Page 58 of Make it Real
She waved a hand, as moved by my embarrassment as she ever was. “She knows what I mean. Way off in the future.”
Right. But just a minute ago, she’d hoped it would besoon. Jed hadn’t run from the house screaming, but I didn’t find a lot of consolation in any part of this scenario.
“Callie will visit us in Florida, won’t you?” Rita said, nodding my way.
I cleared my throat to be sure I could speak. “Of course. It will give me a place to go every summer vacation.”
Just like that, everything inside me seemed to shift, like I’d been jolted out of a dream. Obviously, I’d known things would change when she moved, but like I’d told Clint Evans the other day, I managed to overlook that troublesome fact most of the time. But every now and then, it’d hit me just how much my life would alter after she’d gone.
She’d been with me all my life, my most important—and only—family for the last eight years. Soon, it’d be just me. I wanted that, but it’d also rip my heart out when she drove away.
I glanced at her, but she didn’t look wistful or sad. Frankly, she was probably still dreaming up great-grandbabies.
“Speaking of summer vacation,” Linda said around a bite of guacamole, “have you had a chance to see how your classroom looks yet?”
I took a deep breath and brought my thoughts back into the moment. “Not yet.”
“It’s about time they changed out that carpet. It was brand new my first year teaching there in the eighties.”
“That old carpet had seen some things.” Half the pattern was just undetermined stains—and in a kindergarten classroom, we were all better off not knowing. “I’ll go in Thursday to put all the furniture back.”
“Sounds like a lot of work,” Gran said. “You need any help?”
“Oh, no, don’t worry about it. It’s just a lot of moving desks around, I can handle it.”
“Ahem.” Jed nudged me. “I’m good at moving desks around.”
I hadn’t asked him because I’d already asked so much of him. I didn’t want to put his work in jeopardy because of this scenario I’d concocted.
“I figured you’d be busy with your own work.”
“I’m never too busy for you, Callie Lou.”
I grinned a big dumb smile because oh, I loved hearing him talk like that. I knew it was strictly for the benefit of the women around us, but still. Swoon city.
“Are you sure? It’s probably a big old mess.”
His rakish grin sent my insides tumbling. “I’m not afraid of mess.”
Good thing. Because my tangled up heart felt like it had the potential to turn into a whole lot of mess if I didn’t rein it in right quick.
I just wasn’t sure I had the ability anymore.
NINETEEN
callie
Thursday morning,I unlocked my classroom door, pushed it open, and flicked on the overhead lights. I groaned as the full scope of the project came into view. Kind of wanted to flip the lights off again. I couldn’t guess just how long this would take to set to rights. Behind me, Jed made a sound of surprise.
I turned to him. “You want to rethink volunteering for this?”
“Not a chance. Just wasn’t expecting…this, that’s all.”
Neither was I. Apparently, the crews had emptied the room before they painted and re-carpeted, and then put everything back as quickly as possible. No sense of a plan here, just desks, chairs, and storage cabinets pushed at random into the room. A junk yard would have looked more thought out.
“We can handle it.” I gave him a stout nod, already getting into my extra-optimistic teacher mode. “To create order, you have to create a little chaos. And I’m a pro at chaos.”
I winked at him, and got a satisfied little thrill when it made him laugh.
