“—but I also think it’s worth reminding you that we parents are expected to demonstrate a certain level of commitment to this school. It’s in the handbook that each of us signs during the enrollment process every year.”
Noel shrugged, as if offering this reminder was just an unfortunate duty. Merritt waited, training her eyes on the windshield before her. She wanted, desperately, to look at Whit. She could feel him radiating angry heat and the potential energy that would precede a punch to the face.
“You know what, Noel,” Whit said after a pause, in a low voice Merritt had never heard him use before, “you’re right. You’re totally right. I think I’ll call the head of school and ask when she thinks the goodwill should run out from themillion-dollarscholarship fund established in Helen’s name.”
Noel pulled back slightly, but Whit continued.
“Assoonas it does, and I mean theminutethe required sympathy for my wife—who isdead,by the way, Noel, not in ‘the Great Beyond’—the minute that sympathy runs dry, you can expect a call from me, just begging to throw on a high-viz vest and open car doors under your distinguished leadership. Does that sound like a deal?”
Merritt stared at Noel then—she couldn’t resist. And to her pleasure, he looked as though he had been slapped.
“It does indeed.” His voice was an enfeebled murmur. “I’ll fetch Annie.”
Merritt watched him go, enjoying the way even his gait seemed deflated and embarrassed.
“I’m so sorry,” Whit said behind her, his voice entirely different now.
She turned to look at him, unable to keep from grinning. “Are you joking? That was... masterful. And it serves him right.The Great Beyond? Are you kidding me?”
“Iknow!” He leaned forward and gave Merritt’s arm a single squeeze, clearly compelled by the relief of someone whose disdain is suddenly justified. The warmth of his touch was momentary and entirely chaste, but Merritt felt as if it traveled down her arm, through her shoulder, and straight into her chest.
She smiled, then masked the crackling feeling in her body with the words, “What a creep.”
“Indeed,” Whit said, as the back door opened to reveal a little girl with reddish hair in pigtails, wearing dark green corduroy overalls beneath a puffy lavender jacket.
Annie. Her pigtails were twisted imperfectly but thoroughly into endearing braids, and Merritt wondered whether Whit had done them.
“Hi, sweetheart,” he said, as Annie climbed into the car, obviously tentative and confused. “This is my friend Merritt. She’s the one who’s helping me do some writing, and she needed a ride.”
Annie closed the door, and Merritt turned around to face her, hyper-aware that the feeling in her body had shifted into a different kind of nervousness at meeting this girl—but she tamped it down, as she’d done with her desire to explain things to Noel. There was nothing untoward here, either.
“Hi, Annie,” Merritt said, hoping her voice sounded kind butnot condescending. “Do you mind if your dad takes me home on the way to your house?”
Annie shook her head no, her lips forming a weak smile that was undoubtedly powered by good manners. Merritt felt a surge of affection for this girl, and for her father, and for her mother, and then for Annie again, who had lost that mother so young but shared her hair and, Merritt suspected, still acted in accordance with what Helen had taught her about politeness to others.
“Thanks,” she said, and she sent the word out like a hug.
Whit watched Annie in the rearview mirror as they drove.
“How was school?”
She was looking out the window. What was she thinking about all this? Annie was eight years old and smart. The mother of her closest friend, Liza, had remarried after a divorce, so Annie knew about stepfathers and stepmothers and parents with girlfriends and boyfriends, and God, why was Whit thinking about that now? That’s not what this was, and he hoped Annie knew that.
“It was good,” she told the window. “It was library day.”
Merritt and Whit looked at each other, as if Annie were a comedian onstage who’d just said something that resonated with them both. Whit chuckled as Merritt turned around in her seat again—she was going to pull a muscle—to talk to Annie.
“You know, Mrs.Pryor is my mom.”
Annie’s eyes lit up in the mirror.
“She is?”
“She is. Did she read to your class today?”
Annie nodded. “She’s been reading a chapter book to us about Gooney, um...”
“Gooney Bird Greene?” Merritt offered, and Annie’s already gleaming eyes gleamed more.
