Learning Curve

“Okay, you’re right. Nice moves,” said Emily. “But it’s the cleavage that makes it work.”

“You’ve got cleavage.”

“Barely.”

“There’s nothing bare about it tonight,” said Marilee, glancing at Emily’s gray turtleneck sweater. “You won’t land a live one if you don’t get your hook in the water.”

Marilee tossed her lush auburn hair over her shoulder with a sensual shrug. Everything about Marilee was lush and sensual and made for red. Not a sophisticated burgundy or a down-to-earth rust, but a sex-served-straight-up, sirens-screaming, fire-engine red. “Besides,” she said, “your reel will get rusty if you don’t play out a little line every now and then.”

All this fishing talk was reminding Emily of Linda’s theory about Kyle. “Can we drop the fishing analogies? And besides, I’m not interested.”

“I’ve always believed that the best way to top off a girl’s night out is with a man in the morning.” Marilee tipped her glass in a discreet gesture. “That one, over there, the one with the dark green sweater—he looks like your type.”

Emily glanced at a lanky all-American candidate with squared-off shoulders and a squared-off jaw. “Yep, he sure does.”

“So, give him some encouragement,” said Marilee.

“I don’t want to encourage him.”

Marilee rolled her eyes.

Emily stared down at her drink. “It’s complicated.”

“Is there someone else?”

“Why does there have to be someone else?”

“Because Chad, or Blake, or Whoever over there is seriously cute.”

Marilee smiled at the dark and brooding guy in black leather at the other end of the bar, and he smiled back through a ribbon of cigarette smoke. Dark and brooding would suit Marilee, Emily thought.

They watched him send up another smoke signal. “Go ahead,” Emily said. “Go fish.”

“And leave you crying over your mysterious someone else?”

“I’m not. I won’t.”

Marilee rolled her eyes again. “You’ve got all the symptoms. Sighing, dressing like a nun. Ignoring Troy in the green sweater.”

“Maybe I’m just picky.” Because she could feel a blush coming on, Emily turned to stare out at the crowd.

Marilee shook her head. “I’ve got you pegged. And your cheeks are turning bright pink. You’re like a human traffic signal. Stop. Go. Go away.”

Emily reached back to pick up her wine and took a big sip of avoidance.

Marilee gasped. “I know who it is. It’s your master teacher. The tall, dark and cranky one with the troubled past. You like him.”

“Of course I like him.”

“No. I mean, you like him. As in ‘I like what I see and I want to see more.’”

“I couldn’t do that,” Emily said. Marilee lifted one auburn eyebrow, and Emily’s cheeks got warmer. “It’s complicated.”

“We’ve already established that.” Marilee toyed with her straw. “So he’s your master teacher. So you’ve got an itch for him that can’t be scratched till the end of the term. Doesn’t mean you can’t brush up against him every now and then in an innocent social setting. Find out if he’s a little itchy, too.”

Emily spun the stem of her glass. “No way. He’s my teacher and my job supervisor. That’s two big check marks in the hands-off column.”

And she’d better remind herself about those check marks whenever she started feeling a little warm and rashy. Joe would be evaluating her performance during the next few weeks. Things could get sticky if either of them acknowledged a sexual attraction or, worse, followed up on it.

The smart thing to do would be to get herself reassigned to another school—it might not be too late in the term. But there were mysteries to solve, and things she wanted to help Joe rediscover. And there were other things she still believed, deep down in her heart, only Joe could teach her.

“So there are some complications.” Marilee shrugged. “I don’t see anything here a little time won’t cure.”

The smoker slid off his stool and sauntered to an empty booth, casting lures in his wake. Marilee’s lips bowed in a smug curve. “Unless the complications on the personal level are complicating things on the job level,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“All that photocopying and note-taking you’re stuck doing while the rest of us are enjoying some one-on-one time with students.” She set her drink on the bar. “Are you letting the personal complications get in the way of the job?”

Maybe she was. Maybe she’d been distracted by Joe’s good looks and his mysterious past. Maybe she’d been a little too admiring, a little too curious—and a little too passive.

Maybe it was time to be more assertive, time to stop settling for copier crumbs and grab a bigger share of the classroom pie. Maybe the only way she’d ever find out if she could handle the challenges of a teaching career was to challenge Joe on his own turf.

While she was considering all the maybes, Marilee slid off her bar stool and slipped her purse strap over the shoulder of her bright red dress.

“You can’t just open up a can of worms like that and then leave me here,” Emily said.

Marilee waggled red-tipped fingers in farewell. “Fish or cut bait, Em.”

JOE CONFRONTED another restless Friday night. The end of another week of teaching, another week of trying to figure out if making an effort was worth the effort. One week closer to the end of the school year and the decision whether or not to sign another contract.

He stood at the living area window in his cramped apartment tucked above Dixon’s Hardware, staring down into the glowing puddles ringing the streetlights along Main Street, and poured the last half inch of a bottle of Merlot into a large goblet. He swirled it, watching the wine glide down the curved sides. Good legs.

Legs. Female legs. Long, satiny and tangled with his. The perfect distraction from thoughts of the job.

He could phone Dolores over in Orchard View. He’d buy her a few drinks, and she’d offer her warm bed and willing body in exchange. She always did. Dependable, divorced Dolores. Maybe tonight he’d take her up on it.

He frowned down into his glass, knowing the company of a forty-five-year-old shopping network addict wasn’t the cure for this particular case of restlessness.

Maybe he’d make a plan. Short-term, just for the next few hours; long-term, to get him through Saturday night, too. Maybe he’d open another bottle of wine and settle in at the piano, spin out whatever blowzy, bluesy tune the vintage suggested. Ambivalence in the key of Burgundy.

He turned from the window, set the goblet on a side table and stretched out along the oversize sofa squeezed into the undersize space. The secondhand-shop leather cushioned him like an old ball glove, and he focused on the comfort as he willed himself to relax.

The clock struck nine, and the room dimmed as the shop lights beading the street below winked out. Rain splashed over the gutter, and the furnace whumped and hissed. He tapped one foot against the other, adding to the sullen syncopation.

So, is this where you picture yourself in ten years?

He swung his feet to the floor with an oath and flicked the switch on the side table lamp. Light spilled over his empty goblet and beside it, his cell phone.