As I delve into the second story in the series, hoping to get it finished this weekend, I thought I'd share a bit of "Love is Elementary" with you today. (This is available on amazon, createspace, and for ALL reading devices on Smashwords (click here.)
I should tell you, this particular novella is definitely more of an inspirational romance than anything else. While I don't write inspirational on purpose (not yet anyway, but stay tuned!) I do stay true to my characters and those of you who have read Lies in Chance know that Drew and Joanna both have strong moral compasses and that the Rock Harbor community, especially the school teachers, are grounded in deep traditional values. That said, drama still surrounds us, and as I wrote their story (something I really hadn't given a thought when I wrote Lies in Chance) I had to be true to them, their character, and their community.
Enjoy!
Drew set his brief case on the battered
industrial sized desk and sighed. Not one often given to self-analysis, he
wondered now if he should have his head examined.
It was a good
job. I left a perfectly good job, because I was an idiot about Rachel. And now I’m the principal of…
He looked out the window on the left side
of the expansive classroom that now was his. Then he looked out the window on
the right.
I’m the
principal of a cow pasture.
He tapped the pocket of his dress shirt, a
habit from his days as a collegiate smoker. No, you only get to smoke if you
answer a really tough question.
How about this? What
the HELL am I doing here?
“Careful, no swearing allowed here at Rock
Harbor Community School.”
Startled, Drew
looked up from his reverie, eye to eye with possibly the most cheerful woman he
had ever seen. “I’m sorry, did I say something?”
The young woman at
the door laughed. “No, but you sure looked like you wanted to. And from that
dark look on your face, I’m bettin’ it wasn’t the Lord’s Prayer you had on your
mind.” She crossed the room, walking right up to him without hesitation.
Drew sighed. That’s
right. I’m the principal of a practically parochial cow pasture now.
“Joanna Huber. School secretary…and girls’
soccer coach…church organist next door at Rock Harbor Community Church. No
affiliation to the school, except that everyone who lives in Rock Harbor
attends services there.” She stuck her hand out.
Drew took her hand
in his, and was struck by how tiny her hand was. His hand felt like a massive
paw covering hers. He shook her hand as gently as he knew how, afraid he might
break it. “Drew, Drew Shepaski. I’m the principal, I guess.” He blinked, well
aware that he must look like a thundering oaf to a woman so petite, so lively
and so…pretty.
“Well, if you
aren’t, then you have some explaining to do to the school board!” She giggled,
hiding her mouth behind her tiny hand, her dark blue eyes snapping with
mischief. “Let me show you around.”
“Oh, okay. I mean,
sure.” If I stop saying words, maybe
she will stop looking at me like I’m a moron.
“Come on. It’s a short tour, but I promise
you’ll drink some really terrible coffee at the end.” Joanna laughed again and
led the way out of the room.
“Well, only if it’s
really terrible.” There, that seemed sort of funny.
“It will be, I promise. The worst.” Joanna
pointed to the rooms as they walked down the hallway. “First grade, that’s Tina.
She’s the school art teacher. Don’t let her EVER make coffee if she’s done a
project involving paste.”
“Why not?”
Joanne made a sour face
and gave an exaggerated shudder. “Trust me. Oh, and Mrs. King teaches
Kindergarten. She’s the pastor’s wife next door.”
“We’ve met.”
“Ah.” Joanna
wrinkled her nose. “So you know. Bonus, she’s on the school board.”
“Isn’t that a
conflict of interest?”
“Some might think so, but no one questions
Mrs. King. Everyone’s pretty much afraid
of her.” She kept a completely serious face for about a heartbeat and then
burst out laughing. She pointed out several more classrooms, naming teachers
and giving personal history about each teacher until they’d done a loop of the
long hallway and were nearly back at his classroom.
“So what, no fifth grade?”
“New guy gets a
gold star. Nope, we don’t have a fifth grade teacher just yet. Well, I mean we
had one last year, obviously. But she got herself pregnant, and married…in that
order.” Joanna’s eyes sparkled again as she cocked her head to one side, as if
waiting for a response from him.
Drew swallowed,
unsure of what, exactly to say to this pert, pretty girl with the dark auburn
hair that seemed to glow in the dim daylight of the hallway.
Seemingly unphased
by his lack of response, Joanna continued. “See, doing things backwards like
that, that’s frowned on by the good families of Rock Harbor. Morals clause, you
know.”
Drew nodded. Weirdest
thing I ever had to sign in a teaching contract. Felt like Sunday school with
all the “You will not’s.”
“So anyway, she moved away because…of
the shame…” Joanna whispered the last words, her eyes sparkling with
suppressed mirth. “And, here we are, mid July, hoping against hope that some
teacher will magically drop out of the sky to fill the position. “ She shrugged.
“The sixth grade teacher is ready to
take on two grades. Meanwhile, we wait.”
Drew followed Joanna through the last door
in the hall, the teachers’ lounge. This was a wide room that covered most of
the very end of the building. The principals’ office, his office, took up the
corner nearest the door, and was a sort of pass through room to his classroom. He
glanced in the office, noting the partition windows in his office gave the room
the feel of a guard shack at a POW camp.
“Sorta like an air
traffic controllers’ space, isn’t it?” Joanna picked up a coffee mug from the
wide table beneath the window opposite of Drew’s office. “You can watch your
classroom and the teachers all at the same time.”
The description
fits my line of thinking far better than yours. “It’s an interesting floor
plan.”
“The office was
added way after these two rooms were built. This room and yours were actually
the original school like a hundred years ago. Here,” she handed a steaming cup
of coffee. “The office was added when this room became the teachers’ lounge and
we realized that a principal might just need an office, like everyone else.”
Drew held the
coffee cup up, pausing before drinking out of a mug that looked more like a
yard sale reject.
“I know. Ugliest
cups on earth. But what can you say? Everyone cleans out their kitchens and
says, ‘Well, those nice teachers, they always need coffee cups.’ The result is we’re loaded with ugly coffee
cups.”
She sat down on a
lumpy brown couch that also resembled many yard sales gems Drew recalled from
his childhood. “Come on. You must have some questions.”
Drew pulled a hard
wooden chair up to a table loaded down with stacks of construction paper and
jars of paste. He took a sip of coffee and nearly spat it out. “Wow…”
Joanna laughed out
loud as she stirred several teaspoons of sugar into her own cup. “I told you,
terrible coffee.”
“You drink this? Every
day?” Drew ran his tongue on the inside of his mouth, trying to clean away the
black, bitter taste.
Joanna nodded. “Actually,
with enough sugar and some of this,” she held up a canister of what looked like
powdered coffee creamer. “It’s not quite as terrible. That and you’ll get used
to it.”
Drew doubted both
points.
Joanna sat across
the table and took another sip of coffee. Leaning back, she was the very
picture of someone completely at ease with herself. Drew shifted in his chair, a bit
uncomfortable as she took a long hard look at him. He wasn’t sure if from her
unrelenting inspection or his system’s reaction to a second sip of the brutal
brew.
“You’re not much of
a talker.”
The last time I
had anything to say to a woman, she rejected my marriage proposal. Doubtful
I’ll be making that mistake twice.
“You should probably know, Drew, I read
your file.”
The third sip of
high octane black stuck in his throat. “You did…you what?” He coughed.
Joanna put a hand
on his arm then, and her face settled into an expression far older than her
actual age. “Drew, a guy doesn’t leave a job like you did and come here for a
simple change of scenery.”
“Well, I did.”
“Oh really. You got
yourself a job teaching History your first shot out of college at the most
prestigious private elementary school on the eastern seaboard. Shoot, probably the most prestigious school in
the country. You finish your masters, start on a doctorate. Couple years go by.
You win all sorts of teaching awards. And then, in the middle of what pretty
much every teacher on the planet would consider a rock star career, you pull
the plug and take a job teaching at a very obscure parochial grade school in a
tiny town in the armpit of Wisconsin.”
“Just which file
were you reading?”
She patted his hand
and leaned back, the smile and cheerful glow back on her face. “Okay, I didn’t
see your file. I did a web search on you.”
“Oh, nice to know
my life is such an open book, at least on the internet.” And it’s time to
change my name and move to an even more obscure place, obviously.
“So why the turned
around? Why take this job?”
“I love teaching. “
He looked out the window. “I like cows. I was in search of the worst coffee in
a teachers’ lounge.”
Joanna nodded and
laughed, but her eyes never left his and Drew shifted again, trying to break
away from her direct gaze. “Drew, you do get that I’m like you’re right hand
man, right? You’re teaching in the mornings, and I take some of your afternoon
classes so you can be all principally.”
“Wait, you’re a
teacher?”
“I love how the
school board is so forthcoming with little things like duties and job
descriptions.” Joanna nodded, still smiling. “Yes, I’m a teacher. Teacher,
secretary, coach, we all do double and triple duty here, because of all the
budget cuts. You’ll be coaching boys’ baseball in the spring…provided…” she
frowned.
“Provided?”
The cloud cleared
from her face and she smiled again. “Never mind. There are always enough kids
for baseball. So unless you get a parent to volunteer for that duty, you’ll be
coaching. Best brush up on your batting stance.” She raised an eyebrow at him.
Drew didn’t want to
stare too long at her, but he was certain there was quite a bit she was trying
to communicate with him in that look. “Anyway, you were saying about my right
hand man?”
“Oh right. So I’m thinking we should be completely honest
with each other.”
Not likely. Sorry.
“Fine.”
“You probably think
I already know everything about you right? And I should tell you a bit about
myself?”
“If you want.” He
was amazed at the woman’s power to keep talking.
Joanne giggled, a
girlish, musical sound. “My story is simple. I’m a local girl. My father owned
the only barbershop in town until he retired. He and mom tried living in
Florida, but the humidity was too much for mom’s arthritis. They live in
Arizona now. No brothers or sisters. Guess that’s why I talk to so much. No one
told me to be quiet. I’ve wanted to teach here since I was in second grade. I’ve
been here two years. I started out as the fourth grade teacher, but as things
change, we all have to change with them.” She paused here, giving Drew that
expressive look again that confused and interested him at the same time. Rested
from her brief stoppage of speech, she continued. “I still live in my parents’
house, out near the highway, but I have a four wheel drive, so I get in here no
matter how much snow falls, you don’t have to worry about that.”
Snow might stop
teachers from getting to school? How far in the country am I?
“My favorite movie of all time is ‘To Kill
a Mockingbird,’ “ She cocked her head to one side, chestnut locks falling low
over one shoulder. “And no, in answer to your biggest question, I’ve never been
in love.”
Drew nearly dropped
the coffee cup. “What? I-“
Joanna burst out laughing.
“I was just checking to see if you were listening! Guess you were.”
And she’s the
one I’m sharing a classroom with? Great…
Joanna looked at her watch. “Oh, geez. I
gotta go. Mrs. King wants to go over the music for the next six Sundays in
church and if I’m late for that little summit, we’ll be stuck with her favorite
version of “There is a Balm in Gilead,” extra tremolo on the organ settings.” She
shuddered and wrinkled her nose again.
“And that’s a bad
thing?”
Joanna gave him a
quirky smile. “You’ll see if you go to services. It’s. The. Worst.” She
wrinkled her nose again.
As she scurried out
of the room, Drew leaned back in his chair and watched her go. In the quiet
left behind, he realized he liked it when she wrinkled her nose.
