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Jamie's lips pinched together. "Don't we have class?"
Marie shook her head. "Not today, Jamie. We're taking a holiday. Tomorrow, though–"
His eyebrow furrowed. "Can we go see Mr. Chris?"
Marie's lip found its way seemingly all on its own to between her teeth. She hid the expression before Jamie could see it, or so she hoped.
"He's at that bar, Jamie, you know it's not appropriate–"
"He'll come out to talk to us, though, if you ask him."
Marie took a deep breath and made an effort to keep her face neutral and smooth. "Not today, Jamie. He's been taking too much time off work, his boss is very upset with him."
Jamie's face fell. "Oh."
Marie let her eyes drift shut. She hadn't meant to upset him, just–jeez. Why did it have to happen this way? She wasn't trying to do anything mean, but how much meaner would it have been to let him know that she was worried? To a child, barely ten years old, if an adult was worried, then just how bad could the situation be?
With all the bad situations that he'd been through in recent days, it wouldn't be a great leap.
"We could go see Ruby. I'm sure she's got something a boy your age would like, over at the store."
He made an attempt at looking like that cheered him up. Anyone could have seen through it. She smiled at him, though. Baby steps before giant strides.
"But
can we stop in and see Mr. Chris, at least? Just a moment."
Marie didn't have a good answer for that. There was no reason that they couldn't, not if he were there. They could just stop in a minute. There was nothing wrong with that.
Nothing wrong except that it relied on him being there, and she didn't know what they would find when they stepped into the bar.
So the teacher did what she always did when there wasn't a good answer: she changed the subject.
"Did you sleep alright?"
There was a faint hope that he would let the subject drop, but it was quickly apparent that he had noticed the shift. From the look on his face, he didn't like it.
"Is there something wrong with Mr. Chris? Is he okay?"
Marie didn't know what to tell him. 'I don't know' was about as comforting as a bed of nails, and Jamie wasn't exactly in an emotionally stable position right now. She didn't want to create more problems for him, not when he already had so much to deal with.
"He said he had a little business, but he'd be back today," she lied. It sounded right.
"So we can go see him, then," Jamie reasoned. He looked at her out of the side of his eyes as he took his first bite of eggs.
"We can try, but if he's not here until this evening, then he won't be there."
It was the best she could do, given the circumstances. Now she just had to hope that he was going to accept it.
"He didn't know when he'd be back?"
"He went out to meet a friend the next town over. If they get to talking, it could be a few hours. You know how men are," she said, as if he might have done it himself, knowing he wouldn't have.
But he wasn't going to deny the chance to pretend to be a man, certainly not in front of her. That was what Marie gambled on, anyways.
"Oh, sure. That makes sense," he agreed. He looked down at his eggs and pulled another bite onto his fork with a piece of bread. "But we should still go see him. He'll want to talk to me, after all."
Marie smiled. "You're right, Jamie. He absolutely will. He wouldn't miss it for the world, if he knew you were coming."
