HE DIDN’T STOP to take a breath until almost noon, when Gretchen darkened his doorway and said, “I haven’t seen you all day.”
Eric gestured to the notepad on his desk blotter. He had a list of phone calls to return and statements to give, and the calls kept coming. “That must mean I’m doing my job,” he said drily, and crossed off a name on his list. “Turns out everyone in the world is interested in this story. I got a call from the New York Times, and some evening news segment wants a sound bite.”
“The attorneys think it’s a great idea for you to be dealing with the press, since you weren’t here.” She raised a white coffee mug to her lips and took a tentative sip. “They don’t want me saying anything.”
Everyone else was under investigation. He was the newbie. He got it, but that didn’t make him feel any better. “Yeah. It’s fine. Look, I have some calls to make—”
Gretchen lifted a hand and spun on her heel. “I won’t keep you.” In a flash of blue tweed skirt and white blouse, she was gone.
He sighed at the to-do list. He was tired of saying the same things over and over. Noah Webster Elementary is a great school filled with dedicated teachers and administrators. If the allegations prove true, this was a criminal act of one person and it should not reflect upon the school as a whole. The lawyers had given him the script and told him to stick to it. Don’t offer anything else. Don’t infer. Don’t speculate. Basically he should clam up without looking like he was hiding something. Easy.
Eric rose to stretch his legs. He’d been talking on the phone for hours. He needed to be somewhere else for a while. “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes,” he announced to the two administrative assistants who sat in the main office. He felt their curious eyes watching him as he exited to the hall.
The bulletin boards in the hallway were still decorated in cheerful back-to-school themes and decorated with cutouts of autumn leaves and school buses. Welcome back! one board exclaimed in fat red letters. Summer Memories announced another. Eric had never regretted working with older students. He loved history and he’d enjoyed teaching, even among the complexities of crushes and cliques. However, walking down the hall of the elementary school lifted his spirits in a way the hall of the middle school never had. In a middle school hallway, one could find kids groping each other or throwing a punch. In elementary school, he found the sweet drawings of kindergartners’ pets and families.
Yes, he’d wandered to the kindergarten classrooms again, and as he knocked on the door to Lettie Osbourne’s room and saw her look up in surprise, he told himself that he had a very valid reason for being there. “I wanted to see how the apples came out.”
Her face relaxed into a pleasant smile. She was sitting in one of those small plastic chairs, and her students were gathered around her on the rug. Eric couldn’t help but stare at them and wonder at how tiny they were. “We haven’t done the apple project yet. I’m saving it for after lunch. Everyone, can we say good morning to Mr. Clayman?”
A chorus of little voices dutifully said, “Good morning, Mr. Clayman.”
“Good morning.” He smiled.
Lettie set her book on her lap and folded her hands. “Last night, Mr. Clayman helped us with a project that we’re going to be working on later. Wasn’t that nice of him?”
The little heads nodded and a few said, “Yes.”
“You know what? I think we should give Mr. Clayman a round of applause to say thank you.”
Following her lead, each student clapped their hands while making a circle in the air. “Wonderful.” She beamed. “It feels good to say thank you, doesn’t it?” Again the heads nodded.
She was so lovely, and her warmth was infectious. Her students obviously loved her and clung to her every word. As he stood staring in the doorway, Eric realized that she had him hooked, too. The classroom felt like a reprieve from chaos.
He cleared his throat. “Looks like I’m just in time for a story. What are you reading?”
“Oh.” She blinked a few times and suddenly looked sheepish. “It’s a book on manners, since it’s so important to remember them, isn’t it, class?”
Another chorus of nods and yeses. She shifted the book in her lap and he recognized it as Say Hello, Sweet Pea! He grinned. “Can I read it?”
She looked down at the floor and shifted in her seat. “You don’t have to. I’m sure you’re busy—”
One little dark-haired boy rose eagerly to his knees and said, “He’s our guest! He wants to read!”
“Dominick, please sit down. Remember: crisscross applesauce, with your hands in your lap.”
The boy folded his legs and hands. Another student spoke up, this time a little girl with bright red hair. “He should read the book. He’s our guest.”
“I just said that!” Dominick snapped. “She’s copying me!”
“All right, both of you,” Lettie said. “Remember to raise your hands and wait to be called on. But you’re both right, Mr. Clayman is our guest, and we need to be polite to our guests.” She smiled tightly as she rose, obviously struggling with his request. “We’d be delighted if you read to us, Mr. Clayman. Should I get you a different seat?”
He looked down at the tiny blue plastic thing and wondered if it would snap under his weight. He was over six feet tall. “I’ll sit on the bookcase, if that’s all right with you.”
“Whatever’s most comfortable.”
She handed over the book, and their fingers brushed. It was like she filled the room, and he was aware of the warmth and the faint floral scent of her skin. He tiptoed between the little bodies on the alphabet rug as they sat crisscross applesauce, eagerly waiting for him to read their teacher’s own book to them. She hovered on the edge of the circle, looking like she didn’t know what to do with herself.
He opened the book to the first page and held it up to show the pictures, the way he remembered his teachers doing to him. He read:
“One sunny morning Sweet Pea rose
and rubbed her eyes and scratched her nose.
She jumped out of bed to play and run,
but first she said, ‘Good morning, Sun!’ ”
The illustrations were his favorite part: a smiling sun and an oddly appealing baby shaped like a peapod, all painted with bright watercolors. The children listened attentively and even read with him in parts, but Lettie scratched her arm and looked visibly uncomfortable. He stopped watching her as the story continued, with Sweet Pea learning to say hello to everyone she met, as well as please and thank you.
“ ‘Manners matter,’ Mommy said,
and patted Sweet Pea’s little head.
‘We use our words to thank and share.
Saying thank you shows we care.’ ”
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Lettie as she wandered over to her desk and fidgeted, picking up stray pens and putting them in a cup on her desk. He continued reading without watching her, enjoying the comments and laughter of the students. He was almost sorry to turn to the final page.
“And when Sweet Pea’s happy day was done,
she climbed in bed and waved to the sun
and said, ‘Thank you for this joyful day
with so much to learn and so much to play!’ ”
He closed the book and saw the faces of the students smiling back at him. Before he could ask them any questions about the story, Lettie clapped her hands and said, “Thank you, Mr. Clayman. Let’s give him a round of applause!”
The children clapped their hands in a circle again, and he snapped back to reality. He liked being in this classroom with these children, where no one cared about the public relations disaster playing out in the main office. But he didn’t belong there.
He rose and set the book on the top of the bookcase. “Thank you for letting me read to you, class.”
A few you’re welcomes followed as he and Le
ttie moved past each other, brushing shoulders. Again his senses bloomed, and his head grew lighter.
“Back to work,” he said, and hoped he sounded nonchalant.
“Have a good day,” she replied, and turned her attention to the children. “Emmaline, please remember to keep your hands to yourself.”
He closed the classroom door behind him and headed back into the hallway. “Hey, Eric.”
Mindy Ling, the first-grade teacher, was coming up behind him with an armful of paper. She had a large silver cuff on one wrist and dangly earrings.
“Hi, Mindy. Can I help you with that?”
“Nah, I’ve got it, thanks.” She nodded behind them. “Are you doing teacher observations already?”
He reminded himself that he hadn’t done anything wrong, but he still felt his shoulders tense at the question. “I was just taking a walk, and I somehow ended up reading a story to the class.” He laughed easily. “It’s different from middle school, I’ll tell you that.”
“I can imagine.” Mindy adjusted her armload to free one hand to pull her hair loose from her earring. “Lettie’s a good teacher. She’s been focused, even with everything that’s going on.”
“ ‘Everything’?”
“Her wedding, I mean. I shouldn’t say anything.” Mindy freed her hair and wrapped her arm around the papers again.
“It’s too bad about that,” Eric said vaguely.
“I always liked James. Her ex-fiancé,” Mindy said. “But I sort of worried that he was a little too serious for her, you know what I mean? Too uptight. Lettie’s a professional, but she knows how to have a good time. She’s not the way people think.” She smiled, then stopped, as if she realized she’d said too much. “Don’t listen to me. I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“Don’t worry about it. You didn’t do anything wrong,” he said. “You’re obviously a friend.”
But she looked deeply uncomfortable as they neared her classroom. “Yes. Anyway, good talking to you.” She ducked inside and headed straight for the back of the room.
When Eric returned to the main office Sue handed him three slips of paper. “You had a few phone calls. They all say it’s urgent.”
“Of course they do. Thank you.”
He took the papers but didn’t bother looking at them. He was thinking about Mindy’s words, and wondering what Lettie was hiding beneath that sweet veneer.
CHAPTER 11
I HAD A CRUSH on Eric. The realization popped up at the most inconvenient times, and mostly when I was reading erotica. He became the hero in all of the stories in my head, and it got to where I had imagined him naked so many times that I could barely look at him when we passed each other in the hallway at school.
Once, I was signing for a small box of paper clips from the supply closet as he was approaching. “Hi, Lettie,” he said in his usual, energetic tone.
“Hey,” I replied, trying to sound upbeat but noncommittal. Then I dashed away before he could ask me something personal, like how I was doing that day.
Eric was nice to me, but I wasn’t reading into anything. He spoke that way to everyone. The fact was that my heart could ill afford to become entangled with Eric Clayman. I was a hot mess of a person, still reeling from the James Incident, writing erotica at my kitchen table at night, or occasionally writing phrases on slips of paper if they came to me during the school day. Things like, He plunged into her, his thrusts as deep as his desire, or She lay caught up in the bedsheets long after they’d cooled from their passion, her heart still blazing with thoughts of him, stuff like that. I’d empty my pockets at night and smooth the strips of paper onto my table. Some I’d use. Many I wouldn’t. But it got to where I was always thinking of smut, and a fixation on erotica coupled with a crush on my boss was a recipe for disaster.
“I don’t know,” Mindy said one night when we were out getting cocktails at a local bar. “Sex with a boss could be very hot. That’s why so many erotic novels use that premise.”
“And if there’s anything I’ve learned about erotic novels, it’s that they’re realistic,” I said.
One and a half vanilla martinis in, and I’d revealed my forbidden desire to my best friend. God help me if I were ever captured and tortured, because it would only take a little vodka and the sight of the rack to loosen my lips. Taken in the best light, I may have been hoping she’d say something that would knock some sense into me. Like, Eric Clayman sits in his office all day and picks his nose, or, Him? He hates dogs! But she didn’t have anything dissuasive to say, and I think that I was only confiding my feelings because they were overwhelming to me and deep down, I wanted her blessing.
The bar at O’Malley’s was crowded, so we sat in the tavern. The place was atmospheric, and the dark wooden fixtures and furniture had been imported from an Irish pub. We took one of our favorite booths, right beneath a stained glass window featuring St. Patrick raising a staff to a snake.
“It’s the alpha-male fantasy,” Mindy said, her eyes gleaming. She’d manifested a coupon for a free appetizer, and her confidence was palpable. “Hot. Strong. In charge. Eric hits all three marks.”
“I feel weird classifying men as alpha and beta. Besides, he’s too nice to be alpha,” I said. “Alpha males are supposed to be all arrogant and controlling.”
Mindy rolled her eyes. “You’re talking about the damaged ones in books. The hottest men in the world are strong, sensitive types.”
I dragged a finger through a drop of water on the table and swirled it around. “I never understood the appeal of the angry alpha male. If I were to make a list of qualities that I want in a mate, it wouldn’t include stomping. Maybe a willingness to make dinner every now and then and a basic understanding of laundry.”
Mindy smirked. “I don’t know, Aletta. Those are some high standards.”
“I can’t afford to have high standards. I’m pushing thirty.”
A waiter came over to our table at that moment with hot spinach-artichoke dip and triangles of toasted pita. I unrolled my black cloth napkin, and my utensils clanked onto the table. “You’re supposed to be explaining why it’s wrong of me to lust after one of my superiors. Why it’s self-destructive and detrimental to my mental health.”
“It’s harmless to look. I’d be more worried if you were lusting after Brunhilda. That’s not healthy for anyone.”
“Hey, it’s Mindy!”
We both turned to see Chase Holloway and his broad shoulders approaching. He split from a group of guy friends to come to our table and give Mindy a kiss on the cheek. “I didn’t know you were coming here,” he said.
“Girls’ night out.” She smiled and batted her eyelashes coyly. “Let me guess: baseball?”
“New York versus Boston.” He looked casually handsome in a Red Sox sweatshirt and jeans. He pointed to the bar with his thumbs. “You’re welcome to join us—”
“Girls’ night,” Mindy said. “If we watch baseball, we’re only going to be talking about the players’ glutes.”
He grimaced and waved a hand. “Ugh. I should know better. Jackie glazes over every time I mention sports. All right, enjoy your drinks. We’ll catch up another time.” As if just noticing me, Chase added, “Good to see you, Lettie.”
“You too, Chase.”
We watched him walk away and then sat quietly for a few seconds with our drinks. “I haven’t seen him in a long time,” I said.
“Yeah.”
Mindy tucked her dark hair behind her ears and glanced over at the bar, where Chase and his friends were selecting their drinks off the list. For as long as I’d known her, Mindy had had a crush on Chase. She’d gone to high school with him, and they were good friends. At one point she’d told him about her feelings, and he’d let her down gently. She played it off like it was no big deal, like she’d been joking, but that was only Mindy’s pride. This was the first
time I’d seen her stare at him like that, with the pain clear on her face.
“You look upset,” I said as I reached for a pita chip.
She glanced down at her lap and smoothed her napkin.
“He’s been seeing someone,” she said softly. “Jackie. They’re getting serious, and I— It’s not the way the story is supposed to end, you know? With the guy of my dreams marrying someone else.”
She waved a hand and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I want to talk about you and your boss problem.”
“Yes. Please explain to me why I can’t have a crush on Eric Clayman, and maybe my heart will listen.”
“You can admire him. I’ve admired him many times myself,” Mindy said with a lift of one shoulder. “As asses go, his is one of the finest.”
I felt a rush of guilt flood me as we talked about Eric’s backside, but it was all true. He was quite sculpted back there.
“However,” Mindy continued, “while it’s all fine and good for a woman to want to hump her boss in a book, it is definitely not okay in real life. For either of you.”
I took a bite of my pita chip and chewed thoughtfully. “Hump my boss. That’s a nice way to put it.”
“Jump his bones. Buck his bronco. Eat his salami. You can pick any euphemism you want.”
“Wow, those are a lot of great suggestions.” I scooped a spoonful of the dip and a thread of melted Parmesan trailed with it. From the smell, I could tell it was just the right amount of garlic. Heaven.
“The forbidden crush is like this dip,” Mindy explained as she helped herself to a scoop. “A guilty pleasure.”
“Oh my God, you’re such a teacher.”
“It’s not something you want to overindulge in,” she continued, undeterred. “Trust me on this.” Her gaze flew quickly back to Chase.
I knew it all. I hadn’t taken complete leave of my faculties; I’d merely packed them up into a little box and set them on a shelf.
“You’re the voice of reason, as usual. But it’s an academic exercise. We’re not even close to being an item. The whole thing is sort of embarrassing, actually,” I said. “How pathetic do I have to be to have a crush on the vice principal of my school? My love life is terrible. It’s a rebound crush, nothing else. It’s what happens when I drink.”
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