“What d’you think?” he asked, his knee bumping into mine.
With tears burning, I smiled. “I think you’d be a fool not to go.”
Chapter Thirty
Daisy, Now
“I didn’t get any, Mr. Dub.”
No matter how many times Max corrects his students, they insist on calling him this nickname. It’s adorable. The flyers in my hand become a shield to hide my smile.
“Take some of these,” he says. “You’ve all got your designated sections to flyer. Buddy system, look both ways, yadda yadda. Grab the old ones and replace them with these. And when you talk to people, let them know you’ll be in the show.”
At this, a few students grin.
“My mom was wondering if you’re rescheduling ’cause of the weather,” one girl asks.
“No plans to,” Max says. “We have our eyes on the forecast, though.”
Reports of a freak storm rolling through has everyone nervous, and I’ve tried to keep a level head. If we have bad luck, the heaviest rains would arrive shortly before opening night—three days away—and scare people into staying at home. But these systems go around us 99 percent of the time.
For good measure, I had Stacey do a run-through of the rooms, and I checked the gutters this afternoon.
A young man who introduced himself as Xander narrows his eyes at me. “You look real familiar, Ms. Johnson.”
“I thought so too,” someone else says.
“Oh.” I don’t think I’ve seen his face before. “We may have crossed paths sometime.”
“No, I haveseenyou.”
“Wait,” gushes a short, spunky girl who told me her name is Zoë. “That portrait. Remember? The one Mr. Dub did.”
The group of six teens murmurs amongst themselves in recognition.
“Portrait?” I ask, but Max talks over me.
“We should get started.” He brings his hands together in an abrupt clap. “See you back here—hopefully with no flyers—in thirty. Got it? Great. This is your extra credit, so you better hop to it. Perfect. Bye.”
The students break off into duos, talking amongst each other as they head down the block. “Just a friend,” I hear one of them mutter, but I don’t catch the rest.
“Should I be concerned with what you’re sharing with your students?”
“It’s—” He waves a hand. “They wanted to see what I could do. So I drew a quick portrait.”
“Of me?”
He nods and starts our journey down the street.
“When?”
“First day of class. Trial by fire sort of thing.”
I pick up my pace to walk next to him, mentally flipping through a calendar. That would have been months ago, back in early June. Of all the people’s faces fresh in his mind that he could have drawn, he chose mine. I suppress a smile.
“Why didn’t you show me?” I ask, feigning indignance. “As the subject, that only feels right.”
“Not my best work. I had two minutes, and I drew from memory.”
