when asked to start with no base work, she floundered because she had no real imagination. She’d probably make an excellent web coder or number cruncher.
“Just do the best you can. You’re not being graded. This is only for enrichment, okay?” I’ll come around and help as you need me. Get started.”
The girls stood in unison and raced toward the cabinets and bins to claim their favorite supplies, so Carla stole a minute to deal with the text message chaos on her phone. Alex had texted her that morning to ask if she had been able to look at her schedule. She was happy to be able to tell him:
Sorry, Alex. I’m off the market now. Happened rather quickly. Hope you understand.
Alex hadn’t responded, but he’d obviously got the message because Tony texted her:
Are you bullshitting Alex? That’s pretty low. This is exactly why guys can’t trust chicks.
That had pissed her off sufficiently enough for her to tell her brother what he could go do with himself and where .
Mom had chimed in:
I just saw you two days ago. You didn’t say anything about a boyfriend. It is a boy, right?
She had told both Gills to mind their business and they’d been sending angry texts every fifteen or twenty minutes ever since. When she looked down at her phone there in the rec center, she saw Ashley had joined in the fray. She deleted all the messages without responding, except for one from Grant she’d overlooked. It was his flight information with the note:
Let me know if I can help.
The girls worked steadily for a while, hardly talking except to ask for supplies to be passed around the room. Usually when they got in a groove, someone broke the silence by asking Carla some inappropriate question.
“Hey, Miss Gill?” Kate asked.
“Hmm?”
“How come you’re not married? You’re kinda old.”
Carla gaped. “I am not ! I’m twenty-five.” Nearly twenty-six. Oh my God, did I sleep through a year?
“Well, that’s like double my age.”
“That may be the case right now, but when you’re twenty-five I’ll be thirty-seven. Hardly double.”
“Ew.”
“No ew ! There are great things about every age.”
Ella Fontaine snorted and accidentally dropped her paintbrush on the floor from the force of it. “What’s so great about being thirteen?” she asked from under the table. “My skin hurts ’cause of acne, I’m mad all the time and all the boys hate me.”
“I’m sure they don’t hate you. Boys are weird at that age.” Carla used a wet paper towel to wipe up the bit of paint from the tile. She paused. “For that matter, they’re weird at every age.” She shrugged from her crouch and stood to toss the paper at the can near the door. “Sometimes they act one way when their minds are thinking another.”
“Why do they do that?” the blonde asked. She had her pastel crayon paused midstroke and furrowed her brow as if the subject matter was more perplexing than trying to reconcile a checkbook to find a missing seventeen cents.
Carla crouched in front of her and helped her blend some hard lines on her picture. “Hard to say. But to answer your question, Kate, I’m not married because no one has ever asked me.”
“Well, that sucks.”
Carla backtracked to her table and slid into the hard chair behind it. “Well, it’s not a race.”
“Do you want kids?” asked someone in a muffled voice from the supply cabinet.
All the girls stopped what they were doing and stared at their teacher. Already, that had become a topic their opinions of her would hinge on.
“You know, it’s funny you should ask,” Carla said with a chuckle. “When I was in college, my friends Meg and Sharon and I had these sleepovers pretty much every night in the dorms. Every now and then we’d talk about how much fun it would be for all of us to be pregnant at the same time.”
“I think I saw a Lifetime movie about that,” the blonde said before resuming her scribbling.
Carla raised a
“Just do the best you can. You’re not being graded. This is only for enrichment, okay?” I’ll come around and help as you need me. Get started.”
The girls stood in unison and raced toward the cabinets and bins to claim their favorite supplies, so Carla stole a minute to deal with the text message chaos on her phone. Alex had texted her that morning to ask if she had been able to look at her schedule. She was happy to be able to tell him:
Sorry, Alex. I’m off the market now. Happened rather quickly. Hope you understand.
Alex hadn’t responded, but he’d obviously got the message because Tony texted her:
Are you bullshitting Alex? That’s pretty low. This is exactly why guys can’t trust chicks.
That had pissed her off sufficiently enough for her to tell her brother what he could go do with himself and where .
Mom had chimed in:
I just saw you two days ago. You didn’t say anything about a boyfriend. It is a boy, right?
She had told both Gills to mind their business and they’d been sending angry texts every fifteen or twenty minutes ever since. When she looked down at her phone there in the rec center, she saw Ashley had joined in the fray. She deleted all the messages without responding, except for one from Grant she’d overlooked. It was his flight information with the note:
Let me know if I can help.
The girls worked steadily for a while, hardly talking except to ask for supplies to be passed around the room. Usually when they got in a groove, someone broke the silence by asking Carla some inappropriate question.
“Hey, Miss Gill?” Kate asked.
“Hmm?”
“How come you’re not married? You’re kinda old.”
Carla gaped. “I am not ! I’m twenty-five.” Nearly twenty-six. Oh my God, did I sleep through a year?
“Well, that’s like double my age.”
“That may be the case right now, but when you’re twenty-five I’ll be thirty-seven. Hardly double.”
“Ew.”
“No ew ! There are great things about every age.”
Ella Fontaine snorted and accidentally dropped her paintbrush on the floor from the force of it. “What’s so great about being thirteen?” she asked from under the table. “My skin hurts ’cause of acne, I’m mad all the time and all the boys hate me.”
“I’m sure they don’t hate you. Boys are weird at that age.” Carla used a wet paper towel to wipe up the bit of paint from the tile. She paused. “For that matter, they’re weird at every age.” She shrugged from her crouch and stood to toss the paper at the can near the door. “Sometimes they act one way when their minds are thinking another.”
“Why do they do that?” the blonde asked. She had her pastel crayon paused midstroke and furrowed her brow as if the subject matter was more perplexing than trying to reconcile a checkbook to find a missing seventeen cents.
Carla crouched in front of her and helped her blend some hard lines on her picture. “Hard to say. But to answer your question, Kate, I’m not married because no one has ever asked me.”
“Well, that sucks.”
Carla backtracked to her table and slid into the hard chair behind it. “Well, it’s not a race.”
“Do you want kids?” asked someone in a muffled voice from the supply cabinet.
All the girls stopped what they were doing and stared at their teacher. Already, that had become a topic their opinions of her would hinge on.
“You know, it’s funny you should ask,” Carla said with a chuckle. “When I was in college, my friends Meg and Sharon and I had these sleepovers pretty much every night in the dorms. Every now and then we’d talk about how much fun it would be for all of us to be pregnant at the same time.”
“I think I saw a Lifetime movie about that,” the blonde said before resuming her scribbling.
Carla raised a
Similar Books
