Out in the Country (2 page)

She bustled into the kitchen, and after a moment she felt rather than saw Sarah standing in the doorway, and turned.

“Everything all right?”

“Yes, fine. We’re just waiting for you to come in so we can have a toast.”

“Lovely--”

“I’m going to miss you,” Sarah said abruptly. She turned away and busied herself with taking forks from a drawer. ‘This is all so sudden, isn’t it?”

“And not forever,” Lynne reminded her gently. “I’ve only signed on for a year, Sarah. I’ll be back in the city before you know it.”

Sarah’s bright blue eyes met Lynne’s with a directness that she wasn’t sure she liked. “Lynne,” Sarah asked, “are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

Lynne couldn’t help but feel slightly stung. Sarah was ten years older than her, and often acted like a mentor, but she didn’t need this kind of advice now. “Yes, I do. I want a change, Sarah. I need one.” She paused, drawing a breath. “Ever since Adam died, I feel like I’ve been waiting. Waiting for the next thing, except I don’t even know what that is.”

“I’m sure that’s a natural way to feel,” Sarah replied. “It doesn’t mean you have to go haring off to--”

“Haring off, as you put it, is exactly what I feel like doing,” Lynne cut her off, smiling, although there was a certain determination sparking in her eyes. “Now, Sarah, you’re one of my best friends. I don’t know want to say goodbye to you under a cloud.”

Sarah’s face softened and she gave Lynne a quick hug. “No clouds, promise. I’m just going to miss you, is all.”

“I know.” Lynne returned the hug before gathering up a stack of plates. “I’ll miss you too.”

Back in the dining room Kathy and Graham still sat at the table, but Molly had risen and was standing in front of the window, the city lights from outside washing her in a pale, luminous silver. Lynne saw her daughter’s gaze rest briefly on the framed photograph of Adam before she spun away with a cheerful laugh.

“Champagne and cake! Shall we have a toast?”

“Absolutely.” Lynne raised her own glass,
still fizzing with bubbles. “To Molly, as you start teaching at Cooper High School, that you’ll transform not just one student, but a whole classroom!”

“Hear, hear,” Sarah said, and raised her glass to take a sip. Kathy and Graham followed suit.

“And to Mum,” Molly added quickly, “and your adventure in Scotland, that you’ll transform not just one guest, but a whole houseful!”

They clinked glasses, the sound ringing through the room in a cheerful chorus. Lynne sat back and sipped her champagne, the bubbles fizzing through her.

Her adventure in Scotland, she mused happily. Yes, that sounded just about right.

So this is how it feels, Jessica MacCready thought as she gazed at the stark computer screen, its two lines of text glaring up at her. This is how it felt when the bottom dropped out of your world, when the sky fell, when everything crumbled and collapsed.

Numb. She felt numb.

“Jess? You all right?” Lucy, another editor for
Delicious
, the magazine Jess had worked at for nearly twenty years, frowned at her in concern. “You look like you’ve just had a shock or something.”

That was an understatement, Jess thought, even as she clicked closed the screen with its horrible message.
So sorry
. Was that all Rob could say, after taking not just her heart but her life savings as well?

Sorry?

“I’m fine,” she managed. “I just need my morning coffee.”

“I’ll get it for you,” Lucy offered, and Jess smiled her thanks. She wasn’t ready to share her news with Lucy, or with anyone. She still had to process it first.

So sorry
.

So sorry he couldn’t tell her in person? So sorry he’d scarpered without even explaining properly?

She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples, feeling the steady throb of a beginning migraine.

She heard Lucy place a mug on her desk and opened her eyes. “Thanks.”

“You want to talk about it?”

Jess took a sip of scalding coffee and tried to smile. “This is what I get for trying to be reckless--”she thought of her conversation with Lynne-- “and ridiculous at forty-six.”

Lucy frowned. “What do you mean?”

“The hotel venture’s gone bust.” Jess tried to sound airy and almost managed it. She
wasn’t good at talking about feelings, and she knew if she got started she wouldn’t be able to speak past the huge lump forming in her throat.

“The hotel?” Lucy’s eyes widened. “But you were just about to set off! What’s happened?”

“Yes, I was, wasn’t I?” Jess’s gaze slid to the calendar by her computer where she’d been marking off her last week of work. Four more days.

And then what?

Now, nothing.

“Jess...?”

“I suppose that won’t happen now. Guy Pearson--the associate of Rob’s?--he’s taken all the money and disappeared.”

Lucy’s mouth dropped almost comically. “But surely you can do something--”

“Probably,” Jess conceded, “although it’s likely to take ages and we won’t get it back in the end, will we? You never do.” She took another sip of coffee, her mind racing through the implications.

She had no job, no flat, no money. No fiancé.

“Rob will stand by you...” Lucy offered, and Jessica gave her a brittle smile. She felt ready to crack apart.

“Actually, he won’t. He’s scarpered too--separately it appears, but as there’s no future for the hotel, it seems there’s no future for us either.”

And that, she reflected bleakly, hurt most of all.

“Oh, Jess...”

“I’ll be fine.” She passed a hand wearily over her face, not wanting to see the compassion and pity on her friend’s features. “I’ll be fine,” she repeated. “I’ll work something out.”

Lucy nodded, patting her shoulder once before moving to her own desk. Jess was grateful; her friend understood she needed to be alone, at least for now.

Yet even as Lucy settled at her own desk, Jess realised she didn’t want to be alone. She wanted a friend... the best friend she’d ever had, and the only one she could really turn to in a crisis. Her hand curled around the receiver of the telephone. She took a deep breath to steady her nerves and began to dial New York.

Molly stretched in bed and let the early morning sunshine bathe her in its warm light. She opened her eyes and glanced around her bedroom, still painted pink from her childhood, teddy bears and tattered paperbacks piled on her old white bookshelves. She smiled.

Perhaps she’d give this room a facelift. After five years at university, it was odd to be back home. In some ways, she reflected, she was glad her mother was leaving. Not only would Lynne have a new opportunity, but she would have a chance to stretch and spread her wings in the city without her mother watching over her, a concerned hen to Molly’s timid chick.

Except she wasn’t timid, she wasn’t scared. She was optimistic and determined and
thrilled
to be teaching in one of New York City’s most challenging schools.

With a grin Molly threw off the bedcovers.

It wasn’t even seven o’clock when she came into the kitchen, and she was surprised to see her mother, looking weary and careworn, at the table, talking on the telephone.

Last night’s dishes were uncharacteristically piled up by the sink, and Molly set to loading the dishwasher and making fresh coffee while her mother murmured into the phone.

“Hello, sweetheart.” Lynne hung up the phone with a tired smile. “Are you ready for your day?”

“I think so.” She’d gone over her lesson plan--teaching one of her favourite poems--several times; she’d even rehearsed her little opening speech in front of the mirror. She was ready. “You look exhausted though, Mom. What’s up?”

Lynne ran a hand over her face. “There’s been a spanner in the works,” she said, smiling though Molly saw the worry in her eyes. “About the hotel.”

“You mean Scotland?”

“Yes.” Lynne bit her lip. “Actually, it looks like I might not be going after all.”

“What!” Molly set the tin of coffee back on the counter with a surprised bang. “Why on earth not? What’s happened?”

“Oh, something about the money... you know how these new business ventures are. Perhaps it will get sorted out on its own.” Lynne rose from the table and gave Molly a quick hug. “But enough about me. You need to be thinking about your day! I’ll certainly be thinking of you, and I can’t wait to hear about it all when you come home.”

Molly nodded. She wanted to ask questions, but her mother looked completely shattered so she poured them both cups of coffee instead.

“So what happened with Jess?” she finally asked when they were both seated at the kitchen table, mugs in hand.

“The financing’s fallen through.” A shadow flickered in Lynne’s eyes, and Molly had a feeling her mother wasn’t telling her everything. “Jess is going to call me back today. I’m sure it will be all sorted out.” Yet Lynne didn’t look convinced, and Molly wasn’t either. What, she wondered, was her mother going to do if she didn’t go to Scotland?

They drank coffee in silence for a few moments, both lost in troubled thoughts.

Molly glanced at the clock. “I hope it does work out,” she said uncertainly. “I’m sorry I have to go--I want to get to the classroom early.”

“Of course you do.”

“Say goodbye to Gram and Granddad for me,” she said as she went to retrieve her things. “I’m sorry I missed them, but I’m glad they’re getting some sleep.”

“They have to leave this morning, but I know they’ll want to hear all about your day,” Lynne assured her. “Anyway, we’ll see them in a few weeks, when we go up to Vermont to celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary, remember?”

“Don’t worry, I remember.” Molly grinned as her mother’s face cleared momentarily. “I’ll call them tonight, anyway.” She kissed her mother’s cheek, breathed in her familiar lemony scent. “I love you, Mom.”

“I love you too, sweetheart.” Yet the shadow of anxiety in Lynne’s eyes didn’t disappear as her daughter left the apartment.

Cooper High School needed a lot of things, Molly reflected as she entered the stolid, brick building, crumbling at the corners and two letters missing from its sign. It needed new paint, new desks, new books, new everything. Most of all it needed new teachers.

With a little smile,
a flutter of nervousness in her middle, she opened her briefcase and took out the poems she’d photocopied. When she’d asked about volumes of poetry available for tenth grade English, the principal had laughed rather sourly. “See what’s in the storeroom. There’s no money for anything new.”

Thank heavens for photocopiers, Molly thought wryly. She was perfectly willing to provide the materials for her students.

“You’re the newbie.”

Molly spun around and saw a man leaning against the doorway. He was a bit older than she was herself, perhaps in his early thirties, with slightly longish auburn hair, and blue eyes that were sharp and cynical.

“I’m new, yes,” Molly replied carefully, and he gave a little laugh, pushing off from the door frame to stroll laconically over to her and hold out a hand.

“I’m Luke Michaels, one of the older ones.”

Molly took his hand, surprised by the strength and certainty in his grip. He smiled, and she wondered how much of that air of bored cynicism was just that... an air. “How long have you been teaching here?”

“Six years.” He pulled a face. “I’m always trying to get out, but finding a job in a decent school can be tough.”

“Is that so.” Molly heard the touch of asperity in her voice, and Luke heard it too and laughed again.

“There’s nothing like a teacher with the ink barely dried on her certificate to make you feel old. Don’t worry, it won’t take long before you’re just like me, marking time and looking for another job. These kids don’t want to learn.” His glance fell on Molly’s sheaf of papers. “’Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’? Robert Frost?”
He raised his eyes to meet hers, and Molly felt a little jolt at the flicker of compassion she saw there. “One of my favourite poems. But you know these kids haven’t seen a horse outside of Central Park? To them the country means Staten Island.”

“Well, then, I’ll enlighten them,” Molly said stiffly. She felt herself flushing and wished she wouldn’t.

“Or they’ll enlighten you,” Luke returned, smiling almost gently to take the sting from his words. “If you’re up to it, I’ll take you out for a coffee after school one day this week. Or perhaps a stiff drink? You’ll need it.”

Molly swallowed. The last thing she wanted was to go out with someone as cynical and jaded as Luke Michaels, but she didn’t want to make an enemy her first day of school. She wanted to make a friend. “Thank you,” she finally managed. “That would be nice.”

The first period bell rang, and Luke gave her a mock salute. “To those who are about to die...” he grinned. “Good luck, newbie.”

Molly nodded, trying to smile, her throat suddenly dry. A steady stream of adolescents came in through the doors, and her eyes widened as she took in their already bored, speculative expressions as they jostled one another, exchanging jokes--some of which made Molly flush again. She glanced down at her papers, fussily arranging them as she sought to compose herself.