“Hi, girls,” I greet them. “Welcome back to Freshman Honors English.”
“Miss Rogers is our new girls’ basketball coach,” Leah tells her friends. “She’s amazing!”
The rest of the class pushes their way through the door, and once everyone is seated, I clear my throat to get their attention. I introduced myself, “Good morning, I’m Miss Rogers, your new English teacher. I hope you’re all ready to learn.” I cringe after that last bit comes out of my mouth. I sound like a stereotypicalteacher from my own high school years. In a nutshell, boring and old.
A boy I recognize from basketball raises his hand and asks, “Miss, huh? That makes you single.” He winks boldly.
“Don’t be an idiot, Jackson.” Leah Flynn to the rescue. “Miss Rogers is a grown woman. She’s never going to be interested in someone like you.” The heightened flush on Leah’s cheeks gives her away. She has a crush on Jackson.
“Don’t you worry about me and Miss Rogers, Leah,” Jackson tells her. “I’m pretty sure she’s got good taste in men.” His cocky expression is enough to make me laugh. So, I do.
Little does he know, my taste in men is not the best, but I don’t offer that insight. “While I appreciate the compliment, Jackson, we’re going to have to keep things professional between us.” To lighten the mood, I add, “After all, you play for the enemy.”
“We kicked your butts last night!” Leah translates for the non-basketball players in the room.
“We let you win, Flynn,” he lies. Then he arrogantly brags, “The boys are way better than you girls.”
“I guess we’ll find out soon enough, Jackson,” I tell him. “Mr. Riley and I have decided that you’ll be practicing together. There will be plenty of opportunity for you to show the girls what you’re made of.”
Jackson does not look pleased by that information, but Leah sure does. The smirk on her face says that she’s looking forward to spending as much time with Jackson as she can. Even if it is under the guise of competition.
“Enough basketball talk,” I say while handing out a quiz the previous teacher prepared. “Put your books away and pull out a pen, it’s pop quiz time.”
An echo of “Oh, no!” fills the air. “I hate this book!” a boy across the room yells out. “It’s so depressing!” comes another airborne opinion.
“It’s never been one of my favorites,” I admit, “but it’s required, so we need to finish it.”
The grumbles and groans continue as an idea pops into my head. “You know what?” I tell them while handing out the quizzes. “We’re going to do this a bit differently. Instead of everyone taking the quiz on their own, I want you to partner up in groups of four and discuss the questions amongst yourselves. When you’re done, we’ll compare observations as a class.”
“How will that be graded?” a studious-looking girl in the front row asks. She appears to be an A student so I know she won’t like my answer.
“As long as we get some good discussion going at the end, everyone will get an A,” I tell them. Yup, she looks annoyed.
The rest of the class, however, fills the air with cheers. English is supposed to be fun and I’m going to make sure it is. Literature is meant to expand thoughts and open minds. The best way to do that is to encourage conversation.
While the class shuffles their chairs around and gets to work, I sit down at my desk and stare at the pot of purple mums that now resides there. It’s been a very long time since I’ve received flowers. Brett bought me roses every year for our anniversary, except for the last one. We were declared officially divorced the day before our sixth wedding anniversary. He married his next wife on the day of, which feels like bad karma.
At any rate, that makes my last gift of flowers almost a year ago. Noah may not have meant his offering in any way but friendly, but even so, it means a lot.
I can’t help but wonder if I’d never met Brett, would the sun, moon, and stars have aligned in such a way that Noah Riley would have come back into my life sooner? Maybe in a romantic way …
CHAPTER TWELVE
NOAH
“This is as much fun as it was last week,” I tell Allie while watching the boys and girls scrimmage against each other.
“They look like they’re at war.” She points to Decan Flynn who is sprinting down the court to get the ball back from his sister.
“So, how was your first day?” I ask. Not only is it still super weird for me to be in Elk Lake, but it’s even stranger that Lorelai’s old friend is my new co-worker.
“It was okay,” she says. Looking up at me, she adds, “It was good. I think I’m really going to like teaching.”
“Kids are pretty cool,” I tell her. “I used to want six of my own.”
The look on her face is a cross between surprise and appalled with a touch of, what is
that, sadness? “And now?” she asks.
