Judging Joey (10 page)

Chapter 9

Joey couldn’t believe almost a whole week had flown by and he hadn’t had more than a few minutes with Maddie. Columbus Day had passed. He learned from his sister the teachers had an in-service day full of workshops and meetings, but the kids had off. He had seen Maddie briefly on Wednesday and had invited her and Sabrina to The Grill to hang with his friends on the coming Saturday. He had seen she was swamped with paperwork, so he had told her to get back to him when she could. She hadn’t given him a response yet.

Now that it was Friday after school, he was losing patience. He didn’t realize how eager he was to see her again until he hadn’t heard from her. A white Toyota in the school’s lot informed him she was still there.

The lights shone in her classroom and he stuck his head in. Maddie climbed to the top step of a ladder and stretched her arm to clip a student’s art project to a clothesline that hung across, her dress creeping up and exposing the back of her thighs.
Man, she had great legs.
He feared she might fall as she reached and lifted one foot off the step. Why did she have to hang those projects so high?

He cleared his throat and she whipped her head around contorting her body.

“Ouch,” she cried.

He flew to her side. “What happened?”

She showed him her sliced finger. “Paper cut.” A bead of blood trickled out.

Joey helped her down. “Those are the worst.”

A weary smile graced her lips. “I assume you’re here because I haven’t gotten back to you. Let me grab a bandage from my desk. Then we’ll talk.”

“I’ll get it,” he said.

She directed him to the bandage’s location and he pulled one out from an organized drawer. Joey grabbed a tissue box too and brought it to a table where she sat.

She started telling him Sabrina had other plans and she didn’t feel comfortable hanging with him and his friends by herself.

“Why not?” he asked, using a tissue to apply pressure to the cut.

“Everyone would think we’re dating,” she whispered, as if the few staff members in the building would hear her. “People will talk.”

Once again, she pleasantly surprised him as he realized she really cared what people thought. That was considerate. Unlike the many women he’d been involved with over years. However, he knew the people in this town. No one would care.

She looked up at him and something in her eyes suddenly brought back a recessed memory of an injured and crying teenage girl with curly red hair.

He sat back in wonder. “I’ve done this before, haven’t I? Only there was a lot more blood.”

Her eyes widened and grew moist. “You remember.”

How could he have forgotten? Man, he was in his own world sometimes. He now recalled a scared school newspaper reporter who had fallen on gravel after chasing him down following a practice game. He had asked a fellow player to grab the first aid kit in the locker room while he stayed with her and tried to calm her.

“My hands were raw and bloody. My knees got bruised and scraped through my pants. I was a mess. And you were so kind and gentle.”

Joey wrapped the bandage gingerly on her finger. “I did what anyone would have done,” he said, with a shrug. But he remembered now how she had looked at him, similarly to way she looked at him in awe now. Like he was extraordinary. Something special.

“All better.” He caressed her knuckles. “Come out with us Saturday night,” he said, hoping she wouldn’t refuse. But he knew she would. He hadn’t earned her trust yet. Until he did, she wasn’t about to take a chance on a relationship with him that could interfere with her job.

“Let’s take it slow, Joey. You understand, don’t you?”

“Morning, sunshine,” Sabrina said, as she darted into Madeline’s classroom one Monday before the students arrived, interrupting Madeline as she wrote the date on the board and the day’s message in jumbo print.

“How much do you love me?” Sabrina hid something in her hands behind her back.

“Not as much as your new boyfriend. I can’t believe you blew off volunteering at the shelter yesterday with me to spend the whole day with George. Should I be jealous?”

Sabrina’s face flushed, darkening her freckles.

Madeline grinned at her friend’s exuberance and went back to the chalkboard in an attempt to hide her knowing smile. Her best friend was fast to fall in love. Some might say too fast, but Madeline knew one day it could happen for real.

Without turning to look at Sabrina, she asked, “What’s that you’re hiding?”

“Huh? Oh, you mean these?” She stretched her hands around, and out of the corner of her eyes Madeline caught something red flash in the air.

“My datebook!” Then she noted a silver picture frame in her friend’s other hand. “Where did you find them?”

“By that wooden display table near the front entrance. Weird. They were just sitting there like you put them down for a minute and forgot about them.”

Madeline rested the chalk on the ledge and took the items from Sabrina. “I didn’t put them there.” She scanned the frame and, relieved, released the breath she was holding. It appeared undamaged.

She moved over to her desk and placed the picture back where it belonged. Then she leaned against her desk and flipped through the pages of her date book. Nothing out of the ordinary. No pages were disturbed, nothing scribbled inside. Her paycheck was there, but she had already spoken to Payroll about it being missing. This check was voided, and she wisely signed up for direct deposit. She scratched her head and frowned at Sabrina.

“I don’t get it. Why would somebody take my stuff and leave my things where they could easily be found?”

Sabrina shrugged, confusion written on her face. “Guess some kids wanted to play a joke. You should mention it when Joey comes this week for the assembly. Speaking of kids, I should get to my classroom. They’ll be lining up soon and I don’t have anything on the board.”

Madeline waved her on and set about placing a math worksheet on each desk. Suddenly she got a whiff of overpowering perfume and knew she was not alone. Her neck muscles clenched and she forced herself to turn around.

Vanessa Booth stood in the doorway clutching hefty shopping bags, two in each hand. The bags had a local party store’s logo on them. Not waiting to be invited, she glided in and dropped the bags on Madeline’s kidney-shaped reading table positioned off to the side of the room.

Vanessa reached into one of the bags and began to pull out orange and black streamers. “I know the students will be coming in soon, so I’ll make this brief. I checked with the nurse about classroom allergies and showed her my snack list for the party. She cleared everything. I bought all the party decorations. The theme is black cats. I’ve even ordered black cat-shaped cookies from the bakery.” She played with a dangling earring. “I hope I have enough.”

Madeline eyed the four overstuffed bags. “It looks like you have plenty. You might have enough decorations for next year’s party if you’re a class mom again.”

Dressed in a charcoal gray pencil skirt, Vanessa pirouetted on her stilettos with the grace of a cougar on the hunt, impressing even Madeline with the delicate maneuver. “Don’t be silly. Of course I’ll be chosen to be class mom again. And I wouldn’t dream of doing the same theme.”

Madeline chewed the inside of her cheek forcing herself to swallow the words on the tip of her tongue. Her neck began to flush. The woman had gall to show up unannounced by the office and dump all this stuff off nearly two weeks before the party. “Mrs. Booth, I can see you went to a lot of trouble.”

“No need to thank me.” Vanessa smiled and picked up her fashionable purse hidden amongst the decorations. “I knew you’d appreciate all my hard work. I told Roger that on Saturday when he had dinner at my house. I knew you were right for my Derrick. Okay, so I’ll drop by the Thursday before the Halloween party after school to decorate.” She started to leave.

“But the party’s not until Friday
afternoon
. You can come while the students are at lunch in the cafeteria,” Madeline blurted out, abandoning her commitment to bite her tongue with this parent.

Vanessa laughed, her tiny crow’s feet hinting at her true age. “I couldn’t possibly get it all done during lunch period. I’ll see you that Thursday.” She placed her thin hand on Madeline’s arm. “Oh, and do work on getting that new tutor for me.” Vanessa strolled off, leaving Madeline to deal with the mess on the reading table.

Checking the wall clock, Madeline realized she had about fifteen minutes before her students were at the door. She lifted the bags off the reading table and hid them in the back closet. Then she finished putting the morning math worksheet on the desks and checked the supply area. Crayons, markers, scissors, erasers, everything was in its place. She frowned. The pencil holder stood empty. Odd, she thought, recalling she had sharpened a new box of twelve on Friday and put them in the container. Her jaw tightened. Someone had taken all her sharpened pencils.

Now that wouldn’t do. Many of the students brought their own pencils to school, but a few didn’t. She always liked to have sharpened pencils ready to prevent minor interruptions. The more organized she was, the more smoothly the day ran.

She would have to make a run to the supply room. Madeline made a quick mental note of anything else she was running low on, then dashed to the door and collided with a muscular wall of blue. Strong hands gripped her arms. Her hands braced against a solid chest.

Madeline looked up into piercing brown eyes. A slow grin appeared on his face.

“Where’s the emergency?” Joey, dressed in full uniform, held her tight as if worried she might fall if he released her.

“Sorry. On my way to the supply room. What are you doing here?” The words flew out as her heart thumped, skipped a beat, and her hands grew clammy. She peeked around his shoulder into the hall, hoping no one could see him with his arms around her.

“I needed to talk to Roger about the assembly this Wednesday. Thought I’d stop in to say hello.”

She wrestled out of his too-warm embrace. “Hello.” Madeline tried to move around him. “I have to get some pencils.”

He stepped back, allowing her to pass. “Mind if I tag along?”

She licked her lips and shrugged, not trusting herself to answer, afraid her words would reveal how his surprise visit had affected her. The man was turning her into a nervous schoolgirl again. “Sure,” she finally croaked out.

Madeline rushed down the hall and turned down another, Joey easily keeping up with her stride. She yanked open one wooden door that led down a narrow hallway, with modest classrooms on either side, then opened the door to a room marked “Supplies.” She barely noted the rules poster, a reminder that the door was left unlocked due to the honor system.

Madeline flicked on the lights, the door automatically closing behind them, and wandered to the shelf she knew to house boxes of pencils. She peered at an empty shelf. Placing her hands on her hips, her nose up in the air, she surveyed the area. No pencils anywhere.

“That’s weird.”

Joey came up behind her. In the close proximity, she could feel his body heat simmer against her back. Once again, she found herself distracted from her mission to find more pencils. She concentrated on resisting the urge to turn around and let him sweep her into his muscular arms.

“What is?” His breath fanned down her neck.

She didn’t dare turn around because then he would see how much he rattled her. “Uh, this shelf was filled with boxes of pencils last week when I was in here.” She forced herself to slip away from his near embrace and almost whimpered at the cold rush of air that enveloped her as she left to lift the inventory sheet that hung near the door. “Look here. When we take supplies, we write it down. This way the office clerk knows what supplies she needs to order from the central office. Everything is carefully planned and budgeted.”

While Madeline reached for the phone cradled on the wall, Joey scanned the list and frowned.

Madeline dialed the main office. “Elaine, hi, it’s Madeline.” She then explained about the empty shelf and hung up.

Joey ran a hand over his hair. “What’d she say?”

“She’s on her way down. Elaine is very upset and threatened to lock the supply room. She said last week a whole crate of glue sticks disappeared.”

“I don’t like what I’m hearing. First, teachers’ things are being taken out of the classrooms, now this.” He furrowed his brows together, making him appear so serious that Madeline’s heart fluttered. She didn’t think he could look any handsomer when he smiled, but she liked this side of him. A somber side never revealed to her in high school.

Madeline checked her watch. “Oh, the students must be at my door already. I have to go.”

Joey reached for her hand. “Wait. I meant what I said the other night. I swear we were on a family vacation and had no idea that a prank was played. We knew about the party and the mess, obviously, and when my mom’s jewelry was found, we forgot about it. Life went on. But I am sorry about what happened to you in high school. If I could go back in time, I would, to make it up to you.” He pulled her closer and cupped her chin.

“Joey, don’t. We can’t.” Even as she heard herself say the words, she knew they lacked conviction. Her last doubts about him were disappearing.

He lowered his head to hers, and whispered, “I know. I can’t help it.” His face brushed against hers, warm breath melting across her mouth. His lips came dangerously close to hers, waiting for a welcome response.

Conflicted, Madeline hesitated. She wanted to kiss him. She had dreamt of nothing else when they had first met. Now, kissing him would complicate her life. She didn’t need to add more troubles.