by Olivia Dade
“Yes.” Her gaze narrowed dangerously. “I also heard what the doctor said. There’s nothing amiss with my hearing.”
Well, that made one of them.
He deliberately ignored her growing ire. “You can put some ice in a towel or plastic bag to help with the swelling, but only over the splint. Fifteen to twenty minutes every few hours.”
“I understand that.” Each syllable sounded like ground glass. “I do not require you to reiterate all my instructions.”
Apparently, his instincts when it came to Candy were surprisingly sound. As she grew more and more irritated, that awful grayness receded. Her cheeks turned rosy, her brown eyes sharp. Her shoulders squared, and her voice got louder.
Broken arm or no broken arm, she looked more herself right now than she had since June.
He wanted that confident, truculent Candy back. For her. For himself.
So he continued talking, injecting a bit of extra pompousness into his tone. “You should wiggle your fingers as much as possible.”
“You—” Her brows snapped together, and she flung her uninjured arm in the air. “Are you aware that I was in the room while Dr. Marconi told me what I should and shouldn’t do? Did you somehow overlook my very presence?”
Honestly, this was the most fun he’d had all day. “I thought I saw you, but I wasn’t entirely certain. It’s harder to recognize you without that whole bouffant thing”—he swirled his hand over the top of his head—“you used to have going on up here.”
Her mouth dropped open in outrage. “A tiny bit of volume does not equal a bouffant. I’m not a refugee from the mid-1960s, Mr. Conover!”
“More late eighteenth-century France, then?” He sat back in his chair, crossing one ankle over his knee. “You are fond of proclamations. Very Marie Antoinette of you.”
She sputtered, her nostrils flaring.
He smiled at her in a particularly obnoxious way. “Anyway, I won’t go inside, but I’ll follow you home, just in case. And I’ll wait in your driveway until I see the lights come on.”
“Fine.” It was more a growl than an actual word. “As long as you stop talking, right this second, you can follow me home.”
That seemed like a fair tradeoff to him.
Besides, Shakespeare had the right of it. Nothing can seem foul to those that win.
So he obediently kept his mouth shut while she received her discharge papers and swiped her credit card for her emergency room copay. Still silent, he drove her to the school parking lot, and then followed her small SUV across town.
It was after midnight, and she was returning to a dark, empty house. Just as he would, as soon as he ensured she was safely home.
After she let herself into the front door and flicked on the interior and porch lights, she lingered in the doorway. After a moment, she raised her good arm in something that wasn’t quite a wave. More a gesture of acknowledgment.
Within that halo of golden light, he could read her lips. Thank you, Griff.
Then the door closed, and he drove home. Showered. Got in bed. Blinked at the ceiling as his brain inevitably returned to its favorite preoccupation.
Candy Albright. Again. Still.
She fascinated him for so many reasons.
Twenty-plus years of teaching, full to bursting with students and colleagues and discussions about poetry and plays and novels, had in turn taught him well. He’d learned at least one thing for certain.
Not everyone could decipher subtext.
Not even if they noticed its presence, which many people—too enmeshed in their own thoughts, their own concerns—did not. Not even when it was pointed out to them by, say, a longtime teacher who wanted his ninth graders to pass their end-of-year English proficiency test, and also wanted them to take pleasure in the way simple words could contain multitudes. Universes secreted away, but open to explorers with sufficient curiosity and persistence.
Even those who could decipher subtext didn’t always wish to perform the labor. He hadn’t required a teaching degree for that revelation. A decade of joyous, sometimes-contentious married life had clarified the matter sufficiently.
Yes, subtext was difficult. Fraught. No question about it.
Still. Since that first faculty meeting, he’d been amazed. Nay, stupefied.
People seemed to think Candy Albright was as straightforward and direct as her pronouncements, as if she possessed no subtext at all. No river running swift and hidden beneath the craggy, immovable, desert-dry boulders of her words.
Worse: No one, as far as he could tell, seemed to wonder about context either, or consider the simplest and most obvious question. The question he trained his ninth graders to ask over the course of a school year together.
Those times when he couldn’t successfully occupy himself with other matters—times like these—he did wonder. He did consider. He asked himself why.
Why her students claimed to fear her, yet seemed entirely certain she would spend hours after the last bell working with them on their college application essays. Which she did. He’d seen her night after night, bent over a desk, red pen in hand, attention sharp as the tacks studding her bulletin board on the students and papers before her.
Why, when she worried and grew exasperated, she borrowed the words of mobsters instead of poets and threatened—unconvincingly—to put hits on those causing her distress. She, an English teacher of considerable repute, who guided her seniors inexorably through poetry and prose and the vagaries of the AP English Literature and Composition exam.
Why a woman, so often humorless as a dirge, had a laugh as loud and honking and unabashed as hers. A cascade of sound, its joyful draw undeniable. Though he had done his best to deny it anyway.
Why a woman so brash and unafraid and amusingly certain—a tidal wave in human form, a force—had arrived weeks early to set up her classroom, face grey and wan. Hair shorn, also greyer than the previous year. So quiet. Too quiet. Even before her injury.
Why, in short, Candy Albright was Candy Albright. The cocksure Candy Albright of last year, and the bafflingly diffident Candy Albright of today.
He shouldn’t wonder, of course. It didn’t speak well of him that he did. Or rather, how he did, with fascination and anxiety and something like urgency.
He wondered anyway.
Finally, once the bedside clock ticked past two in the morning, he punched his pillow, turned on his side, and forced his eyes shut.
This preoccupation—this foolish, damnable fascination with Candy—was a mere academic exercise, the allure of a puzzle yet to be solved. At most, the automatic, perfunctory concern of a coworker. Nothing more than that.
Please God, nothing more than that.
Two
“Why green?” Griff asked in lieu of all the more important, more dangerous questions.
When Candy didn’t answer right away, he held a letter against the paper-covered cork, using a level to ensure its straightness and a ruler to keep the spacing between letters even. With an emphatic bang, she stapled the last piece of the Jean Rhys quotation into place. Then she placed the stapler on the counter and gazed at the newly completed bulletin board as he climbed down from the stepstool.
Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere. An assertion he both appreciated and seconded, naturally, although its selection was somehow… softer than he’d expected from his colleague. More openly sentimental.
With a quiet sigh, she removed her glasses and let them hang around her neck. Rubbed her eyes as he watched, struck by the sight of her without that barrier in place.
“Candy? Why green?” he repeated.
When she turned her head toward him, he could spot the thready lines and shadows underneath those sharp eyes, the way her brown eyelashes stood almost straight out instead of curling coquettishly. Defensive spikes, not an open fan.
A stray eyelash now rested above her round cheek, but he kept his hands to himself.
Now he was even more intrigued. Deliberate obtuseness was not Candy’s usual modus operandi. “So it is. Which is why I was referring to your cast, rather than your display.”
After their late-night emergency room visit, she hadn’t returned to school for the rest of the week. He’d fought against sending her an e-mail or concerned text every day. Every hour. But she’d arrived only minutes after him today, the following Monday, and his heart had uncramped a bit in his chest at the sound of her clomping footsteps in the hall, the sight of her rosy cheeks and tilted chin, even though she was wearing a t-shirt and stretchy pants again.
Apparently her swelling had diminished over the past week. Her lower left arm was now encased to the wrist in a forest-green fiberglass cast.
It seemed a curious choice for a woman who generally eschewed darker colors.
“Why is my cast green?” Her mouth pinched, she met his eyes for an electric moment. Then she looked away, those spiky eyelashes fluttering. “The whim of a moment, quickly regretted.”
He leaned his butt against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. Studied her.
The roses on her cheeks had turned blotchy, and they spread downward to the neckline of her t-shirt as she shuffled papers on her desk. “That said, it’s a nice color. Attractive, I suppose.”
Before he could inquire further, she went on the attack.
“Speaking of regrets, don’t think I’ve missed those caverns under your eyes, Griff,” she said loudly, pointing an accusing forefinger at his face. “Either get more sleep soon, or I’ll make sure you regr—”
To his shock, she cut herself off mid-threat.
The pinkness drained from her cheeks, and she was suddenly gray again, both arms limp at her sides. Her chin sank to her chest, and she was silent. One breath. Two. Five.
This time, he couldn’t stop himself.
“Candy…” He got to his feet and rounded her desk, laying a careful hand on her good arm. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
She didn’t move away from the contact, although her fingers twitched. “I’m fine. My arm is hurting a bit, that’s all.”
To hear her response, he’d had to angle his head. Not a good sign.
“Just…” She made eye contact again, brow creased. “You’ll make yourself sick, Griff. You need rest. I…”
He waited dumbstruck, dizzy at her proximity and the direct statement of concern. The meeting of intent stares. The kiss of flesh to flesh.
Her skin was softer than he’d imagined, giving and resilient beneath his fingertips.
Even if threatened with imminent destruction, he couldn’t have spoken then. Not to save his life, much less his weary heart.
She cleared her throat, the sound raw and painful.
Still gazing into his eyes, face fierce with a determination he didn’t understand, she finished her thought. “I worry about you.”
The open admission somehow disconnected him from his own worries. His shame.
His hand moved of its own volition, lifting from her arm to her cheek.
“You have…” He gathered the stray eyelash from the thin, fragile skin beneath her eye, careful not to smudge her glasses. “There. I got it.”
Her chest hitched.
Upon his upturned forefinger, he presented his offering. “Make a wish.”
She blinked up at him. Then she blew lightly, cool air rushing over his fingertip, and the eyelash took flight.
When she licked her pale lips, the sheen of moisture there drew his gaze like a lodestone. My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips’ red…
“I wished that you would get more sleep soon,” she told him.
Her chin had turned mulish. Challenging in the most familiar, welcome way.
“If you say your wish, it won’t come true.” It was a gentle scolding, spoken through a thick throat.
Those dark eyes unexpectedly flooded, and she jerked back from him. He didn’t beckon her closer again, didn’t reach out to gather her into his arms, but he wanted to. Heaven help him, he wanted to.
She took a deep, shuddering breath. “But if you don’t say it outright, directly, how can anyone know what you want? How you feel?”
Turning away, she gathered the last remaining poster from her desk, awkwardly removed the rubber band, and unrolled the laminated cylinder.
A portrait of Shakespeare, appropriately enough.
“Fair point,” he managed to say, aching for them both.
It was also a point he’d heard before. Across a dinner table, the words patient and loving. Whispered into his good ear in the hush of a dark bedroom. Shouted during one of their rare arguments, her graceful hands flung wide in emphasis.
No, not everyone enjoyed interpreting subtext. Not all the time.
He closed his eyes.
Metaphors and poetry are wonderful. But sometimes people need to hear the actual words, love. Marianne had cupped his face, stroking her thumbs over his cheeks, her hair tumbled on a shared pillow. Sometimes I need to hear the actual words. ‘I’m scared. I’m angry. I’m sad. I love you.’
Sometimes I can’t find direct words that encompass everything I want to say, everything I feel, he’d protested.
Consider them handholds. Her fingers were warm and tender on his skin. Easily grasped in hard moments. Easily understood. Easily supplemented with a few good metaphors or lines of poetry. I know your family didn’t talk about feelings, but you’re direct about everything else in your life, Griffin. You can do it. It’ll just take some practice.
She was almost always gentle, and she was always kind. To him, her family, the students she counseled, everyone.
I’ll try harder, he’d told her. I promise. I love you.
Her smile was as sincere, as open, as she herself was. Thank you, love.
He’d nuzzled into her cupped hand. And now, please stand by for metaphorical supplementation. Or, rather, lay by.
Is that what you’re calling it? Metaphorical supplementation? Really?
As she’d laughed, he’d surged forward to capture her mouth. Tumbled her beneath him. Marianne. His wife. His…everything.
He blinked his eyes open, bewildered and squinting in the harsh classroom lights.
The memory…
For the first time, it prompted a fierce ache, but didn’t rend his heart anew. And somehow, that felt like yet another loss.
When had the sting of remembering his wife—his wife—become almost bearable? And what did that say about him, his constancy, his vows?
“Griff?” The word was loud. Sharp with concern.
He resurfaced and focused.
Candy. That was Candy, not Marianne.
Even lost in his past, there was no mistaking one for the other. The two women could hardly be more different, which burned like bile in his throat some nights.
Candy had set aside the poster. She was eyeing him carefully, somberly, her glasses glinting under the fluorescent lights.
“Sorry. I was thinking. About...” He fumbled. Shoved back his hair and grasped for words easier than the truth. “I was thinking about whether you’d have your Frankenstein initiative again this year.”
Still watchful, she shook her head. “I’ve decided to implement four-year cycles.”
“So most students experience each initiative during their time in Marysburg High, but you don’t get bored doing the same thing year after year.” He scratched his bearded chin, still fidgety. “Clever.”
The slight curve of her lips was charmingly smug. “No need for more frequent repetition. Students don’t tend to forget my initiatives.”
“No.” His unexpected bark of laughter hurt his tight chest. “I imagine they don’t.”
“Will you help me with this last poster?” She tilted her head to the left of the do
or. “I want it over there.”
In response, he grabbed the level and tape dispenser and crossed the room, grateful for the opportunity to occupy his hands and distract himself from his troubling thoughts.
As they worked, he glanced over at her. Her eyes were a bit red-rimmed now, her face paler than when she’d arrived that morning. And just a minute or two ago, she’d been fighting tears again, slumped and mournful for reasons he hadn’t yet discovered.
They could both use distraction, then. He would provide it.
“About your Frankenstein Is Not the Monster Initiative…” The top two corners secured, he began to make loops of tape for the bottom of the poster. “I’ve been meaning to discuss it with you. I think it could use some retooling.”
Immediate, livid color filled her cheeks. Her eyes snapped to his, narrowed and sharp. “Is that so?”
It was more a warning than a question, and one he deliberately failed to heed. Their evening in the emergency room had taught him well.
“I think a convincing argument could be made that Victor Frankenstein is a monster. More so than his creation, in many ways.” He quirked a brow at her before applying tape to the bottom of the poster and smoothing it against the wall. “There you go. All done.”
“Thank you.” The words were clearly begrudging, but she said them. She thought for a few moments before continuing to speak. “As far as my Frankenstein initiative… you may have a valid point.” Then she pointed an accusing finger at him, her continued annoyance clear. “That said, you’ve deliberately misinterpreted the mission of the initiative, which is to stop students and certain intransigent faculty members from calling the misbegotten creature Frankenstein.”
“By certain intransigent faculty members, you mean Mildred,” he guessed.
Her nostrils flared. “I mean Mildred. The scourge of the art department.”
Last Halloween, even after Candy’s initiative, Mildred had assigned her students to make collage portraits of Frankenstein. And by Frankenstein, she meant the creature, not the scientist.
He had no idea whether Mildred was deliberately rattling her colleague’s chain or was merely oblivious. Either way, the day Candy found out about the collage assignment, alien life forms in distant galaxies surely heard her infuriated howl and ran for cover.