The Friend Game (Games for Two #1)

Chapter 3

“WHO ARE YOU?” A little boy sitting at the table nearest the door asks.

“Are you our susta-tute?” The girl sitting next to him asks before pushing up the glasses sliding down her nose.

“Uh, no,” I say slowly. “I think actually there’s been a little mistake here.”

“My mother says it’s okay to make mistakes as long as we learn from them,” another girl announces. “What can you learn from this mistake?” She holds both her hands palms up in the standard question pose.

Okay, these kids are adorable. But I have to stay focused. Maybe I can call Channel 3 later and explain what happened. Surely they’ll understand that I couldn’t just leave twenty 5-year-olds unattended .

“I don’t know if she heard you, Bella,” someone whisper-shouts to the little girl.

I mean, if the producers of Channel Three Action News can’t understand the predicament I’m in, maybe I don’t even want to work for them.

“Do you know how to talk?” A redhead boy shouts across the room, and a bunch of kids giggle.

Oh right. Talk first; think later.

“I do know how to talk!” I announce with the dramatic emphasis of someone who’s just announced their candidacy for President. A couple kids look startled. “What I mean is,” I say at a more normal volume, “I am going to be your substitute teacher for just a little bit of time this morning, while I get this little misunderstanding sorted out. How does that sound?”

The kids all just stare at me.

“Right.” I step further into the room and take a look around. The kids are all sitting at square black tables on metal stools with different colored tennis balls on the bottom. Along one wall are colorful letters spelling the word CREATE and an oversized color chart poster. The wall to my left has a huge bulletin board on it that says, “Welcome to Mrs. Williams’ Art Class!”

This is an art class? A familiar frisson of excitement runs through me. I try to tell it to go away. I can’t be excited about a new job, a job that I don’t even have the licensure for, when I haven’t even started the job I just decided was the one for me a couple of days ago.

I’m going to be a make-up artist at Channel 3 News, I remind myself. It’s a great use of an art degree. At least according to my Google search. And who doesn’t want to work on a television set? I’ll just get these kids started on an art project, then call down to the office and explain the situation.

“What were you guys working on with Mrs. Williams?” I ask them.

“We were going to start our self-portraits,” the little girl who informed me I need to learn from my mistakes supplies helpfully.

“Self-portraits!” My voice goes to crazy excited mode again, and one kid slips off his stool a little in surprise. I don’t even care, because I used to love doing self-portraits when I was a kid! There are just so many things you can do with them. Lego people portraits, mixed media portraits, self-portraits that use words too, although that might be hard with kids this young. “Did Mrs. Williams say how she wanted you to do them?” I ask before my brain gets too carried away.

“She gave us paper and pencils,” learn-from-your-mistakes girl once again supplies the information I need.

“Paper and pencil!” I exclaim in disappointment. No offense to Mrs. Williams, but talk about blah. “No, no, that just won’t do.” And now I sound like Cinderella’s fairy godmother. “I mean, I think we’re going to change things up a bit,” I amend.

I step towards the dry erase board at the front of the room and select a marker.

“Anybody here play with Legos?” I ask, and the room fills with a round of “yeses” and “I do’s” and “I built a million piece Lego set with my dad yesterday!”

“So nobody?” I say with a grin, and the kids all giggle. “We’re going to make Lego self-portraits,” I tell them. “That means you’re going to draw yourself as a Lego person. Now I’m going to help you with the basic drawing of the shape, but then you guys get to take over. You can design the outfit, the hair, the background of the page. Just so long as your Lego person reflects you. Got it?”

The kids all nod and hurry to pick up their pencils and follow along as I lead them through the steps to drawing a Lego person.

Over the next few minutes I get lost in the hypnotic art of drawing, walking around the room to help anyone struggling and laughing along with the kids about how hard it would be to have claw hands like the Lego people.

“Not to mention how Lego people can’t bend their arms,” I pipe up after one little boy says he would never want claw hands since then he wouldn’t be able to play baseball very well. “And if you can’t bend your arms the only real sports option would be dancing, right?”

“Dancing? Why dancing?” Learn-from-your-mistakes girl, whose name I’ve now learned is Bella, asks with a giggle.

“Well, because, at least you could still do a pretty good robot.” I hold my arms out in front of me, palms vertical, and start moving them stiffly in front of me, rotating from side to side so all the kids can see me. The kids erupt in peals of laughter. “You guys try it too,” I say through my own laughter and soon everybody is up on their feet doing the straight armed robot. We turn in circles and bend our hips doing a robot dip. Someone starts singing Baby Shark, except they change it to Baby Robot, and we all join in.

It’s as I’m doing my own interpretation of grandma robot (a.k.a. a rather glitchy robot who sings “g-g-grandma r-r-robot” and has extra jerky arm movements) that I spot the man standing in the doorway quietly observing all of us. I scream and immediately drop my arms to my side.

The man’s cerulean eyes widen in surprise, and he holds his hand up in surrender as all eyes in the room go to him. My initial shock fades, pushed out by embarrassment as the kids all start speaking over each other in excited voices. Then like a mob of Black Friday shoppers who just spotted the last hot ticket item, they pounce, hurtling their tiny bodies at him with a velocity that I’d find alarming if I were in his shoes. But he just braces himself then lets it happen, laughing as they plow into him. And miraculously he doesn’t fall down. Only stumbles a little. Goodness he’s solidly built. Like a truck. A really hot truck.

Honestly, if I were a different kind of woman, I’d pounce on him too.

The room goes quiet, and for one horrible moment I think I just said that last bit out loud...but no it’s just that the guy is doing some sort of hand signal, and all of the kids have responded by hopping off him and heading quietly back to their seats.

“Thank you, Grace Canyon kindergartners.” His voice is rich and smooth, like that first sip of coffee in the morning. Mmm.

Whoops.

I absolutely just sighed.

Like audibly.

The man— let’s call him Mr. French Roast— glances over at me. His lips quirk up in amusement, and I blush so hard I wouldn’t be surprised if the red reached my blonde hair and turned it orange. I am now the walking example of that color mixing chart Mrs. Williams has hanging on the wall for moments like these. You know, those moments when her students wonder what color they should make the hair of a socially inept blonde woman.

“I apologize for the interruption to your,” his mouth twitches, “dance lesson, but Principal Novak called and said Mrs. Williams needed a sub and they were having trouble finding someone. He asked if I was free to step in for the day…” he trails off, his gaze sweeping around the room, taking in the kids’ Lego self-portraits and my own Lego person drawn on the white board. “But it looks like maybe they found someone after all.” This is it, the point at which I should tell him my whole, sorry saga. I open my mouth just as he grins, and a dimple pops up on his chin. “And someone a lot more qualified than me, at that.” Mr. French Roast gestures to the white board. “I’m more of a stick figure kind of artist.”

Go on , my brain prompts, tell him the truth . My mouth snaps shut and smiles back at him. “Anyone can draw a Lego person if they just take it step by step.”

“Oh really?” His dimple is back.

“Yes, really.” I tap the board with the bottom of my dry erase marker. “Case in point, this is the drawing I just did step by step with the kids. Ask them how their pictures have turned out.”

“Mine’s amazing,” one boy shouts enthusiastically, waving his paper around. “And once I color him, he’s going to look just like my Luke Skywalker Lego guy.”

“See,” I say smugly, just as Bella says, “But I thought these were supposed to be self -portraits.”

Okay, I’m not convinced this girl is actually a kindergartner. She’s got her life way too together for a 5-year-old. I bet she’ll have an actual career before I do.

“Uh, that’s right.” I paste on a bright smile. “These are supposed to be Lego self-portraits.” I turn to the little boy and give him a wink. “Are you Luke Skywalker, buddy?”

He shakes his head sadly. “I wanted to be him for Halloween, but my mom took away my lightsaber after the third time I broke something with it.”

I’m not quite sure what to say to this, but it doesn’t matter because Mr. French Roast is already on it. “No weapons at the school’s Halloween parade anyway, Oliver, so your Wookiee costume will be way better.”

Oliver’s frown immediately turns upside down. “It is a pretty cool costume.”

Whew. Crisis averted. I don’t actually know what a Wookiee is, but I smile at Oliver anyway and do the same thing I did when I was 16 and the boy I liked asked if I thought Obi-Wan failed Anakin. I bluff .

“Wookiees are the best, Oliver!” I exclaim, holding my hand out for a fist bump, which Oliver quickly returns.

“You like Star Wars, Miss Garza?” Oliver looks at me with renewed admiration.

Like is a strong word for a series of movies that I’ve only ever fallen asleep during. I could tell a little white lie, but once I told my nephew that, of course I loved Spider-Man, and then got outed as a liar ten minutes later when he brought me an action figure of some Spider-Man villain and I didn’t know who it was. Liam still talks about that. "Aunt Hannah lied to me," he tells random relatives at family gatherings.

“I like Han Solo,” I say, proud of my diplomatic, yet truthful answer. I mean, who doesn’t like Harrison Ford?

“Oh yeah!” Oliver crows, bouncing up and down on his stool with excitement that modulates his speech, making random syllables louder than the rest. “That’s WHAT pastoRABBOT is goING toBE for HalloWEEN.”

“Oh, that’s so cute,” I exclaim. He’s dressing up his pet rabbit for Halloween. I look toward Mr. French Roast and make an aww face. For some reason his brow wrinkles in amusement. Guess I’m the only one who finds that cute.

“Miss Garza,” a little girl calls from across the room, “I have to go potty. ”

“Um…” I look around the room, searching for a door that might have a toilet behind it.

“Go ahead, Lindy,” Mr. French Roast walks over to Mrs. Williams’ desk and grabs a pink lanyard with a paper paintbrush marked bathroom pass attached to it and passes it over to her. As she skips to the door, pigtails swinging behind her, he turns to face me.

“So you seem to have things in hand here, Miss Garza.”

Having been busy admiring the way his shoulders fill out his button-down shirt, I quickly snap back to attention, hoping he doesn’t notice the stars in my eyes.

“She’s the best art teacher I’ve ever had,” the little girl sitting closest to us announces, and my heart swells. Mr. French Roast chuckles.

“Well, I’m happy to hear you like your substitute so much, Maren. You think your older sister will like having her later today?”

“Oh yeah!” Maren shouts. “Nikki will love her!”

Wait? Later today? I’m not staying. Am I? I can’t stay. I have to call Channel 3. Plus, I still haven’t given Ellie her lunch, and she’ll be leaving for her field trip soon. And oh yeah: I’m not actually a substitute teacher !

“Actually—” I start to say, but the rest of my sentence dies on my lips as Mr. French Roast turns back to me. Words I hadn’t planned on saying slip out instead. “Are you staying too?”

He cocks his head in confusion, and I shake my head as I realize how stupid that sounded. Why would we both stay?

“I meant, uh, that is…will you be around the school today too…you know…if I have any questions.” Yikes. I need a lobotomy. Someone just cut my head open and take away the part of my brain that just produced that sentence.

He looks at his watch. “Uh, actually, no. Not today. Since I’m no longer needed in here, that frees me up to head to the hospital, but Mrs. Weston in the room next door can help you with any questions or issues that come up.”

“The hospital?” He’s a doctor. A doctor who’s good with kids. I bite back another dreamy sigh.

“Yeah, I’m going to go pray with Mrs. Williams and her dad.” Oh. Not a doctor. Duh. Why would a doctor be moonlighting as a substitute teacher?

“Oh, that’s so nice,” I put my hand to my heart. He’s a Christian. That’s actually better than the doctor thing. Mr. French Roast looks amused again.

“Yeah, I guess.”

It occurs to me then, that maybe he’s giving me such a funny look because he’s not Mr. French Roast. He’s Mr. Williams! Oh no. He must be. And that’s why the school called him to come in. They couldn’t find a sub for her, so they called her husband to stand in for her while she went to be with her dad. But now that I’m here, he can go be with her.

I just have the worst luck with men.

He’s still looking at me, so I resist the urge to peek at his left hand for a ring that would confirm my suspicions.

“It was nice meeting you, Miss Garza.” He smiles and waves his hand. His right hand. How unhelpful.

He starts towards the door. I wish I could call after him and tell him I’ve changed my mind, but how would that look? He’s racing to the hospital to be by his wife’s side, but now that he might no longer be single I’m going to bail on him? No, I guess I’ll just have to stick this one out. Although—

“Wait, before you go,” I call out to him, and he turns. I hurry over to my desk and grab Ellie’s lunch. “Any chance you could make sure Ellie Bernard gets this? Her, uh, mom dropped it by. Said she needed a sack lunch for the second grade field trip.”

“Sure thing,” Mr. French Roast, I mean Williams takes the lunch bag. His gaze lingers on my face for a beat longer than acceptable, and against my will my heart picks up speed. Maybe I jumped to conclusions. Maybe he’s not married and has just now decided he can’t leave this room without getting my phone number first.

“Uh,” he looks suddenly uncomfortable, as he reaches up and touches his left eye, “not sure if you know, but, uh, I think maybe you only have eyeshadow on one eye.”