Look Again

‘I have a very good feeling about this year. There’s a new smell here. I think it’s love. Yes. That’s it. Love is literally in the air at Chamberlain.’

I can’t help rolling my eyes. ‘You’re being a little loose with literality.’

I can imagine his face in response, defending his metaphors to the death.

‘You don’t know. You’re not here. You haven’t smelt it.’

I laugh aloud, but not loud enough to catch the driver’s attention. I don’t know what strikes me as funnier—Hank’s romantic tendencies or the use of the word “smelt” in a text.

But maybe he’s right. Maybe there is good reason to look forward to this year. I’m not saying that love is on my mind. Because there are rules against that. Literal, written rules against dating another teacher at Chamberlain. Not that there are any datable women on the faculty. And nobody else really lives near the school except the families in town, who run long on people who wear a great deal of flannel and chop their own firewood and short on winsome, single, twenty-something women.

I’m really talking myself out of the love thing now.

I might need to look forward to something else. Something different than love. But maybe Hank’s right about changes coming.

Change can be good.

Why not, right?