by Beth Andrews
“Who or what,” the majority of the kids responded.
“Exactly. And a predicate...”
A fewer number of kids replied this time. “What the subject does.”
“Right.” Harper set her chalk on the board ledge. “Okay, Max, what is the subject of the sentence ‘The man ate lunch’?” Max hesitated but Harper just reread the sentence and said, “Remember, subjects are who or what the sentence is about. Could be the house or the car or the awesome teacher...”
Max perked up. “The man?”
“Correct. And the predicate? Or what the subject, in this case the man, does? It could be plays ball or ran away....”
Silence. Eddie squirmed, wanted to blurt out the answer himself, but Harper waited. And waited.
“Ate lunch,” Max finally said, leaping to his feet.
“Ding, ding.” Harper rang an imaginary bell. “Winner, winner...”
“Chicken dinner,” the class shouted.
She walked to a large dry-erase board and crossed Reading Lesson off the day’s schedule. “Good job, you guys. Let’s take a five-minute break to get your desks cleaned off then we’ll take our spelling test. That’s five minutes to put your workbooks away and get out a fresh sheet of paper. You may talk quietly amongst yourselves during that time.”
Harper erased the board and the noise in the room gradually grew as the students yakked to each other, a few—like Max—getting out of their seats to bounce around the room. And all of them, whether they were talking, sitting or standing, stared at Eddie as if he had two heads and was wearing women’s clothes.
He shifted his weight from his right foot to his left. Shit. They probably thought he was nervous. He had to be careful. He couldn’t show any weakness. They somehow sensed a man’s fear. If they knew he was wondering what he was doing there, what the hell he’d gotten himself into, they’d move in for the kill.
“You okay?” Harper asked as she joined him. At his terse nod, she raised her eyebrows. “You sure? Because you look really freaked out.”
He frowned at her but the concern in her eyes remained.
“It’s okay,” she said in the same tone most people used to soothe a frightened puppy. “Some people aren’t comfortable around a lot of kids. Though, those people don’t usually volunteer to help in the classroom.”
He’d volunteered so he could see firsthand how Max acted in school and be able to nip any more bad behavior in the bud.
And, yeah, because he’d felt like an idiot laying into Harper for taking away Max’s recess.
“I’m not uncomfortable around kids,” he told her.
He’d just never liked being the center of attention. Some things a man didn’t outgrow no matter how much he wanted to.
Harper must have thought he had some deep-seated fear about being surrounded by anyone under four feet tall because she leaned close to him. “You’ll do fine,” she whispered.
He froze, kept his gaze straight ahead. Max was right. She smelled good. Damn good. Not flowery exactly, but light and fresh.
It took all he had not to turn and simply breathe her in, inhale that sweetness until it filled his lungs to bursting.
“They’re mostly harmless,” she continued, her tone teasing. He wanted to share in her humor but he couldn’t. She stood too close to him, so close her hip brushed his outer thigh. “I promise.”
As if to seal that vow, she touched him, the barest brush of her fingers against his forearm. The contact was slight, friendly. But it jolted through him like a shock wave only to settle, warm and humming, in his veins.
Leaving him confused and restless.
While she smiled at her class as if nothing had happened.
She clapped twice. “Hocus pocus.”
“Everybody focus,” the kids said in unison.
“Thank you,” Harper said. “Now, since Mrs. Rupert had her baby—”
“She had my sister,” a little girl with a cartoon cat on her shirt said as she danced around her chair. “Her name is Dawn and her poop is green.”
There was a chorus of gross and ews and the talking started up again, this time louder and wilder than before.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Harper said, not raising her voice in the slightest. “Settle down.”
The din climbed a few decibels.
Hard to compete with green poop.
Harper held her hand in the air, all five fingers splayed. The movement accentuated the fullness of her breasts, pulled her shirt up, the hem rising a few inches. She folded her thumb in, then each finger one by one. By the time she made a full fist, the kids were all in their seats, their mouths shut.
“Hands free,” Harper said, holding both hands in the air and wiggling her fingers. “Eyes on me.”
The kids repeated the action.
“As I was saying, Mrs. Rupert won’t be able to come in for a few weeks. Luckily, Max’s father has agreed to help us out until she returns. Everyone, say hello to Mr. Montesano.”
The kids did so in varying degrees of pitch, tone and volume. He inclined his head, coughed softly to clear the tickle from his throat. “Hey.”
“How about you read to the kids after they’ve finished their spelling?” she asked him. “That’ll give me time to correct their tests.”
Read to a bunch of kids he didn’t know? With Harper in the room listening?
Yeah, he read to Max every night—like all the parenting and educational experts said you should—but he’d never be what anyone would consider a fluid reader. Or a fast one.
“Sure,” he said with as little enthusiasm as you could use and still be a living, breathing human.
“I got some new books at the library. You can choose a couple of them.”
He followed her to her desk, saw the stack of books. Picture books.
Thank you, Jesus.
Eddie leaned against the corner of the desk while Harper picked up the list of spelling words. She recited them clearly and slowly as she walked around the room, used them in a sentence and then repeated the word. The kids were bent over their work, their pencils scratching.
“Please double-check to make sure your names are at the top of your papers,” Harper said after she’d read the last word. “Mr. Montesano is going to read to you during circle time.”
Harper began collecting tests while the kids gathered in the corner by the rocking chair. Max came up to Eddie. “Can I sit with you when you read?”
“Sure, bud. Why don’t you pick out which stories you think your friends would like to hear?”
Max searched through the stack of books. Eddie straightened and, as casually as possible, stepped toward Max’s desk. Glanced down at the tests on the three desks surrounding Max’s. Names printed on top, lines numbered, each word written neatly and, for the most part, correctly. He glanced back, saw Max was still sorting through the books. Turning to block his son’s view, he used a finger to slide Max’s test toward him. Eddie reared back as if the paper had bit him.
Max got two words right. Two out of the ten.
What happened? They’d gone over the words twice each night this week. He’d had Max write them down instead of spelling them aloud. They’d practiced and practiced and practiced some more.
It hadn’t done any good. Eddie wanted to crumple the test, toss it into the garbage. He wanted to erase every line and put in the right answers.
He wanted to save Max from going through what he’d gone through. The worries. The doubts. The feeling of failure and not being good enough.
Never being good enough.
Nausea rose in Eddie’s throat. It was his fault. He had to fix it. But he couldn’t do it on his own.
He had to ask for help.
* * *
“WHO COULD THAT BE?” Harper ask
ed Cassidy when someone knocked on their door Friday night.
Sitting on the other side of the table, Cassidy, her blue eyes wide, her mouth smeared with pizza sauce, grinned. “Papa?” she asked excitedly, squirming in her booster seat.
“I don’t think so.”
“Papa!” Cassidy called. “Papapapapapa!”
Harper winced. Her baby had a set of lungs, God bless her.
“Okay, okay.” Harper stood and unstrapped Cass, setting her on the floor. “Let’s go see who it is before you have the neighbors calling the police to see if there’s a hostage situation over here.”
Cassidy raced toward the living room. By the time Harper caught up to her, she was pounding on the inside of the front door. “Papa? Papa, you there? Open up.”
“We need to do the opening, kiddo,” Harper said, undoing the dead bolt. If she didn’t keep it—and the back door—locked, Cass would not only answer the door but also, more than likely, walk out and try to drive the car somewhere.
Her kid had no fear. That was okay. Harper had enough for both of them.
She peeked out the side window only to leap back and plaster herself against the door, arms splayed. For the love of all that was sweet and good in the world, what was Eddie Montesano doing on her porch?
Reaching under Harper’s arm, Cass tugged on the knob. Grunted and frowned at her mother. “Stuck.”
The door always stuck. Not that Harper blocking it helped matters. “I know. Step back and Mommy will open it.” She could do this. She’d just open the door, see what Eddie wanted and then send him on his way.
No problem.
Except, when she pulled on the handle, the door didn’t budge. He knocked again.
“Just a second,” she said. “I’m having technical difficulties.” Planting her feet, she tried again, yanking hard. The door opened, the momentum taking her back two steps.
Regaining her balance, she looked up to find Eddie staring at her in surprise. No, not her, she realized as Cass pushed past Harper to greet their visitor, but her daughter.
Cass had no problem with finding a handsome man on her doorstep—even if that man wasn’t her beloved papa. She blinked at Eddie then smiled hugely. “Hi. Want to play with me?”
“Oh, I really hope she outgrows saying that to men,” Harper murmured.
Eddie glanced at her, then crouched so he was on Cass’s level. “What’s your name?” he asked in what could only be deemed a mellowed version of his usual gruff tone.
“Cassidy. I tree.” As if to prove it, she held up three of her pudgy fingers.
“Cass,” Harper said, “you’re not three. You’re two.”
“No, I tree.”
“You’re two.”
“Tree.”
“Two.”
“No,” Cass said with a fierce scowl and a tiny foot stomp. “I. Tree.”
And she stormed off toward the kitchen.
“If you’re looking for your birth certificate to alter the dates,” Harper called after her, “I hid it the last time we had this conversation.”
Harper turned to Eddie. He’d straightened, and the porch light cast half his face in the shadows. The ends of his hair stuck out from under his hat, ruffled in the breeze. “Is Max in the truck?” she asked, peering toward his vehicle parked in her driveway.
“He’s with my parents.”
“Oh. Well, is there something—”
“You have a daughter.”
“Are you asking me if I have one, or telling me?” She shook her head. “Never mind. Yes, I have a daughter. And if left to her own devices for more than a few minutes, she manages to find trouble.”
He looked at her like she’d just blasphemed.
That was the problem. Her baby resembled a cherub with her loose blond curls, big blue eyes and round cheeks.
Harper glanced over her shoulder, strained to hear, but all was quiet on the kitchen front. She wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or not. “I realize it’s hard to believe that something so sweet and innocent-looking is possible of wreaking havoc but, believe me, wreak it she does.”
“Toddlers get into mischief. It’s how they learn and play. Start gaining independence.”
“Thank you, Dr. Spock,” she said dryly. “But Cass goes above and beyond mischief. Two months ago she snuck a marker into her crib and colored all over the walls—and herself—during nap time. She was blue for days. Oh, and then, a few weeks later, during the time it took me to have a ten-minute phone conversation, she climbed onto the kitchen counter, dumped an entire bag of flour onto the floor, then got down and proceeded to throw eggs into it before, for some reason, rolling around in it.”
Remembering how long it’d taken to clean up that mess still gave Harper nightmares.
“Learn from me,” she continued. “When you get home from the grocery store, put the food away immediately. Don’t be fooled into thinking your groceries are safe just because you put them out of reach before taking a call. Kids have ways of getting what they want. My kid especially, so...”
She raised her eyebrows expectantly.
A flush climbed his cheeks. “You want me to go.”
“No, of course not.” I just don’t want you to come in. But she couldn’t turn him away, not when he seemed so uncomfortable and embarrassed. She stepped back, motioned him inside, then shut the door. “I really do need to check on her, though. Follow me—we can talk in the kitchen.”
She was well aware of him behind her, his gaze on the back of her head. Talk about bringing your work home with you. Usually she had paperwork to do in her free time, tests to be graded or lesson plans that needed completing. She’d never had a student or a student’s parent in her house.
Now she knew why. It was weird. Tense. Her home was her sanctuary, where she ceased being Mrs. Kavanagh and could just be Harper. Cassidy’s mom. Beau’s wife.
Eddie being here was ruining that.
She wondered what he was thinking. Worried about it. She bit her lower lip to keep from apologizing about the toys scattered all over the living room, the inch of dust on top of her TV. She had no one to impress here.
In the kitchen they found Cass at the table, sitting on her knees on Harper’s chair happily eating Harper’s slice of pizza—despite having her own slice cut into bite-sized pieces.
“Want some pizza?” Cass asked Eddie.
“No thanks. You go on and eat yours, though.”
“Can I get you something to drink?” Good manners forced Harper to ask. Then again, she didn’t know why she was concerned about manners when he was the one who’d shown up uninvited and interrupted her dinner.
“I’m good.”
That was too bad. She could use something to do other than smile patiently at him and wait. And wait. And wait some more. After a few minutes, she gave in to the impatience brought on by a long day, hunger pangs and her desire to spend a quiet, peaceful evening with her baby girl.
“I’m going to finish my dinner,” she said, reaching over her daughter to pick out a slice of pizza from the box. “You let me know when you’ve decided whether or not to share whatever it is you’re mulling over.”
She bit into her pizza. Rude? Maybe. But she was growing old here waiting for Eddie to speak his mind.
“I didn’t know you had a kid.”
Whether he sounded put out because of what she’d said or because she had a child, she wasn’t sure.
“And here I thought everyone in Shady Grove knew everything about everyone else.”
“Guess not,” he mumbled, shoving his hands into his pockets.
“I done,” Cass proclaimed as she climbed down. She grabbed Eddie’s hand. “You play with me now.”
“Mr. Montesano doesn’t want to play right now,” Harper said, goi
ng to wet a clean dishcloth at the sink. “Why don’t we wash your face—”
“No,” Cass screamed and ran off as if Harper had threatened to scrub her cheeks with sandpaper.
“What do I have to do?” Eddie asked. “To help Max improve his grades, get him to pay attention better in class?”
She squeezed the cloth so hard, water dripped off her wrist. “You came over here, to my home, on a Friday night to discuss your son? How did you even know where I live?”
“Sadie told me.”
Her cousin always did have a big mouth.
“Do you have any idea how...unusual...this is?” Unusual. Weird. Inappropriate. Did she mention weird? “Most parents don’t simply...show up at their child’s teacher’s house without warning.”
“You’re not just Max’s teacher.”
“I’m not?”
“You and me, we’re old friends.” His tone was low and somber, his expression just this side of grim. Jeez, he could try and charm her with a grin, or at the very least try not to look so foreboding.
“We’re not friends, old or otherwise.” And where did he get off, using her words from their meeting the other day against her like this, trying to turn them around on her now? “So far, during the brief time we’ve been reacquainted, you’ve informed me—in no uncertain terms—that we are not, and never were, friends. That you don’t need my help with Max and don’t agree with my assessment of what his needs are.”
She wasn’t going to include his accusing her of taking away Max’s recess since he’d apologized for that. Plus he had showed up today to help in class and had done a good job of it—despite her initial prediction that he’d be a distraction to her being right.
“Now, you’re here, interrupting my dinner because you’ve...what? Changed your mind?”
He grabbed the back of his neck. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your evening.”
She sighed. A man of few words. She did not get why some women found that attractive. “If you want to meet to talk about Max, we can set something up for Mon—”
“I back,” Cass announced happily as she dragged a stroller behind her, four dolls piled in the seat. In her other arm, she carried a naked Barbie which she shoved at Eddie, who took it without even blinking. “Dress her.”