A Season of Eden (8 page)

“Seriously?” she asked. “You don’t mind?”

“Nope. Take him. He’s yours.” She jumped up and down, giddy. “Easy, easy girl.” I turned away for a moment, her reaction so ridiculous.

We ordered and sat by the window, our favorite place to sit because you could be seen. Guys driving by could stop, come in, and you could hook up for the night because of the window.

Somehow, I doubted Mr. Christian went to such obvious lengths to hook up. I had no idea what a man like him would do to meet women. As I sat sipping my drink, I glanced at my reflection in the window, wondering if he had a girlfriend.

I hadn’t meant to be late to class, but Mrs. Carlson, my counselor, nabbed me in the hall and handed me some papers for graduation my parents needed to fill out. Mrs. Carlson always liked to ask how I was doing. I enjoyed telling her. By the time we’d stopped chatting, I was late. I stuffed the papers into my purse and headed to Concert Choir.

I could hear the warm-up scales already in progress and stopped myself from going in. Since I was tardy, should I bail on class and see where it got me? Would Mr. Christian care? For a flash, I had the fantasy of him taking me aside in the small office. A hot tingle raced through my blood thinking about him being mad at me for not being on time.

I didn’t look at him when I entered the room, stuffy and stale smelling with a load of morning breath. I walked up the risers to the back row. The girls obligatorily parted, the center space opening for me.

I set my books down, straightened my clothes, and flipped my hair over my shoulder before at last looking over the heads in front of me at Mr. Christian. Though he was facing the class in general, his gaze locked on mine.

Our eyes held for a moment before he looked out over the rest of the students.

When warm-ups were over, he adjusted the music stand. “Please get out Alberto Monticelli’s piece.”

The sheet music had been passed out by someone else since I’d been late. It sat on the seat of my metal chair. I picked up it up.

“We’ll start at the beginning and work our way through. Altos, be mindful of being on key. We may have to do more body shuffling.”

He sat at the piano and played the beginning notes, then stood with his arms up, his baton ready to engage us.

We sung the song without stopping. I watched him, trying to gauge his assessment of our run through. From where I stood, things sounded pretty good. He kept his expression neutral until the last note was sung. Gripping the music stand, he lowered his head momentarily. The room fell into whispers.

When he looked up, silence jolted the room as if a lightening bolt had just struck.

“How many of you want to be here?” Mr. Christian asked.

It took a few moments, but finally, most everyone raised their hands. His scan of the class stopped on me.

“That’s surprising because you sound like you could care less.”

“It’s morning,” somebody complained.

“Yeah, our voices aren’t warmed up.”

Mr. Christian’s smile was forced. “Yeah, right.” He adjusted the music stand again, keeping a tight grip on it.

“I’d take that into consideration if your morning voices left you after a half hour. Or even an hour. But this is what you sound like.”

He turned and plucked at mini recorder from on top of the piano. Since I’d not seen it, I figured he’d set it out when class began.

Flicking a switch, he played back what sounded like a bunch of kids singing underwater. Mumbles and laughs followed.

“You see what I’m dealing with here?” he said, clicking off the recorder. “We’ll go through the piece again. Remember to breathe from your abdomen. Did Mr.

Horseman teach your how to breathe right?”

A jumble of replies followed.

Mr. Christian took off his coat. Some of the girls whistled. The lusty expressions grated on me like fangs on bare skin. He blushed a cute shade of red then held his flat palm against his abdomen. “Most of us when we sing, talk, or just go about our day, breathe from our chest like this. To get the most from our voices, we need to breathe like babies breathe, from the lower abdomen. See how my abdomen moves my hand when I speak?” Underneath his palm, his stomach lifted.

“I think we could see it better without the shirt on,” a girl quipped.

“Very funny,” he grinned. “Place your hand against your abdominal wall and as we sing, make sure you’re singing with your diaphragm and not your upper chest. You’ll project farther and your sound will be richer.”

We started the song again, all of us standing with our palms against our stomachs. It was probably just me, but I thought we sounded better. When the song was over, his twinkling smile confirmed what I had heard.

“Much better.” He applauded. “Now let’s try it from the beginning again.” Mr. Christian was so pleased, his glowing grin spread up the front row all the way to the top riser.

After class, I collected the sheet music as usual. Some of the younger girls loitered near him at the music stand.

I took my time stacking the music on the shelves in the office.

“We sounded better, didn’t we?” one girl asked him.

“The breathing instruction helped.” I heard him say.

“Are you single?” another asked. I froze, one hand still up on the stack of music I had just filed away.

“Yes, I am.”

“How old are you, anyway? You look totally young for a teacher.”

“Old enough to be a teacher,” he replied.

I had to peek. He was surrounded by a pack. His hands skipped from his hips to his hair to scrubbing his jaw.

When I came out of the office he looked over. A brief expression of relief flashed on his face. Seeing that his attention was diverted, the girls looked at me.

“Anything else, Mr. Christian?” I asked with a smile.

“Uh, no. Thank you, Eden.”

One of the freshmen cocked a brow at me. Another crossed her arms.

“Is she your TA?” the third asked with a sneer.

I walked to my chair with my shoulders erect and a smile on my face. “I just help with the sheet music.”

I picked up my bag and tilted my head at them. “And anything else he needs help with.”

One of the girls’ eyes widened. The bell rang. Quickly, they snatched their backpacks and went out the door.

Mr. Christian’s gaze was tight on me. “Eden, I think you and I should talk.”

“The music.” I gestured to the boombox with a nod for him to turn it on.

He didn’t acknowledge the reminder. “That was a misleading comment you made.”

He took a few steps toward me, then glanced around at the students noisily pouring in.

“I told her that I help with the music.”

He leaned closer. “And anything else I need help with?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, so?”

“That sounded suggestive.”

A hot shudder shot through my middle. “If they think that then well, they’re—”

“I can’t talk about this now.” The green in his eyes turned stormy. He glanced around. “You have to be careful what you say.”

I swallowed, nodded. “Oh, sure. Of course.” I turned then, and clutched my books to my tingling breasts. I’d made him upset. That wasn’t cool. What did he think of me? A voracious gnaw ate at my conscience.

I left the room.

I signed my dad and Stacey’s signatures on the papers Mrs. Carlson had given me earlier and headed back to the counseling office after school was out. None of the counselors were in. I left the papers in Mrs. Carlson’s mailbox; a slot with the other teachers slots, built into one of the walls.

I didn’t want to go home. I wouldn’t see Brielle, bent as she was on luring Matt. Walking the hall alone, I thought about how uptight Mr. Christian had looked when I’d made those comments about helping him. I wanted to be his TA, absolutely.

But I wanted more than that.

I could admit that I’d intended innuendo. But I’d meant to shut those girls up, not anger Mr. Christian. Panic caused me to break out in a sweat.

What had I done?

He’d said he wanted to talk. Now would be just as good a time as any, so I headed to his classroom.

The door was ajar and I went in. The room was empty, but I heard noise coming from the closet. Setting my bag on a chair, I straightened my clothes and approached.

“Hello?” I called out.

He came through the open door. We stared at each other. The room seemed to shrink.

“I came by to talk to you,” I said. “About what happened earlier?”

He glanced at his watch. “I have a faculty meeting in five minutes.”

“Oh. It’s no biggie.” I headed to my bag, keeping my back to him so he couldn’t see I was disappointed we weren’t going to talk about what had happened and settle things.

“It is a biggie.” He came up behind me. I smelled him, felt him. My eyes closed involuntarily. “Eden.”

When he said my name, his music echoed through my head. I saw the inside of a dark, cavernous cathedral.

Brilliant stained glass pictures. Ivory marble statues.

“What?” I didn’t turn around.

He cleared his throat. “I’ve got this meeting so now’s not a good time. But—”

“It really isn’t a big deal.”

“Maybe it isn’t.” He didn’t sound convinced. He moved around so I would have to look at him. The tentative look in his eyes made me feel bad.

“I really didn’t mean to say something that might sound… you know…” Though I had intentionally said those things to sound nicely ambiguous, the genuineness I saw in his face made me sorry I had taken that liberty.

“I appreciate that.” When he lowered his head, I had the sudden urge to run my hand along the top of it, like a mother would to a troubled child. I picked up my bag instead. His eyes met mine again. “I’m your teacher, Eden. I can be your friend, but I’m your teacher first.”

I nodded, my stomach jumbling. What was he telling me? To back off? Had he read my thoughts? I was mortified that my actions had given my private fantasies life. I backed slowly toward the door.

For a moment, he just watched me. Then he grabbed his coat and slung it over his arm and came toward me. He opened the door and held it while I passed by him. I stole another deep breath and filled myself with his scent before the cold, afternoon air hanging in the halls outside chilled me.

He locked the classroom and we started down the corridor in silence. I was a muddle of hurt, confusion and frustration. He was unlike anyone I’d ever known. When he spoke to us about music, I felt the love and passion he had as if he held me in his arms and passed that love and passion to me through an embrace. His voice lifted my spirit. His face… I glanced at him as we walked side by side.

He looked like one of those beautiful, marble statues you might find in a museum or somewhere in a dark corner of a church.

“Are you religious?” I asked.

His eyes were clear as a stream, and rippled into a smile. “That’s an introspective question. What makes you ask it?”

“Something about you… you kind of look it.”

His hearty laugh swirled through the empty hall before filling me. “How does one look religious?”

“I don’t know. You just remind me of a marble statue I might see at church.”

“Marble? That hardly invokes feelings of warmth and invitation.”

“I mean, you
look
like one of those statues.”

“Do you go to church Eden?”

I shook my head, watching to see if he found my honesty a turn off. “You?”

He nodded. “That’s where I started singing. My mother was our choir director.”

“Cool.” I could see him in a white robe with a big, round red collar, his angelic voice clearly above everyone else’s. “You had the best voice, I bet.”

“Mom always thought so.” His grin deepened. “Music has its roots in religion. I got a steady diet of both growing up.”

“So, where do you go to church?” I was already planning to go there.

He stopped at the joint in the hall that led to the faculty offices. For a moment he looked at me as if considering my question. “All Saints Church down in the Riv.”

“Non-denominational?”

“Yeah. I’ve got that meeting.”

“Oh. Sure.” I started toward the parking lot. “Bye.”

“See you tomorrow.”

I strained to hear his footsteps even with my back turned but they vanished after seven steps.