Savannah plucked at the front of her white shirt. “We had casual Friday.” Her eyes drifted to follow a class of middle schoolers headed to the locker rooms. Her eyes dropped down to her front. “Do you think I should wear a bra?”
Avery’s heel snagged on the carpet and she rolled her ankle. “What?”
“It’s just, there were a lot of girls at my old school that did.”
A quick mental review of Savannah’s file reminded Avery that her parents were divorced and Mom was not listed as an approved emergency contact. Who else was the girl going to ask? Avery had a son; they didn’t have to talk about things like bras. Landon preferred it that way, actually.
She dragged up a load of wisdom her mother had used on her. “You know, if you feel like you need one, it’s probably time.”
Savannah nodded sagely. Avery hoped this more confident side of the girl came through to the children. Being shy was like blood in the water to children. They smelled your fear and lashed out to try and put you in your place.
Not that the kids at their school were mean. They had a strict no-tolerance, no-bullying policy. The principal was serious about it too, having expelled three students the year the policy was put in place; no one dared push the limits. Chewing gum in class? That one they pushed, constantly. But the principal laughed it off with, “If they think chewing gum is rebelling, then we’ve got great kids.”
Avery had to agree. They rounded a corner into a hallway lined with coat hooks full of backpacks and rain slickers. It was Seattle, after all.
“This is where you’ll be for most of the day.” She spread her arms out. “Finding grades is easy enough. We start with first grade here.” She pointed to the two classrooms, one on either side of the hallway. The doors were open and the kids’ chanting came through: “When two vowels go walking, the first does the talking.” The kids stood by their desks, marching as they repeated the rhyme. Adding movement to learning increased a child’s ability to remember what they were being taught. And children loved to move. Her own son had come home chanting and marching with enthusiasm all through third grade.
“And second grade.” She pointed to the next two. “And so on. You’re in sixth, so your classes are at the end of the hall.”
Savannah took it all in with her big brown eyes. Clear brown, with no flecks or black rings. Just warm, inviting, like Walker’s had been.
Avery mentally shook herself. There was no reason to think of Walker, or the likes of Walker, or anyone who looked like Walker ever again. Her ego was still smarting from the other night, and a pretty face did not make the man a prince. “These are the bathrooms for the fifth and sixth grade, and this is the music room. Let’s head to the counselor’s office, and we’ll assign you a peer tutor.”
“What’s that?”
“Someone in your class to help you figure things out for a few days.”
Savannah’s jaw tightened with determination.
If only Avery could wrap her in her arms and tell her everything was going to be all right. “We’re the top-rated school in Seattle for science, math, and English classes, and our sports programs feed into colleges all over the nation.”
“I know. That’s why my dad signed me up.Only the best for you,” she mocked in a low voice.
“I know exactly how he feels. That’s why my son goes here. He’s in the fifth grade, so you’ll probably meet him.”
“That’d be nice.”
They made their way into the counselor’s office and Avery introduced Savannah to everyone, who smiled in return and welcomed her to campus. Mr. Jones, the counselor over the elementary-school-aged children, took over, calling to her future classroom for a volunteer peer tutor. They liked to ask the last student to move in to tutor the next one since they understood how it felt to walk into a classroom without a friend.
Avery made her way back to the front office. The office looked more like a private university study than it did an office. The back wall was lined with bookshelves, and the shelves were lined with the kind of books that looked pretty but no one actually read, like out-of-date encyclopedias that crackled when the pages turned and the complete works of C.S. Lewis, which Avery would like to read—if she ever had the time to sink into a book that required teeth. “Hey, you’re back.” Claire had taken the morning off to have some dental work done. Her cheek was swollen and her eyes red. “You sure you want to be here?”
She nodded, cupping her face. “I have to do the absentee report.”
Guilt showered Avery. “Oh my gosh, I’ll do the report. You don’t have to make yourself miserable.”
She hung her slightly damp jacket on the back of her chair before wrapping her knuckles on the three-ring binder from Hades. “Fair’s fair. You went on the date—I’ll do the report. Please tell me my suffering is worth it. Was he hot?”
Avery leaned back in her chair and applied a dreamy look to her face, saying breathlessly, “He had the ears of a Greek god, the eyes of a pirate, and the eyebrows of a sculpture.” Whatever that meant.
Claire punched the air.
Avery dropped her dreamy gaze and applied sarcasm like deep red lipstick. “Unfortunately, that was all he had going for him.”
“He can’t be that bad.”
Avery laughed maniacally. “Giiiirl, let me tell you.” She started at the beginning and laid every little detail out there with relish. “I washed, rinsed, and repeated—twice—before I could go to bed.”
Claire alternated between holding her face and holding her sides she laughed so hard. “I—”Pant, pant.“Have never—”Pant, pant.
