Zimmerman Academy: The New Normal

by Kathi Daley

  The New Normal

  by

  Kathi Daley

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 by Katherine Daley

  Version 1.0

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Books by Kathi Daley

  Come for the murder, stay for the romance.

  Zoe Donovan Cozy Mystery:

  Halloween Hijinks

  The Trouble With Turkeys

  Christmas Crazy

  Cupid’s Curse

  Big Bunny Bump-off

  Beach Blanket Barbie

  Maui Madness

  Derby Divas

  Haunted Hamlet

  Turkeys, Tuxes, and Tabbies

  Christmas Cozy

  Alaskan Alliance

  Matrimony Meltdown

  Soul Surrender

  Heavenly Honeymoon

  Hopscotch Homicide

  Ghostly Graveyard

  Santa Sleuth

  Shamrock Shenanigans

  Zimmerman Academy Shorts

  The New Normal

  Paradise Lake Cozy Mystery:

  Pumpkins in Paradise

  Snowmen in Paradise

  Bikinis in Paradise

  Christmas in Paradise

  Puppies in Paradise

  Halloween in Paradise

  Whales and Tails Cozy Mystery:

  Romeow and Juliet

  The Mad Catter

  Grimm’s Furry Tail

  Much Ado About Felines

  Legend of Tabby Hollow

  Cat of Christmas Past

  A Tale of Two Tabbies – February 2016

  Seacliff High Mystery:

  The Secret

  The Curse

  The Relic

  The Conspiracy

  The Grudge

  Road to Christmas Romance:

  Road to Christmas Past

  Note from the author: Zimmerman Academy: The New Normal is the first in a new series of novellas that will be told from the point of view of some of the minor characters from the Zoe Donovan Cozy Mystery Series. This first story is told from Zoe’s best friend Ellie’s point of view. It takes place over the same four-day period that Shamrock Shenanigans, Zoe Donovan Mystery Book 19, takes place. Ellie receives some bad news, meets a new man, and helps to solve a murder while Zak and Zoe are out of the country.

  Chapter 1

  Thursday, February 11

  Have you ever had one of those moments where all the little heartbreaks you’ve been bravely telling yourself aren’t that big a deal come crashing down in one huge tidal wave of emotion, demanding that you finally acknowledge how you actually feel?

  “Ms. Davis, do you understand what I am saying?” Dr. Carter asked from his seat across the desk.

  I looked at the doctor. My eyes filled with tears that had been waiting for months to be shed. I nodded my head as I let the reality of the situation sink in.

  “Modern medicine is an evolving science. What is impossible today may very well be possible tomorrow. You are young. You have time. Maybe in a year or two I will be able to give you a different answer.”

  I wiped the tears from my face with the back of my hand. “Thank you,” I said in a small voice that was barely more than a whisper. I stood up, gathered my things, and hurried from the office. Somehow I managed to make it to my car before I completely broke down and let all the pain, disappointment, sorrow, and grief I’d been holding at bay gush forth in one huge mental meltdown.

  I wrapped my arms around my waist and leaned my head against the steering wheel of my car. I sobbed for everything I had lost, the baby I would never hold, and the emptiness that was left when everything else had been stripped away. I felt so totally hopeless and alone.

  My downward spiral began just before Christmas, when Ellie’s Beach Hut, the restaurant I’d spent almost two years building from the ground up, burned to the ground, almost killing my best friend, Zoe Donovan, in the process. The Beach Hut was my first venture on my own as an adult and I’d put a lot into it physically, financially, and emotionally. I can’t convey the hollowness I felt when I viewed the product of those years reduced to nothing more than a pile of ashes.

  Losing my business, however, wasn’t the worst thing that happened to me that day. Losing Levi was so much harder. Levi Denton had been my best friend along with Zoe since we were in kindergarten and our teacher had sat us at tables of three by last name. The three of us became a best friend trio and were pretty much inseparable from that point forward. Two years ago my feelings for Levi became a bit more personal, and one year ago we officially became boyfriend and girlfriend. I love Levi. I will always love Levi. But the reality is that we want different things in life. The most important thing to me is having children of my own, while Levi has been quite upfront about the fact that children are nowhere on his radar.

  We decided to spilt this past Christmas. We both knew it was the right thing to do to preserve our friendship. I knew it would be hard and there would be a period of adjustment, but what tore at my soul more than anything was the fact that Levi had moved on so easily, while my heart still grieved for what could have been, every minute of every day.

  And then today, when Dr. Carter informed me that I wasn’t a candidate for the operation I hoped would allow me to have the children my heart longed for, I saw that everything good and normal in my life was suddenly gone, and all that remained was an empty future filled with darkness and despair.

  I really wanted to call Zoe and pour out my sorrow, but she was in Ireland with her husband, Zak, on a murder mystery weekend. I wasn’t completely sure what the time difference was, but I was pretty sure it was the middle of the night there.

  I realized I really did need to pull myself together so I dug through my purse for a tissue. Pulling down my visor, I glanced into the attached mirror.

  Yikes.

  I was supposed to pick up the new math teacher for Zimmerman Academy in two hours. It was more than an hour’s drive to the airport and I knew I wouldn’t have time to go home before heading there, so I used the little bit of makeup I had in my purse to try to repair the damage my river of tears had created.

  Zimmerman Academy was born when Zak and Zoe began to consider the lives they’d lead once they had children of their own. Zak is some sort of a genius, and Zoe is intuitive and clever herself, so there’s a good chance their offspring will be exceptional. The problem is that all Ashton Falls has to offer in terms of educational opportunities is average. Neither Zoe nor Zak has any desire to move to a town where an exceptional education can be found, so they decided to bring an exceptional education to them by building their own private school for gifted children. While they don’t have any children of their own yet, they do have three minors living with them, and it appears they have grown into a family as real as any you’re likely to find.

  After the Beach Hut burned down, Zak offered me a job running the kitchen at the Academy. Currently, the school is housed in a building without a kitchen, but the new facility is due to open next fall and will have a full kitchen for both the day students and the boarders.

  In the meantime, I help out where I can, and today the way I was helping out was by driving to Bryton Lake to pick up the new math teacher and his family. Zak has rented them a nice house at the edge of town, and I’d promised to help the newest residents of the small alpine hamlet we call home get settled in.

  Once I repaired my makeup to the be
st of my ability, I started my car and pulled out of the parking lot of the medical facility. The drive from Ashton Falls to Bryton Lake was a beautiful one that I usually enjoyed, but we’d received quite a bit of fresh snow over the past few days and the roads were icy. I just hoped the stormy weather across the nation wouldn’t cause the flight to be delayed. The last thing I wanted to do was spend the day sitting in the airport with nothing more for company than depressing thoughts about my empty life.

  Six hours later I glanced at the flight board and groaned. As it turned out, the flight was late. Four hours late. Pretty much every single flight into or out of our small airport had been canceled or delayed. I paced back and forth mentally cursing the weather, the airline, and the man whose imminent arrival had caused me to be at the airport in the first place. I realize my silent rant was counterproductive, but after the day I’d had, I felt I deserved to wallow in self-pity and outrage.

  People who know me would say I’m usually pretty even-tempered. Zoe is the emotional firecracker in the best friend trio, Levi is the wild and untamed one, and I’m the stable, calm, and steady one. I’ve tried to maintain a positive attitude in spite of everything that has happened, but finding out that I am not eligible for the surgery that would allow me to have children had drained what was left of my self-control, and Brady Matthews’s tardiness was threatening to destroy my last shred of patience.

  “Ms. Davis?”

  I stopped pacing and turned around to see a man with the bluest eyes I had ever seen struggling to juggle a backpack, a large diaper bag, a toddler in each arm, and a little girl who looked to be about four holding onto his belt loop.

  “Brady Matthews?”

  “Yes, and this is Hudson and Haden,” he nodded toward the toddlers in his arms, “and Holly,” he looked at the girl as his side.

  “Here, let me help you.” Suddenly my irritation turned to compassion. The poor man looked exhausted. Here I was, whining to myself about having to wait in an airport for four hours. I never once stopped to think about how exhausting it must be to be stuck on an airplane for hours with three small children.

  “Thanks.” Brady handed me one of the twins, I think Haden, who stuck his hand in his mouth but didn’t scream when I took him in my arms.

  “I assume you have luggage?”

  “A few bags. I’m having most of our stuff shipped. It should be here in a few days. In the meantime, I brought what I thought we’d need to get by.”

  “How about I get us a cart?” I offered. “We can load up all the luggage and take it to the front. I’ll run and get the car while you wait with the luggage and the children so we don’t have to haul everything through the snow to the parking lot.”

  Brady smiled. A perfectly wonderful smile that made his eyes crinkle in the corners just the tiniest bit. “Thanks. That sounds like a good plan. Is there a restaurant in the airport? I’m afraid the kids haven’t eaten anything other than the snacks I brought along since this morning.”

  “There’s a restaurant, but it’s terrible. I know of a great little café not far from here. We can stop there if you’d like.”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  It took longer than I’d predicted to retrieve Brady’s luggage, get the car, pick everyone up, and get to the café. Traveling with three children who all needed to be buckled into car seats was quite the production. Luckily, Zak had thought to strap the car seats we’d purchased into my car before he left for Ireland, because to be honest, with everything that had been going through my mind of late, I’m not sure I would have remembered.

  Once we’d settled into the booth at the café and ordered, all three kids lay down on the bench between Brady and me and fell asleep. Brady thought it would be best to let them nap until the food arrived. It had, after all, been a very long day.

  I asked Brady about his trip as a way to break the ice.

  “To be honest I’ve had better. The four of us had to wake up at five o’clock this morning in order to make it to the airport on time, only to find out that our flight was delayed. When it did finally arrive, I found out that there was a problem with the tickets and all they had available were four middle seats scattered throughout the plane. Fortunately, a family of four who did have assignments together gave us their seats because their children were teenagers and would be fine on their own.”

  “Sounds awful.”

  “It got worse. Because our plane was late taking off, it was also late arriving, and we missed our connecting flight. I was on the verge of breaking down into very unmanly tears when I was told all the flights for the remainder of the day were full so we’d have to wait on standby and hope something opened up.”

  “They wanted you to wait indefinitely in an airport with three children?”

  He nodded. “We were lucky. Four angels in the form of teenagers on their way to a concert took pity on us and gave up their seats.”

  “That sort of renews your faith in humanity.”

  “It really does. I don’t know what I would have done if it hadn’t been for the kindness of strangers today.”

  I smiled.

  “I can’t wait to get settled into our new home. The kids have had a rough year and a half and it will be good to get them stabilized. I’m hoping that for the first time since the twins were born we’ll be able to settle into some sort of a normal routine.”

  I looked at the twins, who couldn’t be more than eighteen months old. “Zak said you’re a widower?”

  The light faded from Brady’s eyes. I supposed it probably was too soon to ask and regretted doing it immediately.

  “It’s been fourteen months now.”

  I waited quietly for him to elaborate if he chose to do so but didn’t push. Somehow, though, I had the feeling he wanted to share his struggle with someone who would listen and offer support.

  “Trish had a tough time when she was pregnant with the boys. She suffered high blood pressure and other complications associated with preeclampsia. She wanted the boys to have a fighting chance, so she insisted on continuing the pregnancy even when her own life was at risk. After she delivered we hoped she’d bounce back, but she never really did. She was weak and her immune system suffered. She developed pneumonia when the boys were four months old. She died a few days later.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “It was such a dark time in my life. In all our lives. I had a hard time accepting what had happened, so the kids went to live with my parents. I missed them, but I knew I couldn’t be there for them physically or emotionally. Their staying with my parents seemed to be the best solution. Eventually I moved in with them as well. At the time it seemed easier than getting on with my own life. In the long run it wasn’t.”

  I placed my hand over Brady’s. He looked into my eyes. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.”

  “I’m a good listener and I understand how it is to have your entire life turned upside down. While I haven’t suffered anything as devastating and life-altering as losing a spouse and being left alone to raise three children, I’ve had a series of life-altering events occur over the past few months, and to be honest, most days I feel like I’m wandering aimlessly in a world that no longer makes sense.”

  “That’s exactly how I felt at first. It was like every day existed in isolation and nothing fit together. I can remember longing for the comfort of everyday routines. Waking to Trish’s smile. Making coffee while she saw to the kids. Reading the paper together, me the funnies and her the business section.”

  “I like the funnies.” I smiled. “I always read them first. I think curling up with the funnies page is the main reason I’ve never given up my old-fashioned paper-and-ink subscription.”

  “It’s not the same reading them online,” Brady agreed.

  “I totally understand what you’re saying about a normal routine, though. My boyfriend and I decided to end things a few months ago. We’re still friends—best friends—but we wanted different things out of life. I knew th
ere would be an adjustment period, but what I didn’t count on was the feeling of emptiness that washes over me when I realize he won’t be joining me for dinner and we won’t be watching our favorite television show together. I actually cried the other day when I noticed how lonely my toothbrush looked in the holder we’d bought last summer.”

  “I left Trish’s toothbrush in the holder next to mine until I moved in with my parents.”

  It felt good to have someone who really understood how displaced I’d been feeling. Zoe had tried to be there for me, but I could see a look of confusion in her eyes when I told her about things like missing Levi’s toothbrush and how Survivor just wasn’t fun to watch alone.

  We paused our conversation when the waitress brought the food. We decided that if the kids woke up on their own they could eat now, but if they didn’t we’d box up their meals and bring them with us. The poor little things looked like they were out for the count.

  After the waitress left we veered onto general topics of conversation such as the weather, the Academy, and the quirky yet totally lovable people who called Ashton Falls home. The snow had begun to come down harder, so we ate quickly, ordered to-go boxes for the kids’ food, and started the long, slow trek up the mountain. By the time I pulled up in front of the house Zak had rented for the family I was almost cross-eyed from trying to follow the narrow, winding road that was covered with snow.

  “How about I go in and turn on lights and open doors before we begin unloading everyone?” I offered. “I told the contractors who were here this morning to leave the lights and the heat on, but it’s obvious they shut the lights. I only hope they left the heat on. Otherwise it’s going to be cold inside.”

  “Okay,” Brady answered. “I’ll begin the process of unbuckling everyone.”

  I trudged up to the front door through the knee-deep snowdrifts. I was about to fish the key out of my purse when I noticed the front door was cracked open. I slowly pushed the door and stepped inside. Thankfully, the heat, unlike the lights, had been left on. I switched on the overhead lights in the main part of the house and then headed out to help Brady bring everyone inside.