then let’s do that. I’ve got a few notes for you on your plan. Places to add a little more information. I’ve also brought along some bank applications. These are for two banks we’ve worked with before. They are very supportive of local businesses. When you’re ready to make an appointment, let me know. I want to come with you.” Pam handed over two business cards. “I’ve worked with both of these people before. If things don’t work out there, we can try the Mischief Bay Credit Union. You’d be pushing the upper limit of their business loans, which is why I don’t want to start there.”
She was also going to talk to Bea about some of the angel funds they had access to. Angel funds were a group of private investors who offered low interest loans or even grants to new businesses. Tech was hot right now and getting most of the attention, but Pam thought she might be able to swing a little cash Filia’s way if necessary.
“I’ll get these finished this week,” Filia promised. “Then I’ll call you so we can schedule before your trip.”
“Excellent. I look forward to it.”
Pam watched Filia and her daughter leave the offices of MWF. She might not be saving the world with her volunteer work, but she liked to think she was making a small difference. Each action was like ripples in a pond, or so she told herself. Now if only little Jack would start talking and Zoe and Steven would get serious, her life would be perfect.
* * *
Zoe parked in the Mischief Bay Elementary School parking lot and told herself everything was fine. She was doing great—the lack of sleep meant nothing. She would get by on grit. Maybe if she could have gulped down a couple of cups of coffee, she would have felt better, but that wasn’t possible. She was going to have to will her way to alertness. At least her caffeine headache had gone away the previous day. That was something.
She collected the tote that held her purse, her lunch and some ideas for what she could do with her class, told her stomach to calm down, and got out to face her first day of substitute teaching.
Even as she walked purposefully, she felt the nerves running up and down her body. There was a slight tremor she was going to ignore and a pressing need to burst into tears. She didn’t know how much the latter was because of hormones and how much was about terror, and she wasn’t sure it really mattered. Later, when she had her sense of humor back, she would think about the really sucky timing of all this—getting her first teaching gig literally the day after she found out she was pregnant with her ex-boyfriend’s baby—and laugh. But today was not that day.
She made her way to the administration office, signed in and was escorted to her class. On the way, the office secretary told her about lunch, where the teacher’s break room was, the teacher’s bathroom and a bunch of other information that simply flowed in one ear and out the other.
“Sandy Russell, across the hall, also teaches fifth grade. Ask her anything.”
They stopped in front of an open classroom door. This was it, Zoe thought in disbelief. She’d really done it. She was expected to be a substitute teacher for the whole day. To a room full of fifth graders she’d never met.
What had she been thinking? She knew nothing about the primary grades. That was Jen’s department. Zoe had always taught middle school. She knew what to do with a snarky thirteen-year-old girl. How different were they at ten? She hadn’t been ten in a really long time. Things had probably changed. She doubted a single girl in her class had a Spice Girls doll in her closet.
The secretary was still talking. Zoe did her best to tune in, then gave up and just smiled until there was silence.
“That’s a lot to take in,” she murmured, hoping it was a somewhat appropriate comment.
The other woman laughed. “You’ll get it. I’m in the office if things get really bad. Have fun.”
Uh-huh. Because that was so very likely.
Zoe stepped into the room. It was big with windows along one wall. There were—she counted—twenty-eight desks. That wasn’t so bad. She had a list for roll call, a schedule for the day and somewhere in this room was the mythical sub tub. The place where she would find lesson plans and ideas, notes on what to expect and how to control the class.
She located the tub in a back closet, but when she opened it, there was nothing inside except for three DVDs. Sky High, Escape to Witch Mountain and Mulan.
Zoe went cold. No, no, no. There had to more than that. Everything she’d read online said that the regular teacher always left a tub filled with information and ideas and things to do and...
She looked back in the closet, but there wasn’t a second tub. Or a box. Or anything. She searched the desk up front. It was mostly empty. She had an entire day with kids she didn’t know and nothing but three movies? They were kids’ movies. They weren’t even two hours long!
She was just about to bolt when the first of her students arrived. Three boys walked in together. They took one look at her and grinned, but not in a happy way. More as a challenge. Or a promise. She swallowed.
“Hi. I’m Miss Saldivar.”
“That’s a stupid name,” one of the boys said.
His friends laughed.
Zoe felt herself flush. She looked away so they couldn’t see, and told herself they were testing her. Testing her and winning.
She greeted the rest of the students, wrote her name on the blackboard, and then called roll. She stumbled through more than one pronunciation before that task was finally done, then glanced at the clock. It was eight-forty. She had the students until three. Even with lunch and two recesses, that was still nearly six hours.
“I don’t have a lesson plan,” she said with what she hoped was a friendly smile. “Who wants to tell me what you were studying? And if you could say your name, too, that would be great.”
One of the first boys to arrive waved his hand. As no one else did the same, she was forced to point at him.
“Math,” he said with a wicked grin. “I’m Cameron.”
How incredibly helpful. “What kind of math?”
“The one with numbers.”
Several students laughed. A couple of the girls rolled their eyes. One of the girls raised her hand.
“I’m Meagan. We’re working on fractions. Adding fractions with unlike denominators.”
“No, we’re not,” Cameron said. “No one needs to know that.”
“We can learn it now or learn it later. It’s not like they’re going to change what we need to know to graduate out of fifth grade just because we have a substitute.”
“You don’t know that,” Cameron told her.
“Of course I do. Everyone does.”
Cameron’s friends started yelling. Meagan’s friends joined in and soon the whole class was arguing about whether or not the material was necessary.
Zoe called for attention and was ignored by all of them. She walked to the front of the room and started counting. When she reached twenty, someone asked what she was doing.
“Figuring out how long you’re going to have to wait after the bell rings for recess until you can leave,” she said sweetly. “Bad behavior adds time. Good behavior subtracts it.”
The room went silent.
Zoe asked about other subjects and got a general idea of what was going on. But she had no material herself. She figured she could fake her way through a lot of things, but fractions wasn’t one of them. A little after nine, she surrendered to the inevitable and put on Sky High.
When the recess bell rang, the students surprised her by waiting the fifteen seconds they had on the board before racing out of the room. Zoe stared at the empty desks and told herself that feeling like a failure wasn’t the same as being a failure, even if the subtleties of that statement eluded her at the moment.
“Hi. I’m Sandy Russell,” a petite, fortysomething redhead said as she
walked into the classroom. “How’s it going?”
“Not that great. I don’t have a lesson plan or anything.”
Sandy nodded knowingly. “You’re subbing for a new teacher. I’ve told her she’s got to get her sub tub together, but she’s scrambling still. Let me guess. Movies?”
“We’re watching Sky High.”
“Want to be doing something else?”
“I would love to be doing nearly anything else.”
Sandy laughed. “You’re smart to qualify that statement. Give me five seconds. I’ll be right back.”
Sandy returned as promised. She carried a huge plastic tub over to the desk and opened it.
“There are a lot of good games in here. Right now we’re really working on our vocabulary, so I would say to focus on that.” She pulled several folders, blocks and smaller boxes out of the bin. “Here you go.”
Zoe took the stack of cards along with a clear plastic bag filled with bean bags. The cards had a word on one side and a definition on the other.
“Like a bean bag toss,” she said. “This is great.”
Together she and Sandy went through the other options. Zoe borrowed a couple of folders with different ideas in them.
“I appreciate the help,” she said sincerely. “I was dying.”
Sandy shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. I know it’s hard to step in, especially this far into the school year. Routines are set and while the kids say they like a play day, they really miss their regular schedule.”
“I’ll return everything at the end of the day,” Zoe promised.
By the time her students were back from recess, she’d moved all the desks and set out the vocabulary cards. Some showed the word, others showed the definition. She divided the students into teams and they took turns tossing the vocabulary words. She put down a second set and they had another round.
Time passed quickly and before she knew it, they were heading off to lunch. She used that time to write a series of fraction equations on the board and then covered them with large sheets of paper. She had a few minutes to wolf down her sandwich and grab some water before the kids were back.
This time she let them pick their own teams. They rotated through the various fraction stations and when that was done, she totaled up the points. Silly prizes, from Sandy’s tub, were awards. There were stickers proclaiming things like Most Awesome and Totally Great. She finished up the day by having her students pull pieces of paper from a bowl. On it was a topic. They had to talk on it for three minutes. Subjects ranged from favorite pets to would you rather have a baby brother or sister. There was lots of laughing and starting over, but everyone had fun and the afternoon flew by.
When the final bell rang, Zoe knew more than half the kids’ names and had managed to go several hours without Cameron making a smart-aleck remark. Two things she considered a victory. She stood by the door and thanked each student for helping her out that day.
Cameron stopped in front of her. “I’m sorry I was a butthead before. You’re a really good teacher. I hope we get you again.”
“Thank you, Cameron. Best not to say the B word.”
He flashed her a grin. “Hey, I have a reputation I have to worry about.”
She laughed, not sure if he was going to turn into a professional criminal when he grew up or run for elected office.
By three fifteen she’d returned Sandy’s sub tub to her and thanked her another fourteen times. By three thirty her room was clean and she was signing out of the school. It was only after she got in her car that she realized how incredibly exhausted she was. She hurt from her head to her toes. Her feet ached, her back was sore and there was a throbbing just behind her eyes.
First thing in the morning she was going to send Sandy Russell thank-you flowers. The second thing she was going to do was spend some quality time online, looking at activities to do with children of various ages. She couldn’t count on being rescued again, which meant if she was going to continue substitute teaching, she needed her own sub tub.
Mason greeted her with several pointed meows, as if explaining he wasn’t used to her being gone all day and he really didn’t like it. She sank to the floor and pulled him close. His soft purr eased the tension in her chest.
She desperately wanted a glass of wine, she thought, wondering what she had in her pantry. A nice merlot or a margarita. Did she have limes?
She was about to go investigate, when she suddenly remembered there would be no drinking for her. Because she was pregnant with Chad’s baby. Pregnant! Her!
Reality crashed in on her. She lay on the floor and stared at the ceiling while Mason kneaded her belly and purred.
“I’m pregnant,” she said aloud. “I’m going to be a single mom. It’s real.”
She didn’t want to be pregnant, which was slightly different from saying she didn’t want the baby. At least she hoped it was. Somehow she was going to have to figure out what she was doing. There were logistics. The single mom part bothered her. She was totally on her own. Oh, she could ask for help and she had people who would be there, but it wasn’t as if she was madly in love with the baby’s father.
Which reminded her that she was going to have to tell Chad at some point. And her father. And—
She sat up and grabbed Mason. “I have to tell Steven!”
Her cat blinked at her. She set him on the floor and groaned. “I can’t. What am I supposed to say?”
The truth seemed the obvious choice, but that wasn’t going to happen. Hi, Steven. Just calling to let you know I’m pregnant with Chad’s baby. How are you?
She had to tell him the truth, which meant losing him. Losing them.
She covered her face with her hands and gave in to the tears. Crying turned to sobs as she thought about all she was about to lose. Steven was everything she’d been looking for. He was a great guy. They could have...
Mason rubbed against her and purred. She sniffed, then stroked him.
“It’s over,” she whispered. “All of it. He’s going to leave and I can’t blame him. There’s going to be a baby, Mason.”
He mewed, which she took to be a few cat words of support. She wiped her face. While she wanted to wait to tell Steven the truth, she knew that was wrong. Better to just get it over with quickly. Like ripping off a bandage. The pain would last a lot longer, but there was no avoiding that.
She picked up her cell phone and called Steven. He picked up on the second ring.
“Hey, I was just thinking about you,” he said. “How was your first day of substitute teaching?”
Her eyes filled with more tears as regret poured through her. Steven had remembered. Of course he would. He was a good guy. Funny and kind and smart. He was good to his mom, handy around the house and damn good in bed. How on earth was she ever going to find someone like him again?
“It went okay,” she said, hoping he couldn’t hear that she’d been crying. “Look, Steven, I need to tell you something. This thing between us. It’s not going to work out. I’m sorry.” She had to swallow before she could keep talking. “It’s not you. I know people say that all the time but this time, it’s really t-true.”
She sucked in a breath. “You’re great. All of this has been amazing. I just can’t see you anymore. I’m so sorry.”
She hesitated, hoping he would say something but there was only stunned silence.
“Okay. Well, I, um, wish you the best. Goodbye.” She ended the call, then looked at Mason. “I hate my life.”
Mason meowed his agreement, then wound his way around her legs. She staggered to the sofa and sank down just as the tears returned.
She cried for what felt like forever, then forced herself to wash her face before boiling water for herbal tea. None of this was fair, she thought as she worked. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She sho
uld probably get a lawyer and sue the hell out of the company that had messed up the shots. Which all sounded really proactive and great, but didn’t help right now.
What was she going to do? How was she going to get through this?
She should make a list, she thought. Figure out who she had to tell and when she was going to do that. She would work up to Chad because there was no way that was going to go well. Pregnant!
She brewed her tea and tried to get excited about dinner. The headache was gone, thank goodness, but she still felt crappy. She was so not used to standing all day and she already missed Steven. She wanted to talk to him, to hold him, to see his smile. How long until that ache got better?
She fed Mason, then sat down with her tea. She would make a plan, she told herself. Figure out what steps she had to take and in what order. Then she would eat a salad with a lot of chicken for protein, then go to bed early. In the morning she would take the first step. Until then, she got to feel sorry for herself. She was going to wallow in missing a wonderful man. There had been so much promise, she thought sadly. So much—
Her doorbell rang.
Zoe frowned as she wiped away tears. She wasn’t expecting anyone. Maybe it was that guy from Publishers Clearing House, telling her she’d won twenty million dollars. While the money wouldn’t solve all her problems, it would help.
She sniffed and walked across the living room. Steven stood on her porch.
Chapter Fifteen
Zoe’s heart jumped, her breath caught and she half expected to be imagining Steven. But there he stood.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, wondering how mad he was and if he was going to yell. Only he didn’t look mad. Handsome, sexy and maybe confused, but not mad.
“I don’t break up over the phone,” he told her as he stepped into the house. “I want you to tell me to my face and I want to know why.”
She would have sworn she didn’t have any tears left. Yet they filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.
A Million Little Things--A Novel Page 19