Page 51 of Somebody's Watching Me
He made it over to her just as she and the boy she was with took a seat at one of the smaller round tables.
“Is there anything I can help you with?”
It was loud in the cafeteria, filled with excited high-pitched voices and parents carrying on with one another. He had to shout to be heard, causing her to jump slightly.
“I’m not sure.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “There’s so many forms.”
The paperwork she needed to fill out laid on the table in front of her, and Devon pulled out one of the kid-sized cafeteria chairs to sit next to the boy.
“What’s your name?”
“Selah.”
He was a cute kid and had his mother’s eyes. Deep brown and sizing him up the way an adult man would. “I’m Devon Howard. I teach fifth grade science here.”
The introduction was aimed at both, and he offered his hand in greeting. The boy shook it with a nice strong grip, but the mother only presented him with a few fingers to shake.
“I’m Simone.”
“Pleasure to meet you.”
Simone set her purse aside and took a pen from the bouquet of Bics in the center of the table. “If you teach fifth grade, why are you at kindergarten orientation?”
Because fate was leading me to you, and I’m just along for the ride.
That’s what he wanted to say, but he went with, “The school always needs extra help on days like today.”
The beautiful lip she’d been chewing on turned upward into a smile. “Tell me where to start, Mr. Howard.”
He went over each form, and once she started filling them out, he struck up a conversation with Selah, but kept one eye on her entries. Father’s name. That’s what he wanted to see. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, but that didn’t always mean anything.
“You’re a good way out there,” Devon remarked when she wrote her address down. “Almost to Hollingsdale.”
Her pen stalled for a split second. “We are, but I like my privacy.”
When she finally reached the father’s contact information, she wrote something, but paused, and then scratched it out. Devon took the opening. “Is his dad not involved?”
Her shoulders stiffened. “Yes, he’s involved, but lives out of town. There’s no need to put his name on the paperwork.”
“If he ever wants to pick Selah up from school, or come and have lunch with him, he’ll need to be listed.”
Simone placed the cap back on the pen. “He won’t.”
“Daddy might,” Selah urged. “He might come. Put his name down.”
“Hush, Selah.”
“I’ll write his name.” Selah grabbed a pen. “I know how to spell it. B-E-N.”
“That’s very good, Selah,” Devon said, puzzled over the panic coming from the goddess. “Can you spell your dad’s last name?”
“F—“
“Franklin!” Simone shouted, startling not only herself, but everyone around them. “His last name is Franklin, and yes, we get the irony.”
She rose abruptly, the legs of her chair scraping across the floor as she grabbed a new blank form. “I can turn these papers into the front office later, correct?”
Unsure of what was happening, Devon nodded, and before he could say another word, the pair were out the door.
