Trouble Me: A Rosewood Novel (17 page)

“One of many fun secrets that life is waiting to hammer you with. But I’m a firm believer in ‘forewarned is forearmed.’ In that spirit, come talk to me when you start menopause.” She grinned at Jade’s horrified expression. “Have I succeeded in distracting you from worrying about tomorrow and what’s going to happen when you’re standing in front of all those little faces?”

“Absolutely. I’m going to sleep like a baby tonight.”

“Glad to hear it. I’d be lying if I didn’t say your first day will be tiring and that, by Friday, you’ll realize the term
TGIF
was invented by teachers. Speaking of which, a bunch of us—Kerri Kroeger in fourth grade, Andrea Hess in phys ed, Lena Rodriguez in Spanish—go out on the last Friday of every month to munch on nachos at Pepito’s on Route 50 and vent. Feel free to join us whenever you can.”

Jade felt an odd rush of pleasure at Tricia’s casual invitation. High school had been such a brutal experience socially and emotionally that, apart from her sisters, Miriam Banner, Stuart Wilde, the guys at Rosewood, and a few other horse people, she didn’t have that many friends in Warburg. It was strange—strange but very good—to realize that might change. “Thanks,” she said. “If I manage to survive parents’ night, I may take you up on that.”

“You’re tough, you’ll be able to handle anything that walks in here—but remember to use PowerPoint.”

“W
HAT ARE
you gonna wear tonight, Daddy?” Hayley asked as she speared a meatball on her fork and then twirled the spaghetti around it.

“Wear? What’s wrong with what I have on?” Rob made a show of inspecting the front of his blue-and-white plaid shirt, which he wore with stonewashed khakis. “I didn’t spill any sauce on it, did I?”

She wrinkled her nose at him as she chewed. Swallowing, she said, “No, but you have to look really nice.
It’s go-to-school night
, and I want Miss Radcliffe to like you, because—”

“She’s so neat,” he finished.

Miss Radcliffe’s general coolness had become Hayley’s refrain since the first day of school. Her heart-shaped face would shine with happiness as she recounted what they’d done and how wonderful Miss Radcliffe was: “She’s really pretty and funny and she had this fun game to help us learn everyone’s name—though I already knew Jenny, Lucy, Colleen, Jay, and Arthur from last year.
And
we got to name the fish, and one of my names was picked!”

Then she’d gone on to describe Bubbles, a blue-and-black tetra with a plumy tail. Rob had already been given strict instructions to go to the fish tank and say hi to him tonight at parents’ night.

“Okay, how about we make a deal, Hayley? You finish up your milk and that last meatball and I’ll let you
choose which shirt I should wear to parent–teacher night.”

“You’ve got a deal, mister,” she said happily, spearing the last meatball. “Let’s go upstairs right away. I don’t want you to be late, because I want you to have time to look at what I made for you. I left it on my desk.”

“And you won’t tell me what it is?”

Hayley shook her head. “No. It’s a surprise.”

A surprise that had left his daughter near to bursting with excitement for the past two days while she worked on her mystery project at school. That, combined with Hayley’s pride at having read aloud a chapter book called
The Animal Rescue Club
to Miss Radcliffe, was enough to make him think that Jade Radcliffe possessed some serious talent in the teaching department.

Hayley drained her milk glass and set it on the table. “There.” Wiping her milk mustache with her napkin, she pushed back her chair. “Let’s go, Daddy.”

“No dessert?”

“I can eat it later when Grammy and Poppy come over. This is too important. Let’s go.”

“These dishes have to be put away before Grammy comes or I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“I’ll help.”

Rob’s eyebrows shot up at the offer. Hayley wasn’t keen on kitchen duty.

With the dishwasher humming its way through the wash cycle and the counters sponged off by Hayley, Rob folded the damp dish towel over the oven door.

“Come on, Daddy,” Hayley urged, tugging his hand. “You’re going to be late if you don’t hurry.”

“After you, princess,” he said with a sweep of his arm, grinning as she tore out of the kitchen, up the stairs, and down the hallway, flying past the gallery of framed photos devoted to her, Becky, and him.

Hayley had switched on the light in his bedroom and was already pulling open the closet’s accordion doors when he entered.

The closet was spacious, too spacious.

A few months after Becky’s death, his mother and Emma had gone through Becky’s clothing, saving a few special pieces for Hayley and donating the rest to one of the charities where Becky had volunteered, one for women who were victims of domestic abuse. Since then, his shirts and trousers hung neatly from the dry cleaner’s wire hangers. Next to them, his police uniforms formed a block of blue and black, with the department’s patches affixed to the sleeves’ shoulders gleaming gold and red. Beneath the clothes, his service shoes were lined neatly, regimentally.

Rob tried not to think about how much he missed the old clutter, when Becky’s dresses and blouses had been mixed in with his, when her shoes had been strewn haphazardly the length of the closet, when he’d had to get down on his hands and knees to uncover a matching pair of his own. To alleviate the pain, he focused on Hayley.

She was standing in front of his shirts, a finger pressed to her lips as she considered. It didn’t take her long to choose. “This one, Daddy. It makes your eyes look nice.” She lifted an azure-blue sleeve.

It was the shirt he’d worn in Norfolk, the night of the torrential storm when he’d met the woman in the bar and then had sex that surpassed the elements raging outside. He hadn’t worn the shirt since then, as putting it on would only remind him of how she’d taken it off. God, her mouth and the scrape of her nails across his abdomen had driven him wild. The memory alone was enough to make his heart thud heavily against his rib cage. This was
not
the shirt he wanted to wear to parents’ night.

Standing on tiptoe, Hayley reached up to slip the hanger off the metal rod.

“Wait a sec, Hayley.” He plucked a pale-gray shirt hanging next to it. “How about this one?” he asked, holding it in front of his chest. “I like it better than that one.”

“No, Daddy, I want you to look
good
.”

He laughed, shaking his head. From the mouths of babes. “Are you sure I have to wear the blue one?”

She nodded energetically. “Definitely.”

“All right. Why don’t you go and get your reading done while I change?”

“Okay, but remember, don’t take too long. And don’t spend too much time talking to Grammy and Poppy. And don’t forget that you’re supposed to ask Miss Radcliffe if I can take riding lessons with her. Jenny’s mom has already signed her and Carly up.”

Not this again. His daughter was nothing if not tenacious, and since she’d learned that Jade Radcliffe was giving riding lessons at Rosewood, she’d been at him nonstop. For the umpteenth time he wished Maryanne Ferris hadn’t enrolled her daughters in Jade Radcliffe’s program. It made it all the more difficult to divert Hayley. “Hayley, I don’t know if it’s a good idea to have your schoolteacher also give you riding—”

“But Jenny’s mom signed her up as soon as she heard Miss Radcliffe was teaching. Lessons start next week, Daddy.” He couldn’t miss the pleading note in her voice.

“Okay, I’ll see what I can do.”

Although Jade knew it would take only minutes to set up her laptop and open the PowerPoint presentation she’d created for the evening, she arrived at school a full half hour early on Thursday night, the dreaded parents’ night.

In the ten days since school had opened, the classroom had already undergone a radical transformation. Colorful drawings decorated the upper registers of the walls. The ones she liked best were the self-portraits. She’d asked the kids to depict themselves engaged in their favorite activity, so there was Kyle with a baseball bat; Alana with her dog; Chris swimming; and Hayley standing next to a dapple gray pony. Hayley had worked so hard to get the pony’s face “just right.” It was the same with the other portraits; Jade loved how her students’ personalities shone in each.

On top of each desk was another project the kids had completed: They’d written letters to their parents describing something they especially liked about their school day and something they wanted the parents to inspect in the classroom. Patrick and Arthur liked learning about how the pyramids were built and wanted their parents to look at the diorama of the Nile the class was building with plasticine, paint, and twigs. Half finished, it covered the length of a long table in the back of the room. Eugene liked the job chart. He was especially pleased that this week he was in charge of feeding the fish.

The fish were a big hit with most of the class. Many of the letters talked about Bubbles, Willie, Flash, Fin, Nemo, and Target. Jade had placed the first packet of marked and graded work sheets next to the students’ letters. It would give the parents something to read if their attention started to wander while she went over the list of restricted-foods birthday parties and reminded them to limit the amount of sugar- and fat-laden treats and above all to avoid any nuts in the food they brought to school.

Her eyes swept the room, looking for any stray bits of paper that might have fallen onto the carpeted floor, as mentally she went through her to-do list. What had she
forgotten? Then her gaze landed on the table by the window. It was bare.

“Oh my God, the sign-up sheets!” she muttered in a panic.

Hurriedly, she reached into her messenger bag and drew out the sign-up sheets she’d made for parents to volunteer as chaperones, give talks about their jobs, and serve as parent liaisons to the class. The liaisons would help organize the holiday party before school let out for winter break. She was planning to make photo frames for the kids as going-away presents, since Sandy Riley would be returning to the class.

And the name tags and Sharpie pens—she’d forgotten to put those out too. She’d better get her act together before the parents arrived. Her heartbeat picked up at the thought of the parents she had yet to meet. While a number had already ventured into the classroom to introduce themselves, many had not—either because their children rode the school bus or because they’d decided to allow their seven-year-olds the thrilling independence of marching into the school building unaccompanied. Standing by the window to adjust the blinds against the morning sun, she often saw the distinctive blue-and-silver patrol car pull up to the curb and watched Hayley scramble out the passenger door.

It was just as well that it was impossible to view the interior of the police car and catch a glimpse of Hayley’s father. Tonight was already too soon. She’d told herself a hundred times that it was ridiculous to be more nervous about meeting Rob Cooper than about meeting any of the other parents—for instance, if Deirdre was anything to go by, Mr. and Mrs. Cerra were going to be quite a challenge. An anxious little girl, Deirdre tended to have frequent meltdowns.

Rob Cooper was just a man. Just a dad. She could deal with him.

“Hi, are we too early? Would you like us to wait outside?” a cheerful voice inquired.

Jade turned to the couple standing by the open door. The woman she already recognized. The athletic, brown-haired man next to her must be Posey’s dad; they had the matching looks husbands and wives sometimes shared. “No, please come in. You’re Posey’s parents, right?”

“Yes, I’m Gail and this is Chip,” Gail Hall said, shaking Jade’s hand energetically. “Posey is very happy to be in your class, Miss Radcliffe. Such a relief—she had a rocky start last year.”

“I’m glad to hear that. She certainly seems comfortable.”

“Does that mean she’s chattering nonstop?” Chip Hall asked with a wry smile. “She does that. It runs in the family, doesn’t it, Gail?”

His wife elbowed him in the ribs. “Chip!”

Jade smiled. “It’s nothing I can’t handle.” Then, gesturing to the table, she said, “There are name tags for you on this table as well as some sign-up sheets for the holiday party and field trips and volunteer opportunities …”

At the sound of more voices, Jade glanced over her shoulder. A throng of adults had entered the room, and they were looking about with open curiosity.

Parents’ night had started.

She barely budged for fifteen minutes as parents came over to introduce themselves. Though most were cheerful and polite and restrained—Jade was a substitute teacher, after all—the extremes presented themselves too. Mrs. Kemp gushed like a fountain about how wonderful Jade was and how much Victoria adored her. But if Anne Kemp behaved as if Jade and she had been best friends forever, Eugene Harrison’s parents didn’t hesitate to show their antipathy. Eugene senior—or IV—could
barely work his stiff lips enough to manage a hello before ignoring Jade completely to study the room with an equally dismissive air. Eugene’s mother, Christy, all sparkly with her diamond earrings, Tiffany chain necklaces and charm bracelets, and a boulder of an engagement ring, must have decided it was crucial to remind everyone of the Harrisons’ net worth by wearing it to parents’ night.