Alex slung his arm around Emma’s shoulders. “Not that it’s any of your business but Em and I are planning to ask our parents to stand up with us. Aren’t we, Angel?”
They were? Emma looked up at Alex and mouthed a silent thank you. Somehow, he always knew how to make things easier for her. “That’s right.” She turned and flashed a saccharine smile at the bitchy cheerleader. “I would’ve asked you to do me the honor, Brandy, but I’d like to be able to look at my wedding pictures without puking.”
~~~
Margie pinched the bridge of her nose while Simon read an old newspaper clipping covering one of that year’s high school football games. “Try it again, Simon.”
“He threw a pr-pre....” He glanced up at her, his blue eyes pleading for help.
“Perfect.”
“He threw a perfect spr—sprial.” He wrinkled his forehead. “That’s supposed to be spiral isn’t it?”
“Yes. You’re putting the R sound in the wrong place in these words.”
Simon held his dark blond head between his hands. “I’m never gonna get this, Mrs. B.”
She was beginning to feel like he might be right. “Yes, you will. Did you know experts suspect Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, and Albert Einstein all had learning disabilities, too?”
“Yeah, but they were all geniuses.”
“You’re very smart, Simon. I couldn’t begin to memorize all your football plays. And you get As in algebra.”
“I remember this game. Alex’s touchdown in the last quarter was awesome.”
In using the subject of football to motivate Simon all year, Margie had learned everything she’d never wanted to know about the sport.
“When he dropped back to pass on the fourth down, his safe pocket broke apart. Instead of throwing a Hail Mary, Alex managed to find a hole in the line. The only problem was his receiver was out of the pass pattern, so he had to cross the line of scrimmage and run the ball himself. Would you believe he made a seventy-yard run for a touchdown?”
The enthused twinkle in Simon’s eyes told her she was on the right track using football to motivate him. With any luck, Jake would be able to build the kid’s self-esteem.
“I suppose that made his father proud.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t ya? But I heard the coach chewing Alex out afterward for not playing it safe. Which I don’t get. I’ve seen highlights from Rocket’s pro games, and he took a lot bigger chances than that.”
“He was being paid to put himself at risk,” she pointed out, “Alex wasn’t. And Coach Manion also had his back broken as a result. Unlike his son, he had his education to fall back on when his football career ended prematurely.”
Simon rolled his eyes and muttered in a sing-song voice, “Which is why I have to learn to read better.”
“Exactly.” She wrote the word spiral both the correct way and the way Simon had read it, using a red marker for the R’s and a blue one for the vowels blended with them. “Do you see the difference?”
“Sure.” He slumped in his seat, despair etching his face. “When you point it out to me.”
Her throat swelled closed. He just needed a little hope in his life. “Eventually you’ll start seeing it without me showing you. I’m giving you a list of words with Rs and vowel blends in them for homework. I want you to copy them the way I just did, using a red marker to write the Rs and a blue one for the vowels. Then read the list out loud to yourself.”
She jotted down twenty words and handed him the paper. “If you can read this list to me tomorrow without making more than two mistakes, I’ll arrange for you to have a private workout with Coach Manion.” Of course, she wasn’t about to tell the kid Jake would call him regardless.
Simon left the classroom with a spring in his step as Louise, the school librarian, poked her head in the door. “Hey, how’d the big reunion go on Friday night with you-know-who?” She strolled into the room and rested her butt on the table’s edge. “Was it as awkward seeing him again as you thought it would be?”
Friday seemed like a million years ago. “Awkward doesn’t begin to describe it. The kids wanted us to meet so they could tell us my daughter is pregnant.”
Louise clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, Lord. I’m so sorry. I assume, since Emma told you about it, she’s planning to have the baby.”
Margie nodded. “The kids are getting married, and then Emma’s moving in with Alex and Jake until they leave for Penn State. I don’t know how I’m going to get through the rest of this year.”
She spent the next several minutes telling Louise how she’d spent her weekend fielding Jake’s uncomfortable questions and advances while they’d planned the wedding. “You’ll be getting an invitation for two Saturdays from now at three-o’clock. You’re one of four guests on my measly list.”
“Oh, damn.” Louise groaned. “My nephew is getting married that same day. I’m sorry, Marge. I wish I could be there all day for you. But I should at least be able to make it for Emma’s ceremony.”
“That’s okay. Don’t sweat it.” Once Emma moved out, Margie would be spending a lot more time by herself. She might as well get used to being alone. “Now I have only two weeks to lose the blubber I’ve put on in the last year and a half, so I won’t look like the Hindenburg in the wedding pictures. I’m planning to start walking. Want to join me tomorrow at lunchtime?”
“Sure. But I wouldn’t worry too much about your weight, Margie. It sounds like your plate’s going to be so full the next two weeks you won’t have time to eat.”
“True.” But what was she going to do after the wedding? “On a brighter note, Jake agreed to work with Simon this summer to help motivate him while I tutor the kid.”
“That’s good news.” Louise smiled. “If nothing else, it should help distract you from Emma leaving home.”
“For a few hours at least. What am I supposed to do with the other hundred and sixty hours a week this summer? A woman can take just so many hot baths before she turns into a prune.”
Louise chuckled. “Isn’t there something you’ve always wanted to do and never found time for?”
“Hmm. Let me think. Skydiving?” Margie flashed a humorless smile at her friend. “No, wait, scratch that. I have acrophobia.”
Sadly, the only thing she’d ever aspired to accomplish, other than being a devoted wife and mother, was to stamp out illiteracy—which was tough with only a size six foot. Dan was gone now, and Emma would soon be living two hundred miles away. That only left buying a pair of size seventeen storm trooper boots and saving the world from ignorance.
Or having a nervous breakdown.
Chapter 10
Emma strolled into her last period class to find the room still empty except for Phil Carmichael crawling from behind Mr. M’s desk. She slid into her regular seat. “What were you doing back there?”
Phil boosted his butt onto the low bookcases under the windows. “Nothin’. I dropped my pencil, okay, lil’ Mama?”
“Zip it, Carmichael,” Alex’s dad snapped as he strode into the room, drinking a bottle of water. “And take a seat.”
She had enjoyed her Human Development class with Alex’s dad so much during the first semester she’d registered for his Marriage and Family course for the second half of the year. The class was in such high demand and covered so many sensitive topics, the three sections of the controversial course were only open to seniors.
Mr. M perched on the edge of his desk as he routinely did while the students meandered in. Normally they chatted until the bell rang. Instead, Emma stared out the window, pointedly ignoring Alex’s father.
She’d thought he really cared about his students and believed what he taught about developing a meaningful relationship before jumping into bed. In reality, it was all just an act and he was a big, fat fraud. Why else would he hit on her mom the day after they met? Not that her mom was much better. Mr. Manion insisted she hadn’t encouraged him, but from what Emma saw, her dad was the furthest thing fr
om her mom’s mind.
Mr. M passed around the attendance sheet for the kids to sign, then strode over to the CD player, and slid in a disc.
The whine of an electric guitar, punctuated by a set of drums cut through the classroom, and one of the kids hollered, “Crank it up, Mr. M.”
He pushed up the volume. By the middle of the Meat Loaf song, the whole class was singing along and drumming on their desks to the beat of Paradise by the Dashboard Light.
At the end of the song, Alex’s dad flipped the machine off. “Okay, I gotta know right now!” he shouted, mimicking the singer on the CD. “What was the artist’s point?” He waved toward a girl sitting in back. “Janice.”
“You shouldn’t let a guy con you that he’s in love with you just so you’ll sleep with him.”
“There’s a flip side for the fellows, isn’t there?”
“Yeah, a guy shouldn’t say it unless he means it.”
“Or he could end up praying for the end of time.” Brandy smirked at Emma.
Carmichael lifted his hand. “Guys only say it cuz girls won’t put out otherwise.”
Mr. M nodded and silently strolled around the room for a few moments. “So is that what going to bed with someone should be about? Who thinks you should be in love to have sex?”
Emma snorted inwardly. How do you spell hypocrite? J-A-K-E M-A-N-I-O-N.
Nearly all the girls raised their hands, whereas only a few guys did. Naturally, Brandy’s was still in her lap. Jake stepped behind Carmichael and slapped his back. “So I guess Studly has made a valid point. What does that tell you, ladies?”
“Guys talk from their flies and not from their hearts,” called out a girl next to the window.
“Now you’re catching on. Every one of these fellows would love to climb into the back seat with a different one of you each day of the week. It’s simply the way nature wired them.” He spread his hands in an apologetic stance. “I’m sorry, guys, but it’s my job to tell them your secrets. What you might not know, ladies, is these same eager studs aren’t so open-minded about the girls they care about. Are you, fellas?”
All around the classroom, the guy’s faces turned pink.
“Coach, don’t you think it’s unfair for men to hold women to a higher sexual standard?” Brandy asked.
“Absolutely. And I’m not saying it’s okay for a man to sleep around—just that nature makes it a little tougher for him to resist temptation.”
Maybe nature excused him for hitting on her mother, but Emma didn’t.
“That still doesn’t make it fair,” one girl muttered.
“No, it’s not.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “And it’s also not fair woman are the ones to get pregnant and be stuck paying the bulk of the consequences for sex.”
Heat surged into Emma’s cheeks as she felt every set of eyes in the room turn toward her.
“But at the same time, is it fair for women to send guys mixed signals?” he continued. “Women say they want sensitive men who’ll communicate with them while the whole time they’re swooning over brooding bad-boys in movies and literature. Is it fair that men, who’ve always played the traditional role of providers, feel usurped and superfluous while women become CEO’s, abort their unborn children, and visit sperm banks?”
Mr. M scanned the class and snorted. “Come on, people, it’s June. If you’ve gotten nothing else out of this class, I’m hoping you’ve learned that life is never fair.”
He could say that again. Emma glared at Brandy. Fair would be if that blonde bimbo developed a severe case of acne and gained twenty pounds.
Fair would be if Emma could have her dad back.
“The song we just listened to will be the basis of an essay question on your final exam,” Mr. M explained. “You’ll be expected to use what we’ve discussed this year to make a case as to whether the fellow in the song should or shouldn’t keep the commitment he made to the girl while weighing all the pros and cons.”
For the rest of the period, the class broke into small groups to work on the presentations they would be making during the next two days. When the bell finally rang, Alex’s father stepped in front of Emma as she prepared to leave. “Em, could you stay a minute?”
“Alex is waiting to drive me home.”
“He can wait.”
She dropped her pile of books on his desk.
After the last of the students wandered out, he said, “I noticed some kids were giving you a hard time. I’m sorry about where the discussion in class went today. I hope it didn’t embarrass you too much.”
“Isn’t that why you mentioned girls getting pregnant? Or was this lesson about men’s temptation your cop out for coming on to my mother?”
His jaw tightened. “No. I brought it up because it’s part of the final exam. My class plans were made a long time ago. I just wanted you to know I wasn’t trying to draw attention to you. The fact my son is responsible for your situation forces me to be even more vocal about teen abstinence. As for your mom, I simply kissed a woman I was attracted to. So please stop acting as if I molested her.”
“Sure. Whatever.” She scooped up her books and dashed out of the room. Halfway down the flight of stairs, she noticed she’d accidentally picked up the class attendance sheet. She ran back to the classroom and found the door already locked. Peeking through the narrow pane of glass, she gasped at the sight of Jake kissing one of the guidance counselors.
Tears stung Emma’s eyes as she slid the attendance sheet under the door and ran back to the stairway. Alex thought his dad was a cross between Eli Manning and the Pope. He should only know what kind of player his old man really was.
~~~
Jake gently extricated himself from Pam Garner’s passionate liplock, unmoved by her heated kiss. The blonde guidance counselor smiled up at him and slid her hands under his knit polo and up his chest. “I was wondering if you’d like to head over to my place this afternoon for a quickie.”
Pam had been through a messy divorce and had no more interest in getting involved in a serious relationship than Jake had. They’d become good friends, and since neither of them felt comfortable sleeping around, they’d agreed to have monogamous, down-and-dirty sex until one of them became romantically involved with someone else.
They hadn’t gotten together for a heavy breathing session in over a month, which possibly explained why he’d had trouble keeping his hands off Maggie. He was simply horny.
Right. That’s why he had about as much interest in getting sweaty between the sheets with Pam as he did in grading the stack of term papers for his Human Development class. He might as well face it. As much as he hated what Maggie had done, his body still wanted to pick up with her right where he’d left off nineteen years ago—in bed.
“Sorry.” Jake closed his leather messenger bag. “I have to get home.”
“We could tape some paper over the window in the door and get it on here. I locked it on the way in.”
“I can’t. But I’m glad you stopped by. I was planning to call you tonight about one of my students, Brian Carlton.”
“What’s wrong?”
“The kid seems depressed. He’s a typical overachiever whose parents have been pushing too hard. I realize the term is nearly over, but I’m worried about the kid’s mental state. I think the school needs to do an intervention.”
“Okay, I’ll call his parents.” She fished out a notepad from her purse and scribbled on it. “You know, you keep me busier than any other teacher in this school.”
Jake grinned and shrugged one shoulder. “Can I help it if the kids talk to me?”
“They’re lucky to have you.” She tucked the pad back in her purse. “Since you’re busy today, how about tomorrow?”
He sucked in a deep breath and released it slowly. “Listen, Pam, I lied. I’m really not in a hurry to get home. My life’s just a mess right now. Do you mind giving me some of your professional time?”
She sank into one of the desks’ seats. �
�Sure.”
He dragged his chair closer and told her everything that had led up to the hazy June afternoon nineteen years ago when Maggie had unexpectedly shown up at his house.
“I knew it was a safe bet she wasn’t there to sell me a subscription.”
“Not unless she was peddling Parents magazine,” Pam guessed.
“Exactly. Maggie had an irregular cycle, so she didn’t think much about not getting her period until five weeks later when she started feeling sick. By then the college term had ended, and I’d gone home. Unfortunately, my dad was forced to get an unlisted number after I started making headlines, so Maggie kept getting a recording on the one I’d given her.”
“So how’d she track you down?”
“Her cousin knew the town I came from, so Maggie lied to her mother about staying at a girlfriend’s house for the weekend. Barbara gave her the money to fly here, and Maggie simply asked around until she found someone who knew where I lived.”
“Resourceful little thing.”
“She was smart. It was part of the reason I never guessed how young she was.”
“Exactly how young was she?”
“A couple of months shy of eighteen, which, in California, is jailbait. Anyway, I knew her news would put me on the front page again. Except, this time, I was afraid my face would be in the National Enquirer with the word pervert stamped across it.”
Chuckling, Pam pulled a roll of mints out of her purse and offered it to him.
He took one and popped it in his mouth. Unlike the broken windows, speeding tickets, and other blunders he’d made in his twenty-three years, he wasn’t the only one stuck paying the price that time.
“To make matters worse, Roxanne was due home in a few days.”
“No stress there.”
“You think?” He smiled. “If that was God’s idea of a joke, the Almighty had a warped sense of humor—not to mention, he needed a lot of work on his timing.”
“But you were planning to call off the wedding anyway, weren’t you?”
A Little Bit of Déjà Vu Page 14