Unsuitable (2 page)

“Who?” Carrie responded, stalling for time.

“Who do you think? That dashing male who just went strolling past my door. He had to be visiting you. Everyone else has gone home.”

“Oh. That was Jason McClain, Johnny’s father.”

Lois leaned against the blackboard and folded her arms. “I don’t believe it. I thought Johnny McClain’s father would have cloven hooves and a split tail. And a little black pitchfork.”

“Very funny, Lois.” Carrie put the files McClain had given her into her briefcase and snapped it closed.

“Come on, you have to admit the kid’s a holy terror. Still, if I’d seen his old man I wouldn’t have minded having him in my class. What’s he like—the father, I mean?”

“I don’t know, Lois. I talked to him for ten minutes and it was all about the boy.”

“Ten minutes? That was short. What did you do, throw him out?”

“Hardly. I’m sure he’s busy; I didn’t want to keep him, that’s all.”

Lois moved closer and peered into Carrie’s face. “Hmm, I wonder. Do I detect some doubt in those eyes, a tremor in your voice? Did he make you nervous?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Lois.” Carrie stood and took her sweater from the back of her chair, shrugging into it impatiently.

“Maybe not nervous, but something,” Lois concluded with certainty. “I don’t blame you, kiddo. He would rattle anybody. I’ll bet you did a double take when he walked through the door.”

“Are you leaving, Lois?” Carrie asked pointedly. “We can walk out together.”

Lois took the hint and dropped the subject. “No, I have to stay and compose a test. If I go home I’ll get involved with the kids and never get it done.”

Lois had two small children and a husband who wasn’t much interested in supervising them if Lois was around to do it herself. She frequently stayed late to complete work she wouldn’t be able to concentrate on at her house.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Lois,” Carrie called, walking past the other teacher and picking up her purse. “Faculty meeting at three-fifteen, remember.”

Lois groaned, “Don’t remind me. I wonder what the fascinating topic will be this time? How much we have to donate for the Christmas party or whose turn it is to clean the coffee machine?”

Carrie smiled. She was new on the staff, but already it was painfully clear that the teachers at Grovedale Elementary were knee deep in trivia. They spent hours debating all the pros and cons of every decision, whether it was where to hold a retirement dinner or the number of pencils to be purchased. It drove Lois mad.

“Bye-bye,” Carrie called, and set off down the silent hall. There was something forlorn and out of place about a school from which the children had departed. She missed the shouts and scuffling, the constant activity. She had the same feeling in a closed shop or on a deserted athletic field: people should be about, making noise and doing something, and they weren’t present.

As she checked her mailbox in the main office and signed out at the desk, she tried to dismiss the image of Jason McClain from her mind. He was the parent of one of her students, nothing more. She had probably imagined the interaction between them. The man was understandably worried about his son and certainly would be grateful to anyone trying to help him. She mustn’t get carried away.

Squaring her shoulders and buttoning her sweater against the afternoon chill, she walked out to the parking lot.

* * * *

Jason McClain replaced the jack in the trunk of his car and then sat on the ground to reward himself with a smoke. When he’d emerged from the school after his conference with Johnny’s teacher, his left rear tire had been flat. He must have driven over a nail or something on his way over there. He briefly debated driving home on it, but then decided that such a course was too hazardous and wearily set about changing it. Now the damaged tire had been replaced, but he was smeared with grease, his tie was hanging by its knot, and his suit jacket was lying on the asphalt. He leaned his elbows on his knees and blew a stream of smoke into the air, thinking about Carrie Maxwell.

He hadn’t been expecting much, subconsciously sharing the old-fashioned prejudice about spinsterish schoolmarms in wire rimmed glasses and sensible shoes. Johnny had described Miss Maxwell as “pretty,” but he missed his mother so much that any young woman who was kind to him was beautiful in his eyes. With respect to Miss Maxwell, however, John had understated the case.

Maybe Jason liked her looks so much because she bore no resemblance to his wife. Louise had been a tall Nordic blonde, with glacial blue eyes and the face of a model. Miss Maxwell was petite, with shoulder length dark brown hair shining with reddish highlights. Her wide, heavily lashed eyes were dark as well, complementing her ivory skin. Instead of the tweedy suit he’d anticipated, she’d been wearing a soft pink sweater with a straight black skirt. Her narrow high-heeled pumps flattered her shapely legs and small feet. She’d had a string of pearls at her throat and tiny matching pearls in her ears. She had looked to him like a perfectly crafted porcelain doll he might break with a touch. And he had wanted to touch. Very much.

Get hold of yourself, buddy, he thought. You’ve been without a woman so long that you’re ready to jump your kid’s teacher. But even as he tried to convince himself that any male who lived without a woman would have felt the same attraction, McClain was aware that it wasn’t just his recent celibacy that drew him to Miss Maxwell. She was fond of Johnny. He could tell that she was. And, like any father, he was drawn to the person who appreciated his child. Also, her expression as she’d studied his ruined hands had told him a lot. She hadn’t stared rudely, as if repulsed; he’d seen that reaction often enough to recognize it. Her face had been shadowed with concern, as if she were thinking about the pain he must have endured, terrible pain to have produced such scars. She was compassionate, considerate and very attractive. Maybe she was also lonely, as he was. Maybe...

As soon as the thought occurred to him he tossed it away. What sweet young thing would be interested in a scarred-up widower with a difficult child, a man whose torso looked like a scale drawing of the Amazon Basin tributaries? No, Miss Maxwell was not for him.

He stood to get back into his car, and as he did he spotted the subject of his reverie walking toward him. He watched her covertly, feeling vaguely guilty, like a voyeur. Should he call out to her, reveal his presence? But he had nothing to say. He remained where he was, looking on as she unlocked a dark blue compact car and stowed her briefcase in the back seat. As she bent he caught another glimpse of those lovely legs, and his mouth went dry. She got into the front seat and started the motor, unaware of his scrutiny. He was at the other end of the school property, screened by a corner of the building. Her car backed out of its space and glided away, while Jason stood motionless, his cigarette burning away between his fingers. A spark touched his skin and he started, dropping the butt and crushing it under his heel.

Time to end this foolish whimsy and get home himself. Johnny would be waiting for him.

* * * *

The next day Carrie checked into the records of Johnny McClain’s previous teachers, trying to piece together the history of her problem student. It seemed that right after his accident his then teacher had gone on pregnancy leave. He had returned to school to a substitute who didn’t know him and had no interest in helping him through his difficulties. The following year he was placed in the class of an elderly woman who was completing her last months before retirement and had no patience with his outbursts. She dealt with him by sending him to sit by himself in the principal’s office. His despairing father had finally taken him to the counselor currently treating him, but it wasn’t hard to see how the school had failed the sensitive, troubled child.

That’s going to change, Carrie thought. Right now.

She got permission for the trip to the McClain ranch from the principal and arranged for the two class mothers to accompany them. The bus would arrive right after lunch and take them on the ten-minute jaunt to Johnny’s house and then return them in time for dismissal. That would leave two hours for the tour, and Carrie felt that two hours of her fourth graders was all that Jason McClain could be expected to endure. When she had everything arranged she called McClain from the office, trying to ignore her sudden breathlessness.

The housekeeper answered the phone, and there was a long pause after Carrie identified herself and asked for Mr. McClain. Then she heard the click of an extension and his husky voice saying, “Miss Maxwell? This is Jason McClain.”

“Hello, how are you?”

“I’m fine. I’m sorry you had to wait; I was outside and Rose had to find me. I hope there’s no problem with Johnny?”

“No, no. I’m calling to arrange the day for our visit to your ranch—that is, if you still want us to come.”

“Of course. When would you like to arrive?”

“Would next Friday be all right? We could come around one, after the kids have had their lunch, and leave at three so they would get back in time for their buses.”

“Sounds good. How about refreshments?”

“Don’t go to any trouble. We’ll be inconveniencing you enough with our presence. I hope you understand what you’re getting into here, Mr. McClain. I don’t think you know what it’s like to have twenty-four ten-year-olds descend on you at once. You may require a month in the country to recuperate.”

His soft chuckle came over the wire. “I think I can handle it if you can, Miss Maxwell. We’ll be ready for you at one.”

“Thank you so much. The kids are really looking forward to it.”

“Not at all. See you then. Bye.”

“Bye,” Carrie echoed, wishing she had been able to think of a pretext to keep him on the line. She liked the sound of his voice, low, resonant. She hung up the phone reluctantly to see that the secretary was staring at her.

“What’s the matter, Doris?” Carrie asked airily. “Am I turning green?”

“Not green, pink. A nice, rosy pink. Who was that on the other end, a boyfriend?”

“It was the father of one of my students, if you must know. Boy, this place is worse than the women’s dormitory at college, no privacy at all. Maybe I should do what I did then, pull the phone into a closet.” She hurried out of the office, leaving Doris to look after her with a quizzical smile.

* * * *

The night before the trip Carrie was at home, examining her wardrobe. Not that there was much to examine. Her teacher’s salary did not leave any room for frills and most of what she owned she wore to work. She didn’t know what would be appropriate for a morning teaching and an afternoon at a horse ranch, so she settled on jeans with a tailored blouse and flat heeled shoes. After she set the things out for the morning, she went to the window and stared out at the night sky.

Carrie lived in the carriage house of an estate on the outskirts of Smithfield, the township where Grovedale School was located. When the owner of the main house no longer kept horses, he converted the little house on the edge of his property into a rental unit. It had a kitchen and living room on the first floor with a bedroom and a bath on the second. It was perfect for Carrie and the rent was right, so she considered herself lucky to get it. She liked the isolation and the surrounding grounds, thick with trees and flowering bushes. Her driveway was a fork off the main entrance way, and the security guard always posted there kept an eye out for her place and made her feel protected. The wealthy owners, a couple in their sixties with grown children, were away a lot and she often had the place to herself. The only drawback was that sometimes the stillness grew so intense that she felt enclosed in a bell jar. Then she was occasionally grateful for the traffic sounds she normally was glad to escape. This was one such night and she found herself thinking of her family: her brother Jim in California, her dead mother, her father who had remarried and moved to Vermont. She gave brief consideration to calling Jim but then decided she shouldn’t bother him. Too many calls to Palos Verdes and his wife would be wondering what was up with the kid sister. Still, it was nice to know he was there if she needed him. He was always asking her to come out west and live near him, a thought that appalled her. Jim had a family, three children, and the last thing any of them needed was Aunt Carrie moving in like a damp fog, casting a pall over everything. Jim insisted that wouldn’t be the case but Carrie wasn’t willing to take the chance. She liked her independence, she told him; she liked living alone. Every once in a while the silence got to her, that was all. She could hardly admit to herself that it was happening more often since her meeting with Jason McClain.

Carrie wondered if he had been able to tell what she was thinking during their conference. It was clear to her that her co-workers could read her face and she found it embarrassing. She’d always been unable to conceal her emotions; her mother used to say that she had a “speaking countenance.” She’d hoped that she would grow out of it, become better at disguising her feelings as she grew older. But apparently that wasn’t happening.

Carrie sighed and turned from the window, glancing at the bedside clock on her end table. She’d better turn in early. Her experience with field trips, even short ones, indicated that the next day would be a demanding one.

Carrie’s intuition proved correct. Once on the bus the kids bounced in their seats, craned their necks at a view they’d seen hundreds of times before, and babbled excitedly about their coming adventure. Johnny held public court in the midst of the group, outlining the excursion he had planned with his father, answering questions like a Smithsonian tour guide. His towhead turned from side to side eagerly, and his large blue eyes sparkled with more animation than Carrie had ever seen in them.