The Marriage Intervention (3 page)

He chuckled. “Scott.”
 

They shook hands. Suddenly ravenous, Josie found herself tearing into her turkey and avocado.
 

“Why don’t you play hooky and show me around for the rest of the day?” he said as they finished up. “It’s summer. Surely you have a few weeks more to finish up whatever classroom stuff you’re working on today.”
 

She needed to prepare for the funeral. She needed to finish hanging the Star Student display and setting up the reading corner. She needed to make up her old trundle bed for Delaney to sleep in.
 

She needed to mourn her mother.

When she didn’t respond right away, he barked out a laugh. “I can practically see the internal debate! You must be a model employee. But come on. Live a little.”
 

“This goes against my grain,” she said. “I am a very conscientious person. I have a daily to-do list and I have a compulsion for checking off every item on it.”
 

She never returned to her classroom that day. Instead, she gave Scott a locals’ walking tour of downtown Juniper. They went to the famous western history museum, the library with its exquisite sculpture garden, and the little-known bar where Josie had had her first drink with Summer and Delaney.
 

Probably because she had a specific mission, Josie found herself feeling chatty and friendly, and even caught herself saying to Scott, “I’m not normally like this. Trust me. You bring out the friendly in me.”
 

They were sitting on the little brick wall that bordered the rose garden inside the museum, and Josie fanned herself with the brochure she picked up at the entrance.
 

“I don’t believe it for a minute,” he said. “You’re the nicest person I’ve met so far in Juniper.”
 

“Didn’t you say I was the only person you’ve met so far in Juniper?”

When they made eye contact, she could practically see little cartoon hearts floating around in the air between them. She still remembered that moment as magical, even now, years later.
 

The magic lasted about a split second before her inner voice kicked in.
 

What are you doing, estúpida? He just likes your curves, that’s all. He doesn’t even know you.
 

But Scott was different. He was different from the boys in junior high who faked liking her just so they could get their hands on her breasts or cup her ass while pushing her up against the lockers.
 

Scott didn’t know her, but he wanted to. She could tell. And she liked it. At the time, she relished his attention, bathed in it like a springtime blade of grass bathes in the warm sunlight.
 

And maybe that was the reason she didn’t notice until much later that he had not revealed a single fact about himself over the course of that first afternoon they spent together, or that evening when they made love (actually, scratch that: when they copulated awkwardly was a more accurate description) against the side of her car, just steps from the school where she worked.
 

She asked him questions, but he deflected them like a magician, training her attention on precisely what he wanted her to see, putting the spotlight back on her. Despite spending several hours with him that day, Josie had no idea what he did for a living, why he moved to Juniper, or even what kind of car he drove.
 

Scott was the first secret-keeper, and because she fell so hard for him that summer—
too
hard—she became the second.
 

Keeping secrets is a hard habit to break.
 

***

When Scott eventually revealed his secret, Josie realized he was the Romeo to her Juliet. Tragic, lovestruck young people destined to be apart.
 

He knew from the outset they wouldn’t be together. When she casually mentioned teaching at Juniper Elementary School, he should have walked away. But, he said, because he loved the slow curve of her smile, the quick chime of her laugh, he waited until she had fallen hard for him to tell her, ensuring they’d have at least some time together before school started and their respective career aspirations kept them apart. Suddenly, every moment felt precious, like a diamond hundreds of years in the making, deep underground, only now twinkling in the sunlight.

 
They saw each other daily. For the first few days, Josie let Scott dictate the direction of their conversations. He steered the vehicle to whichever destinations he chose, never once pulling to a stop in any area of his own life.

Then, curiosity overcame her.
 

“Scott, you know almost everything about me,” she said to him one night while they sat on her porch swing, licking ice cream cones. “But I don’t know so much about you. I mean, you said you moved here for your job, but you’ve never mentioned what that job is. And you’re never working.”
 

“Well, I’ve only been here for a few days,” he said, his tone indicating a flicker of offense.
 

She nodded and laid a hand on his leg. “I know. I was just wondering, that’s all. I’d really like to get to know you better.”
 

He sighed then, a big sigh that made his chest rise and fall, and moved the swing so it creaked on its chains. “Josie, there’s something I need to tell you.”
 

Uh oh. He’s married, with kids. He’s a spy and he’s not allowed to date people. He’s an assassin and I’m his next target. Mission: Kill Josie Garcia.

“I’m the new principal at Juniper Elementary School.”
 

She sat there so long without responding that the ice cream started to melt, running down over her thumb. After a long moment during which the only sound was that of crickets chirping, she cleared her throat. The ice cream dripped onto her leg.
 

“Wait. So you’re, like, my boss?”
 

He shrugged, nodding. “Well, yeah.”
 

Their relationship would never work. She couldn’t date her boss. Imagine what it would do to her reputation. Imagine how it could ruin her career.
 

Now, she nodded too.

“This can’t work,” they both said at the same time. Then they laughed.
 

It was a split-second, knee-jerk decision, and she knew it was the right one.
 

But after that, she always wondered, what if? What if they had met under different circumstances? What if one of them worked at a different school? What if she wasn’t a teacher?
 

The answers didn’t matter. Josie Garcia and Scott Smith were destined for tragedy.

When she and Paul made their relationship official about a month later, though, she told Scott it was over. Really over.
 

Scott and Josie said good-bye the final night of summer break.

He insisted they do something fun, something, he said, “where we won’t even have a chance to notice how sad we are.”
 

That was Scott, always running away from serious topics, always hiding from feelings any deeper than a dirty puddle in the parking lot.

So they went to Orbit Golf. Josie hated that place. She’d gone there on her first-ever date with Alejo Gomez, whom she’d pined after for months junior year. He was the perfect gentleman until they came across some of his friends. It was Hole Twelve, and she was just getting ready to take her first shot. She tossed her hair over her shoulder, hoping Alejo would find the move sexy. Just as she swung her club, she heard the cat calls and teenage snickers. Alejo, embarrassed, insisted, very loudly, that she meant nothing to him, while her face burned with embarrassment. He told his friends she’d begged him to take her golfing as soon as she found out he got a new car. “Just like a woman,” he sneered. His friends laughed. She missed the shot. They finished the golf course and never spoke again.

The grown-up Josie could never share this story with Scott, though. Whenever she told him a story, his eyes darted around the room, looking for something more interesting. So she pasted on a smile and went to Orbit Golf to lay their relationship to rest among fluorescent lighting and glow-in-the-dark paintings of misshapen aliens.
 

Of course, they went back to her place, where he insisted on having rushed, rough sex disguised as a passionate final act.
 

That night and every night thereafter for a few weeks, she cried herself to sleep. Of course, Josie Garcia wouldn’t let any man—not even Scott Smith—know how much he’d hurt her, so she showed up at school each day in a sizzling-hot outfit she hoped would magnify the tragedy.

***

Two weeks later, Paul Comstock walked into Josie’s life.

Paul was exactly the opposite of Scott, and maybe that’s why she fell for him so quickly.

They met the second week of that same school year, when she saw him in the classroom next door. He was talking to the second-grade teacher, Susie Lockhart, and Josie snapped a mental photo. Artists dreamed of profiles like Paul’s: all clean lines and perfect angles.
 

He stood with his thumbs hooked into his gun belt and his head cocked a tiny bit to one side as he listened to Susie’s questions about the presentation he planned to give that afternoon.
 

The moment he smiled, Josie knew she was hooked (although she should have known she was hooked the moment she realized she was totally and completely frozen in place, leaning against the doorjamb, her mouth hanging open as she watched him speak).

He had deep, striking crows feet at the corners of his eyes, and rather than making him look old, they made him look fun and kind and downright sexy.
 

She imagined him directing that smile at her, then wrapping those big, sculpted superhero arms around her waist right here in the doorway of Susie Lockhart’s classroom.

When he did, she would put her arms up around his neck and pull his face to hers. What would he smell like?
 

Probably leather and cologne, soap and coffee. Don’t all cops drink coffee?
 

Susie Lockhart cleared her throat, and Josie jumped, snapping her mouth closed.
 

“Did you hear me, Josie? This is Paul Comstock, with the Juniper Police Department. He’s coming in next week to give a presentation to my kids.”
 

“Paul,” Josie said. “Paul Comstock. Nice to meet you. I’m Josie Garcia.”
 

He took her hand to shake it and looked directly at her. So directly, it almost made her uncomfortable. It should have made her uncomfortable.

Only, it didn’t. It made her all fizzy inside, like champagne. Little bubbles kept rising to the surface, bursting gently on her skin and making her shiver.
 

“Nice to meet you, Josie,” Paul said. “Very nice to meet you.”
 

No poetry, just straight talk.
 

He would later admit he experienced that same fizzy feeling during the handshake and had been rendered idiotic for the rest of the day, misplacing his handcuffs and leaving his gun in the bathroom stall at the police station.
 

The moment was fleeting though, because Paul’s phone vibrated on his belt and he answered it right away in a tone so serious Josie smiled.
 

Susie wiggled her eyebrows up and down behind his back as he walked into the hallway. Josie shook her head and took that opportunity to slink back to her own classroom, her reason for visiting Susie’s forgotten.
 

The following Thursday, Delaney came up from vet school for a weekend visit. The three girls went to Rowdy’s for Happy Hour, and Josie confessed: “I’m not usually one to go for men in uniform, but wowza! I mean, he was hot.”
 

“So did you get his number?” Summer asked.
 

“I’m working on it. You know, police officers’ phone numbers are top secret or some shit. Classified.”
 

“Delaney,” Summer said. “Look at the way she’s grinning right now. When’s the last time you saw Josie grin like that? I sense something special about this one.”
 

Delaney nodded sagely. “Yes,” she said. “I haven’t seen her smile like that since freshman year of high school when Davey Richmond taught her what second base is.”
 

“I’m scandalized,” Josie said, but deep down, she knew it was true. She didn’t often let guys get to her. Well, not usually.

Scott had gotten to her. And look what had happened there.
 

“Whoa, that was weird,” Summer said. “The grin disappeared. What’s up with that?”
 

“Oh, nothing,” Josie said brightly. “Just need a refill, that’s all.”
 

The conversation moved on then, to Delaney’s final exams at vet school and how Summer’s daughter Sarah had started preschool. Even as they laughed at Sarah’s insistence on wearing all purple - socks, pants, shirts, a sweater, and boots, Josie felt a tiny bit … nostalgic, maybe? Sad? She couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
 

And worse, she couldn’t hash it out with the girls. Because she’d been in the middle of grieving for her mother, Josie hadn’t mentioned Scott when they first met. Then he’d sworn her to secrecy, so solemn she’d joked they should take a blood oath.

“I can’t have anyone knowing we had a relationship,” he said to her one night as he stood in her doorway on the way out. “You understand. It just wouldn’t be … proper.”
 

Of course, Josie nodded. She understood. She planned to ascend the career ladder, too, and didn’t want scandal coloring her resume.
 

So instead of telling the girls about Scott, she told them she was going through the isolation phase of grief and needed time alone. In reality, she spent every spare moment with Scott. She told the girls she was getting ready for the school year. In reality, she and Scott were having steamy sex on her classroom floor.