Sarah's Window by Janice Graham

rumbled in Dolby stereo. On these occasions of ruptured civility, which occurred as they did from time to time in the teachers' lounge, the two sides settled like foot soldiers into their respective trenches, with occasional defectors slipping out under cover of dark and forming compassionate and human bonds—Miss Morgan of home ec and Mr. Fleming in the math department, for example— and then slipping back to their own side at dawn to prepare themselves for the daily battle.
    Billy had long observed this segregation of the sexes during the lunch hour. The men always sat in a lineup along the wall in, as the ladies had often noted, the most comfortable facilities in the lounge, a long orange Naugahyde sofa flanked and faced by several chairs of the same fabric in faded avocado and citron—a formation that bore a remarkable resemblance, Billy noted, to the old Conestoga wagon-train circle of defense, with a newspaper-cluttered coffee table where the campfire would have been. The women camped on the other side of the lounge in a huddle of small circular tables surrounded by upright chairs, a formation that revealed their natural inclination toward communication and signaled right off their skills in synthesis and cooperation, all of which—Billy knew for a fact—the menfolk lumped into the general category of gossipmongering. A few women on occasion would brave the male defenses and sit for a few moments around the campfire with the fellas, but it was usually when a bit of official business was taking place, and the incident was viewed as a pleasant anomaly. But under no circumstances, never, ever, did a man who saw himself as a man wander into that female labyrinth, settle himself down among the plentiful designing Ariadnes with their skeins of threads they were constantly rolling up and unrolling, knotting and unraveling.
    Sarah's amused laughter had rallied him on, and Billy lost track of the time. Before they knew it the bell had rung and the halls were full of students rushing to class.
    Billy sat back and wiped his hands on a paper towel. "How'd you like to come over and ride Warlord this weekend?"
    Sarah paused with her thumb in her mouth. Warlord had been Maude's horse.
    "He hasn't been ridden all summer," Billy added. "Gettin' wild."
    "He was always wild."
    "Yeah. Maude was always a little scared of him."
    "I can see why. He's young and he's a stallion."
    "You used to own a stallion."
    "That was when I was a crazy kid."
    "Want to ride him?"
    Sarah dabbed a bit of sauce from her mouth and lifted her eyes to meet his. Her smile held a faint air of challenge.
    "I'll give it a try."
    Billy began to clean up the clutter, folding up their paper plates and tossing them into the trash. He was standing there, looking down at her as she cleaned her fingers, when he said, "Take off the damn coat, Sarah."
    It was a startled look she gave him. But she did as he asked, slipped the coat off her shoulders and let it fall onto her chair. He thought she looked a little like a virgin disrobing before her first lover, but he knew better.
    He had never seen her wear anything like that before. It was a stretch top that molded her breasts, cut low enough to reveal cleavage. And the color put roses in her cheeks.
    "Why are you so embarrassed?" he said gently.
    "I'm too pink." She grimaced. "Joy talked me into buying it. I should know better than to listen to her."
    "Joy was right."
    Sarah shook her head vehemently, flinging her corkscrew curls from side to side.
    "I'm too pink."
    "No. You're not too pink," he said, and he turned away quickly before it had an effect on him.
    That weekend she went out to ride Warlord and stayed for dinner. The following weekend she was invited to dinner and ended up staying the night. At Christmas Billy tied a big red bow on Warlord's saddle and set it under his tree with a note to Sarah saying the stallion was hers.

CHAPTER 16
    It was a bright March morning and Sarah was in the stall thinning out