11

Rachel needn’t have worried about who was going to be at church on Sunday. Instead of offering up praises to the Lord, she offered up the contents of her stomach to her apartment’s plumbing system.

Although she’d felt relatively well through mid-afternoon on Saturday, the evening hours brought a headache and a general feeling of unease in her abdomen. Had she been a character in a Victorian novel, she would have received a diagnosis of “general malaise” and retired to her velvet chaise lounge with a few drops of laudanum. As it was, she had no personal physician making house calls. She took two ibuprofen and went to bed early.

Around midnight, she woke to terrible abdominal cramps. She stiffened, hoping that if she just lay still enough, the feeling would pass. It didn’t. She heaved out of bed and quick-stepped to the bathroom.

~*~

Rachel woke to the sound of the front door opening and closing.

The bathroom lights flipped on, and Ann loomed over her, flipping her keys back and forth against her palm. She was dressed for church and carried a pharmacy bag. “Get up. The ginger ale is here.”

Rachel groaned and lifted her head to peer up at her sister. “Just bring a blanket and throw it over me.” Her voice rasped. She plunked her head back down and groaned, realizing belatedly that she’d been pillowing it on the bathroom scale.

“Get up,” Ann repeated. “You can’t sleep in the bathroom. It’s gross.” She waved a hand through the air. “Besides, it smells like somebody died in here.”

“There’s nothing you can tell me about ‘gross’ that I don’t already know.” Rachel sat up, rubbed her neck, and blinked blearily. “Terrible things happened in this room last night.”

“That is apparent.” Ann grasped bathroom door handle and began flapping the door back and forth to air out the tiny, windowless room.

Rachel stood up groggily and cracked the top of her head against the underside of the sink. Groaning, she subsided to the floor. As if the flu weren’t enough, now she’d given herself head trauma.

She wrapped her hands around the edge of the sink and hauled herself upward, swaying slightly as she caught her breath. Bent in half at the middle, she shuffled to the living room and flopped on the couch.

Giving the bathroom a wide berth, Ann brought a glass from the kitchen and filled it with ginger ale before fetching a blanket and pillow from Rachel’s room. She closed the blinds and pulled tight the curtains to further darken the room and give Rachel’s fevered eyes a rest.

“I don’t suppose I have to ask if you took your temperature,” Ann said, as if resigned for the inevitable.

Rachel pushed herself onto her forearms and reached for the glass. Nodding, she swallowed several gulps, sighing as the bubbles worked their way down her throat. “It started at 99.3 and peaked at 102.5. The last few times I took it, it was hovering around 100.5.” Rachel put down the cup and pressed her face into the love seat. The top of her head still throbbed from its collision with the sink. “I left the thermometer in the bathroom.” Her voice was muffled. “Can you bring it to me before you leave?”

“You know, most people are content to take their temperature once just to confirm that they are running a fever.”

Rachel removed her head from the cushion but kept her eyes closed. “But how will I know when the fever breaks if I don’t keep checking?”

“That’s usually when you start feeling better,” Ann said. “If you’re not feeling better, it probably hasn’t broken.”

Ann begrudgingly fetched the thermometer and Rachel’s phone from the bathroom and set a glass of ice water and a bottle of ibuprofen next to the ginger ale. Then she left for church, promising to pass along tidings of Rachel’s illness to Lynn, Alex, Ethan, and anyone else who asked after her. “I just won’t go into detail.”

Rachel’s fever broke late Sunday afternoon. She slept straight through the night to Monday morning; and since she didn’t have a fever and hadn’t thrown up in almost twenty-four hours, she decided to go to work. Still, she felt like a worn-out dish rag and just as attractive. Had she and Ann still lived together, Ann probably would have talked her into staying home. But Ann was across town feeding horses, and when she texted to ask after Rachel’s health and received the answer of “fine,” she obviously took this at face value.

As for Rachel, she made it to school on time but broke into a cold sweat before she’d even made it out of the car. She sat with her head against the steering wheel, wishing that Lee would materialize with a hot coffee and an offer to carry her inside. Then she remembered that Lee no longer worked at the school. She remembered their stupid fight. She banged her head against the steering wheel just once, but it didn’t make her feel any better.

Someone tapped on her window. Rachel raised her sweat-slicked face to see Sharon Day peering in at her. “Miss Cooper, are you OK?”

Rachel rolled down the window. “I’m fine.”

“You look tired.”

It was such a kind assessment that Rachel almost burst into tears. “I am tired.” Rachel leaned her head against the steering wheel. It felt cool and comforting. Perhaps she could just close her eyes for a minute.

“Are you sure you should be here?”

“No. But there’s too much to do for me to be absent.”

Sharon made a sympathetic sound as if this, at least, she understood. Apparently substitutes just didn’t cut it, even in kindergarten.

“Let’s get you inside,” Sharon said, “and then I’ll see what I can do about brewing coffee in the staff room.”

“Bless you,” Rachel sighed, really meaning it.

The day passed in a haze of nausea and self-loathing. The building seemed colder than usual. Rachel slept through lunch with her head on her desk. She might have slept through last period as well. She had no real way of knowing. If I can just make it to car line, then I can warm up outside. She shivered at her desk until the final bell sounded.

During car line, it rained. After the first rush had passed, Sharon Day came mincing over in her taupe heels, stepping around puddles. “You should just go in,” she said, standing as close to Rachel as their two umbrellas would allow. “I can do the last ten minutes.”

It was on the tip of Rachel’s tongue to refuse, but she couldn’t summon the energy to think of a reason why. She ran a hand down her face, nodding wearily. Going in now would give her time to dry out a little before afternoon play rehearsal. She didn’t expect to get much accomplished, but at least the kids would have a chance to run through their lines.

Ten minutes into rehearsal, Rachel wished she had canceled—not just the rehearsal, but Monday itself. The whole day had been a complete failure. She wanted a do-over.

“No,” she called feebly to Chris from where she perched in the second row, one jacket draped over her shoulders and another over her knees. “Sir Rodger McBluster just taps his cane against the fireplace lightly. It’s made of Styrofoam, not stone. At this rate you’re going to bash a hole in it before opening night.”

Chris stood with his cane propped over one shoulder like a lumberjack bearing an axe. He blocked the glare of the stage lights with one hand as he peered out toward her. “But Miss Cooper, if I don’t hit it hard enough, it doesn’t make any noise!”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Rachel called back. “I told you. You worry about your part, and let the stage crew worry about everything else. Candice has the sound effects under control. Don’t you, Candice?”

Stage Manager Candice looked up from her clipboard, blinked owlishly. “What?”

Rachel rubbed her throbbing temples. “Never mind. Let’s start the scene again. This time without ruining the set.” She rested her head against the seatback behind her and closed her eyes.

Jessica Potts’s heels clomped against the floor loudly enough to drown out her lines, but Rachel didn’t have the energy to chew her out. One disaster at a time.

Rachel sensed someone hovering beside her chair. “What?” she snapped without opening her eyes.

“I brought you this,” hissed a sweet, quiet voice.

She squinted up. Sharon Day stood beside her in the aisle, clutching a white mug. “Here.” She sat down next to Rachel and pushed the mug toward her. “It’s Earl Grey. I don’t know if you take sugar, but I put lots in it just in case.”

Rachel extended trembling hands. She lifted the mug and inhaled. She wasn’t much for tea, but it was sweet and hot. She wrapped her cold hands around the mug and smiled at Sharon over the rim. “I love you so much.”

“I didn’t know if Lee would be bringing you a coffee when he came to work on the set, but I took a chance.”

Rachel’s hands convulsed around the hot mug. Apparently Sharon didn’t know that Rachel and Lee were fighting. “Oh. I don’t think—he’s not—I mean—”

“Hiya, boss!” Chris called from onstage, breaking character to wave his cane toward the back.

“What now,” Rachel muttered. She could barely hear over the banging of the set crew and the hammering in her head. She held the cup to her lips to sip the steaming tea.

“Hi,” Lee said as he walked past Rachel and Sharon.

Rachel inhaled sharply, and her sip went down the wrong way. She coughed and spat tea. Sharon timidly patted her back as she swiped at the warm liquid dribbling down her chin. The action onstage ground to a halt as the kids alternately greeted Mr. Martin and gazed at Miss Cooper, who was apparently self-destructing.

In a misguided attempt to stop coughing, Rachel downed a gulp of hot tea. She nearly choked as it singed its way down her throat.

Onstage, Chris twirled his cane like a baton. “Any time, Miss Cooper,” he called.

Rachel lifted a shaky hand and made rolling motions in the air, indicating that the show should go on. Once they were underway, she shoved a script into Sharon’s hands and hissed for her to prompt them if necessary. This done, she hobbled over to where Lee poked at the set, conferring in whispers with the set crew and testing the firmness of the wooden frames by pushing on them with the heels of his big, square hands.

“I thought you weren’t going to show,” Rachel hissed at him.

At first she thought he was going to ignore her. Then he paused to look down at her. He frowned but made eye contact. “I thought about it for a long time. It’s not right to make the kids suffer.” He tested another frame. “It’s not their fault that you are the way that you are.”

“Lee!” She slapped at him, her head swiveling as she worked to see if any of the students stood close enough to overhear. “Stop being rude.”

“You look terrible, by the way,” he observed dispassionately, moving forward through the bones of the set.

“I’ve been sick,” she croaked. “But I’m getting better.” Her body, intent on acting the traitor through the whole scene, was suddenly overcome by a convulsive shiver. Since she now wore both jackets over her shoulders like capes, she reached to clutch them closer.

Lee smirked.

“Lee.”

“What?”

“Leeeeeeeee,” She waited for him to look at her again. When he did, she smiled. “I’m glad you came back.”

He stared at her for a long moment. “I’m not back.”

A loud voice spoke from directly behind Rachel. She squawked and practically jumped out of her skin.

Alice stepped from the shadows where she’d been lurking, waiting for her cue to go onstage. “Oh, no,” Alice said in her Agatha Turnweed voice as she stepped into the lights, “‘Tis no time for that now!”

Rachel pulled her jackets closer and lifted her chin. She turned on her heel and stomped away from Lee, determined to act like a professional.

Just how long Alice had been lurking backstage and precisely what she’d overheard worried Rachel. At least Alice was a new student, and therefore presumably less invested in analyzing Rachel’s interactions with Lee. Thank goodness it was Alice who’d overheard them instead of Jessica Potts or Shayla or—heaven forbid—Chris.

Rachel re-appropriated her playbook from Sharon and resumed oversight of the play, although her heart really wasn’t in it. She kept one eye on the kids and one eye on Lee.

He spent only twenty minutes conferring with the set crew. On his way out, he walked past Rachel and Sharon. Although he kept his eyes on the back of the darkened auditorium, he paused next to her and whispered, “Are you ready?”

“Ready for what?” Rachel asked without looking up from her script.

But Sharon stood, blinking and adjusting her clothes with twitchy fingers.

Lee shoved his hands in his pockets and kept walking.

“See you later, Miss Cooper,” Sharon whispered, pausing to lean down and smile directly into Rachel’s face. She gave Rachel a covert thumbs-up. “Feel better!”

Her heels clicked cheerily against the floor as she followed Lee up the aisle.