The color of his words felt suddenly off. This felt far too forward.
I shook my head slightly, feeling wary of giving him any details about my life. I had just moved to the area, and didn’t know it well. Perhaps he was a crook, eager to take me for all I was worth. I shifted my weight, knowing that so long as I remained at the school, I’d be safe. I just had to knock him off the scent.
“Listen, I don’t know you—” I said, chuckling slightly at his good try.
“But we can change that,” he returned. “Almost instantly. If we just give one another our names.”
“I just don’t know what good it would do,” I said, finding my smile stretching wider. “We’re going to be strangers for the rest of our lives.”
“Not if I can help it,” he said, his thick eyebrows rising high on his forehead.
Suddenly, I heard my name from behind—far back at the entrance of the school. Somehow, I had followed this stranger as far as the road. I knocked my foot back, leaping slightly, as if he were a hot oven I’d accidentally touched.
“I’d better be getting back to work,” I told him. “Although it’s been terribly interesting.”
“Terribly interesting. I’ll take that,” he said, bringing his hand to his forehead in a kind of salute. “Lord knows I’ve had worse.”
“Good luck out there,” I told him, twirling back toward the door. My heart hammered with the intrigue of the moment. I felt his eyes still on me, taking in my body—something I almost never considered, since I hadn’t dated in almost two years. I shivered with a sudden burst of longing.
But then, I found myself at the door of the school, face-to-face with Rita Ratchet, another American teacher at the school. She eyed me suspiciously, crossing her arms over her chest. Almost twenty years older than me, she often had opinions about my movements, my decisions. Unsolicited advice poured out of her mouth like a waterfall.
“What were you doing with that young man down there?” she asked me, her voice stern and Midwestern. She was from Minnesota, not far from my South Dakotan home.
“Oh, it was just some creepy guy walking past,” I told her, my stomach feeling squeezed. “He told me I was beautiful, and I told him to keep walking.”
“Then why are you blushing?” she asked me, her left eyebrow twitching.
“It’s hot outside, Rita,” I told her, stepping past her and into the air-conditioned hallway. I felt beads of sweat drip down my back, racing to my waistband. “It has nothing to do with that guy.”
I followed Rita to her office, where we began to lay out the plans for the upcoming school play. But even as we arranged the list of songs, the dialogue, ensuring none of it was too technical or overtly American, my brain still stung with thoughts of the stranger. He had left the strangest impression with me. So much so that minutes later, after Rita asked me a question, I stared at her for several moments, trying to remember what she’d said.
“You’re a space cadet today,” she told me, scoffing slightly. “Maybe we should take it easy the rest of the day. So you can get over your new love.”
“There’s no love to worry about, Rita,” I sighed, frustration brimming. “Trust me. I have enough on my plate to worry about some guy creeping around here. As good as it is to be called beautiful.”
Rita’s lips pressed into a firm line. “You heard from your mother again?”
“Yesterday,” I whispered, watching as Rita’s fingers busied themselves with the papers, the folders. They worked quickly, sliding the papers together in a smooth stack.
“And?”
“It’s not looking good,” I said, my fingers moving to my cheeks and rubbing at the skin. “It’s making me crazy.”
“If you need me to call a substitute in for the next few days…”
“No, no,” I sighed. “If anything, these kids are the reason I get through every day. They give me a purpose and a reason to think about anything else.”
“Maybe you should get out there and date someone, just to get your mind off of it,” Rita said, giving me a shrug.