At some point, she’d started accepting a few of those dinner invitations, because Annette and Alfred said they liked good food, and they knew she did too. They said hundred-dollar entrees seemed a small price to pay for such excellent company. They said they might only be first-generation rich because of early, lucky investments in now-giant tech companies—a fact their social circle never allowed them to forget—but they had more than enough money for a few plates of truffle risotto. So occasionally Rose swallowed her pride, along with a glass or two of excellent wine, and let them pick up the check.
A few times a year, she agreed to shopping trips too, because Annette needed someone other than those well-coiffed, ill-intentioned piranhas at the country club telling her what suited her coloring and slight frame. But despite Annette’s pleas to buy clothing for them both, post-divorce Rose only accepted gifts on her birthday and at Christmas. She’d rather take impeccable care of the clothing purchased during her marriage and scour consignment shops in expensive neighborhoods than accept charity.
She’d never bothered fighting her former in-laws’ attempts at professional protection, though. Margie Owens hadn’t raised a fool. Without the Buckham family at her back, Dale would have driven her to a different school district long, long ago. After the first time she ignored his boorish attempts to belittle her. Or maybe when she told him if he hugged her one more time, she’d neuter him where he stood.
Plus, the only time Rose had ever mentioned to Annette and Alfred that she could perhaps handle her own work difficulties, their faces had dropped in unison.
With wounded dismay in every quavering syllable, Annette had whispered, “Rose, my dearest, Barton may no longer be your husband, but we still consider you our daughter. Please let us help you.”
And yes, Rose noticed that Annette’s stick-straight back suddenly acquired a decided hunch, and Alfred—who ran 5Ks in his spare time—wavered and reached for the back of a nearby chair as if he required a cane. They were incorrigible, and she’d called them on their shenanigans more than once over the years.
But if she’d tried to respond to Annette’s words with more than a nod, she’d have wept, not laughed.
They’d served as her protectors for over a decade now, and she had to assume they’d continue to perform that role until the moment they died. Dale could only push Rose so far, and then her former in-laws would push back.
Martin tilted his head, still holding the car door. “Couldn’t those influential friends have helped you keep your Honors World History prep and at least one planning period in your own classroom?”
“Perhaps.”
She hadn’t told her former parents-in-law about either affront. Such powerful weapons as the Buckhams had more impact when sparingly used. Furthermore, she was a damn adult. She’d solve her own problems, as long as those problems didn’t involve her having to change school systems.
And above all else, she wanted to stymie Dale’s latest machinations on her own, and she wanted him to know she’d done it on her own, no outside help needed.
Martin eyed her curiously, but didn’t pursue the topic. “I’ll see you Monday?”
Only because I have no other choice. “Of course.”
Enough. She tugged the door shut, clicked her seatbelt into place, and started her car. He wisely stepped aside as she pulled out of her space. Then she drove home, where a bottle of good Riesling, a wedge of Grana Padano, a crusty baguette, gossamer-thin slices of prosciutto, and a well-worn paperback mystery awaited her return. All the supplies required to help her erase this misbegotten afternoon and repair the stupid, stupid breach she’d made in her own defenses.
Come Monday, those defenses would be as impenetrable as ever.
The Owens girls might take a few punches, but as long as they drew breath, they didn’t stay down for long.
Two weeks later, the first intra-department observation assignments arrived via e-mail.
She got Martin. Naturally.
Eventually, of course, she would be observing every other teacher in her department for half an hour at a time, and they would do the same. And she understood the goals behind the initiative—exposure to new pedagogical methods and potential connections with other teachers and across subject areas—but still. Now? As her first observation?
She needed more time with Martin like she needed to sponsor another student organization in addition to the social studies club and the literary magazine. Which was to say, not at all.
To her continued befuddlement, he’d reinstituted his early-morning and late-afternoon visits to her classroom. Sometimes to drop off materials for the next day, sometimes to make certain she knew about some important last-minute meeting or memo, and sometimes for what appeared to be no reason at all.
He just…loitered. Talked in his usual quiet, thoughtful way about his students or his lesson plans or even his daughter. About his impressions of UVA and Charlottesville. About his former student Kevin’s grief-stricken decision to earn a GED instead of returning to Marysburg High.
The chatter wasn’t overwhelming. Martin was comfortable with silence—which was fortunate for him, since she didn’t respond much to his conversational overtures. He also seemed to know when she really needed to concentrate, departing from the room promptly and with a quiet click of the door behind him.
And at least a couple times a week, he somehow figured out when she was about to leave for the night. Because she’d reach for her classroom door handle, purse and briefcase on her shoulder, and voilà! Like magic—the bad kind, where the magician reached into his hat and produced a rubber cockroach instead of a cute baby bunny—Martin would appear, ready to walk with her to the parking lot.
She could have refused his company. If she did, she knew he’d promptly leave.
But…well…
As far as his classroom visits, she refused to let him know they—he—affected her in the slightest. A request to end the visitations would reveal too much. And when it came to their parking lot walks, the days were getting shorter, and the lot did need more overhead lights.
Plus, when her briefcase got heavy with books and grading, he wordlessly held out his hand for it. Hefted it for her. Set it inside her car and waited until she left the lot before he did the same.
Again, she could have denied him his gallantry. She lifted weights at the nearby gym before school three days a week, after all, and she’d been walking alone to the parking lot for umpteen years.
But whenever she handed over her burdens, he didn’t become bowed by them. Instead, his shoulders seemed a bit straighter. Whenever he walked beside her, his stride loosened and lengthened.
So she’d let him be chivalrous. But she still wasn’t chatting.
Once burned, twice no-way-in-hell.
That resolution became harder to maintain once she saw him teach, however.
During her planning period, sitting at her own desk, she watched him greet his AP World History students at the door with a smile, just as she did. Direct them toward an itinerary listing the day’s activities, just as she did. Get them going on a start-of-class activity, just as she did.
He’d prepared for the lesson, clearly. His notes rested in front of him, all the other necessary materials close at hand. His laptop lay open, prepared to project images onto the interactive whiteboard. Again: exactly as she’d have done.