I reached to tug another wipe from the dispenser just in time for Jenna to slide off the desk and snatch it out of my hand.
“Stop with the scrubbing already. I’m pretty sure my husband could perform surgery on your conference table.”
I huffed a sigh and plopped down on little Amelia Lakier’s desk, touching the scuffed toe of my navy Converse to the linoleum floor like a pointe ballerina. Ballet had been my sister’s hobby, however, never mine. Just one of a thousand ways the two of us were nothing alike.
Jenna didn’t need to state the obvious conclusion she’d drawn from my tirade about my sister. I could practically hear her brain connecting the dots. “So it was your frustration over Lisa that prompted you to send out another email asking for an update. . . .” And her assumption wouldn’t be all wrong, either. Lisa might be the younger sister in our sibling duo, but she was by far the more dominant, which often left me grasping for some semblance of control whenever we parted ways.
I glanced at the clock above my door and stood to erase Friday’s letter blends on the board, yet from the corner of my eye I couldn’t ignore Jenna’s wine-colored nail tapping her cup. “When you say you’ve ‘taken a break from dating,’ you don’t mean permanently.” This was how my best friend tested the waters, asking a question without actually asking it at all, though we both knew what side of the fence she leaned on when it came to the subject of my romantic life—the same side as my sister. Only Jenna’s motives were honorable. I couldn’t say the same about Lisa’s.
I numbered the activities of the day into six parts on the left side of the whiteboard: writing, music, math, reading, STEM play, and, my personal favorite, library . . . and then turned to face my most loyal of friends.
I gave her the truest answer I could. “Possibly, yes.”
She actually flinched at my words. “But, Lauren . . . it could be months and months still. Maybe even another year before you get the reply you’re waiting for. I don’t think you should limit yourself when you’re not even sure what’s gonna happen yet.” She paused and dialed down her volume. “You know I support your decision, I just . . . I don’t want you to close your heart off to the possibility of meeting someone in the meantime.”
I took a breath before I spoke, not wanting to dismiss the heart behind her words. Jenna loved me. And Jenna also loved her husband. It was only natural for her to want me to experience the same kind of marital bliss she shared with Brian. Only I happened to be convinced she’d married the only Prince Charming not written into a children’s storybook. “I know you support me, and I need you to trust that I’ve thought a lot about this. For me to even entertain the idea of a romantic relationship in this season of life doesn’t make sense.” Because the truth was, it wasn’t my singleness that kept me awake at night. It was a yearning much, much stronger. One ingrained into the fibers of my being. “I’ve put myself out there, Jen. For years. I’m pretty sure I’ve gone out with every type of man this city has to offer, and I promise you, I’m good with being single. Happy, even. Truly.” I gave Jenna the sincerest smile I could muster on this overly discussed topic. Between my sister, my students’ parents, and the retired women at my church, I’d been on enough first dates to make a city of two hundred thousand feel like a neighborhood pond, not an ocean.
Some people had the gift of keeping their emotions in check, of not showing the world everything going on inside their head. Jenna was not one of those people. But thankfully, even though I could read every word she wasn’t saying in those large, chestnut-brown eyes of hers, she had the restraint not to speak them aloud.
The morning bell chimed a familiar tune, and Jenna hooked her arm through mine as we slipped out my door. “I love you, Lauren.”
“And I you, Jen.”
We strode into the hall that would soon be filled with pattering feet, swishing backpacks, and excited voices, but my gaze caught on the darkened room across the hallway. Strange. Why were Mrs. Walker’s lights off? She was usually here before the rooster crowed.
Jenna’s eyes followed mine. “Oh—didn’t you hear what happened to Mrs. Walker?”
“No?” My pulse spiked. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“She fell in her garage last Friday night—broke her hip in two places.”
“Oh my gosh, that’s horrible!” I stopped and glanced back at her locked door. “Is she okay?” As challenging as Mrs. Walker could be at times, injuries at her age could have lasting complications. She’d started as a first-grade teacher at Brighton nearly twenty-five years ago and taught for ten years before that at a school in Oregon. “Is she in the hospital now?”
“Yeah, I overheard Diana confirming her long-term sub this morning. If it’s a break like my grandma had a few years ago, she’ll likely need a couple surgeries and will probably be out of commission for a while.”
Mrs. Walker rarely missed a day of teaching, but when she did, her short list of approved subs was well-known within the district.
“Wow . . .” An uncomfortable feeling of regret settled low in my belly. It was shameful to admit it, but I’d been avoiding Mrs. Walker for weeks, maybe even longer. It seemed no matter what idea I suggested for combining our efforts as the school’s only two first-grade teachers, she always found a way to complain about something I wasn’t doing right. I was either too hands-on, too unconventional, too energetic, or too lenient. Normally, I could weather her specific breed of negativity without taking it to heart; I’d had a lot of practice with her personality type over the years. But in recent months, as her rants had increased, my grace for them—and for her—had thinned considerably. Guilt wove itself around my rib cage at the thought of her awaiting surgery in the hospital. “Maybe I could organize some get well cards to send to her hospital room?”
Jenna clapped her hands together in a quick pattern of three as she approached her line leader waiting with a parent volunteer at the corner of our hallway. Seconds later her classroom answered back with a similar clap before they marched back down the hallway. “The cards are a great idea, Miss Bailey,” Jenna replied over her shoulder in her most authoritative-sounding voice. “Let me know what my class can do to help.”
“Hi, Miss Bailey!” Tabitha Connelly, my chosen line leader for the week, whisper-yelled at the sight of me. She held up our laminated first-grade sign as the rest of my class followed her to the corner, stopped, and waited for my clap like they’d been taught.
There was little in the world better than this moment right here—twenty-four optimistic faces, all ready to tackle a new week with contagious gusto. Not even the most mundane of Mondays could bring down this lively crowd.
I smiled at my happy crew. “Good morning, class. Let’s walk.”
At this point in the year, my “firsties” knew what was expected of them upon entering our classroom. The mad dash of hanging up backpacks and storing lunch boxes had calmed considerably since the start of school in September. Their voices remained in hushed tones as they took out their morning folders, set them on their desks, said the Pledge of Allegiance, and waited for me to give the go-ahead to begin their morning word scramble with their weekly partners.