Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Aiden went first, and I gave him the lead role of Connor to try with Emma’s Darcy. They were performing the beginning of the party scene, and the Darcy character had the first line.
“You don’t look like you’re having fun.”
“I’m not in a party mood.”
“I know that feeling. I don’t even want to be here.”
“Then why are you?”
I had to admit, the boy had a natural quality about him. He wasn’t overdoing it, nor was he tossing the lines away. To an unknowing bystander, this could have been two teenagers having a real conversation.
“My friends convinced me.”
“Where are they?”
Emma followed the stage direction and looked around before pointing off to the side. “That’s Rebecca over by the keg. I’m not sure where Molly is.” As called for, there was a pause before she asked, “What happened to your leg?”
“Twisted my knee during a baseball game.”
“Does it hurt?”
“It doesn’t feel great.”
“I’m sorry.” She turned away, as if hurt by his response .
“Nah, my bad. The brace helps, but doc says I might not be able to play again. There goes my free ride to college.”
“You can’t go to college?” Emma used the perfect inflection to show her character saw this as a big deal.
“Not where I want to go. I had offers from Big 10 schools, but they’ll probably pull those now.”
“You can still go somewhere else.”
“Easy for you to say. Being valedictorian and all.”
How Emma managed to blush on cue I did not know, but I was impressed.
“You know who I am?”
“Yeah.” Aiden extended his hand. “I’m Connor.”
“I know,” she said in a hush, taking his hand.
The pair stared at each other and I checked my script. No pause was called for. A second before I was about to feed him the line, Aiden said, “You want to get out of here?”
Emma nodded with a smile. “Yeah.”
You could have heard a pin drop as the pair on stage continued to stare, hand in hand, totally unaware of the rest of us.
“That’ll do,” I said in the understatement of the century.
That would more than do. Aiden Bishop was a freaking revelation. A gift from the acting gods. I could kiss Coach Collins for convincing him to join the play. Not that I would, ever, but wow. We had our male lead.
As if he’d done nothing special, Aiden returned to his seat with his typical blank expression. I let Burke do the same scene only with Kaitlyn as Darcy. There were no sparks like the ones between Emma and Aiden, nor did Kaitlyn match Emma’s performance. They would still do well in other roles with a little work.
Even with Burke and Aiden, we were a couple of actors short, but the ones playing smaller parts could double up. This was looking much better than when the auditions began.
Climbing onto the stage, I said, “Congratulations, everyone. We have a cast.” I paused for the small smattering of applause. “I’ll assign the parts tomorrow so we can start right away. Maddie and Hannah, I’ll meet with you on Thursday to talk about costumes and set design. Everyone else, see you back here on Monday at five o’clock for our first rehearsal.”
“Five o’clock?” Emma said. “Why not right after school?”
“The later start time is for Aiden and Burke. We’ll switch back to after school once the football season ends.”
Sensing a movement from the corner of my eye, I looked up to see Coach Collins sitting in the last row of the hall. He mouthed the words thank you and I nodded in recognition. He was the one who’d done me a favor.
“Thanks for coming, everyone. Parts will be posted outside my room on Thursday morning.”
The kids gathered their things, and Aiden and Burke headed up the aisle to the coach. He waved them outside, but instead of going with them, he walked my way. Great. Here came the I told you so .
I descended the three steps at the corner of the stage and crossed to where I’d left my things, but he beat me to the seat and grabbed the heavier of the two bags. It held half a dozen books and weighed a ton.
“I can get that,” I said.
“I’ve got it.” He held the bag with one hand as if it weighed nothing. “Thanks for giving the boys a shot, and for moving the rehearsals to a later time.”
“You’re welcome.”
We made our way up the aisle and I fought the urge to wrestle my bag away from him. Men being chivalrous made me twitch, but the bag was really heavy. The lingering dent in my shoulder from when I’d carried it earlier was proof.
“So the lead role is an athlete?”
“The male lead is, yes.”
“Are you going to give it to Aiden?”
Keeping that information to myself, I said, “We’ll see.”
Trey used his elbow to open the auditorium door. “He was good though, right?”
He wasn’t just good. He was great. But only in one short scene with no audience or time to overthink the lines and delivery. Could he keep that up? Could he memorize the lines? No way to know for sure. Other talented kids had shown this level of promise only to break under pressure. I couldn’t get my hopes up too soon.
“He was. But I have to be fair and consider all of the auditions.”
Total lie. The kid had the part. I just wasn’t going to tell Trey that with the I told you so still out there for the taking. Or was it for the giving? Either way, Coach Collins could wait along with everyone else.
He nodded. “I can see that. We go through the same with tryouts. Each boy has to earn his place.”
“And girl,” I added.
Perplexed, Trey said, “Girls don’t play football.”
Not true. “What about that wee league stuff? Girls play there.”
“You mean pee wee league?”
“That’s it. I’ve watched my nephew play and there’s a girl on his team.”
We passed through the main lobby of the school, and Trey opened the outside door by backing into it, then holding it for me to walk through. “Yeah, they play at that age, but we don’t have girls on the team here.”
Okay, I didn’t follow sports, but I knew that much. He was missing the point. He didn’t get to erase girls from the conversation, about sports or anything else.
“But they do play other sports and have to try out for those teams. So boys and girls have to earn their place.”
Amusement in his voice, he said, “You like to argue, don’t you?”
“I’m not arguing. I’m stating a fact that you omitted.”
Unfazed, he continued walking beside me. “Then I stand corrected.”
Why was I annoyed while he was all affable puppy? “If I did like to argue, you’d be a terrible sparring partner.”
“Why is that?”
“Because you don’t fight back.” We reached my car and I set my purse on the trunk to search for my keys. I would normally have them out by now, but someone was distracting me. “Who would want to have a one-sided argument?”
“Isn’t the better question why would anyone want to argue all the time?”
Where the heck were my keys? “No one said all the time . I’m just saying that you suck at the occasional argument.” Growing frustrated, I shook my purse to send everything to one side. “Where are my dang keys?”
Trey said, “I don’t think you’ll find them in there.”
Used to the criticism, I continued my search through empty gum wrappers, wadded up gas receipts, and more emery boards than any one person needed. “I know I dropped them in here this morning.”
“Don’t think you did.”
He wasn’t helping. “ Now you want to argue with me?”
“I’m not arguing. Your keys are hanging in your ignition.”
“I…” Glancing through the rear window, sure enough, there they were. In the ignition. Inside the locked car.
A teacher’s salary didn’t allow for the purchase of fancy new cars. Mine was ten years old, contained a few dents, and though it came with the little key fob hicky-doo to lock and unlock the doors, in the mornings I typically tossed the keys in my purse and pressed the lock button on the door as I got out.
This morning, I’d clearly skipped one of those steps. The most important one.
“Well, crap.”
“Do you have roadside assistance?” he asked.
I should have, considering my car could die at any moment. “No, I don’t.”
Trey pulled a phone from his back pocket. “I’ve got a buddy I can call.”
Since when? “I thought you were new in town and didn’t know anyone.”
“Outside of this school, I don’t. Larry is my landlord.”
“You have a landlord with breaking and entering skills?”
Cutting me a that’s a stupid question look, he said, “No, he has a locksmith business.”
In a strange way that made sense. But this felt very much like him doing me a favor, and that would mean I owed him. Owing people wasn’t my thing.
“There’s an extra key at my apartment. I’ll use a car service and go get it.”
Already making the call, he dipped the phone beneath his chin and said, “Where’s your house key?”
“On my keych…” Man, he was annoying. Closing my mouth, I leaned on the car, arms crossed and in a full pout while he arranged for Larry to come open my door.
The girls all had keys to my apartment, but Megan was on her honeymoon, Becca was likely home with the baby, Donna mentioned an evening outdoor photo shoot this week—probably today with my luck—and Josie was at a hockey game with Miles and his employees from Hullaballoo.
Even if they weren’t all busy with their own lives, asking any of them to come bail me out when there was another option already here would be really lame. Trey’s call to the landlord was short and to the point, giving him the address and a description of my car. Seconds later, the cell was back in his pocket.
“He’s on his way.”
Feeling the chill in the air, I said, “How long?”
Trey set the bag of books he was still holding on the roof of my car. “Do you have bricks in here?”
“Books. How long?”
“I caught him finishing a job in Sewickley so maybe twenty minutes depending on how traffic looks on 79.”
We were getting close to rush hour and that highway was notorious for slowdowns. Especially with the construction going on right now. Though, when were Pittsburgh interstates not under construction?
“Meaning probably a half hour.” With a sigh, I shrugged. “Might as well grade papers while I wait.”
“I’ll pull my truck over and we can sit inside until he gets here.”
That wasn’t necessary. “You don’t need to wait with me.”
“I’m not leaving you out here alone.”
What horror did he think would befall me? “This parking lot is perfectly safe.”
He shook his head. “My mother will never forgive me if I leave.”
“Then we won’t tell her.” What mom didn’t know and all that.
“She’ll know.”
“How?”
Without answering, he looked up. So then I looked up to see a pigeon flying low over our heads. “Your mother is a pigeon?”
“You’re so cute,” he said. Words no one had ever uttered to or about me. “Mom passed away a couple years ago. I like to think she’s up there watching over me. I better bring the truck over before we get rained on.”
Rain in Pittsburgh was nearly always a given, outside of maybe a month during the summer. We weren’t quite Seattle or London, but somewhere in between. Literally and meteorologically.
I was still too stunned by the cute comment to do anything other than watch him cross three rows over to a silver pickup truck. As he drove down the aisle and turned my way, my brain finally came back online and the only thought in my head was I am not cute .
Refusing to get into the truck did enter my mind, but then a cold wind blew through and I climbed inside real quick. Trey had the heat going and within minutes, my toes were nice and toasty.
I expected—even almost preferred—an awkward silence to prevail, but Coach Collins turned out to be quite the chatterbox.
“Have you always lived in Pittsburgh?” he asked.
“Except for four years at Penn State, yes.”
“Do you want to live someplace else?”
Did I? The thought never occurred to me. “This is where my friends and family are. Where else would I go?”
He tapped the steering wheel and gave me the kind of look one gave a precocious preschooler. “Anywhere.”
“You mean hypothetically? Like one of those if money was no object scenarios?”
Trey shook his head. “No, that’s a different question. I mean if you decided you’d been here long enough and wanted to try teaching in a new place, where would you go?”
Again, why would I leave when everyone I cared about was right here? “I wouldn’t go anywhere. There are places I’d like to visit, but I don’t want to live anywhere else.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. Is that weird to you?”
He leaned back in his seat. “You seem more adventurous than that.”
First I was cute and now adventurous. The assumptions this man was making.
“Never take up fortune telling because you seriously stink at reading people.”
“Becca says you thought about moving to New York City after college.”
Becca needed to stop sharing my immature flights of fancy with near strangers. “I considered it, but then I came to my senses.”
Trey draped his arm across the back of the seats. “Sensible is overrated.”
“To you maybe.” What did a guy who taught young men to run into each other know about being sensible? “I prefer it.”
He was not convinced. “You need more adventure in your life.”
I should have waited in the cold. “You don’t know anything about my life.”
“I know you refuse to date.”
Giving him my most droll look, I said, “How silly of me, when I could be having more conversations just like this one.” There was only one way to stop this deep dive into my life. Turn the tables. “I assume you like adventure?”
Taking the bait, he gave a half shrug. “I’m no adrenaline junky, but I’m not boring either.”
Meaning, he thought I was boring, but if I defended myself we’d be back to analyzing my life, and that was not happening. Not dating didn’t mean I’d forgotten how willing men were to talk about themselves.
“Where did you grow up?” I asked.
“Outside Philly, though I don’t mention that too much around here.”
“Why?”
His expression changed, as if this was a stupid question. “Because we’re big sports rival towns. Pittsburghers don’t like Philadelphians and vice versa.”
Best to play along. “Right. Of course. I knew that.”
A smile split his face and for a split second he was actually cute. Good grief, now we were both delusional.
“No, you didn’t,” he said.
Back to the questions. “What did your parents do?”
Eyes twinkling, he went along. “Mom built a house cleaning business while raising the three of us by herself. Dad never held a job for long, and then he was gone before I was four.”
This news was delivered so matter-of-factly that you’d think we were talking about the weather.
“Gone?” I repeated. “As in he passed away?”
“No, just gone. He left for cigarettes one day and never came back. Pretty cliché, I know.”
I may have been cynical, but I wasn’t entirely heartless. That must have been devastating for a little boy. “I’m really sorry.”
For the first time, his gaze shifted off of mine. “We got by. He wasn’t the most present parent anyway.”
The little boy was still in there, no matter how hard the muscle bound man wanted to believe otherwise. Reluctant to poke the wound, I changed the subject. “You said she raised three of you. Are you close with your siblings?”
“I am,” he said, relaxing. “We’re each a year apart so we grew up more like triplets. David is in Texas, and Julia lives over in Washington state. We video chat a lot, especially since losing Mom.”
I couldn’t imagine my siblings being so far away. There were times I might wish Joe wasn’t so close, but thousands of miles between us was a concept I couldn’t even fathom. Add losing a parent and my brain could not compute.
“You remind me of her,” he said.
“Your mom?”
“Yeah. She didn’t suffer fools and was extremely independent.” Jaw tight, he added, “I think that’s why Dad had no problem leaving. He knew she could take care of us on her own.”
A rationalization at best. Just because she could do it didn’t mean she should have had to.
“That’s crap.”
His head snapped my way. “What?”
“That’s crap,” I repeated. “Her being a capable woman is no excuse or a free pass for him leaving.” Megan’s mom did the same thing, and though her dad was amazing, being abandoned still messed her up for a long time.
Trey’s laughter surprised me. “That sounds like something she would have said if I’d ever been stupid enough to air that thought in front of her.”
At least he knew it was stupid. “Why do men always give other men a pass like that?”
He shook his head. “I’m not giving him a pass. What he did was wrong, but once I was old enough to realize that being an adult sucks, I considered his point of view at the time.” Leaning on his door, he scratched a nail across the bottom of the steering wheel. “There were factors I didn’t know. His dad didn’t stick around either. He was young. Ill-equipped. It is what it is.”
I hated that saying. “If he was equipped enough to make three babies, then he needed to stick around and help take care of them. Others have broken the cycle and he could have, too. You and your siblings deserved better.”
Grinning, Trey silently watched me. “What?” I asked.
“I’m remembering something else Becca said.”
Why were they even talking about me? “I’m sure in whatever story she told, I was way worse than she made me out to be.”
“She says you’re protective and a staunch defender of your friends.”
Okay, that was accurate. “My rare good qualities.”
“Does that mean we’re becoming friends?”
How did I get out of this one? I wasn’t looking for new friends, nor did I believe Trey and I had a single shared interest between us. Other than teaching, of course. But if he was going to be hanging around with my small group of cohorts, I had to at least learn to tolerate him.
“Anyone with a heart would feel belligerent on behalf of an abandoned little boy. We’re acquaintances and coworkers, and maybe we can work up to friends. How’s that?”
Looking as if I’d given him a prize, he nodded. “I can live with that.”