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“’Kay, I’m going to go take a nap now,” he said once the party was over and the kids were lining up for lunch. “And I might even treat myself to a stiff drink.”
“Drink one for me,” I said, adjusting the claw clip in my hair with a wink. As Mason lingered by the door, he watched me pull a few strands out of my messy updo so that they framed my face. I was becoming familiar with that look of longing in his eyes. And it usually occurred when I was doing the most mundane thing. Fixing my hair. Stretching. Bending over to pick up a scrap of paper from the floor. “What?” I asked, prompting him to snap out of it.
He shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair. I could tell from the way he sighed and looked down at the floor there was something he wanted to say, but either he couldn’t speak it in the presence of children or he chickened out. “Nothin’. Good luck with these monsters the rest of the day,” he said, motioning toward the kids—some of whom responded by putting their hands on their hips and saying, “Hey!” He laughed on his way out the door without uttering another word.
The pang of sadness I usually felt after Mason’s departure was stronger that morning. To be this aware of how someone felt about me—and to know there was nothing I could do about it—left me with a cruel, lingering ache in my heart.
For the remainder of the day, I was about as focused as the kids with their Skittle-induced hyperactivity and insistence to mess with each other’s costumes. To attempt to teach anything would be futile. So I let them watch the Room on the Broom movie on the smartboard, which I wasn’t sure was more of a treat for me or them.
I was making my way around the room to pick up the mess they’d left behind from the party when I heard sniffling. Finley was laying her head down on her desk. “Ms. Devin? Finley’s crying,” Walter said.
“I see that.” I made my way to Finley’s seat. “Finley, what’s the matter?”
She lifted her head and looked up at me, tears sliding down her cheeks. “One of my tentacles broke off and now my costume is ruined.”
I tilted my head to the side. “Do you think that may have been because you were dancing around and whacking people with your tentacles?”
She frowned.
I took the loose jellyfish tentacle from Finley’s hand and inspected it, eyeing the hat to see how I might be able to reattach it. “You know what?” I asked, squatting to get on her level. I placed my hand on her back. “I bet I can hot glue this and you’ll be good to go. Should I try that?”
She nodded enthusiastically. “Uh huh.”
I had to fumble through my desk drawer to find my hot glue gun and dig even further to find the glue sticks. One of these days I’d have to organize this desk.
Just not today.
When I turned around to plug the hot glue gun into the wall behind my desk, I was astonished to find Finley at my heels. “Can I help you with it, Ms. Devin?”
“Gosh, you scared me.” I placed my hand on my heart as Finley giggled. “I don’t want you to get burned, but you could keep me company back here if you promise not to get too close.”
She nodded in response. As we waited for the hot glue gun to heat up, I sat in my desk chair and motioned for her to come closer to me. She misunderstood the gesture, though, and climbed right up onto my lap. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t hold one of my students like this—because if I did it for one, they’d all line up to be next. But the rest of the class was enthralled by the movie, and something about holding that girl on my lap made my heart soar. “I like your costume,” she whispered, tracing her finger around the edge of the giant cookie.
“Thank you. And I love yours. Are you going trick-or-treating tonight?”
She nodded, keeping her eyes on the cookie. “Yup. My dad’s taking me to two trunk-or-treats. And Principal Sarah’s house.” Suddenly, her face lit up with a smile. “And then we’re coming to your house.”
I blinked. “Um. What?”
“What kind of candy do you got?”
“I haven’t bought any yet. Finley, when did your dad say this?”
She shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal. “Earlier today. He told me to get your address. So yeah, if you can just write that down for me, that’d be great. Got a post-it?”
I wasn’t sure whether to laugh at the way she was talking like a little adult or panic over this new revelation. Mason was coming to my house? Why wouldn’t he have told me this?
Or was she just making this up?
“Why don’t I just message him my address instead?”
“Okay. I just hope you got Kit Kats.”
There was something in her smile that reminded me of the way her dad smirked when he gave me a hard time. I lightly rubbed her back and said, “Your smile looks just like your daddy’s.”
“Everyone tells me that,” she said with an eyeroll, reaching up to play with the clip at the back of my head. “But I don’t have blonde hair like him. Or you. You have blonde hair, too.”
“That’s right. My sister calls me Blondie.”
