He’d left her at the lobby. A kiss like there was no tomorrow, then he drops her off in the lobby? Didn’t that kiss warrant at least a drink to prolong the evening? Maybe he had a shabby apartment. Maybe he didn’t want gossip if he was seen going upstairs to her room and didn’t come back. Maybe he was afraid of Stella. Or maybe he already had a wife or girlfriend. She wouldn’t put anything past him. He was charming and a bartender; he must meet women all the time.
Well, to hell with him, he’d misrepresented himself, let her spill her innermost fears to him. It was embarrassing, humiliating, and she’d doubled that by running out of Marie’s without a proper thanks or planning to meet again.
Then he’d kissed her and left her without a “see ya.”
God, what was wrong with her that she kept falling for all the bullshit in the world?
At least Aggie and Kayla were still out when she’d returned to the hotel, so they didn’t see her solo climb up to the third floor.
Still, she wasn’t surprised when there was a knock on the door the next morning, earlier than their usual breakfast call. She was already dressed, knowing they would be curious about what had happened with Lucky. And she could tell them about the kiss—the two kisses—over a stack of pancakes and lots of coffee.
“Just a sec.” She brushed on some lip gloss and went to answer the door. Maybe they would have some advice.
Yeah, like move on to the next guy.
“Coming.” She brightened the smile. Noticed the stack of clothes on the bed she’d been about to pack last night in the throes of embarrassment and disappointment. She grabbed them and quickly shoved them in the drawer before opening the door.
“You guys were late last—” She broke off. It was not her friends.
Scatter Martin held out a takeout coffee. “Large, milk and sugar. I figured you’d need the sugar, and Darinda at the luncheonette said that’s the way you took it at breakfast.”
Julie took the cup. She didn’t know what he wanted, but she’d gladly take his coffee. She pulled back the tab and took a sip. Heaven.
“Thank you. Is there anything else? Does Lucky—” She bit down on the words. She wouldn’t further her humiliation by asking.
“Nope.”
“Then thank you for the coffee.” She started to shut the door.
He merely stepped farther into the room.
“What do you want?”
“Is that the way to talk to someone who just brought you coffee?”
Julie could feel herself caving. Ugh. “Look, thanks for the coffee. If this is a peace offering, I accept. I guess.”
“Peace offering? You know . . . Forget it. Come on. I want to show you something.” He opened the door wider.
“Why?”
“You’ll know when we get there.”
“Is this about last night?”
“Yes and no. Yes about your life, not about us.”
“There is no us.”
“Fine. Grab a sweatshirt; you’ll need it for the ride.”
“What ride?”
“It’s not far.” He looked around the room. He picked up a sweatshirt off the back of the desk chair. “Here, this will be fine.”
She reached for it. “It doesn’t go with what I have on.”
“That’s even better. Are you ready?”
Alex’s Jeep was illegally parked outside the hotel. A squad car was parked a few feet in front of it.
“Doesn’t look like we’ll be going anywhere for a while,” she said.
“Them? Nah. Stella reported a burglary. The third time in two weeks, whack job that she is.” He opened the door for her.
“Is that the way a psychologist should be talking about a potential client?”
“I wouldn’t see her.” He stood by while she climbed into the front seat, struggling to balance the coffee cup, shoulder purse, sweatshirt, and phone. He didn’t offer to help.
As soon as she was seated, he swung the door shut. While he was going around to the driver’s side, she pressed speed dial for Kayla. “Hey, it’s me. Evidently I’m going on a drive with the Scatterbrain. If I don’t come back by tonight, call the fire department.”
Kayla barked out a laugh. “Wait! What? You’re with Scatterman? So that’s where you got off to last night. Good one, Julie.”
“No, it wasn’t like—” She broke off as the driver’s-side door opened and Alex slid into the seat.
She held up a finger to tell him to wait. “So I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.” She glanced over to Alex, but he just shrugged. “I guess I’ll see you at the beach later.”
“Cool,” Kayla said. “Can’t wait, but take your time. We want to hear every detail.”
Julie heard Aggie in the background. “What, what?”
There was a struggle over the cell. Then Alex grabbed Julie’s out of her hand. “Everything is under control. She’ll be back.” He ended the call, swiped the phone off, and tossed it under his seat.
“Hey. Give me that. What if there’s an emergency?”
“Then someone will call me.”
“It better not be wet under there,” Julie said. “Or you’ll owe me a new phone.”
“Deal.”
He made a U-turn in the middle of Main Street and drove out of town.
“Just so you know—”
“You’re a black belt in karate,” he finished. “Good to know I’ll be safe as long as you’re nearby.”
Julie had the most annoying urge to laugh. “So where are you taking me?” she asked. And why?
“You’ll see. Consider it a field trip. One where you don’t have to be responsible for a bus full of kids and can sit back and enjoy the ride.”
Once outside of town, the Jeep picked up speed. Julie put her coffee cup in the console while she wrestled with the seat belt to put on her sweatshirt and gather her windblown hair into a ponytail.
Then she sat back to enjoy the view, which was pretty nice, even though they were moving away from the beach. All evidence of tourism gradually disappeared until they were driving along a narrow two-lane country road, surrounded by . . . cornfields?
The corn was about halfway to harvest, high enough to hide any signs of civilization around them. It was a little spooky.
She glanced over at Alex, who seemed to have forgotten her existence. They came to a T junction and Alex took the left fork. The road dipped, and suddenly a manufactured community rose from the midst of the corn like it had been dropped by aliens. There were no cars, no people, and they passed it so quickly that Julie wondered if it had been a figment of her imagination.
More fields, no longer growing corn but with row upon row of low, rounded bushes. And scores of workers bent over, picking the crop.
“Strawberries,” Alex called over the engine noise and rush of wind, just as if she’d asked him. Which she hadn’t. “Backbreaking work. Near the end of the season. Next is tomatoes, then watermelons, the real backbreakers.”
“Don’t they have machines for that?” Julie asked.
He just gave her a deadpan look and returned his attention to the road.
I guess not, thought Julie.
They’d been driving about fifteen minutes when Alex turned the Jeep down an even narrower road and into what appeared to be a small—really small—town, then out the other side, where he pulled into an asphalt parking lot. A basketball hoop stood at one end, a dumpster at the other. A narrow one-story cinder-block building sat at the back of the lot and was surrounded by a wide swath of mowed grass that gave way to more fields in the distance. There were a couple of other cars parked in front, and Alex pulled in next to them.
Julie couldn’t imagine what it was used for, but she was about to find out. Alex had gotten out and was coming around to open her door. At least his manners were on display. But why? He hadn’t gone out of his way to be nice since she’d been there. Well, the kisses were nice, she had to admit. Better than nice.
“Are you going to get out?”
“Sure.” She slid off the seat and followed him to a metal door with a glass window embedded with honeycombed security wire. A bit intimidating. A warehouse?
Someone buzzed them in, and Julie felt a frisson of nerves. She sure hoped it wasn’t going to be some illegal liquor warehouse. But why would he take her there?
Alex held the door and let her enter first. It was quiet but not deserted. As they stood in what looked like a reception room with no reception, a door opened down the hall, unleashing a rousing rendition of “This Old Man,” and a petite, dark-haired young woman wearing black yoga pants and a tie-dyed T-shirt hurried toward them.
“Alex! You made it.” She had a killer smile.
“Desiree Hoyes, meet Julie Barlow.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Julie said, not understanding why she was meeting her. Her name belonged to a thirties movie star. But this Desiree was totally here and now and vibrating with energy. Her smile broadcasted the brightest red lipstick Julie had seen since the parent-teacher Christmas party.
Her eyes sucked in Alex and twinkled at Julie.
“Everyone calls me Dee.” She took Julie by the elbow like they were old friends and started down the hall. “I’m so glad you decided to come. I think you’ll really like what you see.”
Julie opened her mouth to explain that she had no idea why she was here. She managed to look back at Alex, but he merely waved and walked off in the opposite direction.
Dee opened the door she’d just come from to a room painted light green. A double semicircle of children stood in the middle of the room. Off to one side a skinny man in a plaid shirt and work pants was leading the singing at a rickety upright piano. Along one wall were Formica tables with a row of computers, and on the other, two rows of smaller tables, with books and papers and pencils stacked in the center of each.
Two nights ago she’d poured out her feelings to Alex, about love, life, and hating her job. Last night he’d kissed her. Today he’d shown up at her door with coffee.
I want to show you something.
She had to admit, she’d been intrigued, and maybe a little flattered? He wanted to show her something. A surprise. She thought maybe things were looking up and decided to give him one more chance.
And what did that surprise turn out to be? A twenty-minute drive to school.
When would she ever learn?
Alex didn’t wait around to see what Julie’s reaction would be. He’d considered telling her where they were going, but she would have balked. And maybe he should just stay the hell away from her. But she seemed so lost.
Not lost. Hindered. It was a word he had cause to know in counseling. Hindered. Kept back from being yourself.
Julie was good at what she did, who she was. He could tell that now. He could tell that she would be, even back then.
Julie Barlow was hindered, not lost. Alex was the one in danger of losing himself if she stuck around.
Maybe Lucky was rubbing off on him. But Alex also thought he saw that little bit of the devil in her. But shit, it was buried under a lot of good girl, good daughter, good teacher, good citizen, good everything. How could someone live with all that goodness?
Not him. He couldn’t, and he was pretty sure Julie shouldn’t.
He walked out the side door to the mowed field where a soccer game was going on. Two games actually: half a field for the older boys and the other half, more like a quarter, for the younger ones. But it didn’t matter to them.
Just having a place to go during the long, hot day while your parents and older siblings worked in the fields was like a slice of heaven. And if you learned a little English and how to read along the way, not shabby.
A third of the older boys would be in the fields themselves next year, maybe even by the end of summer, instead of day camp.
“Alex! Over here!” Tito Burgos waved to him, trapped the ball with one foot, then passed it off as Bobby Garza slid in for a tackle.
The younger boys stopped playing altogether and ran en masse toward Alex. He was glad to see Alberto among them.
“Play with us!”
He gave Tito a wait-a-minute sign and let the little kids drag him toward their side of the field. He wasn’t as clueless to think he was an ace soccer player. He hadn’t even learned how to play until he was in college.
Both sides wanted a tall guy on their team.
After a few minutes he switched to the other game and spent the next half hour going from one game to the other.
“Alex said you’re Lucky’s niece visiting for a while, that you’re a schoolteacher, and that you would like to help out with the camp.” Dee flashed that Christmas-red smile, then shrugged. “Alex can sometimes be a little forceful.”
Julie was thinking more along the lines of sneaky, conniving, and arrogant. “Yes, he can,” she agreed.
“But you did want to come?”
“Of course,” Julie said. Really, what else could she say?
“We’re a little shorthanded for the next couple of weeks. Geraldo”—she pointed to the piano player—“is actually the custodian here, but is sitting in on music as a favor.
“We’re what you might call a satellite camp; the main camp is about twenty miles away and already bursting at the seams. We take the overflow kids.” She looked up at Julie’s face. “Oh, it’s like a summer day camp, fun and learning. Field trips. They go home every day at five. It’s a community effort.”
Julie nodded. For a moment the word “camp” had thrown her. She was glad they weren’t talking about the other kind of camp. But she still didn’t want to be here. It was her vacation and she wanted to escape teaching—at least for ten days.
Alex knew that. But he’d disappeared, probably ditched her and drove off, leaving her here just to get her out of the way.
She brought her attention back to what Dee was saying.
“. . . younger, newer to the system . . . most of them have some catching up to do. A few trauma cases. Alex sees them in town away from the others. A mixed bag,” she added, smiling even more brightly, if that was possible.
She moved toward one of the tables and Julie followed. She saw right away that the books were used—a lot—and several years out of date.
The song had moved on to “The Ants Go Marching,” and Julie remembered why she would never be a kindergarten teacher. Though at her school they were more likely to be singing “Circle of Life” than a number-learning song.
“The little one stops to . . .”
“So after music we divide into groups and have reading and wordplay. Mostly we read, they play.”
Julie smiled for the first time since she’d arrived.
Dee raised both eyebrows; they made two perfect arcs. She was very pretty and very dynamic.
And enthusiastic about this, Julie thought, looking around at the depressing surroundings.
“I usually take them outside for that session. More things to relate to in the open. And there’s enough shade so that it’s not too uncomfortable.”
Dee Hoyes was a brave soul.
“Geraldo will take one group today. And you and I’ll take the other. Vicky, who’s in the math room, will meet with the older kids.” She gathered a stack of books off the table. “How’s your Spanish?”
“Basic. Two semesters in college and rarely used.”
“That’ll do. I’ll get you started. Then maybe you could take over while I get some much-needed paperwork done.”
“Take over? Wait, I’m not qualified . . .”
“I’m sure you are. Alex said you won teacher of the year at your school.”
How did Scatterbrain know that? Julie certainly hadn’t divulged that. She could murder him for volunteering her for this. Aggie and Kayla were at the beach, and she was about to sit under a tree teaching reading.
“I’m sure you’ll do fine.”
Dee looked so hopeful that Julie felt a stab of contrition. The ants were now marching three by three, and she tried to remember how many verses were in the song. She was struck with horror as she realized it might go up to ninety-nine, like bottles of beer on the wall. She’d be a raving lunatic by then.
“I’ll start you off. Mainly you just read to them, have them pick out words. Go through the flash cards . . .” She handed Julie an inch-thick stack of cardboard cards bound by a rubber band.
Flash cards. That was so not progressive. Where the hell had Alex gone?
“Then some word games out of the book, then whatever keeps them interested. If they don’t engage, go on to the next book. Afterward they’ll have lunch and Vicky will reinforce whatever words they learned today and add them to their vocabulary.”
Oh, great, no drinks with umbrellas in them for Julie today. Maybe Alex would take pity on her by then. And really, what was the point? Was he trying to get her out of town? For what? To unload more contraband? What did he think? That she’d turn them in?
The ants finally stopped marching at ten, and Julie was introduced to a group of five children—two girls, three boys—who could have been any age from three to six. It was hard to tell.
“Buenos días,” they responded. Then Dee mouthed the words, “Good morning,” and they repeated that, too.
Julie smiled and did the reverse. “Good morning. Buenos días.”
They followed Dee and Julie down the hall and out the back door without question. They passed Alex and a passel of boys all sweaty and dirty coming inside, which answered the question of whether he had driven away and left her stranded. He grinned at her. Several of the others turned to stare, but Scatter fired off something in Spanish and the boys hurried on down the hallway.
As soon as the kids got outside they ran to a large spreading oak tree, one of three that had survived on the edge of planted fields. Dee sat down cross-legged in the dirt. Whatever grass had once grown there had shriveled up and died weeks before.
Julie sat down beside her, wishing she hadn’t worn her good shorts. The kids sat in a circle all cross-legged, matching Julie and Dee. Dee picked up one of the books and handed the other two to Julie. The kids broke rank and crowded around the two women, leaning into and over them to get a better look at the book.
Julie couldn’t remember having such a captive audience. Dee read the first book, a short ESL primer with a simple story line. She pointed to the pictures, accentuated the specified words and repeated them in English. When she finished the story, she pulled out the flash cards and had them say the English word, then turned the card over to show the accompanying picture.
When they’d made it through the first stack of flash cards, Julie opened the next book. It was going to be a long morning at this rate. The children moved even closer and Dee took the opportunity to slip away.
Julie read through the book, stressing the pertinent words and having them repeat them, but when she put it down and reached for the flash cards, one of the little girls picked up the book and shoved it at her. “Again . . . please.”
The others nodded. So with urges of “please,” Julie read it again. Again, they pointed to the pictures, recited the words, sometimes talked in enthusiastic Spanish, much of which was too fast for Julie to understand.
“Where is the cat?” she asked to see if they had understood the words of the story.
The boy on her right reached over her and turned the page, pointed to the correct picture. “El gato.”
“Yes,” said Julie. “‘El gato’ en español and ‘the cat’ in English.”
“There,” the boy next to him said, and took off toward the field.
“Wait!” cried Julie. The other four children jumped up and ran after him.
She caught up to him just as he was about to climb over the irrigation ditch and into the rows of plants. He pointed again.
They all gathered around, standing close to Julie and holding on to her so they could lean over to see.
Two green eyes looked back at them from under what looked like blueberry bushes.
Then the cat jumped out and darted past them toward the building. The kids turned and took off after it. Shit, thought Julie, and took off after them.
As she ran, she looked desperately for Dee or anyone else for help. But evidently she’d been left alone with her charges. She was afraid not to join them.
“Cat!” one of the kids squealed, and reached out with both hands.
“Don’t touch,” Julie warned.
The cat took off again. This time it slinked behind a large, rusted oil drum. Julie didn’t even want to imagine what it was used for. “Careful,” she called as the kids rounded the drum. Tetanus . . . stitches . . . letters to the principal . . .
“Cuidadoso!” she yelled, her college Spanish finally kicking in.
She reached the back of the drum. They were all squatting in the dirt looking at the bottom rim of the drum. The cat was nowhere to be seen.
Julie huffed out a sigh of relief. But now what were they doing? She leaned over the five who were intently watching . . .
“Ants!” they yelled excitedly, and Julie Barlow had an epiphany.
“What’s she doing?” Alex asked, looking out the window of Dee’s office. Julie was running after a bunch of kids all looking at the ground.
“Teaching vocabulary.”
“Really? It looks like she’s just chasing kids to me.”
Dee got up from her desk and came to the window.
“Do you think you should intercede?”
“Hell no,” Dee said. “I’d hire her if I had a penny to fly with. As it is, I may have to adopt her technique.”
“That’s a technique?” Alex asked.
Dee smiled her megawatt smile. “Oh yeah. She’s a natural.”