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“I don’t hesitate to show them affection. I have security cameras all over my room, so I get down on the floor and cuddle with them. You’re not supposed to kiss or hug your students anymore. I ask the parents up front, are you going to object if I cuddle with your child, and so far, no one has ever requested that I not do it.
“I hope when my students leave the classroom for the summer, their self-confidence soared while they were with me. So that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”
She didn’t detail the bullying, how she was called fatso and pig faced and had her hair pulled more times than she cared to remember. It had definitely left its mark. And teaching kindergarten was a safety net. Longing to teach high school science, in reality the fear that her size would make her a target led her to keeping it safe with the five-year-olds.
“Wow, you are really doing something worthwhile,” he said. “Where’d you go to high school?”
“On base,” she said, pointing over the mountains to the Marine base. “Where’d you go?”
“Cathedral Catholic,” he said.
“Wait, is your brother Oliver Saint?”
“He is!”
“He was drafted by Detroit, wasn’t he?”
“He was. You follow football?”
“Oh, yes. My father wouldn’t have it any other way. And since I’m an only child…So that means you must have lived in Rancho Santa Fe. They always say, Oliver Saint, Rancho Santa Fe.”
“Born and raised.”
“What do your parents do?”
It was the standard question; you lived in the Ranch, you had an income from something big.
“My dad’s battalion chief at Station #34.”
“Wow,” she said, thinking they must be paying the firefighters better now than ever before.
He saw the wheels turning and laughed. “He had a bit of luck in the stock market a while ago.”
“I’m sorry for prying,” she said, embarrassed. “My best friend lives there. Her husband, herex-husband that is, is a popular game show host. She got the house, and almost her entire teacher’s salary pays the property taxes. She gets alimony, so she has a little to live on.”
“I wonder if I know her.”
“You might. Kathy Greenway?”
His eyes popped open. “No way. I don’t like to gossip, but I remember the story. I probably shouldn’t repeat it.”
“Well, what is it? If it’s not true, I’ll tell you.”
He told her what he’d heard about the wife of a game show host coming home from the grocery store and finding her husband, Conrod Greenway, in a compromising position with the gardener.
“All true,” Emily said. “It wasn’t funny at the time, but now she laughs about it. Her ex-husband is married to his art director.”
“She doesn’t live far from my folks,” he said. “Well, my dad’s house, and my mother in her boyfriend’s house.”
“Do they live close by each other?”
“A few houses separate them. It really just happened. My mom left when Oliver moved to Detroit. Waiting for the last kid to leave kinda thing.”
“Gotcha. So it happened recently.”
“Yes. Just. Sorry. It’s a downer. You’d think at my age it wouldn’t be a big deal.”
“They say it’s never easy, no matter the age.”
