She smiles innocently like the cat that ate the canary. “Is your father a beautiful brunette, say mid-twenties?” She again motions to the screen, and when I see the photo that’s plastered across it, my stomach knots up.
There on the screen is a picture of Mallory. You can’t see her face, and for that I’m grateful, but it’s her. I shoot a glance at Kendra who looks pale. This was not on the list of agreed topics. “I suppose that woman is beautiful, but since we can’t see her face, it’s kind of hard to tell, wouldn’t you say? And there were hundreds of beautiful women there who caught my eye.”
They split the image, putting the first one of me looking surprised next to the side-view of Mallory. “Please tell your father he’s never looked better,” she jokes. She turns and speaks into the camera. “Thad Stone and Hayden Keys, folks. You can see them in Defcon One, opening in theaters everywhere on March 23rd.”
They go to commercial and Tanya quickly thanks us before being whisked away for her next segment. Kendra comes up behind me as we are escorted back to the green room. “Don’t worry about it, Thad. The picture is vague. Nobody can tell who she is. You played it off very well. There won’t be any fallout from this.”
“Played it off well?” I rub the tense muscles in the back of my neck. “Why didn’t I just say I thought it was my mother, or a cousin maybe? Now it looks like I’m hiding something.”
“You’re in show business, Thad,” she says. “Who isn’t hiding something?”
Cole comes to escort us out of the building into the car waiting in the underground parking garage. On our way to drop Kendra and Hayden back at the hotel, I wonder if Mallory watched the show. I think she was probably at work by the time my segment came on. But the picture is out there now. Will the press continue to dig, or will they drop it? I should probably tell her about this before she finds out some other way.
I pull out my phone and see I’ve gotten a text from her that she sent earlier this morning.
Mal: I miss all that stuff, too. But things are different. We are different people now and there is no going back. I’m glad you’ve changed and I wish you all the best in your career. I know you will do great things. Bye, Chad.
Bye, Chad? She’s blowing me off. She really doesn’t want to see me again. This won’t do. This won’t fucking do at all. After we drop the others off, I tell Cole, “Change of plans.”
~ ~ ~
I walk up to the desk and talk to the lady behind the counter who has a phone to one ear and a stack of folders in her hand. “I’m here to see Mallory Schaffer.”
She barely glances up at me. “Do you have an appointment?” she asks. “It is the middle of the school day, you know. Are you a parent?”
“No. I’m not a parent. I just need to see her,” I say.
She holds a finger out to me as she finishes her conversation with whomever is on the other end of the phone. She places the handset in the receiver and drops her folders. “Shoot,” she says, crouching down to pick up the strewn papers. “Are you on the approved volunteer list?”
Shit. There’s a list? I look around at all the signs on the walls and see one in particular. I get an idea. “I’m here for career day,” I say.
“That’s not until tomorrow.” She looks up when someone comes through the door behind her. “Don’t open that!” she yells as a student walks through, toppling more stacked folders onto the floor. “Oh, gosh. I’m sorry, I don’t normally run the front desk, but our secretary called in sick today. I’m the assistant principal.” She finally looks up at me. “What did you say your name—” Her words trail off and her mouth slowly forms the shape of an O as she once again drops the papers in her hand. “Uh, you’re . . . um, you’re . . . who are you here to see?”
I reach my hand over the desk. “Thad Stone. I’m here to see Mallory Schaffer, Mrs. . . .”
“Ms. Blanchard,” she says, shaking my hand with her trembling one. “Call me Carly.”
“Nice to meet you, Carly. You seem awfully young for an assistant principal,” I say to the middle-aged woman, hoping flattery will get me beyond the front desk. “Ms. Schaffer invited me for career day. I must’ve gotten the days wrong.” I look down at the floor in sadness. “Darn. I’m leaving for L.A. shortly. I was hoping to get to talk to her great group of fourth-graders. She can’t say enough about them. And this school. Man, she really does love working here. Well, my bodyguard is waiting for me outside. I guess I’ll go tell him the bad news. It was really nice meeting you, Carly.”
I turn around and take a slow step when she says. “Mr. Stone?”
I smile before looking at her over my shoulder. “Call me Thad, Carly.”
She blushes. “Okay, Thad. I’m not supposed to do this without you being on the volunteer list.” She looks over her shoulder to see the student walk out the door, leaving us alone in the front office. She writes my name on a visitor’s badge and peels the backing off before handing the sticker to me. “But seeing as you’re only in town today, I would hate to deprive Ms. Schaffer’s class of meeting you.”
She buzzes me through the door to the back. “That’s very kind of you, Carly. Thank you.”
“I’ll show you the way.” She presses a button on her phone. “Can you please cover the front desk for a minute, Martha?”
Martha comes out of another door and smiles at me. Martha is about seventy-five years old. She doesn’t recognize me. It’s refreshing.
Carly asks me all about Defcon One as she escorts me to Mal’s classroom. I’m happy to answer her questions. After all, she’s doing me a solid. We come to a door that is decorated with several different-sized paper cutouts of shoes. The shoes lead to a sign at the top that reads ‘Step into learning.’ Mallory’s full name is on a nameplate next to the door.
I laugh to myself. I can’t believe she’s a teacher. I remember her as the fifteen-year-old girl who would cut class with me to get ice cream. And now she’s a grown-up with a real job. A normal job. And I find myself jealous of someone who probably doesn’t even make in one year what I make in one week.
Carly peeks in the window next to the door. “Good, it looks like we caught them at a good time.” She knocks once and then opens the door. She goes in first. “Ms. Schaffer, you have a visitor.”
“Oh?” Mallory looks up, probably confused as to why her class is being interrupted. She sees me and freezes. She looks at her students and then to Carly and then to me again. “Uh . . . hi.” She walks over to me and I have to keep myself from laughing. The expression on her face is priceless. She has no idea why I’m here. She’s scared. She’s confused. She’s excited. Yup, even after all these years, I can still read her like an old familiar book.
“What are you doing here?” she whispers through her pasted-on smile.
“He’s here for career day,” Carly says. “He mixed up the days a bit, but since he’s going back to L.A. tomorrow, I told him he could go ahead and talk to your students today.” She turns to walk back out the door. “I’ll leave you to it then.”
“Thank you,” I tell her. “I appreciate your help and I trust you can keep this a secret?”
“Can I get a picture with you on your way out?” she asks shyly.
“Of course.”
“Then consider my lips sealed,” she says with a huge smile before closing the door.
Mallory and I are left standing at the front of the classroom, her jaw still agape that I’d have the gall to show up. “Why are you here?”
I shrug. “You wouldn’t answer my text,” I say quietly.
“I answered you this morning,” she whispers.
“It wasn’t the answer I wanted.”
“Chad, you can’t just show up unannounced.”
“I didn’t. Ms. Blanchard announced me.” I wink at her. “Plus, I’ve heard sometimes you have to make a grand gesture in order to get noticed. And I’m not Chad today.” I motion to her students. “I’m Thad.”
“A grand what?” Her forehead forms these ador
able wrinkles as she questions me.
I glance at the students who have all been very quiet as they watch us. I take it they aren’t used to visitors. “Well, come on, teacher,” I say. “It’s career day, are you going to introduce me or what?”
She looks over at the kids as if she forgot they were there. “Uh, okay. Class, this is Thad Stone. Thad is an actor and he’s going to talk to you for a little while about what it means to have a job like his.”
A boy raises his hand before I can get a word out. “Yes, Billy?” Mallory asks.
“You’re in that new movie, right? The one about the world ending? I’ve seen you on TV, only your hair was shorter and you were a lot dirtier.”
I laugh. “What you saw was called a movie trailer. That’s where they take bits and pieces of the movie and show it to you so you’ll want to come see it in the theater. Although it’s rated R, so I don’t think any of you should go. But if your parents want to go, that would be great. And all that dirt on my face and clothes is called makeup. Do you know it took a makeup artist an hour to make me look like that?”
“That’s cool,” Billy says. “Did you really jump out of that plane?”
“No, I didn’t. That was a stuntman. But they made him up to look like me, and in the movie, you can’t tell the difference. Sometimes I do my own stunts, like I had to rappel down the side of a mountain for another movie. It took me two weeks to learn how to do it. That’s part of the fun in acting. You get to do so many things and pretend to be a lot of different people.”
All the kids raise their hands. Mallory points to a girl in the back. “Yes, Jessica? What’s your question for Mr. Stone?”
“How many movies have you been in?” she asks.
“Five. But only three of them have been released so far. The other two have been filmed but aren’t in movie theaters yet. That’s why I’m here in New York, to promote the fourth film I did, Defcon One. My first movie was called Red Sky Rising. I had a very small part. I played the son of the main character, but I was only in three scenes. My next two movies were called I Never and Last Week. They were romantic comedies.”
“Like where you kiss girls?” Jessica asks.
I nod. “Yes, but I didn’t get to kiss any because I wasn’t the main character.”
“Yes, Ryan?” Mallory asks, pointing to a kid wearing a SpongeBob SquarePants shirt.
“What’s a main character?” Ryan asks.
“It’s the most important person in a movie.” I motion to his shirt. “Kind of like SpongeBob. He’s the main character of that TV show. In my new movie, Defcon One, I’m kind of like SpongeBob, but in the movie, Last Week, I was more like Squidward, who’s called a supporting actor.”
One by one the kids ask questions and I patiently answer every one as Mallory learns more about me than she would ever ask. I’m a fucking genius. She’s getting insight into the man she thinks she doesn’t know anymore. She’s getting to hear all the good stuff, and not just what the press thinks is a newsworthy story. She’s getting see my job is just like any other job, only I do it in front of millions of people. And as each minute passes, I see her become more and more relaxed.
But as time wears on, I realize I’ll have to leave soon and I’m not exactly sure what is supposed to happen next. I never got that far in my head. If I leave here without her commitment to see me again, I’m as good as yesterday’s news. She could just blow me off with another text. I’ve got to up my game. Hit her where she’ll feel it. Get her students on my side. I look around her classroom for ideas.
I spot what looks to be a fundraiser poster on the wall. One of those pictures of an empty thermometer and as they raise money, they color it in from the bottom up. It looks like they are pretty close to reaching their goal. “I have a question for one of you.” I look around the room, carefully choosing my subject as they all wonder who I’m going to pick. “SpongeBob, can you tell me what ‘Wishes for Kids’ is?”
Ryan’s face lights up when I choose him. “We collect money for kids who can’t come to school like us. Kids who have cancer and other bad stuff and sometimes they live at the hospital. They get to take trips to Disney World and stuff because they are sick.”
“Ahhh, I see.” I look around and pick another kid. “Jessica, right?” She nods shyly. “Can you tell me how much money you’ve raised?”
She walks up to the poster and points to the amounts down the side. “We have almost eight hundred dollars.”
“Wow, that’s great,” I say.
“I guess, but Ms. Ellison’s class is going to win the party,” she says with a frown.
“Jessica,” Mallory says. “Fundraising is not about winning. It’s about giving to others.”
“Yes, Ms. Schaffer.” She returns to her seat.
“Well, wait a minute,” I say. “Why can’t it be about giving to others and winning?”
“What do you mean?” Mallory asks me.
“Can anyone tell me how much money you need to get the party?”
The boy in the blue shirt, whose name I can’t remember, says, “My friend Joey said that Ms. Ellison’s class has almost a thousand dollars. That’s a lot.”
“And can someone else tell me when the fundraiser is ending?”
They all look at each other and shrug. Mallory says, “Friday. It ends this Friday.”
I reach into my pocket and get my wallet. I count my money. Five hundred and twenty-three dollars. I pull out everything but twenty-three and hand it to Mal. “You have a great class here and I’d hate for them to miss out on the party.”
She shakes her head at me, mouth agape as I stuff the money in her hand. “See now, I feel better already. I love helping people, don’t you guys?” The students all agree. “Doesn’t it feel good to help people, Ms. Schaffer?”
“Yes, it does,” she says.
“And sometimes when somebody does something nice for you, you want to do something nice in return, isn’t that so, Billy?”
He nods fervently.
“Well then, I have a little problem and I need some help,” I tell the class. “I have to go to this dinner tonight see, and I’m supposed to bring someone with me because everyone else who will be there will bring someone with them and I don’t want to be the only one who goes alone. I was hoping that Ms. Schaffer here would help me out. Do you guys think she should help me out? Don’t you think it will make her feel good to do that?” All the kids nod and tell her she should help me.
I look at the daily schedule on the wall and see it’s almost time for their lunch. “I’ve really enjoyed my time here with you guys. I hope you learned something about being an actor and maybe one day, some of you can become actors too.”
“Please thank Mr. Stone for coming to speak with us today,” Mallory says.
All the kids do as she asks. “You’re welcome,” I say. “Thank you for having me, Ms. Schaffer. Pick you up at seven?”
We have a stare down. She bites her bottom lip the whole time. Then she rolls her eyes and blows out a sigh. “Fine,” she says.
I walk out the door, closing it before I jump up, pumping my fist in the air. Then I turn back around only to see Mallory peeking out her window after me. I give her a sailor’s salute and go on my way.
Chapter Eight
Mallory
I look around my bedroom at all the clothes strewn about. I must’ve tried on twelve different outfits. We’re just going to his brother’s house, so I decide not to dress up, finally settling on a nice pair of jeans and a light-green blouse that’s just tight enough to stress the buttons without showing too much cleavage. I finish the outfit with my favorite black ankle boots.
I look at myself from every angle in my floor-length mirror. Casual yet flirty. Do I want to look flirty? After all, I would never have agreed to this if he hadn’t strong-armed me in front of my class by making that generous donation. I roll my eyes thinking back on this morning. I never heard the end of it from Carly. She cornered me at lunch, wanting every
detail about what happened in my classroom after she left. She showed me the picture of her and Chad that she took on his way out. I asked her to be discreet about it and she promised she would, but she also said that some of the mothers who were coming in to help with lunch had recognized him and their phones were clicking and videoing as he walked back to his car.
I hear a car door shut outside and all of a sudden, my stomach is in my throat. I feel sick. I haven’t been this nervous since the first day of my teaching job. That’s not true. I’ve never been this nervous. Will he think this is a date? I need to make it very clear upfront that it’s not.
I put on my pink lip gloss and grab my purse before heading down the stairs to find Chad talking to my dad. They both look up at me when they hear the heels of my boots click across the hardwood floor. Chad stops talking mid-sentence and his mouth hangs slightly open as he silently watches me descend the stairs. I can’t help feel a bit of an ego boost having him look at me this way. After all the women he’s been with. Beautiful actresses. Models. Yet he looks at me the way he is.
This is not a date, Mallory, I remind myself.
“Hi,” I say, reaching the bottom step.
“Hi, yourself,” he says back. “Wow, you look great, Mal.”
For a moment, I wonder what his reaction would have been if I’d worn the little black dress I tried on earlier. “Thanks, you look nice, too.” He’s wearing jeans as well, paired with a simple blue t-shirt and Doc Martens. The shirt he’s wearing brings out the color of his eyes, making them seem a shade brighter. His blonde hair is a bit unruly as if he’d recently run his hands through it. And despite the four-inch heels on my boots, he towers over me. I can see the allure. He looks like a movie star. My stomach does twists again. He is a movie star, Mallory.
“Nice to see you again, Mr. Schaffer,” Chad says, shaking my dad’s hand.
“Please, call me Richard. You’re not sixteen anymore.”
The Stone Brothers: A Complete Romance Series (3-Book Box Set) Page 36