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Fordham was just about asleep when Whitty’s alarm clock went off. Too tired to move, she decided to let Dorie give up her dawn Scrabble game to handle the morning. There would be plenty of time to face the day later.
Within minutes, she was drifting through a sea of flowers and climbing up a mountain of dictionaries. A man in a turban was sitting on a cloud, watching her... and then there was an annoying tug at her blanket. She went to swat it, but a gentle, kind voice got it to leave. Then a hugely pregnant Margo tied a rope around Fordham’s waist and told her to keep climbing. Margo clenched the rope tightly as Fordham struggled with each step. Margo assured her she was safe and could do anything she wanted except marry the right man and eat fewer than fifteen hundred calories a day. Fordham’s head hit the wall with a clunk when Margo let go of the rope, and the phone rang.
Groggy and cranky, she kicked off her comforter and picked up the phone. “Why did you let go?” she asked in a stupor.
“Fordham? Is that you?” said a voice that wasn’t Margo’s.
“It’s me. Who are you?” she asked, still not awake.
“It’s Abe. I’m in my office,” he said, clearing his throat. “And you should be in yours. Have you been drinking?”
Fordham wondered what happened to her mug. “You stole my coffee.”
“Fordham. Wake up and get over here. It’s important.”
***
FORDHAM SAT IN THE black swivel chair in front of Abe’s desk while he finished up a call. She wasn’t sure what he needed to discuss, but she did know she was too tired to process anything. All she wanted to do was spin her way into a long nap, but she doubted Abe would be that accommodating.
“Fordham,” Abe said in a tone that reminded her of Mission Impossible, “negotiations are underway at our central office. The entire Flowers from the Heart series is being reevaluated.”
She immediately recalled her dream.
“If the next book doesn’t generate significant revenue, they’re going to hire new staff and try a cookbook series,” Abe said, shaking his head and shrugging.
“Cookbooks?” She couldn’t imagine Abe agonizing over Beef Paprikash recipes. “So what are you saying?” Fordham said, still a little slow on the uptake.
“What I’m saying is if this book... you and the entire department may...” Abe was wringing his hands. “Make sure the book isn’t just good. Make sure it’s great.”
The intercom buzzed, and Myra reminded Abe to take his stool softener. She must have thought Abe was alone. Fordham wondered if that was really part of Myra’s job description.
“Seriously?” Fordham grabbed a big fat doughnut from Abe’s desk. “This isn’t even what I do, and now you’re telling me I could be out of here altogether.”
Fordham stomped out of Abe’s office before he could get a word in edgewise and went straight to the ladies’ room. She placed the doughnut on a piece of paper towel on the stainless-steel counter adjacent to the sinks and splashed some cold water on her face. She stared at her reflection in the mirror with horror. She’d used the too-light foundation she was planning to return, and there was gray hair at her temples that hadn’t been there before this project had been dumped in her lap. Unfortunately, there was no time to indulge in self-pity or to make voodoo dolls in Margo’s image. She was going to have to find a way to make this work.
A few minutes later, she was at her desk, staring around the room, hoping for inspiration as she nibbled on the overly sweet doughnut. She wasn’t sure where to start. She got up and peered out the window. The weather was dank, but the sun kept trying to nudge its way through the dense clouds. A small crowd of people was watching a guy play bongos, and more than anything, she wanted to join them. She was too tired to get anything done anyway.
A knock at the door thwarted her plans. Abe immediately parked himself on the empty corner of her desk. “Don’t make me feel guilty. I feel guilty enough without you giving me puppy-dog eyes.”
“I don’t do puppy-dog eyes. Too needy,” she said, tossing her hair to the side. “No one said you have to feel guilty. But if you do, I’m certainly not going to stop you.” She sat down at her computer. “You’re doing your job. I’m struggling to figure out how to do mine.”
“I spoke to Margo,” Abe said, standing up. “She’s getting married. She asked me if I would give her away.”
“Oh, please, let me.”
“I’m sure you’ll be getting an invitation.”
“I don’t care. I’m not going.” Fordham crossed her arms and returned to the window.
“You’re being childish, and besides, weddings are a good place to meet people.”
Fordham spun around. “Did Margo put you up to this? Did she ask you to do her bidding, for a change?”
“No. I told her you were upset about the way things were handled.”
“I’m upset about the way I was handled.” Fordham wiped away a few tears of frustration before they could be subjected to comment.
“She apologized,” Abe insisted. “Said she was superstitious and didn’t want to jinx anything.”
“Nothing except our friendship. She found that dispensable.”
“Fordham, what if this is fate at play? What if this is a good thing, and you’re missing it?”
“The only thing I plan to miss is the wedding. When is it?”
“She’s still working out the details.”
Fordham sat back in her chair. “Abe, not to be rude, but I have a lot to do, and planning what I’m not going to be wearing to Margo’s wedding isn’t high on my priority list.”
“You should reconsider, Fordham. That sour-grapes philosophy doesn’t suit you.”
“For you, I’ll think about it. If it ever happens. But for now, I really have to get back to work.”
“I have faith in you, Fordham. Just find it in yourself—quickly.” Abe eyed Fordham’s doughnut on a small paper plate, picked it up, and copped the best part on his way out. “Sorry, but you took my favorite.” He left, closing the door behind him.
The phone rang just as she was licking chocolate glaze off her lips. She had forgotten all about Back-to-School Night, but Whitty hadn’t.
“Aw, Whitty, honey, I have so much work to do, and you don’t come with me anyway. I’ll go next year.”
“Next year, I’ll be in middle school.”
“I knew that.” Fordham said defensively, even though she’d already entered the date in her planner for next year’s Back-to-School Night.
“Mom, it’s my last year at Crestwood, and it’s not like Dad is going.” Her daughter knew exactly how to play the guilt card. “And you need to meet my new principal. He likes me.”
“Of course he likes you. You’re smart and talented and funny and—”
“Mom!”
“I’m not buttering you up. I mean it, but... you’re right. I’ll go. I want to go.”
“Good, and wear the coral sweater. You look pretty in that.”
***
FORDHAM PLANTED A SMILE on her face and walked into the familiar entry of Crestwood Elementary. Dorie always told her, “What you show on the outside is your calling card.” Sometimes she wondered what people thought of her, but that night, she was too tired to care. She was wearing the coral sweater and had just finished two weeks of teeth-whitening strips. That seemed like sufficient effort for a night of, “Oh, hi, so good to see you. Anyone special in your life yet? They say it’s so hard out there.”
She said a quick hello to her favorite security guard, who directed her to Whitty’s classroom. It was crowded, and Fordham assessed that she and two other women were the only ones there without mates. No seats were available except for the one right up front. A very young, very pretty, very curvy, very new woman was seated behind the teacher’s desk. There was something about her vibe that Fordham immediately didn’t like. Standing at the blackboard was an extremely attractive man about Fordham’s age, with a full head of light-brown hair and soft blue eyes. He waited for Fordham to sit before speaking.
“Welcome, parents. Thank you for joining us. As you can see, I’m not Lenore Hudson.”
A few people chuckled. Fordham was too busy checking him out.
“My name is David Prince, and I am the new principal of Crestwood Elementary. And since your children are in the oldest group, I wanted the opportunity to talk to you first.”
There was mild applause. In the ten minutes that followed, Fordham discovered that the youngster sitting at the teacher’s desk was Pam Lesley, a substitute for Whitty’s homeroom class until the regular teacher, Debbie Kessler, returned from maternity leave. She also learned that Dr. Prince—a title he humbly and nonchalantly revealed—was passionate about kids and education.
“It’s overwhelming to think about how much the world has changed since we were the same age as our children are now,” Dr. Prince said with a hint of regret. “I’m bummed when I think that my daughter will never experience the comforting smell of a worksheet fresh from the mimeograph machine.”
So he has a daughter, Fordham mused. Maybe he was divorced. There was a fifty-fifty possibility. If so, it had to be recent, or he’d already be taken. Or he could still be married. Not all guys wore wedding rings. She couldn’t get a solid read on him. His socks matched, and he spoke with confidence, but his smile seemed to struggle as much as hers.
“Or that she’ll never be overjoyed about having thirteen channels of television,” he continued.
Their eyes met for a brief moment, and she turned away before he had the chance to realize she was attracted to him. Playing hard to get had always been her most effective tool in getting guys interested in her. A few people were talking about the Jerry Lewis Telethon and how exciting it had been to be able to watch television overnight. Someone mentioned how the Beatles used to have an animated show and how the FCC would have a field day if Eminem ever became a Saturday-morning-cartoon subject. David Prince beamed. He had the group—Fordham included—in his pocket, and they were ready to hear anything he had to say. After a few more stories, he returned to the discussion of education.
“Today, everything is high tech. You can actually hula hoop without the hoop as long as you have the right game box. But the last thing we want is for our kids to lose their identities as living, breathing creators. It’s too easy to sit behind a screen, big or small, and shut the world out. They must be encouraged to be participants, not reactors, in their lives. And we must keep in mind that in many ways, our kids are our teachers as much as we are theirs. They teach us to understand the prospects of the future as we continue to reinforce the importance of identity.”
He picked up a bright-yellow piece of chalk and wrote on the blackboard:
I-dentity vs. i-dentity.
He sat on the desk, blocking Pam Lesley—which was not a crying shame.
“We must constantly remind our kids that the little i behind their iPods and iPhones doesn’t diminish who they are. They must learn that the Pods and the Phones mean nothing without the I that they invest to make it all happen.”
Everything he said resonated with her. There was loud applause that evoked a dimpled grin from him, and he began to pass around copies of an article. Fordham’s phone vibrated.
Evie had texted: How’s it going?
Fordham began writing: The new principal is a real hotti—
She dropped her phone just as Dr. Prince was laying papers on her desk. Like a gentleman, he picked it up, but his eyes were looking right at the text. His face reddened, but the glint in his eyes was unmistakably appreciative. As the parents scooped up their papers, he thanked them for their time and sent them on to the remainder of the evening’s events.
Fordham was considering going over to say hello and thank him personally for his insight and for being so damn yummy, but Pam got to him first, and it was hard to ignore their body language. She stood so close to him it would have been hard to slip a credit card between them. To add to the show, each time he said something, she giggled, patted his arm, and squealed “You’re too much!”
Fordham surmised that Dr. Prince was not married, but Pam had already staked her claim.