And her last thought as she drifted off to sleep was that she hoped she hadn’t actually left bite marks on the side of her hand. Or that they’d fade by morning.
Chapter Seventeen
Olivia’s phone rang just as she and Kelsey finished their end-of-the-week review. Since it would take a few minutes for her to gather her stuff to leave, Olivia took the phone into the living room and answered it.
And it was Amber’s voice on the other end of the line. “Olivia? It’s Amber. Do you have a minute?”
Thoughts flew through her mind. Was everybody okay? The kids? It was Friday and Derek was working. Was he okay? “Yeah, I have a minute. What’s up?”
“Actually, Julia wanted to talk to you about something, but you know she’s a little shy and she didn’t want to call you out of the blue. But I wasn’t sure when you’d see each other again, so I told her I’d call and break the ice for her.”
“Julia can call me anytime,” she told Amber. “And I have time now.”
“Great. Hold on a sec.”
After a moment, Julia was on the line. “Hi, Olivia.”
“Hi.”
“I hope you’re not busy, but thank you for talking to me.”
“You’re welcome. And I’m not too busy, so what’s going on?”
She hesitated so long, Olivia thought for a few seconds they’d been disconnected. “We have a school project thing and we’re supposed to bring somebody in to speak about the topic. It’s like show-and-tell, but with people.”
“That sounds fun. What’s the topic?”
“Helping others.”
“Well, your dad certainly helps others.”
“Yeah, but he goes to my school, like, every year. But Daddy said you help others be successful. And they gave us homework planners this year so I thought you could talk about how you help people use things like that and maybe even show us?”
Olivia was speechless for a minute. Julia wanted to take her to school for show-and-tell. It was a big deal and her eyes actually welled up, though she managed to blink away the unshed tears and not sniffle. “I think that sounds really great. When would this be scheduled to happen?”
She got up and crossed to her planner as she asked the question. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too soon because she had a busy couple of weeks ahead of her, but she’d figure it out. Not only was it another way to connect with Derek’s daughter, but it had been hard for her to reach out, so Olivia wasn’t about to tell her no.
“My teacher said the date, but I don’t remember. It’s in the middle of October, though.”
She winced, because she couldn’t work with that. Blocking off the entire middle of a month for one appointment wasn’t going to happen. But flipping the page in her planner showed that she wasn’t booked up yet and could surely make it happen.
“I’d love to be a part of your project,” she said. “But can you do me a favor and on Monday, ask your teacher for the exact date and write it down so you’ll remember it for me?”
“Yes, I’ll put a note in my homework folder to remind me and I’ll write it on the note.”
“Perfect. It’s going to be fun.”
“Thank you, Olivia.”
“You’re welcome.”
When they’d hung up, Olivia took a sticky note from one of the leather pockets in her book and wrote a note about the project and the estimated mid-October date, which she stuck on the page.
“That sounded interesting,” Kelsey said, her bag slung over her shoulder.
Olivia caught her up, amused when her assistant also cringed at the vague date. “If I don’t hear from her Monday after school, I’ll email Amber and ask her to touch base with the teacher.”
“You have his ex-wife’s email address?”
