“An interrupt—”
Most of the kids joined me on the “Mooooo!” Agent Duran was wiping at tears. My heart glowed in my chest with the pure joy of returning—if only for a moment—to what I’d been put on this great earth to do. I waved goodbye to Phoebe and Alice—who actually looked proud of me—and thanked Mrs.Glidewell. And when I slipped out the door, Hubert was still mooing.
Ten
“Hey!” a voice called from down the hall. “Ms.Turner!”
It was Agent Duran. My heart triple gainer-ed, but I wasn’t sure if it was because I had a dead guy in my trunk or because Agent Duran was a smokeshow. Either way, I needed to keep my panties on.
“I’m just reading about Midnight the Infinite Hamster,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. I’d been pretending to study a bulletin board covered in fifth graders’ poems. But I’d actually been savoring the feeling of having done an impromptu stand-up set that was not a total failure.
Agent Duran stopped next to me, our shoulders almost touching. I pointed to the drawing and he read the words out loud. “My hamster is named Midnight. After dark she flies to the moon. She whispers all the secrets of the universe in my ear and I get tingles. She is boundless.” He paused. “Am I wrong or is this an extremely psychedelic poem?”
“What do you know about psychedelics? You’re a federal agent.”
“My dad listened to a lot of Jefferson Airplane,” he said. “Also, I’ve seenSpongeBob.”
I laughed. So he did see his kid, sometimes.
He looked over at me, his dark eyes kind and curious. “You killed it in there,” he said.
“It was tough following up a dad who takes guns away from bad guys for a living.”
“Are you kidding?” he said. “The guy who talked before me was a firefighter! I wanted to be like: ‘Thanks for setting me up to fail, Mrs.Glidewell.’”
I giggled.
“Also,” he said, “I’m not—I’m not a dad.”
“So that little boy who was staring at you adoringly—?”
“Total rando,” he said. “It’s my niece that’s in the class.”
“Who’s your niece?”
“Maricela.”
“Don’t know her and don’t believe you,” I joked. “Are you undercover right now? Is Mrs.Glidewell harboring a stockpile of weapons?”
“If so, she was definitely thinking about using them on you.” Even in the middle of this endless winter, his skin was bronze (and weathered in a way I liked). Except for an adorably crooked spot below the bridge of his nose, he had the kind of facial symmetry usually only seen on movie stars. When he smiled, I saw his teeth were a little uneven too.
“It’s not my fault she’s bitter,” I joked as we started walking toward the front exit. “Her life’s dream is to teach sixth grade. But she can’t because her last name is Glidewell.”
“Seriously,” he said. “With a name like that, it’s third-grade-and-under only.”
Agent Duran set off a strange inner turmoil in me. My romantic life was a desert, and he was a man-sized oasis. But it was more than that. Being near him, I had the strange, powerful sensation I’d known him for decades. Even though I’d absolutely never met him before.
We approached the front desk sign-out, which was manned by the principal’s assistant, a sweet grandma named Tina.
“Can I ask the obvious question?” I said, taking the visitors’ clipboard.
“Why I’m at Job Talk Tuesday when I don’t have kids?” he replied. “Apparently, Mrs.Glidewell’s class has a shortage of dads willing to spend an excruciating ten minutes trying to explain whatever they do for a living to a bunch of second graders. My sister made me fill the gap.”
Tina smiled up at me. “He’s the principal’slittlebrother,” she said.
Agent Duran nodded solemnly as he signed the visitor’s sheet. Nathan. His first name was Nathan. “Guilty as charged.”
“Nate! How’d it go?” Principal Cruz had appeared in her office doorway. If I’d seen her on the street, I would’ve guessed her profession as tarot reader or J.Lo’s sister who has somehow been exiled to Idaho for bad behavior. Her black hair hung to the middle of her back and she had at least seven earrings in each ear.
