Page 1 of Class Act

PROLOGUE

Last week of May

I listened distractedly to the conversation around the table as I stacked a perfect bite onto my fork. Chicken, mushroom, snow pea, and now to scoop some rice. There. I opened my mouth and placed the well-balanced tidbit directly on top of my tongue. Satisfied, I looked around at my friends as I chewed. The faculty break room wasn’t anywhere near as dazzling as some of the places I’d eaten, but it felt like home to me thanks to the other women at my table. Lizzie was dangling a limp noodle off the end of her spoon, her nose wrinkled up in distaste. The look, so unusual for her, made me smile.

“My life, represented in food,” Lizzie said. She wiggled the noodle at us until it slopped lazily into her soup. We all stopped talking to each other and looked at her, curious about the uncharacteristically dramatic mood. “School’s out for summer next week, and I need to do something that makes me feel alive. I’m in danger of disappearing into the void of monotony.”

Ruby was the first to reply. “I felt alive when I caught vomit in a trash can, earlier,” she said with a chuckle, her dark eyes nearly disappearing as they crinkled up.

The rest of us groaned, and I pushed away my plate of leftover stir-fry. No way was I going to be able to eat now. I suppose I could forgive Ruby, a nurse who thought all that body stuff was normal and interesting. Not me. No way, no how. I’m all for keeping blood and vomit inside the body where it belongs and pretending it doesn’t exist.

Lizzie sighed, which had the desired result of reclaiming our attention. “Am I the only one watching the clock tick and realizing how fast time is passing while I sit inside a school room?” She speared the four of us with a look. I sat up a little straighter as her eyes pinned mine before moving on. “I’m about to finish my tenth year of teaching here and am in serious danger of becoming a vicious stereotype.” She pointed her noodle-less spoon at each of us, one by one. “You should all be worried too. We’re all in our thirties, never been married, and teaching school. Eventually someone is going to accuse us of being old maids. Certain parts inside of me are actually turning to dust.”

I’d turned thirty last month, yes, but it hadn’t occurred to me to be panicking quite yet. Of course, I was the youngest at the table, and it had taken me this long to settle into my own skin and decide how to live my life. I wasn’t exactly yearning for a man to complete me. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t see Lizzie’s point or occasionally hope there might be more in the future.

“Old maid is an insulting term,” Meredith replied, her darkly lined blue eyes flashing her offense on behalf of all of us.

“I could have called us spinsters, which isn’t any better,” Lizzie replied with a shrug.

“Who says we need a label?” Meredith continued, pausing to pop a piece of her sandwich into her mouth before reaching up to tuck a lock of her jet-black hair behind her ear. “Labels are limiting.”

I was inclined to agree. If my mom could hear Lizzie throwing around disparaging remarks and pigeonholing us that way, she’d start an intervention on the spot. I wanted to cheer in agreement with Meredith but settled for a nod and patted Meredith on the arm.

“I heard a new term: thornback,” Aryn stated as she bit into her crisp salad. At our blank stares Aryn hurried to swallow and then leaned forward with a cheery, amused expression. “I read an article the other day that said the word spinster was for women who were in the age range of twenty-three to twenty-six. Thornback was what they called unmarried women over the age of twenty-six. It was some sort of reference to a hideous fish with thorns down its back—meaning those women were ugly and prickly and should be thrown back.”

Ruby’s brow furrowed and her lips pouted slightly. “That doesn’t sound any better.”

Aryn held up her hand. “I know. It was terrible. But . . . there’s a movement on social media right now to resurrect the word in more of a dragon-like way. Like saying, ‘Who needs a man? We’re thornback dragon women, and we rule the entire kingdom.’”

The five of us were silent for a beat, something that certainly didn’t happen often, before I sputtered out a laugh. I reached up and habitually smoothed my hand over my white-blonde bob while shaking my head. “It’s perfect,” I said. “See, Lizzie? We’re not old maids. We’re a bunch of thornback dragon women, thriving without men.”

Lizzie leaned across the table to give me a high five as her expression became entertained, her hazel eyes dancing. “You’re right, Hailey. I love it.”

Ruby squared her shoulders playfully and stated, “I’ll stand with you, Lizzie, and so will your sisters of the lunchroom table.” She set down the soda she’d been nursing and gestured widely. “We, the Thornback Five, must seek adventure in the great wilderness outside of this school. Each of us will find our fortunes and happiness will be ours.”

Meredith rolled her eyes while the rest of us chuckled, drawing the attention of other faculty members who had been peacefully eating. Someone cleared their throat, and we shared a grin as Meredith cleared hers back, loudly. It was something that happened frequently, and we all brushed it off, refocusing on each other.

“We should form The Thornback Society,” Aryn said, raising her water bottle. “To fierce women!” she called.

We all picked up our various drinks and tapped them together.

“To women who don’t need men but who think they might want one someday,” I said in my head as my metal water bottle clanked against the others. Someday.

CHAPTER ONE

September

I’ve never been one to shy away from admitting to my mistakes. I know a person can’t grow without some self-awareness, after all. But ethical high ground aside, some days are meant for lying. I mean, it’s not every day that you’re standing in the middle of the school cafeteria, wearing gloves dripping with taco sauce, when one of your mistakes shoves itself in your face and you suddenly have to pretend you’ve never seen him before in your life.

In all fairness, and I promise I’m not trying to justify my behavior, I never thought I’d actually come face to face with him. Sure, I’d seen him around town but always at a distance, allowing him to maintain the same illusive mystery as a sweet bedtime story or the perfect hero in a romance novel. He was both real and imaginary.

He was never meant to step straight out of dreamland and into my real life. He walked through the cafeteria, holding hands with his eight-year-old daughter, wearing the same swoonworthy smile he always flashed in pictures. His gray suit was crisply pressed as though it repelled wrinkles, and I happened to know that it was almost the same shade as his light eyes. My own eyes were the size of ostrich eggs as he sauntered past the taco stand where I was working and came to a stop near a table of other parents, casually tucking his free hand in a pocket and joining effortlessly in the conversation.

I made a few quick assumptions about what he might be saying to them, based on an interview of his I’d read a few weeks ago in the local paper. He was big on the preservation of Earth and its resources. He also played golf. Whatever it was he said, they were eating it up the same way I had imagined I would, you know, should the entire world revolve straight off its axis and plunge into the icy depths of space.

This was not supposed to be happening.

The echoing sounds of many voices, along with the constant motion of the crowd, did nothing to hide him from my view or distract me from my staring. It all became background, soft and subtle, growing fuzzy the longer I focused in on the way his mouth moved and his shoulders shifted as he spoke . . .

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