“Have you talked to Ms. Fairburn about this?” You encouraged your children to solve their problems in a mature way. Proactive. Calm. Direct. All that. Rather than, for instance, solving their problems on the playground with their fists, which had been more his own style.
“No,” Georgia said. “Because then she’d know for sure that I can’t read, and I can sort of pretend to read now, because I remember what the books said. The ones on the computer. But if I told her Ican’tread, maybe she’d say I should stay home instead.”
“Sounds to me,” he said, “like we’d better go talk to Ms. Fairburn together. You can explain the problem, and I’ll be the moral support.”
“What’s the moral … sport?”
“I nod at you and say, ‘Go on, Georgia, and explain how you’re feeling,’ and you say all that, and Ms. Fairburn tells you … whatever she tells you. Which I don’t think will be that you’re not clever enough for school and should stay home. I expect she’ll say that some kids are ready to read sooner than others.” The teacher had certainly sounded reasonable when he’d talked to her, husky voice and all, butwasshe pressuring the kids too hard? Was she giving out those stars to everybody else, but not his daughter? Why? His blood started heating at the thought—nothing could make you as irrational as anything affecting your kid—and he cooled it down with some deep breathing. “That’s what we’ll do,” he told Georgia. “Soon as I get back from Aussie. Meanwhile, you’ll do your best, and know that I’ll always be happy with your best. OK?”
She snuggled into his side and sighed. “OK. But I wish you weren’t going away.”
There you were. The guilt, as per usual. But what else was he meant to do? This was the job he knew, the job thatprovided for his kids. “I know,” he said. “But I’ll be home on Sunday.”
“OK,” she said with another sigh. “Maybe my stomach feels a tiny bit better now.”
“Better enough for steak and Guinness pie?”
“Yes,” she said. “Because my stomach likes meat pie.” Then jumped up and hopped on one foot a couple of times. “And after dinner, I can show you my hopping, because there’s hopscotch at school, and I learned how to do it.”
“After dinner,” he said, “I’ll be glad to watch. I’ll read with you, too. How’s that?”
See? He knew how to talk to women. Five-year-old women, anyway. Five-year-old women who actually liked him.
A narrow market.
4
A SOCIAL WARTHOG
Skylar sat down, then stood up to check the tuck on her shirt. Still good. She sat again, stacked the papers on her desk more neatly, then opened her lesson planner and read over it. Yes. Fine. She got up and straightened some chairs, then came back and sat down again.
Maybe she should go to the toilets and put on more makeup, since she actually had a working mascara now.
No. Get a grip.She’d already fussed too much with her clothes today. For one thing, she’d considered wearing her just-above-the-knee yellow dress, which made no sense at all. A Year One teacher was on the floor much too often to wear any dress remotely like that.
By the time she’d finished choosing an outfit, she’d had a pile of clothes on her bed that would have done justice to a seventeen-year-old with a date for the school dance. She’d finally settled on skinny navy trousers, a white shell, a tailored pale-purple jacket, and her prettiest pointed-toe flats. To meet with a parent. A parent who wasn’t even going to like her!
She’d been like this ever since Zane had emailed, last Wednesday night,Can I get a meeting next Monday with you andGeorgia? She’s got some worries. We can be there by 4:30. Too late, or OK?
Of course it was too late. She should have told him so. She hated to turn down a parent’s request to meet, that was all.
No, it wasn’t all. The thing at the bar had been embarrassing. And the fact that he hadn’t known it was her? Well, he’d known it washer. Shehadn’t used a fake name. But he hadn’t known she was Georgia’s teacher, which she should have told him first thing, instead of whatever it was she’d done. Teasing? Flirting? Her face burned even to remember it. She had to meet with him and set the record straight, or the dread would only increase. And when she did …
Pity it was so many hours since she’d fixed her hair.
She was up again, sharpening pencils, when she heard the voice behind her. “Ms. Fairburn?”
She jumped a mile and uttered a sound. She was afraid it was a squeak. “Yes,” she said, turning to face him while trying to pretend that the squeak had come from somewhere else. Like the rats. “Hello. Hi, Georgia. Come and have a seat.”
She smiled. Cheerily. She hoped.
Zane wasn’t generally lost for words. Now, he stood, his hand on Georgia’s shoulder, and thought,Fuck my life.And since those weren’t words he could say, he was, yes, lost for words.
He said, “Cheers,” and sat across from her—from Sky? Was that her actual name? Should he be narky about that?He’dused a fake name, after all. But then he remembered what she’d said about his wife and was narky again.
On the other hand, she looked prettier than ever with those red-gold corkscrews of hair bouncing on her shoulders. Also, he’d only seen her sitting down before, and standing up … The woman had ashape.And she still had that voice. Thatvoice kept sounding like an invitation. Or possibly a check he was never going to cash. Which was it?
“Well done on Saturday,” she said, sounding perfectly poised, while he was seriously off-balance. But then, she’d known whohewas. “Of course, you’re probably tired of hearing that, and that’s not why you’re here, so shall we start with you, Georgia? Why did you and your dad come to see me today?”
