“Great, mum, you should encourage him to say yes,” I said.
Another silence, shorter this time while she collected herself for another attack. “He would be better off with someone like her who could properly appreciate how much William works.”
I rolled my eyes. For some reason, my parents and William were convinced that I’d left him because he worked too hard.
If only it had been that easy.
“Probably,” I agreed lightly. “Listen, mum, I’m at school and I have to go in now. I’ll answer next time you call, okay? Maybe we can talk about what you’ve been reading lately. I just finished a great book, The Ghostwriter by Alessandra Torre.”
She sniffed. “I read that ages ago when it first came out.”
Anger pricked over my scalp. “It only came out a few months ago, and I don’t have much time to read for pleasure now that I’m trying to make ends meet.”
“You wouldn’t have to make ends meet if you’d stayed at your proper place by your husband,” she fired back immediately.
I leaned back in my seat, ran a hand over my closed and throbbing eye sockets. “Okay, have a good day. Talk to you later.”
“If you don’t talk to William, Cressida, don’t be surprised if he takes matters into his own hands,” she warned ominously before hanging up.
Great.
A knock rattled against my window. I screamed, dropped my phone into my lap and whipped around to see Tayline’s face pressed grotesquely against the glass, Rainbow holding her stomach and belly laughing behind her.
“You freaks,” I yelled through the door. “You gave me a freaking heart attack.”
Tay peeled her mouth off the window so she could join Rainbow in her cackling. I shook my head but their antics immediately made me feel better after the toxic phone call with my mother. I grabbed my messenger bag from the ground at my feet and swung out of the car.
“That was almost murder by surprise,” I lectured them both with my hands on my hips, using my best Teacher In Charge voice. “You’re lucky I have a strong heart.”
Rainbow wiped the tears from under her eyes. “Dude, that was priceless. We should start every morning like that.”
“Agreed,” Tay said, bumping my thigh with her hip because she was so short. “Thanks for the laugh.”
I rolled my eyes at them but couldn’t control my smile. “You guys are children.”
“Yeup, takes one to know one. It’s what makes me such a good teacher,” Tay nodded sagely as we made our way into the school together.
I’d taken to spending all of my breaks with the duo and I found myself in the surprising position of having my own friends. It was incredibly pathetic that I was in my mid-twenties and I’d never had girl friends outside of my mother’s book club.
Needless to say, I was enjoying Rainbow’s calculating wit and Tayline’s goofiness. They didn’t take life too seriously, which I loved because it meant I couldn’t take myself too seriously.
“So, I heard Warren finally asked you out and now you’re sitting in his car in the parking lot. What gives, Cressie? Don’t you remember that conversation we had at the beginning of term? We’re best friends now, we’ve claimed you, which means we should be the absolute first people who know about your love life,” Tay lectured me as we pushed through the doors to the main hall and entered the calamity of students and teachers rushing around before classes started.
“Honestly, I kind of forgot about it,” I admitted with a sheepish look that made them both burst into laughter.
Rainbow even slapped her knee. “That is wicked. If Warren knew that, his manhood would be in serious question. You know Pillow has been trying to catch his eye all year?”
Speaking of the woman, Willow floated down the hall past us on a cloud of very expensive and very strong Chanel perfume. Tayline coughed loudly but raised her eyebrows in innocent query when Willow shot her an irritated look.
I shook my head. “Children.”
Tay stuck her tongue out at me.
“So, you’ve been separated for months and you aren’t getting a little antsy for some action?” Rainbow asked.
They both followed me to my classroom, waited for me to unlock the door and turn on the lights before stepping inside with me. Rainbow sat in King’s seat in the first row right in front of my desk, which made the blush I’d been trying to keep at bay, flame to life.
“Oh, she is!” Tayline crowed.
“Hush.”
“Do you have a crush?” Rainbow asked, her eyes narrowed on me.
Insanely, I wondered if sitting in King’s desk was giving her some kind of intuition about us.
“Get up, get out of my classroom, children!” I ordered, clapping my hands to hurry them along. “Some of us have work to do before class.”
“Yeah because you were too busy crushing on someone to do your work after school,” Tayline called over her shoulder as I literally pushed her out the door.