I squint. Well. Good start.
I enter the staff lounge and introduce myself around. I say hi to Miss Burns, the current art teacher, someone I don’t know. She’s older, maybe sixty, and I wonder if she’ll retire soon. Please.
Melinda flits around the room, dressed in a killer blue pantsuit—how many does she have?—her diamond headband in her hair. She studiously ignores me.
I head to a coffee bar, get a large cup, and pour in a liberal amount of creamer.
Someone comes up next to me, and by smell alone, Ralph Lauren’s Polo, I know exactly who. My entire body prepares for war.
Fortifying myself, I plaster on a fake smile and turn.
“Nova, oh my God,” he says as he takes me in, his golden, warm eyes eating me up. “I tried to find you Friday but missed you in the hall. I can’t believe it’s you!” He gives me a sheepish grin. “I drove past your house this weekend, but you weren’t home.”
I flinch. “Why?”
Color rises on his cheekbones. “Oh, I had a congratulatory gift for you on getting the job. Nothing big. Honestly, I felt like I was in high school again, cruising past your house—only now I drive a Range Rover instead of a Corvette. Those were the days, right?”
I nod, my spoon furiously stirring my coffee. He’s tall, about six-one, his hair a blond color that complements his topaz eyes. Wearing gray dress slacks and a blue button-up shirt, he’s still a fastidious dresser. Annoyingly, he hasn’t gained weight. At least he has a few lines in the corners of his eyes.
“You look the same,” he says. “Still beautiful, Nova.”
Ah, but beauty was never enough, was it?
I reply back with the usual “Oh, you look great too” while my head tries to decipher how I feel about him. His smell makes me feel nostalgic, recalling us in his red Corvette, his arms around me, fingers playing with my hair. I remember how he’d moisten his lips with mango ChapStick before we kissed— “I’m separated from Paisley,” he says quietly, dropping that bomb as easily as saying the sun is shining. A frown flits over his face as he takes in my expression. “Sorry. I wasn’t sure if you knew, but everyone else does . . .” He shifts around me, his arm brushing against mine as he picks out a mug and fills it with coffee. “It happened several months ago. It’d been rocky for a while.” He takes a long sip, holding my eyes over the rim. “I’m sorry about your mom. I sent flowers.”
I continue to stir my drink. I hadn’t known about him and Paisley. I never checked his socials or asked anyone. “Maybe it will work out.”
“Yeah, well, sometimes fate decides those things for you. What’s meant to be will always be, right?”
“Hmm.”
He eases closer, and I don’t move away, part of me transfixed by him, by the reality that Oh my God, we’re having a normal conversation.
His head dips, then rises up to capture my eyes. “It’s funny. I feel like I want to tell you everything that’s happened since you’ve been gone. I guess once you grow up with someone, once you share everything we did, it doesn’t matter how much time passes—you feel as if you’re still close . . . but then, I’m not sure if you feel the same.”
There’s a heavy silence.
He sighs, overlooking my silence. “Anyway, my daughter is eight now. Brandy. She’s in third grade and a damn good soccer player.” He chuckles, then sobers. “Paisley and I are splitting custody. It’s been hard, the sharing and going back and forth, but for the best.” He takes a sip of his coffee, his eyes going to my left hand. “You never got married?”
“No.”
His gaze softens. “Is it nuts that I’m glad?”
Anger and hurt flare like a lit torch. How dare he? Does he expect me to be flattered? If he hadn’t cheated, then abandoned me in New York, I would have been married to him. My hands clench around my mug, and I open my mouth to lash out— Thankfully, Skeeter marches in the lounge, whips his ball cap off, and wipes at his hair. “Lice alert on the baseball and volleyball teams! I knew we’d have an epidemic, and it’s happening!” He looks at Principal Lancaster. “We might need to shut school down for a day or so. Call it a snow day!”
“I’m sure it will pass,” the principal murmurs.
Skeeter ambles over to us, reaches for his mug, and then fills it, not quite meeting my eyes as he turns red. “Good to see you, Nova. Thanks again for, um, Friday. Sorry about, you know, before, um, well, when me and Lois . . .”