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She stops and stares up at me, eyes narrowed. “May I help you?”
“You don’t recognize me?” I tilt my head, glaring at her.
She lifts her eyebrows, mildly. “Should I?”
“I’m the woman you ran off the road a couple of days ago,” I reply through gritted teeth. “So, yeah. Probably you should recognize me. Because you should have stopped the minute you saw me crash.”
She turns back to her desk. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But to judge by her tense shoulders, not to mention the way she won’t meet my eyes anymore, I am sure she knows exactly what I mean.
“You were speeding the wrong way up a one-way street. I turned off the road to avoid hitting you and collided with a pole.”
“I’m sorry you had such a terrible experience, but I’m afraid you have me confused with somebody else.”
“Oh really?” I lift my eyebrows. “Then you won’t mind if I take a look at your car, will you? Whoever hit me scratched my rear bumper pretty bad. They’d definitely have a matching scrape on the front of their car.”
“Look, Miss…?”
“Naomi Jordan,” I reply.
“Ms. Jordan. I don’t have any obligation to talk to you about… well, anything. I don’t know who you are; I don’t know why you’ve come barging into my classroom—”
“Auntie Naomi?” Becca pokes her head around the corner of the doorway. “Are you coming?”
“I’ll be right there, Becca,” I reply, smiling at her before I turn my glare back on Mrs. Randall. “Do you know I had her in the car when you almost hit me head-on?” I ask, jaw tight with fury. “Do you know I wound up in the hospital with a concussion?”
“As I said, I am very sorry to hear about what happened to you…”
“If I hadn’t swerved and taken the fall for both of us, you would never have been able to pretend this didn’t happen, you know. We would’ve both been in the hospital, if not worse.” I grab Becca’s hand, and start toward the door before I say anything worse in front of her. “You were in a residential neighborhood, driving the wrong way up a one lane street… You’re lucky to be alive and in one piece. Think about that while you sit there and pretend you’re innocent, Mrs. Randall.” With that, I slam the classroom door behind me and start dragging Becca toward the exit.
“Aren’t we going to stop and look at my classroom?” she asks, pouting.
I slow my steps and suck in a deep breath, trying my best to calm myself. “We’re running pretty late, Becca. Mommy’s going to be wondering where we are right now. We’d better get going. Can we look at your classroom another time instead, sweetie?”
She pouts even more deeply at me, but in the end, probably after looking at the barely concealed anger on my face, she relents. “Fiiiiine I guess.” She trudges after me, shoulders slumped. I hate to let her down but I also know that if I stay in this building with a woman who nearly killed me or injured Becca for one minute longer, I’m going to march right back into Mrs. Randall’s office and call the police on her right then and there. It would only serve her right. I wonder how much the penalty for a hit and run is. Would she get jail time?
I’m daydreaming about it when we reach the parking lot, and Becca shoots me another one of those long, piercing looks, the kind that only kids her age can give. Like they know way more than you ever expected them to notice.
“Mrs. Randall is a big meanie.”
My eyebrows rise. “I have to agree with you there.” I glance at her again, and my eyes narrow. “Why, what happened? Did she say something mean to you?”
Becca shakes her head, and I relax, just a little. Okay. One less thing I need to be furious about. “She just yells a lot. Especially at her husband.”
“Her husband?”
Becca nods. “He comes by school sometimes, to talk about his job. He works as a fireman. But Mrs. Randall is always mean to him whenever he’s here.”
“Huh.” I wonder if she’s having marital problems too. Maybe that’s why she was speeding the wrong way up the street the other day, acting so recklessly. But that’s hardly an excuse for hitting someone’s car and speeding off without checking on them. Just go to a therapist or work out your stress at the gym or something. Or if your husband’s really that bad, divorce his ass and hook up with a hot doctor instead.
I smile a little, for the first time since I found Mrs. Randall’s identity, and I catch myself in the rearview. I force the smile off my face. Whatever. No matter what that teacher is going through, it’s not a reason for her to act like a rebellious teenager. She’s a grown ass adult. She should have owned up to what she did right away and stopped putting people—and their innocent kids—in danger with her driving.
“Well, it’s not nice to be mean to people,” I comment as we steer toward the flower shop. I take care to stick to the main road this time, and not to take any chances with the short cut again. I’m not driving that way again, not even if the lights and traffic the longer way take twice as much time. I learn from my mistakes.
Sometimes, a little voice in my head can’t help pointing out. But sometimes you just keep repeating them. I think about Dr. Robinson, and about my ex. Am I doing the same thing again, like Monica fears? Rushing right back into something headlong without pausing to think about the consequences?
Maybe. But if I am, do I really regret it? Because at the same time, part of me can’t help comparing Jason to my ex and thinking about how much better the good doctor is. For one thing, my ex never bothered to worry about my pleasure. It was all about what he wanted, and what felt good to him. If I got off, it was a secondary concern, a happy coincidence that I was into the same thing he was doing for himself. I can’t even remember the last time he went down on me. He certainly never did it like Jason, for hours on end, making me come over and over without any seeming concern for his own pleasure.
It’s like he actually enjoys giving me pleasure, instead of worrying about himself first, second and last. There’s something impossibly sexy about that.
But maybe Monica is right. Maybe I should be taking this slower, giving myself more time between guys to… I don’t know, figure out what I want, and who I am before I jump straight into another serious relationship.
Relationship? See, this is what she means. I’m always ten steps ahead of myself. Here I am hooking up with a guy a couple of times and I’m already worried about the long-term ramifications. Why can’t I just have a little fun?
In the backseat, Becca has moved on, babbling happily now about some new topic. If only I could just be more like her. Live in the moment and forget about annoyances like Mrs. Randall as soon as they happen. Not to mention, stop worrying about a future that I don’t even know can exist yet.
I force a smile onto my face. Right. I’ve done enough worrying for one day. The rest of today, I am determined to enjoy myself. I’ll hang out with my best friend, work in the store we both love, and that’s that.
And if my brain wants to fantasize about the sexy as hell doctor who’s been making my nights hotter and more distracting than they’ve ever been in my life? Well, then, I’m not going to resist a few dirty fantasies. After all, why not enjoy whatever this is for as long as it lasts?
9
I pull up outside the flower shop to see a line halfway out the door. Crap. I forgot that this is graduation weekend. Both the high schools in the area and the giant local university are having their ceremonies. We even have a waiting list for bouquets. I hurry out of the car, bringing Becca with me, and into the shop, where we both pause for a
moment in the doorway to drink in the chaos of the place.
Monica and Carrie, our other shop girl, are both rushing back and forth between the stock room and register and the huge cool fridges where we keep the prepared bouquets so they don’t wilt in the heat. I drop Becca off with Monica behind the counter. Monica pauses in checking out a customer to kiss the top of Becca’s head and ask her to head to the little side room she usually waits for us in—a room we’ve nicknamed Becca’s office, because she’s decorated the whole thing from top to bottom in drawings and scribbles.
Becca dives right into her desk, happily distracted by drawing some new cartoons. I catch a glimpse of her creation: an angry lady with giant glasses yelling at a man in a fireman’s hat. I have to hold back a chuckle. Okay, so maybe Becca doesn’t forget her annoyances as quickly as I think. She’s just found a more creative outlet for her anger than I have.
Then I rush back to the register to help Monica fill the orders.
“Where’s all this rush coming from?” I call to her between filling orders. “Graduation, you think?”
Monica shakes her head. “Apparently there’s a high school prom this weekend too. And for some reason, about half a dozen anniversaries to judge by the number of guys in here looking for last-minute bouquets.”
We spend the next half an hour completing a few last minute orders. Being in the back and arranging some of the bouquets gives me time to clear my head a little. Like Becca and her drawing, I find that arranging flowers always makes me feel better. It’s a creative outlet, a time for me to clear my head of any other pressing worries and just focus on one simple task for a while.
Once I’ve finished, and we’ve helped the last of our rush customers check out and pay, I finally heave a deep sigh and lean against the counter next to Monica. “Well that was a change of pace.”
