Chapter One #3
She eagerly looked forward to quiet time with her sketch pad and children’s stories.
Her agent wanted two polished manuscripts, complete with artwork, by the time school started back.
If she didn’t love the children so much, she would write full-time.
She made twice as much in a year with her advances and royalties as she did at her teaching job, but she loved watching the kids’ faces when they learned something new.
She clapped her hands to get their attention. “Okay, everyone. It’s time for us to get our backpacks and be sure that everything is out of our desks. We don’t want the kindergarteners coming into this room next year to find your papers and crayons, do we?”
“No, ma’am!” a dozen little rising first graders echoed and ran toward the front of the room where their backpacks hung on hooks.
Maria stopped and wrapped her arms around Gracie and hugged her tightly. “I don’t want to go to first grade. I want you to be my teacher.”
At the first of the year, the child had reminded Gracie of herself when she’d first started school.
Had it not been for Walker and Tina in the same class, she might have never gotten over being so shy.
“I’ll miss you, Maria,” she said. “But I’ll be right here in this classroom if you need to talk to me, so don’t worry.
” She gave her another hug. “Miss Linda is so excited to have you kids in her room. She’s got all kinds of things planned for you. ”
“But, Miss Gracie,” Jason, a little first-grade boy frowned, “can we come back to this room if we don’t like first grade?”
“You are going to love it, I promise,” Gracie assured him. “Do you remember how you looked up to the first graders all year? Well, next year you get to be the ones the kindergarteners think are cool.”
“Okaaaayyyy.” Maria dragged out the word into several syllables. “I’ll try, long as you are right here if I need you.”
“Deal,” Gracie agreed. “I want you all to have a wonderful summer and remember to keep reading so you don’t lose your skills. I’ve put a brand-new book in your backpacks for each of you.”
Maria grabbed her backpack from the hook with her name above it. “I promise I will, and thank you.”
At the beginning of the year, Maria could speak very little English, and she was so shy that Gracie could hardly get a word out of her.
To hear her say anything and promise to read made Gracie feel like she had worked a miracle.
While the other kids got their backpacks, Gracie walked back through the three rows, with four desks in each one, to check for anything that might have been left behind.
Twelve students were more than she’d had in several years.
Last year the high school graduated ten seniors, and there was talk that if the enrollment shrank even more, Benson schools would most likely consolidate with Vega Independent School District.
If no one moved in or out of town, she would have ten children in her classroom next year.
When there was only five more minutes left in the day, Gracie said, “Now it’s time for us to line up. Maria, what is the rule?”
“Don’t get out of line,” she answered.
“That’s right. You can play all summer when you get home, but for now, we’re going to stay in line and get on the bus in an orderly fashion. No stopping on the playground for one last time down the slide before you leave,” Gracie reminded them.
“I’m going to help my daddy on the ranch this summer,” Trevor said.
Liam slipped his backpack over one shoulder. “My mama says we get to go to my poppy’s house while we are out of school. He lives by the lake in another town, and we’re going to catch big fishes.”
“That’s wonderful,” Gracie said. “Maria, you can be our leader today. I know you are all ready to be home, but stay seated on the bus, and don’t get up and wander around.”
“Yes, ma’am,” several children said.
Maria straightened her shoulders, took her place at the front of the line, and marched down the hallway with eleven students behind her.
Gracie brought up the rear, helped each of them inside the bus, and then waved until they were out of sight.
Then, with a sigh of relief mixed with sadness, she went back into the school.
“Hey, darlin’,” Ashton, the physical education and health teacher, who had been trying to get her to go out with him for a month, yelled from down the hallway. “What have you got planned for tonight?”
Gracie walked toward him, not because she wanted to, but because she had to get her own things from her room and there was no other way to get there. Hopefully, he would go back to Maryland where his kinfolk lived and stay there!
“Well?” he finally asked.
“Sorry,” she replied with a smile. “My brain is fried and needs a few weeks to rest. Tonight, I’m planning to go home to a long bubble bath and a book. But this summer, I’ll be helping my folks in their café when I’m not working on my children’s books.”
“I’m going to spend the whole summer as a lifeguard on the beach in Maryland. You could take a vacation and come visit me,” he suggested and winked.
“Thanks for the invitation, but I’ve got a full summer ahead of me,” she answered.
Not a chance, she thought. I’m in a committed relationship, even if hardly anyone knows about it.
“Can I call you?”
“You’ll be too busy with the beach bunnies to want to talk to me,” she told him and took a few more steps down the hallway.
“You are going to give in and go out with me when I get back,” Ashton called after her.
“I’ve told you repeatedly that I don’t date coworkers,” she said.
“You’ll change your mind,” he said with conviction.
“Not likely. Have a great summer. I’m going to gather up my things, lock my room, and turn in my final papers. See you in the fall, if you don’t decide to stay in Maryland.”
“And have you regret never knowing what a great boyfriend I would make? No way,” he teased.
“I’ll take my chances,” she answered with a laugh. Once she’d reached her room, she picked up her tote bag and, with a long sigh of relief, locked the door. She made a quick trip through the office and turned in her final inventory and other end-of-year papers.
Lightning zigzagged through the sky, and it seemed like the loud thunder that followed was right over Gracie’s head as she hurried to her SUV.
She slid behind the steering wheel minutes before hard rain pelted down in sheets that made visibility near impossible.
She turned on the windshield wipers, but they could hardly keep up.
What usually took only five minutes was a fifteen-minute trip home that afternoon.
She parked behind a red SUV she didn’t recognize and hoped Mae and Cleo hadn’t changed their minds about another renter and let out the last room to someone who was grumpy and complained about everything.
She grabbed her tote bag and purse and reached for the umbrella she kept in the back seat, only to remember that she had left it beside the door inside the house.
By the time she crossed the yard and was on the porch, she was soaked to the skin and her black hair hung in limp strings around her face.
“Shoes off. Oh. My. Sweet Lord!” Cleo gasped when she saw the condition Gracie was in.
“You stand right there, shuck out of all your clothing, and I’ll bring you one of my robes.
” She hurried off to one of the two downstairs bedrooms and returned with a thick bright pink robe and a towel.
“I’ll keep everyone in the kitchen until you are decent, but don’t tarry too long.
I made your favorite oatmeal cookies for the after-school snack since this is your last day of the year. ”
“I saw a car out in the drive. Have we got company?”
“We’ll talk about that when you get dried off,” Cleo answered.
Curiosity killed the cat, a voice in her head whispered and reminded her of her mother’s scolding when Gracie snooped in places she had no business getting into.
If her mother knew the real stories about what she and her two friends, Tina and Walker, had gotten up to, the woman would have put Gracie in a convent.
Like the time the three of them had found a case of Boone’s Farm strawberry wine hiding behind the feedstore and drank so much that they barely made it home.
Walker wrecked his bicycle. Tina almost got caught sneaking in the window of her bedroom.
Gracie’s parents grounded her for two weeks for breaking curfew.
They’d have for sure given her to the Sisters to straighten out if they’d known about all that wine.
She’d missed her friends so much that she cried every single night until she could go back to the Tomorrow Tree.
“With all the small-town gossip, I’m surprised Mama didn’t find out about a lot of the things that we did,” she murmured.
“But then, everyone in town blamed Tina for everything. She was the poor little rich girl who had money, a car, and parents who didn’t give a damn where she was, for the most part. ”
She dropped all her wet things on the rug, dried herself off with the towel, and then tied the robe around her tiny waist. I’ve missed you every day for a decade, Tina, but if you were standing in front of me right now, I might have to slap the hell out of you.
“Those cookies smell wonderful,” she said when she reached the kitchen. “Can someone tell me about that car out in the driveway?”
Gracie stopped in her tracks and blinked several times, but Tina did not disappear. She was not dreaming. Her old friend was really sitting at the table, in the same place where she always sat when they were kids.
Tina pushed her chair back and smiled as she stood. “It’s my car. Hello, Gracie. Now I know what Cleo and Mae were talking about when they said ‘after-school cookies.’”
Gracie was speechless and still didn’t believe her eyes. There was no mistaking that her old friend was towering over her, but she hadn’t even had a Christmas card from her in a decade.