Dating for Two (Matchmaking Mamas) (3 page)

* * *

Erin O’Brien hung up her phone, still a little bewildered at exactly how Felicity Robinson had gotten her name, much less her phone number. But then, she supposed in this day and age of rampant nonprivacy, anything was possible for someone with a reasonable amount of tech savvy if they were determined enough. And if there was one thing she had come away with from this conversation, it was that the assistant principal of James Bedford Elementary School certainly sounded extremely determined.

“Guess what,” Erin said to the friendly-looking stuffed T. rex on her desk, one of several that she owned. The T. rex had been the first toy she’d ever made, and the original, now rather shabby for wear, was locked away in a safe. “We’re going back to school. Seems that somebody wants me to talk to a roomful of seven-year-olds about how I got started making toys.”

She cocked her head, giving the T. rex a voice in her head and having him make up excuses for why they couldn’t go. The T. rex embodied her insecurities. He always had. It had been her way of dealing with them as a child.

“Oh, don’t give me that snooty face,” she said, addressing the dinosaur. “You’re a ham and you know it. This’ll be fun, you’ll see,” she promised, using almost the same words that the assistant principal had when she’d called her.

“Yeah, for you,” the high-pitched voice whined. “Because you’ll say anything you want through me.”

Erin leaned over her desk and pulled the stuffed animal to her. Affectionately dubbed Tex the T. rex, the stuffed dinosaur had been her start, her very first venture into the toy world. Imagination—a
positive
imagination—had been her crutch, her way of dealing with all the things that had been going on in her young world when life had consisted of machines that whirled and made constant noise at different frequencies while they measured every kind of vital sign they possibly could via the countless tubes that seemed to be tied or attached to her little, sick, failing body.

Even back then, though shy, she’d possessed an inner feistiness. She’d done her best to be brave so that her mother wouldn’t cry, but even so, Erin was firmly convinced that if she hadn’t invented Tex—her alter ego as well as her champion—when she had, she would have broken down rather than triumphed over the disease that had threatened to end her life more than once all those years ago.

Tex had started out as a drawing and was, for the most part, a figment of her imagination until she had given him life by utilizing an old green sock her mother had brought her.

Somehow he managed to stay with her—in spirit and in drawings—all the way through school. A while later, she decided to give Tex a better form. Her mother went to a craft store and bought green felt, and Erin had had stuffing. Armed with a needle and thread as well as a black Magic Marker, she brought the dinosaur to “life” one fall afternoon.

From that day forward, in one form or another, Tex had remained with her.

A chance comment from a child in an on-campus day-care center was ultimately responsible for her creating a friend for Tex—Anita. Anita was equally nonmechanical. Equally gifted with a soul via Erin’s imagination.

And suddenly, Imagine That was born.

“And now we get to tell a cluster of second graders all about you,” Erin told her stuffed animal with pride.

“Don’t forget the part where you would be nowhere without me,” “Tex” reminded her in that same high-pitched version of her voice.

“I won’t forget,” she promised, saying the words as if she were actually carrying on a conversation with another human being.

She indulged in the little charade mainly when none of her staff was around, so that they wouldn’t think she was losing her mind if they happened to overhear her in effect talking to herself. It helped her knock off steam when things got tense, but she could see how it might unnerve someone witnessing her exchanges with herself.

“We made it, Tex. We made it to the big time—or to the little time, if you will,” she augmented with a grin.

For once Tex said nothing.

But she knew what he was “thinking.” The very same thing she was. That they had truly “made it” in more ways than one.

Chapter Two

S
teve hung up the landline phone in the kitchen and looked over at his son. Jason, as usual, was in the family room, his attention glued to the action on the TV screen.

“Did you have anything to do with this, Jason?” he asked.

“To do with what, Dad?” his son responded after he repeated the question a total of three times. As had become his habit, Jason was only half paying attention to anything going on outside of the video game he was playing. The game had become an all-important obsession for him, something he did with most of his waking hours unless his father made him do mundane things like eat and sleep and go to school. Aside from that, he could be found before the TV in the family room, defeating aliens and making the universe safe for another day.

He was not about to relax his vigilance, convinced that slacking off for even a second would bring about dire consequences. It could bring about the end of life as he knew it, as
everyone
in his world knew it. He couldn’t allow that to happen. Not on his watch. He’d already lost his mother; he couldn’t afford to lose his father or his grandmother, as well.

“I was just on the phone with your assistant principal,” Steve said, nodding toward the receiver he’d just hung up. “She asked if I’d speak to your class on Career Day.”

He sank down on the sofa. Jason’s thumbs were going a mile a minute on the controller. The TV monitor was filled with dying aliens that disintegrated into tiny purple clouds before vanishing altogether.

Steve couldn’t help wondering if his son had even heard him. “I didn’t know you had a Career Day.”

Jason shrugged, his small shoulders rising and falling in an exaggerated motion since he was lying on his stomach. “I guess so,” he mumbled.

Without Julia, his late wife, as a buffer, Steve had found himself groping around, trying to find his way in his son’s world. Every time he thought he was making just a tiny bit of headway, something would happen to show him that he hadn’t made any at all.

But he couldn’t give up now, because the next thing he said might be just the right words that would help him to get through to the boy. Above all, he wanted to keep their relationship open and honest—so he asked a lot of questions. But he didn’t get a great deal of feedback.

“She sounded desperate, so I said I’d do it. Is that okay with you?” he asked. The last thing he wanted to do was embarrass his son, no matter how persuasive the woman on the other end of the line had come across.

“It’s okay, I guess,” Jason said with no real enthusiasm. Then, turning to look at him over his shoulder, his son added a provision to his agreement. “As long as you don’t kiss me around the other guys.”

Steve suppressed a grin. Now,
that
he could fully relate to and understand. He could remember how embarrassing parental demonstrations of affection could be at that age. “It’ll be hard, but I promise I’ll control myself.”

“Good.” Jason nodded. Going back to killing aliens, the boy asked absently, “Whatcha gonna talk about?”

“My career.” Then, because of the perplexed look on his son’s face when Jason turned toward him again, Steve added, “I’m a lawyer, remember?”

“I ’member,” Jason answered almost solemnly, then asked, “You gonna do some lawyer stuff for the class?”

There were times when he felt that Jason didn’t have a clue as to what he did for a living. Julia liked to say that he argued for a living. He supposed that was as apt a description of his profession as any. But he doubted that a group of seven-year-olds would understand the joke.

“I’m going to explain to your class what a lawyer does,” he told Jason.

“Oh.” It was clear that Jason didn’t seem to think that would go over all that well with his class—but he had a remedy for that. “Maybe you better bring treats, like Jeremy King’s mom did when she came to talk about her job.”

He honestly considered Jason’s suggestion. “Maybe I will bring treats since food seems to be the only thing that impresses people your age.”

The aliens still weren’t dying and the controller remained idle in Jason’s hands, telling Steve that he had his son’s full attention—at least for a half a minute more. “I like chocolate, Dad.”

“Yes, I know,” Steve said with as straight a face as he could manage.

And then the consequences of his affable agreement hit him. He was going to have to stand up in front of a classroom full of restless little boys and girls and try to hold their attention for at least ten minutes, if not more. Steve looked over toward the phone he’d just hung up on the wall. Maybe he’d been just a little too hasty saying yes.

Oh, he had no trouble standing up before an audience. Most of all, he was really apprehensive that he might inadvertently embarrass his son—which in turn might push the boy even further away from him than he was now. Seven-year-olds were sensitive and desperately wanted to blend in, not stand out, and having him in the classroom would definitely single Jason out.

“So you’re okay with my coming to your classroom?” he asked again.

“Uh-huh.”

Steve gathered from his son’s tone that Jason was once again clearly engaged in the business of knocking off tall, thin gray aliens and was a million miles away from him.

* * *

A few days later, Steve was still having second thoughts about talking in front of Jason’s class. Actually, his second thoughts were into their third edition at this point.

But if nothing else, he was well aware that it was too late to pull out. He had committed to this speaking engagement and he was nothing if not a man of his word.

It was a lesson he was trying to teach Jason and he knew if he bowed out at the last minute, aside from leaving the assistant principal high and dry, he would be teaching Jason that it was all right to give your word and then break it on a whim.

He might not be the world’s best father, but at least he knew that much was wrong.

Jason’s teacher, Mrs. Reyes, had placed two folding chairs in the front of the room, putting them a few feet away from her own desk. The intention was that the speakers wouldn’t feel as if they were “on” the entire time. Her aim was to afford the speakers a clear view of the classroom and its occupants, even while keeping everything at a safe distance.

Steve took his seat, wondering who else had been roped into this “sales pitch to seven-year-olds,” as he had come to think of the experience.

He didn’t have long to wait for an answer. No sooner had the question occurred to him than the classroom door opened and he heard a rather melodic, softly compelling voice say, “I’m sorry I’m late. I’m afraid my staff meeting ran over.”

“I’m just glad you could make it,” Mrs. Reyes said, smiling broadly at the owner of the voice. There was more than a measure of relief echoing in the teacher’s own voice.

Steve turned to look at the late arrival and found himself suddenly and completely captivated. The young woman, carrying what appeared to be a wide valise or case of some sort, was all swirling strawberry-blond hair, bright blue eyes and heartwarming smile.

Unlike him—he was wearing a light gray suit—she was dressed casually in a light blue summer dress that brought out her eyes even more than nature already had. To top off the picture, the woman had the best set of legs he’d seen since—well, he couldn’t quite remember since when.

“Hi,” the woman said to him as she took the seat beside his. Her eyes swept over him as she asked, “Are you giving a Career Day speech, too?”

“Yes.” Suddenly at a loss for words, all he could do was smile at her—and feel utterly inept. Something that had
never
happened to him before.

“What’s your career?” she asked in a deliberately low voice. She was intent on not distracting anyone in the classroom; however, the low timbre managed to distract Steve big-time. “Well, you’re in a suit, so it must be something important,” she assumed, then made a guess. “Doctor?”

He barely shook his head. The rest of him felt as if he had been frozen in place, trapped in her eyes. Who
was
this woman? “No,” he breathed.

“Lawyer?” was her second guess.

“How did you know?” There was no
L
on his forehead, no aura particular to lawyers. He couldn’t see her managing to figure it out on her second guess.

She smiled and he found himself even a little more captivated than he already was—if that was possible. “The old nursery rhyme. You know—rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief. Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief. You said no to doctor and you didn’t look like a chief, so I took a stab at lawyer.” That out of the way, she asked the next logical question. “What kind of a lawyer are you?”

“A good one,” he replied.

His own answer sounded almost flippant to him—and that just wasn’t like him at all. He was good, fair and dedicated. None of those attributes had any leeway for flippant.

“Ah, one with a sense of humor. That’s good,” she pronounced with a smile that for a moment rivaled sunbeams.

The next moment, she was leaning into him. “Which one’s yours?” she asked in a hushed whisper that at the same time seemed incredibly sexy to him, given the circumstances and where they were.

Could a voice in a second-grade classroom even
be
sexy? Steve couldn’t help wondering.

“That one over there, the towhead with the cowlick,” he told her.

It took her a second to find the child he was pointing out. “Very handsome boy,” she told him with a nod of her head. Steve knew what she’d just said was a standard reply and maybe it was just his imagination, but she seemed to mean what she said.

“Which one’s yours?” he asked, thinking it only fair to put the same question to her.

“Oh, I don’t have one in this class,” she replied.

He found that odd. Weren’t you supposed to have a kid in the room before you could address said class?

“Then—?”

As if anticipating the rest of his question, the woman beside him said, “The assistant principal thought it might be a good idea for me to come by today and address the class.”

Steve came to the only conclusion he could. The woman had to have a unique career.

“What’s your career?” he asked outright, unable to even venture a guess, especially not one that would involve a valise.

She opened her mouth, apparently to answer his question, when Mrs. Reyes spoke up and by the very act commanded that they all give her their undivided attention.

“Well, it’s my favorite Wednesday of the month again. Career Day,” she emphasized with feeling. “And first we will hear from Jason Kendall’s father, Steven Kendall, who is going to talk to you about what it means to be a business lawyer.” Turning toward him with a bright, welcoming smile, Mrs. Reyes said, “Mr. Kendall, the floor is yours.”

With that, Mrs. Reyes gestured around the classroom, in case he missed her meaning.

Steve rose and instantly became aware that his legs felt a little stiff. The last time he’d felt that, he recalled, he’d been in court, pleading his very first case. He’d won, but only by a hair, and while others might have become cocky because a win was a win, his win humbled him because he knew how close he had come to losing that first case.

It was then that he realized that things were decided by the whimsy of fate and although he was always prepared, always did his best, he never lost sight of that humbling lesson.

Coming before the class now—Mrs. Reyes had vacated her desk, so he stood behind that as he spoke—Steve remembered beginning, remembered his mouth moving as his brain raced from point to point, trying to hit all the points he’d jotted down for himself earlier.

He was acutely aware that while his audience of seven-and eight-year-olds all sat at their desks listening politely, not a single face in that audience looked the least bit interested, much less inspired by either his vocation or anything that he had just said to them.

Not that, he silently admitted, he had said anything terribly interesting or inspiring.

And certainly not very memorable.

When he was finished, applause came after a beat. Polite applause as if they had been coached to applaud anyone who appeared to have stopped talking. He was glad to reclaim his chair and sit down.

“And next we have Ms. Erin O’Brien.” Instead of announcing the next career, Mrs. Reyes smiled at her class. “You’re in for a treat,” she promised. “I think you’ll find Ms. O’Brien’s career
very
interesting.” Mrs. Reyes looked toward the next speaker, exchanging glances with her as if they had a shared secret. “Ms. O’Brien, the class is all yours.”

Rather than the young woman saying anything in response to Mrs. Reyes, another voice was heard. A muffled voice as befitting one that came from inside a suitcase.

“Hey, it’s dark in here, Erin. Lemme out.”

Erin’s hooded eyes covertly took in the room. Apparently, she had the entire classroom in the palm of her hand as children exchanged giggles and nervous glances with one another.

Erin looked at the valise on the floor next to her chair. She had a pseudoexasperated look on her face. “Tex, I told you to be on your best behavior.”

“This
is
my best behavior,” the voice coming from the valise insisted.

“If I let you out, you have to promise not to scare the children,” she warned.

“Children?” the voice asked, sounding very intrigued. “Tasty children?”

“That’s something you’re never going to find out. Now, do you promise to behave?” she asked.

The voice sighed. “Do I hafta promise?” Tex whined.

“Yes, you do,” Erin said, crossing her arms before her as she continued talking to the “occupant” of the valise. “I’m afraid if you want to come out, Tex, that’s the deal I’m offering. Otherwise, you’ll have to stay in the suitcase until we leave.”

There was another, louder sigh from the inside of the valise. Then the voice said, “Oh, okay, I guess. I promise.”

“That’s all I wanted to hear,” Erin told the voice.

Snapping the locks open, Erin quickly took out the valise’s mysterious occupant. The latter turned out to be a large green dinosaur whose head was bigger than his body, in direct contrast to an actual model of a
Tyrannosaurus rex.