The Player Next Door

I take a deep breath and plaster on a brave smile, though inside I’m a nervous mess. “Good morning, everyone. I hope you all enjoyed your summer vacation and are excited to be back.”

Groans carry through the room, but I ignore them, letting my smile grow wider. This is my classroom. These are my young minds, ready to be molded and impressed upon. I’ve dreamed of this moment for years. “I’m Ms. Reed, and I’m excited to be teaching you.”

“So?” Becca sidles up beside me to rinse her coffee mug at the staff-room sink. Her pink, button-down blouse is a shock of color against the drab beige walls, and it complements her blond locks nicely. “How was your morning?”

“Good! I think? Hot, though.” The school isn’t equipped with central air, and the fans I’ve strategically positioned in the corners have done little to help, especially with twenty-five prepubescent bodies packed into the room. By the end of math, my navy dress was clinging to my damp skin and students were staring vacantly at me from their desks, like sweaty little red-faced zombies, uninterested in anything I had to say.

“Tell me about it. Some of my male students haven’t embraced the value of regular showering and deodorant yet and they really should, especially in this heat.” Becca scrunches her nose. “I don’t understand it. My mother never had to remind me to bathe when I was twelve.”

“My best friend still has to remind her boyfriend to shower sometimes, and he’s thirty-three. She has a lot to say about gross, smelly boys, though.”

Becca laughs. “Is she a teacher too?”

“Justine?” I snort. She doesn’t even like children. “No, she’s a recruiter for a skilled trades agency.” She deals with construction workers, electricians, plumbers, and the like all day long, the majority of whom are men.

“That’s …” Becca’s nose scrunches. “I wouldn’t have the first clue how to do that job.”

“Yeah, neither did she, and she hates it, but she’s really good at it. She fell into it after college.” Her uncle needed an assistant and she needed a job, so she stepped in. The next thing I knew, she had her own office and box of business cards, she was interviewing machinery operators about their background, working trade fairs, strolling around our kitchen in her underwear while discussing copper fittings over the phone, and a thousand other things that bore me to tears when she tries to explain them.

But I’ll forever be amused when I watch her—a dainty, dark-haired nymph—open her mouth and make a three-hundred-pound male welder blush with her brash words.

Becca smiles. “She sounds really interesting.”

“She is. I miss her a lot. She’s coming to visit this weekend, actually.”

“Oh, that sounds like fun.” I can’t help but note the waver in Becca’s smile. Along with the rundown of my students, Becca updated me on her life over the past decade. The latest change was her moving back to Polson Falls after breaking up with her boyfriend of two years—the older brother of a girl she says we went to school with who I don’t remember. She’s been single ever since and, though she didn’t come right out and say it, I think she’s lonely.

I hesitate, but only for a second. “Hey, you should come out with us, if you don’t have any plans. We’re just going somewhere local.”

“Maybe I will. Thanks for the invite.” She smiles softly. “I’m glad you moved back to town, Scarlet.”

“Yeah, no worries. It’ll be fun.” Though Becca’s liable to lose her jaw on the floor after ten minutes with Justine.

I busy myself with filling my water bottle at the cooler before the staff room gets crowded.

“How was Cody?”

“Fine. He’s quiet, but he seems like a good kid. Despite his mother being Satan.”

A snort escapes Becca before her expression smooths over. She glances around, as if checking to make sure no one else heard me. Maybe it’s uncouth to label your student’s mother the Antichrist on the first day of class, but it is Penelope Rhodes we’re talking about. She had half the school believing I was working as a cam girl at fourteen years old. “I guess he got some of his traits from his father, at least.”

“Who is Shane, by the way.”

Becca frowns curiously. “How do you know? Did you ask Shane?”

I snort. “Are you kidding me? No. But look at Cody’s eyes, with those gold flecks around the irises?” He stopped at my desk before heading for recess and I got tangled in them for a moment. “And he has his dad’s dimples. And when he smiles, the corner of his mouth, right here”—I tap the edge of my mouth—“buckles like Shane’s does.”

“Oh, wow.”

“What?” I ask warily.

Becca grins, as if she’s just discovered something exciting. “You still have it bad for him.”

“No, I don’t!” I shake my head to emphasize my words. “He’s an arrogant ass.”