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“I think your friend needs help. She’s still outside,” he said when he returned to the table, knowing he stretched the truth by using the term “friend,” but hoping that would move the needle. “Come on; be the big girl you can be and help her out.” Another truth stretch.
Reluctantly, Avery got up. “For you, Jordan Delaney,” she said, placing her palm on his shoulder as he tucked a twenty bill under his unfinished beer.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now the image of Hope and her daughter disappeared from his rearview mirror. Her inability to control her mouth during the ride had amused yet touched him at the same time. It was honest and unguarded, almost vulnerable.
Maybe some of it had rubbed off on him, because he couldn’t explain the comment that had escaped his own mouth when he had insensitively asked about her ex. Wanting to know more about her and being unable to fathom her with someone like Eric didn’t justify that slip of the tongue. That, along with the image of the little girl bolting toward her reminded him that someone like him couldn’t, and shouldn’t, come near a woman like her.
Just then, his phone vibrated with a message.
“You owe me after today! So see yourself committed to the Model UN judge role. I’ll email you the details and see you very soon. xoxo.”
If he was looking for a divorced, single mother to get involved with, Avery was a much simpler option. If he was.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A few days later, driving again through Riviera View, toward the school that he had attended and where his mother had taught for forty years, Jordan wondered if places had memories. The town’s streets and shops, houses and buildings, all had a place in his heart and mind, and he hoped he had a share in theirs. He should check sometime if the wall under Life’s A Beach’s terrace still carried the graffiti that he and his friends had sprayed there lightyears ago.
With his six-foot-one height, he felt like Gulliver in the halls that were decorated for autumn. Children’s paintings of the traditional seasonal symbols—red and orange leaves, rain and grey skies—were hung all around, although the California sun was warm and bright outside in its blue September sky. He could never relate to the need to do or feel things on cue. Although, ironically, that was what he had sometimes advised his clients. You’re visiting a military base? Wear a bomber jacket. It’s September? Post a family picture with matching sweaters.
Despite the two and a half decades that had passed, his legs led him, instinctively knowing every turn on the way to the small hall, as they used to call the smaller assembly room.
Besides Avery, there was one other person he knew who worked here. Hope Hays. He wondered if she was around.
Avery waved at him from the hall’s door and stepped outside to greet him, speaking while he walked toward her. “We have a small crowd in there, but that’s just the prep for the regional campaign. Have you read the instructions?”
“Skimmed over it.”
“Thanks for agreeing, JD,” she said when he reached her.
JD? Now she had a nickname for him? He had to fix that and fast.
“You sent my mother after me.”
“In love and war, you know?”
He didn’t know. What love? What war?
“Four teams of two. Only one team will get to represent us in the regionals. They’re fourth, fifth, and sixth grade kids, so don’t expect much.”
“Trust me; I don’t.”
“Kids are not your strong suit, huh? I should take note of that.”
“Shall we?” He led the way to the door, ignoring her words. This wasn’t a topic he was capable of touching these days.
Avery pushed the door open, and the raucous of children talking and yelling to each other hit them like a concrete wall.
“Wait here,” she said as they entered.
The small hall looked almost exactly as he remembered it, except the UN and various countries’ flags that were hung around. The crowd consisted of five long rows of seated kids and three teachers who attempted to shush them.
A science fair poster hung next to where he stopped to stand while Avery went to speak to the two teachers who were to share the judges’ bench with him. The printed instructions on the poster culminated in, “Signup with Ms. Hays.” Below it was a handwritten sentence, “Chemistry rocks! It can melt rocks! Join us.” It was signed, “Hope Hays.” He didn’t know about rocks, but his heart clenched at this, and warmth spread in his chest as if the damn thing was melting. Maybe there was something wrong with the chemicals in his brain these days because he had rarely been affected by such trivial, mundane things before.
“Follow me,” Avery said, showing up next to him and guiding him to a table covered with the UN flag map.
He shook hands with the two teachers who sat there and introduced himself.
