However, he really liked to talk to Allison. He loved it, in fact, which was a brand new experience for him. He didn’t know how much he’d like having a woman for a friend. But he was starting to enjoy it. She was special. Different. Of course, he saw that. So why not consider her a friend? He valued it as an honor if she called him one of her friends. She was that impressive to Shane. Not just for her smarts, major accomplishments, obvious sophistication, or morality, but because she had a way of looking at the world that he kind of liked better than his own way. And most people didn’t make him feel as comfortable as Allison did.
He didn’t want to see Celia. So consequently, he wasn’t seeing Allison.
He stood up and stretched the kinks in his neck. He was all hunched up over the Ford cab. He’d been at it since breakfast, and had no lunch. Now it was fast approaching seven o’clock. He needed a break. Should he see Celia? He shook his head. Damn. No, it was Saturday. Jett would be home. He walked out of the shop and glanced at the house, which was dark. The family must have gone out for dinner. He sighed in the quiet night, observing the stars overhead. It was cold and his warm breath looked like smoke when he exhaled. He grabbed his keys and coat from the hooks in the shop and decided to go out for dinner. Or just take a drive.
He was in town when he passed Allison’s house and noticed her lights were on downstairs. He didn’t know why he slowed down his truck and turned off or why he was suddenly in her driveway. What was he doing there? Visiting her? It was odd and weird; and not representative of their relationship. But still… he was there now. He shrugged. Well, why not? As friends, why couldn’t he come over to hang out with her?
He knocked on her front door, feeling strangely out of place and almost… nervous. Yeah, almost nervous. No one could actually make him nervous. Why would he worry about visiting the prim, polished school teacher?
She opened the door and her eyes widened with surprise, “Shane?” she said as she glanced past him. “It’s Saturday night; isn’t Jett home?”
He dug his hands into his pockets. “I didn’t come from Celia’s,” he grumbled.
She noticed his truck. “Where’s your bike?”
“Too cold outside. Can I come in?”
“Oh. Right. Sure,” she said, and a lovely blush tinged her cheeks. Anything he said could turn her face and cheeks pink. He found himself wondering how much of her body blushed. Then, how many freckles did she have everywhere? Shaking his head, he scolded himself. It was too weird to be thinking about teacher’s body parts.
He walked into her house and saw she had papers and some small, colored tiles spread over her coffee table with a tablet that was paused on a video. His gaze fastened on her. Standing silhouetted against the kitchen light in casual pants and a t-shirt, her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She patted her hair back with a self-conscious half smile. “I was working and haven’t really done much today.”
For once, Allison Gray was kind of discombobulated. It was a huge change. He never really caught her off guard before. Grinning at her, he shook his head. “What are you working on?”
“Well, I got the first level of the tutoring program for Erin; I watched the video and kind of practiced to make sure I have a handle on it.”
“Really? What is it?”
Allison hurried forward and dropped to her knees before leaning over the table, and gathering up papers and colored tiles. “You really want to see?”
“Yeah, I really do,” he said, sitting down next to her. He couldn’t fit his knees under the table so he reclined on his butt with his back pressed against the couch. His own curiosity surprised him and he wasn’t lying when he said he really did want to know what all the stuff was used for. How could it possibly help a woman who couldn’t process language and letters for thirty years of her life?
“I’ll show you,” she said, looking up with a huge grin. She started mentioning things about phonemes and small units of sound, explaining that Erin’s brain might not have formed them; and therefore, she lacked the basic building blocks to decode one-syllable words. The colored tiles represented the sounds so Allison could start to train Erin’s brain to hear the sounds and sequences in ways she, most likely, could not right now.
“She’ll, no doubt, complain that I’ve demoted her to preschool, but that’s actually where she needs to start. It builds from there. She’d old enough that I think I’ll push her harder than I would younger students. I think I can have her reading simple sentences in as soon as a few months.”
“You’re serious? This is really happening?” Shane felt a weird gurgle of excitement bubble up in his chest. It sounded so cool. Even though he had nothing to do with it, he felt somehow strangely included and possibly even a part of the solution. It was a new sensation for him. He listened to Allison’s explanation carefully. He was starting to get as intrigued as her animated expression suggested she was. Shane never saw her like this: so interested, engaged, and inflamed.
Spontaneously, Shane reached over and touched her cheek with the pad of his thumb. She was staring down at the slim book in front of her and jerked her face up at his unexpected caress. Her eyes widened in surprise, and he withdrew his hand. “This is why you teach, isn’t it? I never had a clue why anyone would sign up to babysit twenty or thirty kids all day long, five days a week. But now I think I get it. It’s a feeling you get, isn’t it? Opening a door to someone that could truly change how she sees the world. And her entire future. I mean… I just think this is so cool; and it’s really amazing what you can do.”
Her eyes remained fastened on him and he began blushing before dropping his gaze to his knees. He rarely made such heartfelt, emotional, and wussy statements to a woman.
Her voice was soft when she replied, “Yes. A lot of it is that. But you have to remember: that doesn’t happen very often. You don’t always get such clear compensation; or see what you’re doing in baby steps will have such profound effects for the big picture. I mean, most students in my classes just learn what I teach and go on to the next grade. I don’t get to see their overall progress. But this? This is an emotional adventure; it’s knowing what you’re doing each time really matters and makes a huge difference. That’s why I often volunteer my services to tutor the adults through the library. Most of them are troubled since English is their second language, but I think what I teach them is meaningful to their lives in general.” She smiled again and pushed some stray strands of hair behind her ear.
“When are you starting with Erin?”
“Tomorrow. She began waffling when I talked to her about two hours ago, but I don’t intend to let her. So… where are you headed? Why’d you stop in here?” Her eyebrows lowered with skepticism at his anticipated answer.
With a casual shrug, he stretched his legs out. “Thought I might grab dinner at the café. Worked all day, and when I came out, I realized the whole family was gone. Then I saw all your lights on and that’s why I stopped. Is that okay? I mean, we’re friends now, right? I can stop by?”
“Friends?” Her eyes widened just enough to reveal her surprise, or was it disdain? He’d seen both feelings in her facial expressions often enough to recognize them.
“Yeah, sure. Why not?”
“I guess, I mean, you’re right, why not? I had linguini earlier, and there’re some leftovers. It’s pasta and no meat; want some?”
His stomach growled in hunger. “Yeah, sure, of course. If you don’t mind.”
Jumping to her feet, Allison went into the kitchen and grabbed a dish from the fridge. After she served up his helping, she began heating it in the microwave. “You said you worked today? What did you do?”
She looked over at him, waiting politely for his answer to her innocuous question. He leaned against the kitchen table, crossing his arms over his chest. When was the last time anyone asked him what he worked on? He never discussed his work with anyone. And, of course, he didn’t always work. He assumed his older brothers just got tired of hearing his lame excuses, s
o years ago, they just quit asking him. But now it felt kind of nice to be asked, especially after the day he had. He was pretty psyched over what he created and tweaked to repair the Ford. He was stoked over how it turned out.
“I finished up a pretty tough fit for a new exhaust system that I installed in an older model Ford truck. I plan to keep it looking old, but make it run like new, and also faster and more comfortable. So finding the right parts and making them work is kind of like trying to fit a square into a triangle. Eventually, I managed to design something else, but it took all day.”
She tilted her head, and the microwave dinged. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” he shrugged. Grabbing the reheated meal with a potholder over her hand, she brought the steaming plate over to the table before taking a glass out and pouring some milk in it. She absently set it beside his plate, and Shane could only think, When was the last time someone poured his milk? Probably when Jack’s wife, Lily, was still alive. She accepted responsibility for his care and upbringing after his real mom died. Huh. He raised his eyebrows at the milk, but she was already busy putting the potholders away.
“Are you talented at this work you do? Do you insist on doing a good job, or just blow through it?”
“I never blow through my work. If I fix something shoddy, or half-assed it could break. I’d hate to think of that happening when someone is driving their family around, or a poor farmer is working on his tractor. I’d never do that.”
She nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Do you rely on instructions to do it?”
He snickered before swallowing a forkful of pasta. The sauce was so good, it nearly melted over his tongue. “’Course not.” His curt tone revealed his offense at her question.
“You seem to like that, you know, what you just did, restoring old machines, not just fixing them temporarily. Why don’t you turn your shop into one that cherries out old muscle cars or bikes? Retro is huge nowadays and people will pay well if it’s done really well. You already have the know-how, so why not? You know, build your brand name up: Rydell Rides. It’s a pretty catchy name. No one else in this valley is doing that.”
He lowered the fork and stared at her for a long moment. “No, you’re right; no one else is.” He frowned, as he further considered what she was saying. “You think I should design my own brand?”
She shrugged. “I don’t dare venture a guess; I’m only suggesting. But you seem happier today than I think I’ve ever seen you.”
“I’m happy all the time. Every single day. How can you say that?”
She shrugged again and replied, “Okay, then, satisfied. You appear self-satisfied.”
He didn’t know why he was arguing with Allison or even cared what she thought of him or what he did. For the past fifteen years, Shane didn’t care what anyone thought of him, or what he did. Why did this thirty-one-year-old teacher with opposing life goals and polar opposite tastes and opinions mean anything to him?
“It is a catchy name,” he finally said with a grin. She shook her head, but he glimpsed her small grin in response.
He nodded his head toward the meal, saying, “You didn’t tell me you were such a good cook.”
She came closer and sat in a dining room chair across from him. “Yes. I like to fiddle around and experiment. It’s not much fun cooking for myself, however, so I don’t do it much anymore.”
“For your husband? Is that who you used to cook for?”
Her gaze narrowed on him. “Why do you ask?”
He had a pretty good inkling why: she was divorced, and that was also why all the Celia/Jett stuff bothered her so much.
“Just ‘cause I know the signs. For how long?”
She sighed and picked up a stray pencil she found on the table before twirling it between her fingers. “Seven years.”
He winced. “Longer than I would have ever guessed. How did he manage to technically cheat without it being his fault?”
Her gaze lifted and she stared out the back sliding door at the darkness. The occasional outside yard lights shone like tiny pinpricks, peppered up and down the otherwise dark landscape. “By the time he started to cheat, there wasn’t anything left to salvage. We killed it long before that. He buried it. I cremated it.”
“You keep saying ‘we’ like you were responsible for it too.”
Her sad smile and unseeing gaze conveyed some regret. “We pretty much says it all. We were both at fault for not nurturing each other and our marriage.”
He was staring at her. “That doesn’t seem like you. Not at all. I see you as a total nurturer. That seems like, well… more like me. Or someone like me. When were you ever careless, or negligent in taking care of whatever needed tending?”
She seemed to bristle. “That’s a very long story, Shane, and unfortunately, one I don’t want to talk about tonight. Okay?”
“’Course,” he replied, but he couldn’t let it go. He wanted to say something more, and with concentrated effort, kept his mouth shut. That was so unlike him. When did he ever care about anyone’s history, or past, or hurt feelings, or reason for being wherever they were? He just accepted people at face value and interacted accordingly, but remained in the present. The now. The here. He never asked Celia why she married Jett, or why she started cheating on him. He didn’t ask what she thought about, or how she felt about anything. How strange that the one woman he did ask, turned out to be one he wasn’t sleeping with.
He finished eating and took the plate to the sink, waving her aside as he rinsed it and put it in her dishwasher. Then he followed her out to the living room and sat down on the couch. She tucked her legs beneath her and sat on one of the side chairs. “You can go back to what you were doing. I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”
She hesitated, but he could see her eagerness as she eyed the new materials before her. It wasn’t often Shane hung out with a woman who found reading materials more exciting than him. Then again, he usually hung out with women strictly for sex, not for their company. He flicked the TV on after she absent-mindedly consented. Stretching out, he got comfortable and watched a reality show about restoring old muscle cars. This time, however, it was a little different. He was thinking and wondering… did Allison have a good point? Rydell Rides was such a cool name. And he was excellent when he applied himself… but then again, the thought of being tied to something so permanent, which, if it failed, would come back on him, kept haunting his mind.
He decided to give it more thought, but later. It was strangely pleasant sitting there in Allison’s house. Small, cozy and so feminine, it was not how he’d have decorated it, but he still liked how homey it made him feel. She worked away at the coffee table, and every so often, he noticed her looking up at the show. He smiled. She seemed to be interested in every subject and probably liked learning about anything and everything, even adapting the parts of a four-wheel-drive truck to pimp out an old eighties van.
When he noticed her yawning, he finally realized it was time for him to go. But he found it hard to tear himself away. It was just so damn comfortable, on her couch. And in her house. Mostly because of her company. He got up and ruffled her bangs on her forehead as he passed her. She scowled, but immediately smiled at his gesture.
“Tomorrow then? Erin? Make sure you see me when you’re done, okay? I want to know how it goes, and knowing her, she won’t say.”
He could tell his inquiry pleased her. “I will. Even if I disturb you at work?”
He nodded. Whoever worried about disturbing him at work? No one, not even he, gave “his work” much credence or importance, but her dang tone of voice sure did.
Why was he so pleased whenever he thought about tomorrow? He paused to acknowledge a sudden, light feeling that filled his heart. What was that about? Working tomorrow? On a Sunday? Or seeing his friend, Allison? It seemed kind of cool to be friends with the town’s most popular school teacher. None of the teachers actually lived in River’s End, none but Allison. The rest were from outlying areas.
She was respected, cared about, and admired. All the things Shane wasn’t. So being her friend? Really kind of awesome.
Who cares if he felt far more of an attraction toward her than he had in any woman for the last ten years? They were just friends. That made her an anomaly in his life. And also just about the most interesting thing in it.
Chapter Six
ALLISON SPENT A SOLID two hours with Erin for her first lesson. She started slowly, explaining the system and the routine they’d be following. She told her about each step of the program and where each lesson would lead them. It was a very methodical system based on spelling rules and patterns. The lower levels relied intensively on phonics in case any gaps existed before the real learning began. Erin scoffed at first, and fumbled with the basic pre-preschool lessons. Twice Allison had to convince her to come back to the table after she got up and threatened to stomp off. Allison was warned the first two levels could be the most difficult for some dyslexics to handle, even though to most adults, it seemed like child’s play. But not when you have zero phonemic awareness, as she believed Erin did.
After going through three lessons from the first level and finding a huge success, Allison felt a profound sense of accomplishment and relief. She wasn’t wrong. Erin could do it. Even if Erin bristled because the start of the program was indignant to her age, it was precisely the core foundation she was missing. Allison closed the front door and leaned back against it, shaking her head. Little Erin as a child really never had a chance. Allison heaved a sigh of relief at knowing she was on the right path to help Erin.
Erin was exhausted. She would continue to be until she started to trust Allison and believe the program was something that could work. Allison, however was quite confident that it was definitely going to work, even if Erin wasn’t convinced. It was only a matter of time and persistence, building confidence through each lesson, and eventually teaching Erin how to decode words. She had no skills yet, and Allison was anxious to provide all of them for her.
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