The Ferryman (14 page)

With novels, they weren't quite so discriminating. The only rule the management had was
no category romances
. Annette had never figured out if this was practicality due to the tastes of their clientele, a way for them to get attention, or an actual prejudice. But according to the owner, they'd never had any complaints about that particular bit of bigotry.

The third of the store not given over to books accounted for the
-iccino
part of the place's name. It was a warmly decorated café and bakery that specialized in exotic coffees and pastries Annette had come to admit she would kill for if necessary.

So when the urge to browse for books overcame her, or if she simply had a couple of hours to kill and wanted a cup of great coffee, she would find herself in her little SAAB on the way over to Arlington. Not so often that they would remember her name in the store, but frequently enough that they always recognized her face.

That Sunday afternoon, with the air turned chilly and the sky stingy on sunshine, she cranked the heat and the radio and drove out Route 16 to Massachusetts Avenue. In a few days it would be May, and she cursed the weather. It was too cold by her estimate, far too cold for this time of year. All the more reason to head to her favorite spot for a mochaccino.

Behind the wheel, Annette grinned.
Maybe with whipped cream.

It truly was
her
spot. Though she had been going to Bookaccino for four years, she had never once asked anyone to go along with her. Until she found someone she wanted to share it with, she never would. In her sourest moments, she suspected it might be forever.

Such thoughts were unwelcome. Annette found a parking space on the street half a block away and felt a tiny burst of contentment at the knowledge that the meters were dormant on Sundays. Sometimes the smallest things could give her a lift.

It was almost two-thirty when she killed the engine, cutting Sarah McLachlan off midsong. Almost unaware she was doing it, she took a moment to check her appearance in the rearview mirror. Then she slipped her thin purse over her shoulder and got out. All day long the clouds had been rolling in and then thinning out again; at the moment, they were high and wispy, and the sun was dimmed only a little by their gray presence.

The Sarah McLachlan song was still in her head and she hummed along as she pushed open the door into Bookaccino.
Your love is better than ice cream....

Annette smiled to herself, then plunged into the books. The latest legal thrillers were on prominent display, but she ignored them and instead made a beeline for the science fiction section. Though she enjoyed a good mystery now and again, science fiction appealed to her mathematician's mind.

Just a few minutes after she began to scan the shelves, an older woman with her hair dyed screaming red appeared nearby. She hovered a moment before smiling sweetly.

“Can I help with anything?”

Annette batted her eyelashes. “I'm looking for something romantic.”

For a moment the woman seemed at a loss. Then she caught on, and they shared a brief chuckle.

“If you have any questions, let me know,” the woman said. She moved on to help a younger couple, a thin, stylish black girl and her huggy blond boyfriend.

Though she wandered for more than twenty minutes, only one book caught her attention, an odd combination of fantasy and science fiction about a female space pilot who discovered a parallel world filled with dragons. Not usually her sort of thing, but for some reason it appealed to her.

Soon she was settled at a table in the café with her mochaccino and a sinfully rich apple cinnamon muffin, the book open before her. With the smells of the coffee and pastries filling the place, it was sheer paradise. It occurred to her, as she paused between the first and second chapters, that part of the reason she never brought anyone with her was that she was able to indulge without having to make excuses.

“Is it good?”

Annette glanced up, her mouth half-full with muffin, then tried to chew more quickly in order to reply. The woman who had spoken—or girl, for she looked barely old enough to be out of high school—smiled awkwardly at having caught her like that. She had long blond hair halfway down her back, sparkling blue eyes, and a dimple on her left cheek that lent her an air of mischief.

“The muffin or the book?” Annette finally asked.

The girl uttered a soft, pretty laugh and leaned on the back of the other chair at the table. “The book. I know the muffins are good.”

Annette closed the book and glanced at the cover. Then she shrugged. “I'm not sure, actually. I just started it. Moves pretty fast, though, and the main character's a kick. I like novels with sexy, smart-ass women protagonists.”

“Me too,” the girl said. Her smile grew wider, her dimple more defined, and the mischievous air around her was even more pronounced. “Too bad life isn't more like that.”

A slow, sly grin crossed Annette's features. With her right hand she tucked a lock of her short hair behind an ear and regarded this fascinating new arrival with a frank stare.

“I'm Annette,” she said.

“Jill,” the girl replied. “I'm Jill.”

“Want to sit down, Jill?”

With a toss of her swaying hair, Jill swept around and planted herself in the chair opposite Annette in one swift motion.

“I'd love to,” she said. “So is this your first time here?”

“Not at all. I'm in here all the time.”

Jill glanced around, gestured with a flap of her arms. “This place is like my second home. Books and coffee go together like movies and popcorn.Weird that I've never seen you here before.”

Annette became uncomfortable. She grew oddly shy and sipped at her coffee. For a moment Jill frowned and watched her closely. Then she leaned in, snatched up Annette's book, and began to silently read the back cover. Fascinated by the girl, Annette studied her.

As if she sensed the attention, Jill's gaze flicked toward Annette.

“Twenty-two,” she said quietly.

Annette blinked. “I'm sorry?”

The sultry, presumptuous smile that split Jill's features in that moment took Annette's breath away.

“My age,” the girl said. “You didn't ask, but I figured you were wondering. Someday I'll be glad I look younger, or so I'm told. Usually it's damned inconvenient. Like now, for instance.”

For a moment Annette only gazed at her. Then her eyebrows went up and she shook her head. “Twenty-nine,” she said softly, as she raised her cup to her lips again.

“What do you say I grab a café latte and we go for a walk?” Jill asked.

Annette knew she ought to have been put off by the girl's—the woman's—forwardness, but she was too busy being enchanted by everything about her, including that brazen quality.

“I think I'd like that.”

 
The students at Medford High gave Janine all of three days to adjust to being back at the front of a classroom. By Thursday morning, whatever break they had given her in sympathy had eroded completely. She knew that part of that was her own fault; she had worked hard to convince faculty and students alike that she was doing just fine. They took her at her word that day. Seven students showed up without the brief essay assignment, two earned detention for talking incessantly in class despite her many admonishments, and one girl became hysterical for no apparent reason when Janine called on her.

At lunch she broke up a fight between two junior girls that had something to do with cigarettes and slander. In her final class of the day, Andy Watkiss asked her straight out why she bothered to come back when half the kids didn't give a fuck about school and only showed up because their parents made them.

“You don't really believe that,” she told him.“This is Medford, not some inner-city school. Most of you guys care even though you pretend you don't. I came back for the ones who do.The ones who don't can stay home as far as I'm concerned.”

They all went quiet then, that last Thursday class. For the rest of the period they listened, and even participated.

Janine was back, and each time one of her students asked a pertinent question, or expressed an opinion, she realized that she had missed it very much. Certainly not all of them were intrigued by their class discussions. Some showed absolutely no interest in most of what she said. But there were moments, sometimes entire minutes, when she had the attention of every single one of them. In those moments she discovered that teaching meant more to her than she had ever known.

At three o'clock that afternoon, she met with Tom Carlson in his office. The principal of Medford High was a bearded, somewhat rotund man whom students thought of as a stiff, a stern and humorless commandant whose attention to even the tiniest of rules seemed both intolerant and intolerable to the young people in his charge.

Fortunately,Tom Carlson was the principal and not standing at the front of a class. Janine imagined he had once been a perfectly horrible teacher. Carlson communicated very well with adults, but was completely incapable of doing so with teenagers. He was aware of it, too, which was perhaps his saving grace.

When she rapped on his door a few minutes after three, he called out immediately for her to enter. Carlson stood by the windowsill behind his desk, a watering can in his right hand. With a smile, he glanced over his shoulder at her.

“Hi, Janine. Have a seat, why don't you? I'll be through here in just a moment.”

As though the plants were all delicate and exotic hothouse orphans, he sprinkled water in a gentle shower of droplets above each plant. Janine watched him as she slid into a leather chair facing his desk. She was fascinated by his obvious affection for those plants. She thought he probably talked to them. Probably communicated with the plants a lot better than he did with the students.

Carlson set the watering can on the end of the windowsill, then stood back to gaze at his babies. He pruned a wilted leaf off one, a flowering thing Janine could not identify. Then, with a self-satisfied grin, he turned to regard her again.

“Sorry. Once I start my routine, I'm always afraid if I stop I'll forget I didn't finish, and—”

“It's fine,Tom. No worries.” Content with the way her day had gone, and yet also tired from work and insufficient sleep, she settled more deeply into the chair, relaxing back into it with a catlike stretch.

Carlson fixed her with a steady, sympathetic gaze. “You're haunted.”

Janine flinched. “What?”

“Haunted,” he repeated, and nodded as if to underline the point. “It's something in your eyes, in the way you walk around the halls. Not that I blame you, but you seem so far away. I haven't audited your classes, but—”

“Maybe you should,” she interrupted angrily.

The principal blinked, taken aback.

“It took some adjusting. Probably will take some more. But I had a good day today, Tom. All right, it took a couple of days, but I'm fine. I don't think it's fair to—”

“Janine.”

His voice was firm, but kind. It drew her gaze to his expression, and she saw the confusion and sadness there. Since her loss, Carlson had been nothing but sweet and helpful to her. Janine had needed his sympathy then, but at the moment it was too much. It made her feel vulnerable.

Eyes pinched closed to hold back tears, she put a hand over her mouth and let her chin fall. After a moment, embarrassed, she opened her eyes again.

Carlson got up from his chair and stepped around the desk. Despite his girth, he crouched beside her, his hand on the arm of the chair.

“I probably chose my words poorly,” he began. “I didn't mean to upset you.”

She shook her head. “No, you're right. This is ridiculous. The last thing you need is a teacher who can't control her emotions.”

Janine felt his warm, surprisingly strong fingers grip her hand. Reluctantly she gazed up into those sad eyes again.

“Seems to me you're doing an admirable job so far,” he said. “And in front of your class, that's good. In here, though, you don't have to hide your feelings. I can't even begin to imagine what you're feeling, Janine. I'm glad you're back, the students are glad you're back, the other teachers are glad you're back.”

Hopeful, she offered a tentative smile. “I thought you were going to tell me to take more time.”

With difficulty, he stood up and leaned against his desk, releasing her hand. “If you need it, you can take it. That's what I was about to say.You do seem haunted by what happened to you. How could you not be? But it seems to me that you're getting a handle on things. Unless you tell me different, I'm going to assume you can handle all your regular duties.”

“I can,” she said quickly. Then, after a moment's contemplation, she nodded slowly. “I can.”

A broad smile spread across Carlson's face. “Excellent.”

Janine was troubled, however, and the man saw it on her face.

“What is it?”

She shrugged almost imperceptibly. “What you said. I feel like I am haunted, in a sense. By this image I had of the way things should have been.”

“My dear Janine,” Carlson said sweetly, “that specter haunts us all. It's the Ghost of Christmas Past, or something like it, I think. But I don't think you have to worry about the other two spirits. I have a feeling you're going to be just fine.”

Janine nodded. “Me too. I have some good friends watching out for me, coaxing me along. Without Annette Muscari, I would've been lost.”