Читать книгу Head Over Heels: Drive Me Wild / Midnight Cravings - Beth Harbison - Страница 6

Chapter Two

The familiarity of the Connor Primary Day School campus was disconcerting to Grace. It was as if nothing had changed in the twenty-some years since she’d attended, except that the trees were a little taller and the buildings looked a little smaller. Hope mingled with melancholy as she parked the car and got out to walk to the old red barn where the garage was located. Was it merely familiarity that was making Grace’s stomach flutter this way, or was it a premonition that she would get the job and everything would—eventually—be all right?

Having always been an optimist, she decided to believe the latter.

The office door was shut when she reached it, and for one terrible moment she feared that Ms. Lindon had sent her on a wild-goose chase. Grace had been so insistent about interviewing for the job that maybe the woman had just sent her out here to get rid of her. Her fear was exacerbated when she knocked and there was no answer. Within a few seconds, she’d almost convinced herself that there wasn’t even anyone here when a movement behind the old mottled-glass door caught her eye. Someone was here. Ms. Lindon wasn’t that mean—Grace had just let her imagination get carried away. She took a quick breath to bolster her nerve and knocked again, more firmly. A voice called out something inside, but she couldn’t understand what it said. Come on in? Or maybe Go away! Or even Get help, fast, I’m being held at gunpoint!

Now what was she supposed to do?

Deciding it was better to go forward with confidence than to appear timid, she opened the door and poked her head in, surprised to find she was so blinded by the sun outside that she couldn’t see in the dark, cool office. “Mr. Stewart?”

“That’s right. What can I do for you?” The man’s voice was nice. Smooth and kind, and she felt herself relax when it reached her.

She stepped in from the heat and said, in the general direction of the voice, since her eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the light, “I have an appointment to interview with you. About the job opening here.”

There was an uncomfortable moment of silence while the splotchy figure across the room sat unmoving. Just as he was beginning to come into view, he said, in a voice she was suddenly able to place with absolute clarity, “Grace?”

Her stomach dropped. She imagined it plunking on the ground next to her and bouncing like an india-rubber ball. She blinked hard, and within a few seconds her vision came back to normal.

She almost wished it hadn’t.

There, before her, was a face she’d envisioned a million times over the years, a face she’d never thought she’d see again. A little older, of course, but the same golden tanned skin, now with a faint web of lines around the clear blue eyes. Same dark wavy hair that, in contrast, had always made those eyes absolutely striking. She’d always reacted physically to them, and to the charismatic man they belonged to.

Luke Stewart.

Grace couldn’t have been more surprised to see him if he’d been lassoing steer in her mother’s backyard. God almighty, she’d never dreamed Luke was the Mr. Stewart she was supposed to see. She didn’t even know he was still in town. Not only in town, but here, not ten feet away from her, behind a desk that was piled with papers, the odd piece of horse tack and quite possibly control of her future.

It seemed like twenty minutes that Grace stood there, trying to recapture her breath and find a voice beneath the stomach and heart that had lodged themselves in her throat. It wasn’t merely surprising to see Luke, it was deeply disconcerting. It had always been disconcerting to be around Luke Stewart, but why hadn’t she outgrown this particularly juvenile kind of heart-pounding, lip-trembling, struck-dumb reaction?

Just because once upon a time, a long time ago, she’d thought she’d loved him.

But instead of telling him, she’d married his best friend.

It was Luke who finally broke the silence. “You’re back.”

She nodded. “For a while.”

He held her gaze. She felt as powerless as a mortal in a Greek myth, unable to look away. “I thought you were gone for good,” he said.

Grace hoped she could sound calm and unaffected while her insides raged. “You just never know about people,” she said pointedly.

“No,” he agreed, just as pointedly. “No, you don’t.” He took a deep breath and blew it out, shuffling papers on the desk. “So. How long are you planning to stay?”

“About a year. I want to take my son back to New Jersey as soon as I can. To his friends and his school and all.”

Something flickered across Luke’s expression, but it was gone before she could identify it. “I heard about Michael. I’m sorry.”

Had he heard it from Michael himself? Surely not. They’d been pals in high school, but as far as Grace knew, they hadn’t spoken in years. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

He shrugged. “Never did. What are you here to talk about, Grace?”

“I’m here about school business, of course.”

“Of course. How old’s your boy?”

“Ten.” Grace tried to think of something else to say, but she was stymied. She began to be aware of perspiration trickling down the center of her back, and wondered if it was the unusual May heat or this conversation with Luke that caused it.

She was completely over him.

Had been for years.

All of which was for the best, since he had never shared her feelings. In fact, during the three years of high school when they’d seen each other the most, they’d spent about 90 percent of their time arguing.

“So you’re looking to enroll him here for the year.” Luke nodded as if he’d figured out a puzzle. “We should probably move this discussion to my office and start over.”

“This isn’t your office?”

He looked around at the mess. “No. This is the garage. You wanted the main building. It’s just lucky I happened to be here.”

Lucky wasn’t the word that came to Grace’s mind. “This is where I was told to come,” she said, feeling her face grow warm and hating herself for it.

“Someone told you to come to the garage?”

She sighed. “Look, Luke, I’m not here to enroll my son and volunteer for classroom cookie duty, I’m here about the job. So are you going to interview me or not?”

“The job?” he repeated, as if the idea were incomprehensible. “What job?” Though his manner didn’t show it, he must have been rattled, because she’d already said why she was here. “There’s only one job opening here, and that can’t be…driving the bus?”

“Yes.” Grace raised her chin defiantly. “That’s the job I’m here about.”

He laughed. Laughed! “Give me a break.”

“What?”

“Come on. You’re Junior League, not bush league. You can’t be serious.”

“I’m completely serious.” Then she added, under her breath, “How many times am I going to have to say that today?”

A year ago, Grace couldn’t possibly have envisioned herself begging to be a bus driver. Someone could have won a lot of money on this bet.

He studied her for a moment, then said, “I don’t believe it.”

“What, do you think this is a joke? Do you think I just blew into town and decided the first thing I had to do was track you down, take some abuse about my marriage, then pretend to beg you for work? Does that make more sense, Luke, than Bayside Jobs sending me here looking for legitimate employment?”

“Actually, I have a hard time envisioning either scenario. But if Mary did send you here to drive the bus, I can’t even imagine what she was thinking. I’m afraid she had you come out here for nothing.”

“Mary?” Who was Mary?

He turned and looked at her sharply, as though he’d caught her trying to making faces at him. “Mary Lindon. You did say you were sent from Bayside.”

“Y-yes.” Mary? Lord, Grace must have called her Ms. Lindon forty times today and the woman hadn’t once stopped her and said, as almost anyone else would have, “Call me Mary, please.” Grace cleared her throat. “Mary thought I’d be perfect for the job.”

“Really,” he said, but his tone said bull.

Grace nodded. She had to compose herself, had to return the tone of this meeting to something less personal, more professional. “Obviously this is a little awkward, since we know each other. Is there someone else I should speak to instead?”

“Someone higher up, you mean?”

“Well…”

“I’m the headmaster,” he said, flatly. “I’m afraid it’s up to me.”

Headmaster? Oh perfect—she’d really blown it then. “Okay. Well, I came here for an interview, like anyone else off the street, so pretend I’m a stranger.” She drew herself up. “Now, are you going to interview me or not?”

A muscle ticked in his jaw for a moment, before he said, “Sure. If that’s what you want.” He jotted her name on the back of a telephone book on the desk and drew a line under it, then looked at her, obviously trying not to smile. “Tell me how long you’ve been driving school buses now, Grace.”

Heat rose in her cheeks. He wasn’t going to make this easy. “The job description clearly said that no experience was necessary.”

“Maybe not necessary, but it helps. More qualified drivers will have the edge there.” He made a note of it. “You have a commercial driver’s license?”

She heard a single minor piano chord ring ominously in her brain. “Oh, come on, Luke, what do you think?”

He leaned back in his chair and gave her a lazy look that would once have made her toes curl, but now just ticked her off. “I think you’re applying for a job driving a bus, so you must have at least some vague notion of what that job entails.”

She tried to stay calm. “I think it entails starting the engine and driving from place to place picking up children and bringing them to school, which is pretty much what we, in my old neighborhood, called ‘car pooling.’ How different can it be?”

“For one thing, you need a commercial driver’s license in order to do it here.”

“I can get one, right?”

He gave a half shrug that said wrong. “Have you learned your way around an engine since I last saw you?” he asked. By now his face wore the same bored expectation of a negative response that an airline clerk had asking if you’d packed your own suitcase.

This was no time to give up, Grace reminded herself, however tempting that might be. “I can learn.”

He released the pencil, letting it clatter to the desk. Then he leaned back, took a deep breath and let it out slowly, not unlike a hissing bus tire that had just run over the sharp shards of her broken heart. “Grace, I ask you this in all seriousness—do you have any idea what’s involved in taking this job?”

She straightened in her seat and smoothed her jacket, instantly regretting the prissy gesture. As a prospective bus driver, she should have brought a toothpick to chew on or something. “Not entirely.”

“For the license test, you’ll need to know the bus’s engine inside-out. They’re going to pop the hood and have you identify and locate every part of the engine, then they’re going to have you get down on your knees and identify the parts from underneath.” He counted his points triumphantly on his fingers. “Then they’re going to ask you what happens if any of those parts fail or wear out, and they’re going to ask you how to fix them.” He gave a small but meaningful shake of his head. “If you pass all that, then you get to take the driving test.”

It did sound daunting, but not as daunting as another registered letter from the IRS. “And you’re saying you don’t think I can do that?”

“I can’t see it, no.” Clearly he was harboring his old hostility toward her. “Point is,” he went on, “I’m expecting to hire someone who already has.”

“What if you can’t hire someone who already has?” she asked. “What if no one like that applies?”

“They will.”

“When do you need a driver?”

“For summer school. In four weeks.”

“Four weeks!” She threw up her hands. “And you’re only looking to hire someone now?”

“You’re not helping your case.”

“I’m trying to help yours. And mine.” She could tell she was getting nowhere with him. She remembered a chocolate bar for Jimmy that she’d put in her purse earlier, and made a mental note to inhale it the second this miserable meeting ended. “Look, maybe I should talk with someone else about the job, since you obviously can’t be objective about me.”

“As a matter of fact, I’m in the unique position of understanding just how wrong you are for this position.” He sighed and softened his voice. “Grace, you’d be miserable. Why are you even here?”

“Because I need work,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “And this is the only possibility in town.”

“But it’s not a possibility.”

“It is.” She knew she sounded desperate, but she didn’t care. She was desperate! “You can teach me whatever it is I need to know, and I can take the test and do the job so quietly you won’t even have to think about it again. I might be the best damn bus driver you ever had.”

“And you might hate it and quit after two days.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

“Well, you’ve already said you’re leaving town next year. I’m not hiring a lifeguard for the summer, I need a bus driver. I need someone who’s going to take the job, do it well and keep it for more than a single school year.” His gaze grew penetrating. “This is nothing personal.”

“Yes, it is!” She jabbed a finger in the air at him. “Personal is exactly what it is. You’re obviously holding something against me from a hundred years ago—”

“Not true.”

“—but if you think it’s easy for me to sit here and beg you for a job, you’re mistaken. If I can get past our history enough to work together, surely you can.”

“We don’t have a history.”

“Of course we have a history! We’ve known each other for eighteen years.” A small hurt flared in her, like a match lit on a windy night. How could he act as if they were total strangers? Maybe they hadn’t always gotten along, but once or twice in their past Grace had gotten the feeling that they had connected on a very deep level.

One instance in particular came to mind.

But now it was as if he was so eager to distance himself from her that he would even go so far as to distance himself from the facts. So she decided to remind him of those facts. “We went to high school together, Luke. You were my husband’s best friend, for Pete’s sake. That’s history.”

“That,” he agreed, “is history.”

She hesitated, unsure as to whether he was agreeing with her about the whole concept or if he was making the point that his friendship with Michael was history, as in kaput.

Because she knew that.

She remembered when it had happened.

Before she could think of something to say, Luke spoke again. “It’s irrelevant whether we have a history or not, because this is about qualifications. And you don’t have them. At least not the right ones.”

“I’ll bet I have better qualifications than most people you interview for this job,” she argued. “Have most of your applicants taken the Red Cross CPR course for infants and children? Can most of your applicants arbitrate an argument between two ten-year-olds? Can any of your other applicants tell the difference between the Robo-Crusier-Insect-Man and the Auto-Alien Transformer?”

Luke raised an eyebrow. “You think being able to make that distinction will come in handy?”

Her gaze was direct and serious. “You just never know.”

He studied her quietly for a moment, then, with a small nod, he said, “That’s true. But it doesn’t change my mind.”

“What would?” she asked plaintively.

He took a deep breath. A deep dismissive breath. “Look, I’ve got to admire your determination, but I don’t see this as a good fit. So I’ll keep your number on file and—”

“And what?”

He sighed. “And hope you forget this whole idea.”

“I can’t afford to,” she said, quietly but firmly. “I need this.”

“You’re not half prepared even to take the test, and like I said, summer school begins in just four weeks.”

“But I can learn, like I said.” She raised her chin and challenged him. “Besides, you’re ignoring some rather obvious extenuating circumstances.”

“Am I?”

Grace gathered her energy. “I won’t pretend to be able to read your mind, Luke, but I know you well enough to tell when you’re cornered.”

He raised an eyebrow.

She continued, “You need a driver. As you yourself have just pointed out, there are only a few short weeks until school starts, and—” she looked around the room “—I don’t see a lot of people lining up for this position, no matter how optimistic you may be about that happening as soon as I leave. I need a job. And while I may not have the exact qualifications you’re looking for, I’m willing to learn whatever I need to in order to satisfy your requirements. It seems obvious to me what you need to do.”

There was a long silence during which she trembled under his familiar gaze.

Finally, Luke broke the silence.

“You’re absolutely right. It’s very clear what I have to do.”

Hope surged in her. “Good.”

Luke stood up and gave her a cool appraisal. “Thanks for coming by, Grace. I’m sorry this didn’t work out, but good luck finding something else. And welcome home.”