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Seventeen.
I kept thinking she was finished, only for her to say, “Wait, there’s still more!” and pull out another one like she was Mary Poppins.
It just so happened to be observation day, and Sarah was seated at the back of my classroom with a clipboard—which she covered her face with to laugh when Finley said, “That’s it for today! Make sure to like and subscribe!”
“Thank you, Finley,” I said when she finished showing her books to her classmates—and her pretend subscribers. “As you put all those books back in your bag, why don’t you choose one for me to read this afternoon?”
Her face lit up with joy, and she knelt on the rug to make her selection. The classmates sitting closest to her scooted in to help her decide, and I turned to Sarah and shook my head with a chuckle.
Having Sarah in my room to observe my lessons didn’t make me anxious—not like it did when Cates came in the room. He was the principal before Sarah, and although he was perfectly nice and seemed to like me all right, I couldn’t quite relax with him staring me down as he stood at the back of the room. I was in constant fear one of my students would start acting out. And his feedback, as constructive as it was, always made me want to cry.
But with Sarah, I knew that even if everything went wrong, she’d simply jump in and help rather than pull me aside and tell me how I could have handled it differently.
She stayed for the entirety of my morning math lesson, even lingering at the back of the room as they lined up to go to art. She was still there when I returned to the classroom. “Show and Tell exhausts me,” I said, collapsing into my desk chair.
Sarah walked over to the chair that Mason usually sat in, scooting it closer to me. “I don’t know how you do it,” she said, writing down some more notes. “I could never teach kindergarten.”
“I could never teach those mouthy fifth-graders.” That was the grade Sarah taught before she became principal. “I’ll take Finley Reed’s antics over their drama any day.”
Sarah smiled from one corner of her mouth. “That kid is so funny. When does her dad usually get here, anyway?”
I reached for my phone and looked at the time. “Anytime now. Soon, I hope—I need some copies made.”
“He’s like your personal secretary.”
“That he is.”
“Owen said he’s meeting with him today,” Sarah said, crossing her legs. “I wonder what that’s about?”
She was looking at me as though I’d have some sort of clue about it. “Oh—I don’t know. Weird.”
She held her clipboard against her chest and grinned at me. There was something about the mischievous look in her eyes that made me a little uneasy. She always looked like this when she was up to something. Normally it indicated she was about to drop some bombshell announcement that only she was excited about, like new recycling bins or a team-building retreat. But this time, her amused stare scared me a little. “He’s pretty cute, isn’t he?”
I blinked. “Mason? I don’t know.”
“Yeah you do,” she said, a hint of feistiness in her voice. It felt like she was peering into my soul.
I tucked my hair behind my ears with a nervous laugh. “I haven’t really thought about him that way. But I mean, he’s a little easy on the eyes, I guess.” The man was a fucking god.
“I think he’s got a thing for you.”
You have no idea. My cheeks began to get warm as I thought about the night Mason and I spent together after the fall festival. That was over two weeks ago, and not a day had passed that I hadn’t replayed every moment in my mind. I never wanted to forget how he made me feel. Not that I ever could. “A ‘thing’ for me? I really doubt that.”
“No, I think he does. I’m picking up on a vibe there,” she said, gesturing in a circular motion with one of her hands. “And I’m not the only one.”
I shook my head in protest. “There’s no vibe. Mason’s just a volunteer, and I’d never—” At that exact moment, Mason entered the room carrying a caramel macchiato in one hand and a book in the other. He momentarily paused when he spotted Sarah in his usual spot, his eyes darting from me to her before he made his way over to us.
“Speak of the devil,” Sarah said, and I couldn’t make myself look at her. For the love of God, I hoped she wouldn’t make this awkward. “I was just teasing Kendall about you being her secretary.”
Mason sat on one of the students’ tables, setting my coffee down beside him. I could only assume he didn’t want to make a show out of giving it to me in front of Sarah. He glanced at me as he said, “That’s better than ‘Room Mom,’ I guess.”
Sarah and I laughed. She nodded toward the book he was now holding on his lap. “Going to do some reading? Or did you bring a book for Show and Tell, like your daughter?”
“I guess you could say it’s Show and Tell. I was going to, uh, show Kendall that this was the last book I worked on at my old job.” He stepped forward to hand it to me. It was the Flipping Fabulous book he’d mentioned weeks ago, with that couple from Indianapolis on the cover.
I gasped and flipped through the pages, looking for Mason’s drawings. They were scattered throughout the book—little doodles of floor plans, hammers and nails, ceiling fans, and kitchen cabinets—the sketches were simple, but they were all so whimsical and fun. I looked up at Mason’s face. “It’s so wild to me that you did all of this—these are your drawings in a published book.” I stared down at the book again, turning the pages in awe at his illustrations. “You should be so proud.”
Mason shrugged, backing up to sit on the table again. He opened his mouth to speak, and I expected him to say something humble or downplay his skills, but he stopped and took a breath. And then, with a glance toward Sarah, he said, “That was honestly a blast to work on. You’d be surprised at how much research I had to do just for those little doodles—but it was worth it, because they were over the moon about it.” And then, after a beat, he turned to Sarah again. “By the way, I saw Owen’s book at a shop in Indy.”
