by Parker, Ali
“Only if you do it drunk,” Zoe replied, and I laughed again.
“All right, so, I’ll bribe you with rosé and you can come around and do it for me?” I shot back. She rolled her eyes at me in that fond way she had.
“You really should be hitting the dating scene,” she told me. “You’re a total catch!”
“Yeah, I don’t think elementary school teacher exactly oozes sex appeal,” I said, but she waved her hand.
“Trust me, you’re a woman. For some guys, anything you do will ooze sex appeal,” she assured me.
“So, what, have you got someone in mind?” I asked her, curious. I wasn’t exactly super keen to get out there and date. I had been so focused on getting my job off the ground when I had first started here that I had pretty much forgotten what it was like to go out on actual dates with someone, wearing actual pants after six in the evening when I came home and slipped into sweats or underwear for the rest of the evening. What must that be like?
“Hmm.” Zoe tapped her finger against her lip for a moment and eyed me, as though trying to match me up with someone in her head. “I’m not certain. Maybe you could get on some dating apps, see what’s out there?”
“I don’t think I have time for that.” I shook my head.
“Or you’re just looking for a reason to keep from having an actual dating life.” She could see right through me. I raised my eyebrows at her.
“Yeah, yeah, you got me,” I agreed. “Just the thought of actually going out in the evening is making me tired. I’d rather stay at home and get ahead on my grading, thanks.”
“Oh, don’t be such a downer,” she shot back. “How about if I set you up with someone? Blind date. Then all you have to do is turn up at the restaurant and meet him. You won’t have to do any of the organizing.”
“As long as you pick a place where I don’t have to wear heels,” I warned her. “Or makeup. Or a dress. Or—”
“So what you’re saying is you want some guy who’s going to eat on your couch with you?” she finished up for me.
“Yeah, actually.” I cocked my head at her playfully. “That would be amazing. In fact, get him to drop off the food and go. That works for me.”
“You want me to order takeout for you.” She pointed at me, grinning. “That’s what you’re asking for right there.”
“Well, you offered,” I reminded her, and she shook her head.
“Autumn, there is no winning with you sometimes,” she sighed, and she started in on her salad. “How’s the rest of your day been?”
We were chatting away when I found my gaze drawn to a kid sitting behind us at a table by himself. He was one of the younger ones in my class, and he looked it—smaller than the rest of the kids, spindly like he might break if you spoke to him too loudly. I frowned in his direction, even as I tried to tune in to the conversation with Zoe. He had a mop of dark brown hair and beautiful eyes.
“Hey, I have to go get my lesson set up for next period.” Zoe glanced at the clock on the wall. “I’ll catch you later, though?”
“Sure thing.” I nodded.
“And I’m totally setting you up on that date,” Zoe reminded me. “Don’t think you’re getting out of it that easily.”
“I never think I’m getting out of anything easily with you,” I assured her, and she patted me on the shoulder and vanished to her classroom. I got to my feet and went to join the little boy who was sitting all by himself in that cafeteria.
I had always had a soft spot for the kids who were clearly out of place. Maybe that was why I had gotten into this job in the first place, because I wanted to give those children a sense of place, of home, where they might not have had it before. I had known since I was a kid that I wanted to do this job, and now that I was finally here, I wasn’t going to watch some little boy sitting all by himself and not do a single thing to help him.
He looked up at me as I sat down beside him with my lunch. He had a slightly wary expression on his face, as though he was worried he was going to do or say something that would annoy or upset me.
“Hello.” I smiled at him. “How’re you doing, Hunter?”
“Good.” He turned his attention back down to his lunch—sandwiches with the crusts cut off and some chopped apple from a parent who was still clearly hoping to get some vitamins in him. He was at that funny age where they started declaring their independence in silly fashions, refusing food and certain clothes when they felt like it. It was a difficult age for the ones who didn’t already have an established friend group, especially as kids started to form their own little cliques It was easy for one of them to get left behind if a concentrated effort wasn’t being made to be sure they didn’t.
“Cool.” I nodded, and I took another bite of my lunch. “What have you been doing today?”
“Uh, mostly math.” He pulled a face, and I pulled one back.
“You don’t like math?”
He shook his head.
“No,” he said, and then he fell silent once more. I spent the rest of the lunch hour coaxing some conversation out of him, making sure he had someone to talk to while he ate. I had been a bit of a loner when I was at school, and I had longed for someone to come and take away the specific torture of sitting alone hoping against hope that someone would come put you out of your lonely misery.
I didn’t know who his parents were, which was weird. He had been in my classes for a couple of years now, since I’d started at Portland South Elementary, yet I couldn’t remember meeting his mom or his dad in all that time. Which was pretty unusual. Portland fostered a lot of helicopter parents who wanted to be involved in every part of their kids’ lives, and that meant sometimes you were deflecting a few emails every week from the same over concerned parental figures attempting to delve into what their kid was getting up to when they weren’t around.
But I couldn’t even remember the names of Hunter’s parents. I would have to check that out later because I was pretty sure I needed to reach out to them. He was a sweet kid. He really was, but I had the feeling he might need a little guidance when it came to finding his place socially in this school, especially as the kids around him started to grow up. I didn’t want any of the kids I taught to get left behind if I could avoid it.
“Thanks for eating with me.” He smiled at me shyly as he finished up his food. I smiled back. I felt a little sad for him. His manners were impeccable, but that wasn’t the kind of thing that impressed the others his own age.
“Any time,” I replied.
“See you in class,” he told me, his little face so serious and earnest that I wanted to ruffle his hair and tell him it was all right to lighten up and goof around if he was so inclined. I smiled again and watched as he headed away from the table. I made a promise to myself right there and then to reach out to his parents to let them know we should start working together to make sure their son was having the best experience he could. As long as I was working here, I was going to make sure every kid these parents trusted me with got the best experience they possibly could. Especially that serious little boy who looked as though he was doing his best to keep something—maybe everything—all to himself.
3
Holden
I took my son into my arms and held him close. It didn’t matter how many times I had to say goodbye to him for trips like this. It never got any easier. I buried my face into his hair and inhaled deeply, as though I was trying to commit him to memory, to take the scent and the feel of him with me to call upon when I needed it.
“I’m going to be back before you know it, all right, buddy?” I told him, ruffling his hair as I got back up to my feet. He nodded but frowned at the same time. It broke my heart to see him like that, to see him as anything other than happy.
“I wish you didn’t have to go,” he told me, his eyes burning into mine with a seriousness I wished I could ignore. I wanted to be able to go out of town without feeling like I was abandoning my son in the process, but he made that so hard, lookin
g at me like I was personally injuring him in the process of doing this. I remembered the way those eyes had looked at me when we had seen each other for the first time, how I had known Hunter was right for him even then. The way his eyes pierced and penetrated like a bullet or an arrowhead.
“Sunday night, I promise,” I told him. “You’re going to have so much fun with Raymond. Right?”
I glanced up at my friend, who agreed at once.
“Of course we are!” he agreed, patting Hunter on the shoulder. “You can come and hang out with Sasha. She’s starting to get big now. She might even recognize you!”
Hunter managed the flicker of a smile. He would have been reluctant to admit it, but he was already seriously attached to Raymond’s little girl. He had never had siblings of his own, of course, and sometimes I wondered if I had denied him something by failing to find him a family beyond just me. But I would never have been able to raise a second child with the kind of life I wanted for him, and I wouldn’t have been able to juggle dating, the business, and Hunter when he was growing up. I sometimes felt guilty that he seemed so alone outside of me, but I couldn’t have made any other choice. It was the way it had to be, like it or not. At least Raymond and Olivia were awesome with him. That was something.
“I’ll be back so soon, I promise,” I repeated myself once more. I looked at my watch. I had to get out of there if I was going to make my flight on time, yet every second I spent looking at Hunter was another when I doubted what I was doing. I should have been used to it by now. I had spent so long running all over the city, all over the country, to make sure I could get the clients I wanted. Yet it was getting harder as Hunter got older and he could express how much he was going to miss me with actual words instead of wails like before.
“Holden, you need to get out of here if you’re going to make your flight,” Raymond reminded me gently. I straightened up once more and ruffled Hunter’s hair one more time.
“You have the number of the hotel if you need to call me, right?” I checked with him, and Raymond nodded.
“And your cell number too,” he pointed out, trying his best to soothe me. “It’s fine, Holden. Really. Go off and get this client. I know you’re going to kill it.”
“Sure am.” I plastered a cocky visage on swiftly so the twinge of sadness at leaving my son behind was buried underneath something. “You guys have a good time, all right? I’ll call you when I’m there.”
“Sure thing,” Raymond agreed, and with one last hug to my son, I turned to head to the plane. I pulled my phone from my pocket as I walked, trying to find my boarding pass and hoping to distract myself from the pain of leaving him behind.
I wouldn’t have trusted anyone but Raymond with him, that was for sure, and maybe that was part of the problem. Maybe he’d be more open to people if I let more people close to him. It wasn’t that I chased away every single person who even came near us, but ever since Karla had up and left, I had been nervous about inviting someone else into our lives. The thought of hurting my son like that, of allowing Hunter to get attached to someone and then having them drop out of my life, was bad enough. But the thought of falling in love once more and having it slip through my fingers again was impossible to even fathom. There was a reason I’d kept dating on the back burner for so long, and it involved more than only the time it would take to seek someone out and woo them and date them and introduce them into my life. I had plenty of interest, especially once the money had started rolling in. No, it went deeper than that. The thought of being hurt again, of opening myself up to someone and having them hurt me back—I couldn’t do it. Not yet. Not so soon. Not when I needed to focus my energy on my business and my son, two things that would never hurt me.
As I looked for my boarding pass, an email popped into my inbox, and I quickly clicked it open. It was from an address I didn’t recognize, and the name didn’t ring any bells either, but it had the name of Hunter’s school in it. I came to a dead halt at once to read what it had to say.
It was from one of the teachers at the school, some woman called Autumn. She was telling me I needed to come in and speak to her. Well, she said both me and his mother needed to do that, but given that I was hardly likely to come stumbling across Karla anytime soon, I alone would have to do the job. She didn’t say a lot but implied there was something concerning her about his behavior and wrote that she had never met me in person and wanted to lay some groundwork for our relationship as parent and teacher. My shoulders sank. Hunter had never been in trouble at school before, not once in his life that I could remember, and I was sad thinking that he might have been acting out or playing up. She wanted to see me the next day.
I glanced up at the board in front of me, the one that announced when my plane was leaving and where I had to go to make it to the flight on time. I felt a twist in my stomach. I had to catch that flight. I had to be on it in the next fifteen minutes if I wanted to make it out to New York and confirm this client for myself. But this email, this was enough to give me pause. I shouldn’t have let it bother me. I could email her and ask to reschedule for a time that suited me better, but I didn’t want to blow her off like this. I wanted to prove to Hunter’s teachers that I was actually a receptive parent, that if they needed to talk to me I would be around, and they could rely on me. Besides, what if it was something serious? I would have felt awful if I’d spent all this time running away around the country while there were issues that needed to be addressed at home first.
I turned and scanned the crowd for Hunter and Raymond and found nothing. Shit. I hooked my bag over my shoulder and sprinted back out to the parking lot. I could catch them before they got out of here. Well, I hoped I could since they were my ride home.
I made it out to the parking lot and came to a dead halt as I tried to recall where in the name of holy hell they had parked. I scanned back and forth along the cars in front of me. Then I heard Hunter laughing, and my attention was drawn to the left of the lot. I took off in that direction, and sure enough, after a minute or two, I stumbled across Raymond helping Hunter into the front seat of the car. He cocked an eyebrow when he saw me approaching.
“Everything all right?” he asked, and I nodded.
“I’ve decided I’m going to stay home this weekend,” I told him and gave him a subtle nod to let him know I would explain what was going on as soon as I got the chance. “I’m not going to New York after all.”
“Yes!” Hunter punched the air and grinned. “Why aren’t you going? What happened?”
“Flight got canceled,” I lied to him at once. I eyed him for a second, wondering what exactly it could be that his teacher had seemed so concerned about. He had never been anything other than the picture of sweet, amiable kindness and gentleness with me, but he was getting to that age now where he could show two faces to different people, where he could start to deceive and unsettle. The thought worried me. As if I wasn’t constantly worried about Hunter.
I helped him into the back of the car and asked him to plug in his gaming device so I could speak to Raymond for a second.
“What’s going on?” Raymond asked, brow furrowed. “Everything all right? I don’t think I’ve ever known you to cancel a meeting before, flight or no flight.”
“I know, I know.” I shook my head. “But I got this email as I was about to head to my fate.”
“Oh? From whom?”
“From one of Hunter’s teachers.” I glanced over to check that Hunter was all plugged in and couldn’t hear a word coming out of our mouths. “She seems concerned about some of his behavior, and she wants to have a meeting tomorrow.”
“Jesus.” Raymond furrowed his brow. “That sucks. Do you know what it’s about?”
“No, but she expects me to turn up with a wife in tow.” I sighed. “She mentioned his mother in the email. I guess I never told the school that she’s not around.”
“Right.” Raymond nodded, and he glanced at me as he pulled out of the lot. “Look, you’ve got to do wh
at you think is right, buddy. The clients can wait. You need to take care of this. Nobody else can.”
“Thanks,” I said, leaning back in my seat. I might have just shot myself in the foot with the biggest clients who had shown interest in my company to date, but if I’d gone, I’d have spent the whole time away from home convinced I had made the wrong choice. I peered around at my son in the back seat, and he gave me a thumbs-up and a smile. He was glad I was staying home. That was enough to convince me I had made the right choice.
I pulled out my phone and started tapping out an email to let the client know I wouldn’t be in New York to meet with them the next day and then sent one to the teacher to tell her I would meet with her on Monday evening. Then I tucked the phone away and promised myself I wasn’t going to look at it for the rest of the night. It had already brought enough unsettling news for one day.
4
Autumn
I finished writing out the carefully worded email to Hunter’s father and read it for what felt like the thousandth time since I’d started writing it that morning. I didn’t want it to come across in an accusatory way. I wanted this guy to say yes to this meeting, after all, and that wasn’t going to happen if I came at him all guns blazing and blaming him for not being more involved in his kid’s life. I had tried to find the mother’s email first—they were often more responsive to this kind of thing—but I had come up with a dead blank on that front and had swiftly given up. No point pursuing what wasn’t there.
Satisfied that I had been about as diplomatic as I could possibly be, I pressed send on the email and leaned back in my seat with relief. Okay, that was done. That was the hard part.
I stretched and got to my feet, cricking my neck from side to side. I knew I spent too much time with work, that I should have been taking this time to myself to actually relax now that I had finished up grading papers and preparing my lesson plan for the next week, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Hunter, poor, sweet little Hunter sitting all by himself with those other kids ignoring him like he wasn’t even there. He was like a ghost to them, floating through the school, and his reticence meant he didn’t leave an impression.