by Olivia Dade
Thank you for reading 40-Love. ♥ If you’d like to stay in touch and hear about future new releases, please visit me on the web and/or sign up for the Hussy Herald, my newsletter!
Preview of Sweetest in the Gale
One
The first time Griff truly noticed Candy Albright, she was yelling about Frankenstein.
Well, maybe not yelling, per se. More issuing various pronouncements about Mary Shelley’s magnum opus at such a volume that witnesses at that faculty meeting would never, ever again confuse the story’s eponymous scientist with his vengeful, humanoid creation.
Over the course of five very loud, very entertaining minutes, she announced the various actions she’d taken to clarify the matter to the student body. Including—but by no means limited to—a planned puppet show. A goddamn puppet show, the apogee of her Frankenstein Is Not the Monster Initiative.
She was vibrating with passion, unabashedly herself, more alive than he’d felt in—
Well, that didn’t matter.
What did matter: It was the first time since his move to Marysburg that he’d smiled.
In various start-of-the-school-year English department meetings, he’d only vaguely registered her presence and her name. Which was both a mystery and a travesty, given the way she seemed to gather all the light in the room, only to expel it in a sort of didactic supernova.
Overlooking Candy was a mistake he didn’t intend to repeat.
For the rest of the school year, then, he made a point of observing her. Listening to her too, which wasn’t difficult, given her admirable lung capacity.
She never disappointed. She always snapped his attention into sharp focus.
Stalwart. Stubborn. Shrewish, some might say, but they’d be wrong.
Since that first Marysburg High School faculty meeting, almost a year ago, the sight of her marching down the hall, all martial intensity and unshakeable confidence, had heartened him, even on his worst days. She cared about so much. Students and colleagues and stories and language. She was a constant reminder that determination and belief still existed in his world.
Which was why, when he saw her shuffle into the faculty lounge the following August, he immediately straightened in alarm.
“Good morning,” Candy said, the words barely audible.
She’d spoken into Griff’s right ear, but that wasn’t the issue. His colleague’s voice, so gloriously booming and decisive, normally made her angle of approach irrelevant.
Not today. She’d murmured the standard greeting, rather than making it seem like an order—you will have a good morning, or else—and she did so without her usual direct eye contact. Instead, she’d kept her head down, her gaze on the memos she’d just removed from her staff mailbox, still facing that honeycombed wall of wooden slots.
It didn’t sound like a good morning. It didn’t look like one either.
Nevertheless, he echoed her words, studying his colleague as discreetly as possible as she flipped through her mail.
With her shoulders slumped, her head bowed, and her hair shorn, the pale nape of her neck seemed…vulnerable. Not a word he’d have ever imagined using to describe her. Even more alarmingly, her usual schoolmarm cosplay, as he liked to think of it, had vanished.
Instead, she was wearing stretchy black pants, an oversized, faded tee, and sneakers. Which made total sense for a returning teacher prepared to set up her classroom for the upcoming school year. He’d donned worn jeans and his own faded t-shirt for this day’s efforts, which would likely involve moving chairs, desks, and books between and within classrooms.
But Candy Albright didn’t let good sense get in the way of her convictions, and at some point she’d evidently become convinced she should clothe her solid frame in a blouse, cardigan, pearls, and a long skirt each and every day she appeared at work. That she should pull her ashy brown hair back into a bun with the assistance of a wide headband, her eyebrow-length fringe of bangs brushed to the side. That she should secure her horn-rimmed glasses with a chain around her neck, even though she always, always had them perched on the bridge of her aquiline nose.
Rain, shine, school day, teacher work day, faculty retreat…it didn’t matter. She altered not, as Shakespeare might have said.
Before this moment, then, he’d literally never seen her with her hair down. But sometime during the summer, she’d cut it too short for a bun. Instead, it framed her round face in smooth, jaw-length arcs. With her chin down, that swoop of hair swung forward, obscuring her expression from his sight.
The barrier bothered him more than it should.
It wasn’t his business. He shouldn’t inquire. The two of them were—and would remain—friendly colleagues, rather than friends. For so many reasons, his instincts had consistently guided him away from bridging that gap.
Still, he cleared his throat. Opened his mouth.
But before he said anything, she offered him a curt nod and trudged out the door of the faculty lounge. Belatedly recovering his own good sense, he waited sufficient time to ensure she’d reached her classroom before following her path to his.
Her room might adjoin his, and he might watch her from afar, but that was as much intimacy as he could handle.
Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.
Not that love had anything to do with it. Not at all.
They both worked the entire day at the school, sometimes encountering one another in the English department office or the copy room or—once again—in the faculty lounge, where he reheated the turkey sausage chili he’d made over the weekend while she retrieved a Diet Coke from the old, rattling refrigerator.
At each encounter, she greeted him with another dip of her chin and nothing more.
No talk of new department initiatives. No blustering insistence that he get more sleep, because she’d spotted the bags under his eyes. No demands that he tell her if he needed help moving or organizing anything.
She responded to his own offer of help with a mumbled assurance that she was fine, thank you anyway. He had to lip-read during that particular exchange, she was so muted.
He didn’t want to worry. He wouldn’t.
Most of their time, they spent inside their classrooms. And even through a wall, the screech of moving furniture told him what she was doing. Setting up her classroom, angling her desks and chairs just so. Exactly what he was doing.
Later in the afternoon, though, those bursts of sound ceased. Like him, maybe she was fastening laminated posters to the wall or covering her bulletin board. Labeling folders and reviewing opening-day lesson plans.
At some point, as the sun sank toward the horizon outside his classroom windows, he took a break. Leaned his desk chair back. Snacked on a handful of pretzels.
Thought, unwillingly, about Candy. Again.
After their encounters today, he’d found himself loath to turn on music as he worked. He’d kept close to the wall adjoining their two rooms, his own newly-assigned classroom silent. Just in case.
He’d seen that particular greyness before. In the mirror, three years ago.
He reached for his reusable water bottle, which was sitting at the edge of his battered, paper-covered desk, and tipped it back. Swallowed hard.
If she needed him—
Rather, if she needed anyone, he wanted to hear. Especially since no other teacher had started their classroom setup quite so early, and the school echoed with emptiness after the administrators and maintenance staff went home for the evening.
Because of the encompassing silence that night, he heard the short, shocked cry, the crash, the thud. The awful moment of silence, followed by something that might have been a whimper.
He didn’t have time to contemplate the matter further, because he was already racing out his door and wrenching hers open—why was it closed, when she never closed her door except when teaching?—and scanning her classroom for signs of trouble.
They weren’t hard to locate or interpret. A chair rested on its side before
her half-finished bulletin board, and Candy lay crumpled on the floor near its metal legs, eyes clenched shut.
She’d stood on the chair. Overbalanced. Fallen on the unforgiving tile.
Half a dozen strides, and he was there.
“Candy?” When he knelt beside her, that same tile bit into his aging knees. “Talk to me.”
To his relief, her answer came immediately, its irony sharp enough to relieve his worst concerns about a concussion. “Certainly, Mr. Conover. Name your subject.”
Normally, she called him Griff. Caught in such a helpless, vulnerable position, however, little wonder she’d grasped for the dignity and distance of his surname.
No blood. No unnatural angles in her limbs. Thank the heavens.
That said, some serious injuries weren’t obvious to the untrained, naked eye. “Tell me where you’re hurting.”
She let out a single, heartrendingly raw sob, then pressed her wide mouth into a tight line and breathed hard through her nose. “I’m p-perfectly well, thank you.”
If he hadn’t been so worried, he would have yielded to the familiar, charming mulishness of her declaration. Given the circumstances, though, he couldn’t let the clear falsehood stand.
“That seems more aspirational than truthful, I’m afraid.” His hands hovered over her, his eagerness to help her from the hard floor at war with his common sense. He could cause further damage by lifting her head into his lap, and he knew it, but leaving her like this—if only for a moment longer—galled him. “Can you move?”
“Of course I can move.” She sniffed, her pretense of unconcern only somewhat undercut by her trembling chin. “I’m a bit bruised, that’s all.”
Her legs shifted first, straightening in a seemingly easy motion. Then she raised her head. Rotated it cautiously but without signs of distress. Wiggled her torso.
“If your back and neck feel okay, do you want to try sitting up?” He offered his hands, ignoring how they trembled fully as much as that stubborn chin. Jesus, she’d scared the hell out of him. “Here. Let me help.”
She mustered a small smile. “Although I appreciate your offer of assistance, I’m more than capable of—fuck!”
With a gasping cry, her attempt to lever herself up ceased, and she curled in on herself once more, cradling her left arm against her body, panting through obvious pain.
He’d never heard her use an obscenity before. If only these sorts of situations prompted them, he hoped he never would again.
“Okay. Okay.” Frantic, he peered out through the doorway, hoping to see their security guard, but he wasn’t sure Carlotta even worked so late during the summer. “I’ll call an ambulance. Or drive you to the emergency room.”
“No.” It was an instant refusal. Firm and loud and definite.
He ignored it. Why weren’t his keys in his jeans pocket? If he’d deposited them on top of his desk, he’d have to leave her long enough to get them. Shit.
“I’m going to my classroom for my keys, but I’ll be right—” Already on his feet, he gaped down at her. “What the hell are you doing?”
Somehow, while he’d been patting his pockets, she’d raised herself to a sitting position using her right arm, her left still pressed against her chest. “Getting up, clearly.”
She was trying to maneuver herself to her knees, her face deathly pale where it wasn’t blotched with livid pink. Once more, he found himself reaching for her but unable to touch. This time, because she hadn’t given him permission.
“Candy...” He met her red-rimmed gaze. Held it. “Please don’t hurt yourself trying to do it alone. I can help. I want to help.”
Her eyes turned glassy once more, and his gut churned at the sight.
Then she blinked hard, lifted a hand, and accepted his. “Okay. On the count of three. One…two…three.”
Together, they got her kneeling. Her palm was damp against his, her grip firm, the skin-to-skin contact electric in a way he didn’t have the time or inclination to parse.
He put her good arm around his shoulders. In halting movements, she rose to her feet with his assistance, still breathing hard through the pain.
For a few seconds, she remained huddled against him, allowing him to support some of her weight. He bore it gladly.
“Thank you,” she eventually said.
The words were unadorned but decisive. Loud enough to hear easily.
He looked down at the graying crown of her head, wondering when that booming voice had become such a comfort to him. “You’re welcome. Let’s get you to the hospital.”
She moved away from him then, her chin turning pugnacious in an entirely familiar way, and he braced himself for a fight.
After glancing down at her left arm, though, still bent protectively close to her chest, she sighed. “Your keys are in your classroom, you said?”
He let out a slow breath, almost giddy in his relief. “Yes.”
“I’ll gather everything I need and meet you in the hall.” Her throat worked. “Thank you again. I don’t—”
She cut herself off. Gazed up at him, brow creased in seeming confusion.
“Thank you,” she repeated.
He forced himself to turn away from her.
“No problem,” he said over his shoulder as he headed for the door.
Only he wasn’t sure that was entirely true. Not for either of them.
“If you drive me back to the school, I can make it home just fine.” Perched on the hospital bed, Candy pointed meaningfully at her left arm. “See? My arm might be broken, but the splint will keep everything stable until the swelling goes down and I can get a cast. And I didn’t take anything but Tylenol, so my head is perfectly clear.”
The doctor had wanted to write a prescription for stronger painkillers, but she’d refused with so much loud adamance, the man had taken an actual step backward, his white coat flapping.
A bit of missing context, Griff presumed. “Yes, but it’s still going to be awkward. I’m happy to help you get settled, if you want.”
“Thank you, but you’ve done enough,” she said, looking down that straight nose at him.
The pronouncement did not invite argument, so he didn’t offer one. Not about that, anyway.
He shoved his hair out of his eyes, recalling the doctor’s instructions. Following his instincts. “Fine. But you’ll need to elevate your arm above your heart whenever you can.”
“Yes.” Her gaze narrowed dangerously. “I also heard what the doctor said. There’s nothing amiss with my hearing.”
Well, that made one of them.
He deliberately ignored her growing ire. “You can put some ice in a towel or plastic bag to help with the swelling, but only over the splint. Fifteen to twenty minutes every few hours.”
“I understand that.” Each syllable sounded like ground glass. “I do not require you to reiterate all my instructions.”
Apparently, his instincts when it came to Candy were surprisingly sound. As she grew more and more irritated, that awful grayness receded. Her cheeks turned rosy, her brown eyes sharp. Her shoulders squared, and her voice got louder.
Broken arm or no broken arm, she looked more herself right now than she had since June.
He wanted that confident, truculent Candy back. For her. For himself.
So he continued talking, injecting a bit of extra pompousness into his tone. “You should wiggle your fingers as much as possible.”
“You—” Her brows snapped together, and she flung her uninjured arm in the air. “Are you aware that I was in the room while Dr. Marconi told me what I should and shouldn’t do? Did you somehow overlook my very presence?”
Honestly, this was the most fun he’d had all day. “I thought I saw you, but I wasn’t entirely certain. It’s harder to recognize you without that whole bouffant thing”—he swirled his hand over the top of his head—“you used to have going on up here.”
Her mouth dropped open in outrage. “A tiny bit of volume does not equal a bouffant. I’m
not a refugee from the mid-1960s, Mr. Conover!”
“More late eighteenth-century France, then?” He sat back in his chair, crossing one ankle over his knee. “You are fond of proclamations. Very Marie Antoinette of you.”
She sputtered, her nostrils flaring.
He smiled at her in a particularly obnoxious way. “Anyway, I won’t go inside, but I’ll follow you home, just in case. And I’ll wait in your driveway until I see the lights come on.”
“Fine.” It was more a growl than an actual word. “As long as you stop talking, right this second, you can follow me home.”
That seemed like a fair tradeoff to him.
Besides, Shakespeare had the right of it. Nothing can seem foul to those that win.
So he obediently kept his mouth shut while she received her discharge papers and swiped her credit card for her emergency room copay. Still silent, he drove her to the school parking lot, and then followed her small SUV across town.
It was after midnight, and she was returning to a dark, empty house. Just as he would, as soon as he ensured she was safely home.
After she let herself into the front door and flicked on the interior and porch lights, she lingered in the doorway. After a moment, she raised her good arm in something that wasn’t quite a wave. More a gesture of acknowledgment.
Within that halo of golden light, he could read her lips. Thank you, Griff.
Then the door closed, and he drove home. Showered. Got in bed. Blinked at the ceiling as his brain inevitably returned to its favorite preoccupation.
Candy Albright. Again. Still.
She fascinated him for so many reasons.
Twenty-plus years of teaching, full to bursting with students and colleagues and discussions about poetry and plays and novels, had in turn taught him well. He’d learned at least one thing for certain.
Not everyone could decipher subtext.
Not even if they noticed its presence, which many people—too enmeshed in their own thoughts, their own concerns—did not. Not even when it was pointed out to them by, say, a longtime teacher who wanted his ninth graders to pass their end-of-year English proficiency test, and also wanted them to take pleasure in the way simple words could contain multitudes. Universes secreted away, but open to explorers with sufficient curiosity and persistence.