Iris in Bloom: Take a Chance, Book 2 (10 page)

“You definitely should.”

“You doing the teacher thing again? Cause I gotta tell you that’s annoying.”

“You know what you should do?”

“Do not tell me to read Stephen King’s book on writing and then write ten pages every day. That only works if you’re Stephen King.”

“Okay. Point taken. Actually, I was going to ask you to come and talk to my creative writing class.”

He sipped his tea. She’d given him the most manly of Daphne’s pottery mugs but this one kind of listed to the side like the leaning tower of Pisa.

“You want me to talk to your creative writing class?”

“Yes.”

“But I run a bakery.”

“You’re a published author. You could encourage budding authors.”

“Are there any budding authors at Jefferson High? Must have changed since I went there.”

“You don’t know when a seed will bear fruit.”

“You want me to come and seed young minds.”

“I do.”

She really did need to get back to something she used to love. Maybe this would be the kick in the pants she needed. “Okay,” she said. “I will.”

“Fantastic. Class is an hour. Prepare something so you can teach them an element of storytelling, then maybe have a writing exercise and a few questions. It would be amazing to have a real author at the school.”

“It’s been a while since I thought of myself that way.” Maybe she needed to make time.

“You’re too good to let it go.”

“What have you read, a page?”

“Couple of pages. You caught me at the first line.”

“Thanks.” Okay, she was good. She knew she was good. But after the heady success of having two short stories published she then started getting rejections. Markets closed. Magazines stopped publishing. Somewhere along the way, she’d stopped writing every day.

He interrupted her thoughts to say, “Was it a good birthday?”

“It was.”

They both sipped tea which caused a moment of silence.

“How’s this friends thing working for you?” he asked when he’d returned the leaning mug to the table.

“Fine.”

“Because I have to tell you it’s not working for me at all.”

She experienced a sudden pang of distress. Why didn’t he want to be her friend? Was it her embarrassing mother? Her family? Maybe he thought she’d taken too much of the spotlight tonight. “It’s not?”

“No.”

“You don’t want to be my friend?”

He seemed to mull over the question. “Friends isn’t top of mind where you’re concerned.”

“Oh.” She saw the man-woman thing in his eyes, the way he was gazing at her mouth and realized that whatever she claimed, it wasn’t friendship she felt when he was around, either. “What, um, what would be top of mind?”

“This.” He reached forward, slowly enough that she could pull away, but strangely she didn’t. She watched his mouth until he was so close her eyes drifted shut. When he pulled her into his arms she let herself go, melting into him. His lips took hers with command, passion, need. She felt an answering need in her body. Wrapping her arms around him she pulled him yet closer.

He felt good. Solid. He smelled like clean, healthy male with a darker note beneath that smelled like desire.

He made her feel things she hadn’t felt in a long while, and on this birthday when she’d felt bad about her first gray hair and compromised fallopian tubes he reminded her that she was still young and vital and the urges surging through her were strong and good.

When he deepened the kiss, she heard a soft sigh and realized it came from her. He tasted of the evening, of beer and a hint of strawberry overlaid with chamomile.

Not so calming tonight, that chamomile.

They kissed for a while and she could feel herself growing hot and restless. She hadn’t had sex since Rob and that had been more than six months ago. Her body reminded her that it had needs that weren’t being met.

Needs. And that a man currently on her couch kissing the sense out of her would definitely be up for the job. But all the reasons why she’d decided it was a bad idea got in the way.

“We,” she gasped, “Should--”

“Oh, yes, we definitely should.”

“Stop,” she said.

It took a second for the message to reach his brain. He pulled away, looking as horny as she felt. “I must have heard wrong, I think you said, we should take this to the bedroom, but I heard stop.”

She made a sound of frustration and want and why couldn’t this amazing man be free?

“I did say stop.”

He pulled back, ran a hand through his hair. “Okay. You want to tell me why?”

“It’s all the same reasons as before. You’re not free. And I don't want to be some transition woman or, even worse, the vehicle you use to get even with your wife.”

He looked as frustrated as she felt as he rose to his feet, and then picked up her story from where he’d left it on the coffee table.

“I’m trying to be understanding about this but there’s nothing I can do about the fact that I’m technically married. Believe me, I’m getting divorced as fast as I can.”

“What if she changes her mind?” she said, rising too. “What if she and your friend realize they’ve made a terrible mistake and she asks you to come back?” There it was. Her darkest fear around him.

As he was leaving he turned back and said, “I don’t know a lot about the future but one thing I can promise you. I am never going back to my wife.”

Chapter Ten

The smell was the same, Iris thought, as she pushed through the double doors into Jefferson High. She’d been back a couple of times for various events and once when she took an accounting course at night school. But she hadn’t really spent any amount of time here since she’d been a student. It smelled like a combination of teenaged sweat, anxiety, hormones and whatever they cleaned the floors with.

Since class was in session it was strangely quiet. She could hear her boots echo on the linoleum as she headed for the office as Geoff had instructed her.

After the awkward way he’d left, the night of her birthday party, she’d wondered if he’d come in for his usual coffee and what she’d do if he did.

And what she’d do if he didn’t.

He’d come in Monday morning like always and if he wasn’t exactly the same with her, he was almost the same. On Tuesday, he’d said, “How’s next Monday for you?”

“Pardon?”

“To speak to my class? You can come Monday in the morning or Wednesday last block.” He took his first sip of coffee as though it were the only thing between him and a coma.

So, here she was, hoping her two published short stories gave her some authority to share what little knowledge she had.

“I’m speaking to Mr. McLeod’s creative writing class,” she told the woman behind the counter who she didn’t recognize. She gave her name and received a visitor’s badge.

“Have a seat. I’ll page him.”

“Thanks.” She settled in one of a line of plastic chairs. At the end of the line a kid with a lot of hair and a jittery knee looked to be waiting to see the principal. She felt momentarily insecure. Were the jeans too much? Did she look like she was trying to fit in with kids half her age? Show them she was cool?

But she always wore jeans. It was as stupid to dress up for them as it was to dress down.

She had notes in her bag and resisted the urge to read them over one more time. She’d be fine.

It was Geoff himself who came to collect her from the office. She’d thought he might send a student. He smiled when he saw her, that warm, intimate expression she felt was only for her. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Thanks for coming. The kids are wildly excited.”

“Wildly excited?”

“Sure. It’s one hour they don’t have to listen to me.”

She rose and he held the door for her to go ahead of him.

She walked with him into the classroom and found about thirty kids assembled. They slouched at desks, were skewed around so they could talk to their neighbors, generally seeming less than thrilled to be here.

“Okay, class. Listen up,” Geoff said and the kids immediately straightened, stopped chatting and faced forward. Sign of a good teacher, she thought. He had their respect.

“I want to introduce you to Iris Chance who is with us today because she’s a published author. You’ve all read her short story, “Gingerbread Chess,” so if you have questions I’m sure she’ll answer them.”

They’d read her story? She supposed it made perfect sense but she wished he’d warned her.

“Raise your hands if you have questions. Ms. Chance, the floor is yours.” And he walked to the back of the room and sat down in one of the student desks.

“Thank you for having me,” she said. Already a hand was in the air. She’d planned to talk about short stories and about character development but it seemed they were already at the Q and A portion. “Yes?”

The girl asking the question was a pretty brunette. “Did you always know you wanted to be a writer?”

“What’s your name?”

“Rosalind.”

“Thanks, Rosalind, that’s a good question. No. I don’t think I did. I always liked books and stories. I was an avid reader as I’m sure you all are. I got an idea when I was in college. I wrote it and sent it in to a few magazines. I was really lucky to get published. I wrote some more short stories. Some were accepted for publication and some weren’t.”

She glanced around the room. She felt some interest and a lot of apathy. One kid in the back wore a ball cap over black curly hair. He’d settled back in his seat, slouching, like he was settling in for a nap.

“You write about a woman searching for her adoptive parents. Is it your story?”

She licked her lips. She had not anticipated that Geoff would share her story or that she would be grilled on its content. But she was here. She wasn’t going to lie. “Yes. Yes the story was based on my own experience.”

“Did that really happen? Did you really find out that your adopted mother was a drug addict and that your dad was in jail?” The same girl asked the questions. She didn’t mean to be insensitive, Iris reminded herself. She was young.

Iris took a moment to formulate her answer. “When we write fiction we make things up. That’s why it’s fiction and not non-fiction. However, stories come from somewhere and in some way they are always about us. Or they offer some metaphor for what’s going on with us. So, while the story did come from my own attempt to find my birth parents, the people in the story and the events were made up.”

“What about the emotions?” a kid in back asked without raising his hand.

“What’s your name?”

“Dylan.” He dragged out each syllable turning two into four.

“Well, Dylan, the emotions were pretty real, I’d say. I probably used writing that story as a kind of therapy.”

“It’s really good,” a sunny looking blonde at the front of the class said. And before Iris could ask her name she said, “I’m Bethany.”

“Thanks, Bethany.”

“How does it feel to find out you’re adopted?”

Geoff must have sensed her discomfort. He said, “I’m not sure that’s relevant, Bethany. Ms. Chance is here to talk about writing not her personal life.”

“It’s okay,” she said. And realized it was. “I have an amazing family. Jack and Daphne Chance took kids in and never, ever differentiated between the ones they conceived and the ones they picked up along the way. They left it to us if we wanted to know.”

She thought back. “I wanted to know. I was having a bad time with my mother.” She grinned realizing she’d been the age of the kids in this class. “You know what that’s like, right? I was positive the woman making me crazy wasn’t my mother. At first, when I found out she wasn’t, I was happy. And then I went looking for my birth family.”

She glanced around. “Let’s say I realized I was very lucky to end up where I did. But I think when you find out the people who gave birth to you didn’t want you, it’s always going to be hard.”

A hand went up. Thank God. “Yes?”

“I’m Stefan. I’m adopted too.”

“Are you okay with it?”

“I know who my real mom is and yeah, I’m okay with it.”

“Good. That’s good.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. Noticed a collection of literary action figures and wanted to laugh. “I was going to talk about inventing character but since you’ve read my story you’ve seen how you can take something that happens in your life and write about it. You now know that it’s based on something real, but as an author you still create character. You need conflict, good descriptions.”

“What’s the most important thing if you want to be a writer?”

“You have to write. Writers write.” She felt like a fraud saying those words realizing she’d let that slide in her life. “Someone once asked Sir Edmund Hilary how you learn to climb a mountain. You know what he said?”

Silence and a couple of uh-uhs.

“You know who Sir Edmund Hilary is, right?” she asked, feeling old. She was almost certain the kid in the back with the ball cap rolled his eyes.