14. Clint
School started in less than a week, and that meant getting my classroom ready. Which meant I was blasting nineties dance music from the portable speaker I had for my phone.
Dee was going to her mother’s early, because Dee begged me to go to dance practice tonight, and promised she would just watch. I’m already going to be behind, at least I can see what they’re learning.
Which also meant this was my last day with my daughter for a while, and I wanted to hang out with her. Fortunately, she didn’t mind spending time with me at the high school.
I finished hanging a laminated periodic table poster, singing the elements to the tune of Salt-N-Pepa’s Shoop.
“At least other embarrassing parents sing the sex lyrics,” Dee said from the spot where she was stocking the closet that held gloves, litmus strips, and other disposables. She wanted to earn enough for a new pair of shoes that she was nuts for. The deal was, if she gave me her time this morning, she could have the shoes.
I grabbed last year’s stack of dry erase markers, and made mark after mark on the new poster, erasing lines that showed up and tossing the markers that didn’t leave one. “Other embarrassing parents aren’t the triple threat I am.”
“Triple threat. Uh-huh.” Dee gave an unimpressed huff. “You’re out of tune, your moves are so last decade, and your music is cringe.”
“Whoa.” I grabbed the next poster from the stack flattening on the table in the front of the room. “Do not dis the tunes.”
She stuck her tongue out at me. “Hey, Xerxes, play Ariana Grande.”
“I can sing to that just as easily,” I warned.
Dee wrinkled her nose. “I’m pretending you can’t. Where are the pipettes?”
I ticked through the list in my head, and pointed to one of the boxes in the corner. “Should be in there. If they’re not, check the bag in back.” I sang the words to the music for i wish i hated you.
“Pretending you’re not chuegy,” she called over her shoulder as she headed to the first location.
I laughed and went back to my work.
After Regina ensured I was blackballed from most local professional dance companies, I didn’t know what I was going to do. Moving out of state wasn’t an option because I wouldn’t leave Dee behind. I had a minor in chemistry, and was friends with one of the teachers at the high school in Haddarville. I was hesitant to accept a job here, but it turned out that the performance a teacher did was its own kind of dance.
I also coached the cheerleading team. Everyone in the school did more than one job—this wasn’t the kind of place where we had extra teachers.
I kept half an eye on Dee, who headed into a windowed-off portion of the room to look for supplies, while I sang and danced and hung another poster.
“Do you really wish that?” Brodie’s voice cut through the lyrics.
My heart dropped into my stomach, and it was nearly twenty years ago. The pictures on the wall were different, and the board up front was black instead of white, but somehow the room still smelled like chalk dust, sulfur, and rubber. And Brodie and I were sitting at a table in back. We’d finished our lab early—I let him take the credit because I didn’t need anyone knowing I was a straight A student—and he was telling me about his plans after graduation.
I shook the memory aside and faced him with a smirk. “I’d have to care to wish I hated you.”
“Ouch.” Brodie’s casual expression made me think the words didn’t land very hard.
That was fine. I didn’t have intense feelings about him in any direction except that I wasn’t going to let him steal Aubrey away from us, or whatever he thought he was doing there. “What’s up?”
“Hi, B.” Dee interrupted as she returned with an armload of pipettes and baking soda tablets.
Brodie waved. “Hey, Dee. Question for you.”
“What’s up?” She set her find on the floor by the cabinets, and gave him her full attention.
“If I’m B and Aubrey is Bree, doesn’t that get confusing?”
Dee laughed. “No.” She turned to her work. “Her name has an r in it.” The duh hung heavy in her voice.
I couldn’t help but smile and shake my head at the exchange. I think she won. “Hey, Xerxes, volume to ten.” Once I found out what Brodie wanted and sent him on his way, I could turn the music back up. “What’s up?”
“Saw your car in the parking lot, and figured you might be setting up for the school year. Thought I’d see if you needed help.” He leaned against the doorframe.
Once upon a time I would’ve fallen over myself to see him like this. Casual. Hot. Back in town.
Once upon a time.
The offer wasn’t strange for the guy I used to know, but this Brodie had changed, and I suspected there was another motive behind his visit. One with blond hair, lots of tattoos, and a great ass.
Knowing he wasn’t really here to work didn’t mean I would let his offer slide. “You can help me stock the chem shelf.” I nodded to far more secure cabinets on the opposite wall from Dee.
The jars were all sealed and made to be stored safely, because several of them were toxic either alone or when mixed with others in the same cabinet. Was I looking for an excuse to nag Brodie if he handled them wrong?
That would be petty of me.
The first thing he did was scan the box, without picking anything up, then grab the appropriate pair of gloves from one of the shelves Dee stocked earlier, as well as a pair of goggles.
With him here and the music turned down, the atmosphere was heavier than I cared for. Partly because I was waiting for him to get to the point.
As far as I knew, Brodie hadn’t talked to anyone from Haddarville since he left, aside from Aubrey. That wasn’t on purpose, though. He’d kept tabs on the town. And according to rumors, since he’d been back and wasn’t with Aubrey, he was asking around town about property for sale.
Not that I should listen to rumors, but that was one I couldn’t make myself ignore.
When he left after high school, it wasn’t that he couldn’t wait to get out of this place. His attitude was more along the lines of one place is as good as another and the place he’d headed would let him start his business.
So why was he here—in town and in my classroom?
“Are you feeling better this morning, Dee?” Brodie asked as he worked.
“Yes.”
“Doing anything fun with the rest of your day?”
Was he asking Dee the questions because he didn’t think I’d answer? Because he was looking for the kind of honest answer a ten-year-old was more likely to give? Was he just being polite?
“This is fun,” Dee said.
Good kid.
Brodie spent an extra few seconds facing the jars in the row he’d just finished, until they lined up like a well-trained drill team. “Well, yeah, but I meant after this.”
I wanted to believe he was being genuine. The guy I knew back in the day didn’t know how to do any conversation besides honest. Then again, teenage Brodie hadn’t been great at any small talk, it was one of the things I’d adored about him.
Between teaching teenagers and my divorce, my bullshit detector had become finely honed over the last few years, and he was up to something he hadn’t revealed yet. For now, he wasn’t causing any harm, so I’d watch cautiously to see if he tipped his hand.
“I have dance practice.” Dee finished her tasks and climbed onto the closest table to sit on the edge, instead of using a chair.
“Do you like to dance?” Brodie asked.
Dee hesitated.
I was seeing this more and more with her.
Her smile rushed in, bright as if she was on stage. “It’s my favorite thing ever. I can’t dance right now because I’m sick, but if I go to practice, I’ll still see the new things they learn, so I’m not too far behind.”
When Dee opened her mouth and her mother’s voice came out, it concerned me.
“Dad, I’m bored.” She kicked her legs back and forth, letting her heels hit the wooden sides of the high chemistry counter.
I paused in my work to pull a few bills from my wallet. “Now’s a good time for a break. Go get us some sodas and chips.”
Dee hopped down before I finished talking, and sprinted to me. “Okay. What do you want, B?”
“What are my choices?”
“Same choices as the last time you were here,” I said. “Coke. Orange flavored. Chips in a random assortment.”
Brodie furrowed his brow. “They’re the literal same drinks and chips aren’t they?”
“They might be. It’s the same vending machine. Though, I’m pretty sure legally they have to swap the contents out at least once a decade.” I wasn’t going to joke with him. I wasn’t getting pulled into easy conversation.
Dee huffed. “They sell stuff all the time. Of course it’s not the same food as back in the dinosaur ages.”
Thank God for kids, keeping me on track.
“Orange soda and Cheetos,” Brodie said.
No. That wasn’t right. He hated getting orange dust on his fingers. “We don’t have any chopsticks.”
“You have disposable gloves.” Brodie nodded at the cabinets.
Dee laughed. She’d find out soon enough that he was serious. She ran out of the room, and I called after her, “No running in the halls.”
“Okay.” She yelled back.
The sound of her sneakers slapping tile didn’t change.
Brodie set his gloves aside in a decontaminate box, and washed his hands, before grabbing a pair of disposable gloves. He snapped one of them. “Remind you of anything?” His voice was light.
We’d done so many things we weren’t supposed to back then, and more than one of them involved rubber gloves. I wasn’t getting drawn into whatever this was. “Reminds me we’ll be dissecting frogs in fourth period in October.”
Chemistry was my jam, but I was the science teacher. We only had the one, so I covered all disciplines.
“I feel like we haven’t gotten a chance to catch up since I’ve been back.” Now Brodie was getting to it.
I’d break him before he broke me. “You know what I’ve been up to, I know what you’ve been up to. There. Caught up.”
“Did I do something to offend you?”
I could tell myself again I’d have to care for that to be the case, but apparently I did. “You haven’t told me why you’re really here.”
He grinned. Fucker. “Honestly?”
“Yes.”
“Aubrey said you two had plans, that she hung out with you and Dee a lot. I was going to smooth talk my way into joining all of you, but if Dee has dance, that means you meant to have Aubrey to yourself. I won’t be a third wheel?—”
“Again.”
“—but since I was here,” he continued as if I hadn’t interrupted, “it seemed weird to just up and leave.”
The clang of a soda can falling from a vending machine echoed from down the hall. I wouldn’t hear it if the building wasn’t so quiet, but that meant Dee had the chips, and she’d be back soon.
“Does that mean you’re not trying to win Aubrey over for yourself?” I should wrap this part of the conversation up quickly.
“I already have.”
Won her over? He wished. That was can number two falling. “Does she know that?”
“She’ll have more time to think about it once Sylvie’s wedding is over. Or canceled,” Brodie said.
Wait. What?
That was the sound of can number three.
“Why would the wedding be can?—”
“The fiancé’s a dick,” Brodie said.
We knew that? “Does Aubrey know that?” I heard Dee running back.
“She does.”
I’d have to ask Aubrey directly, but this thread of the conversation needed to end, because Dee was back.
Plus, having her as a buffer would give me a few minutes to decide if I wanted to punch Brodie in his smug face for thinking he’d already won Aubrey over.
We all took seats on stools around one of the work tables near the front of the room, and Dee handed out our snacks.
Brodie pulled on one glove, and she looked surprised. “Can I do that, Dad?”
“You didn’t get cheesy chips.” I hadn’t expected her to react like that.
Dee opened her soda. “Not now. I mean at home when we have Cheetos.”
“Chopsticks are better than gloves,” Brodie said.
No, really. He needed to stop putting ideas in her head.
“Can I learn to use chopsticks, Dad?”
Fuck it. There wasn’t a good reason to tell her now. “Sure. Next time you’re at the house for dinner, I’ll show you.”
“Okay.” That made her happy and she dug into her snack.
While we munched, Brodie held up a piece of notebook paper that looked like it had come from one of my notebooks.
“If you mix those chemicals, they crystallize and become useless,” he said.
I grabbed the notes from him. They must have fallen in the box while I was packing things up. “Not if you use the right ratio, and add the appropriate catalyst.”
“Really. I wouldn’t have thought…” Brodie sounded genuinely intrigued. “Then what happens?”
“They become flexible and bond into a strong thread.” I was pleased with the discovery, but didn’t have anyone to explain it to. “Like synthetic spider silk.”
“You mean similar, but not identical,” Brodie said.
I washed down my chips with a long swig of soda. “Technically, yes, because the chemical composition is different. But functionally? I think I can get it close enough to identical to matter.”
“No one’s been able to do that.” Brodie was staring at me.
Finally I knew something he didn’t. “I have.”
Dee was gobbling her chips and drink at an unnatural rate. I placed a hand on her arm. “Slow down, kiddo.”
“You guys are boring.” She hopped from her stool. “Can I go play?”
She was about to spend more than a week at her mom’s, and it was unlikely she’d get to do much besides watch dance and read. “Sure. You can tumble on the mats in the gymnasium, but don’t push yourself too hard.”
“Thank you, Dad.” She ran to the door, stopping long enough to wave at us. “Bye, B.”
“See ya.” He waved back, then turned to me again “You have to tell me more.”
I had to take a moment to be smug that I was the one with the information now. “Maybe. Stop trying to invite yourself on our date.”
“I already told you I gave up. Does Aubrey know it’s a date?”
I doubted he’d dropped the other topic so easily, but his question was a sharp reminder that Aubrey and I needed to talk about a few things. “I’m not trying to hide the fact from her, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“She’s still my fiancée.”
Fucking… Really? “I’m not doing this with you.” Arguing about who was a fiancé and who was a spouse.
“There was a time when you would have done a lot with me.”
“That was a long time ago, and then you left.” The words came out with more of an edge than I thought.
Brodie opened his mouth to reply, and the buzz of his phone cut him off. He grabbed the device and frowned as he stared at the screen. “I have to deal with this, but I want to finish this conversation. I’ll catch up with you. Have fun with Aubrey.” He was walking out the door as he finished talking.
Right. That was interesting, but it was done. I could focus on my life again.
I couldn’t get the conversation with Brodie out of my head though, as much as I wanted to. It stayed with me through wrapping up classroom work, taking Dee to lunch, and getting her home to pack.
When Regina came to pick her up, Dee buckled herself into the back seat, while I tossed her luggage into the rear of the vehicle. I closed the tailgate, to find Regina standing next to me.
“We need to talk when you bring the rest of her stuff up tomorrow,” Regina said.
Dee was moving up there for the school year a few days early, because of her insistence about attending dance class.
I already had one infuriating conversation stuck in my head; I didn’t need my ex-wife taking up brain space as well. “Don’t do that. Don’t give me vaguely threatening statements and then leave.”
“I’m not trying to be deceptive.” The usual snideness was gone from her voice. “I may need to change our custody schedule, but I don’t know yet. No reason to get into it if things don’t happen the way I hope.”
Nope. “You can’t keep Dee full time.” That was a hill I’d die on.
Regina clenched her jaw. “There’s nothing to talk about until I know more. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Her words mixed with Brodie’s visit, both refusing to leave my mind as I got ready for my date with Aubrey.
I hated that both things had the potential to spoil tonight, and I needed to get rid of the lingering thoughts before I picked up Aubrey.