Mr. Wrong (5 page)

She
angled her head and whispered to Linda, “What do you think the chances are that I can walk out of the class and not be noticed by the teacher?”

Linda frowned.
“None. That door back there has an alarm on it. You’re stuck until the end of class.”

Sara
put her head up, wondering if Beau had noticed her in the sea of students. Beau had a smile plastered on his face, and Sara noticed he looked a tad embarrassed, shaking hands with the students that were clamoring for his attention.

Beau
picked up the microphone. “Good Morning. I’m so glad you’re all so excited about this class, and I want to meet each of you personally, but we have to get started. Please find a seat.”

The classroom was quiet in an instant.
Beau smiled, again, and Sara realized that his smile was appealing when it wasn’t used to mock her. He waited for people to get settled and then spoke into the microphone. “This is Entreprenuership 340. I’m Beau Hennings—.”

There was a rumble that went through the classroom.
A student yelled out from the corner. “Like we don’t know who you are.”

Linda looked at
Sara with panic in her eyes. “Should we know who he is?”

Sara
shrugged, feeling semi-panicked herself. Beau smiled and put up his hand to quiet them down again. It was like watching an infomercial with the main guy and the audience in on some secret.

“Okay.
Well, I’m so happy to be with you all. I’m excited for the opportunity this class presents to really help you learn the basics of starting a business—and,” he said, flashing a brilliant smile, “the opportunity to make money.” The class actually started clapping.

Sara
looked around and felt as if she had entered the twilight zone.

“So we’re going to start right off with the first rule of business
: building relationships of trust. I want you to turn to the person closest to you and get to know them. Find out where they’re from, what they like to do, and try to decipher what values you might have in common. This is how you begin the process of selling something—you find out what they want and what they need. So, go on, get to know each other for the next fifteen minutes.”

Sara
couldn’t believe this was happening. She turned to Linda, who was already engaged in a flirtation with the guy sitting on the other side of her. She turned to the other side, and noticed a grunge-looking guy with headphones in one ear and the other one hanging out. He nodded at her while still banging his head, intent on the music he was listening to. “Sup,” he said, half-smiling and air drumming on the side of her.

Sara
gave him a forced smile, pulling up a class description online. The bio sheet on Beau was lengthy. She read about his journey from small town boy to dot com millionaire. How he’d worked at a pizza joint and on his uncle’s ranch until he was eighteen, when he purchased his first two townhomes in Laramie. Then he served a mission for the Church, and when he came back, he leveraged and bought more real estate in Laramie and Provo, Utah. Then, he went on to develop some web-based business called Smokin Deals dot com. He helped college students find the best rates for their books. And now he had many ‘joint ventures’ in web design, real-estate, and other various endeavors.

Sara
’s head was going to explode with frustration. She looked down at Beau, noticing he was talking with some of the students on the side of the room, opposite of the door. How hard it would be to escape without being noticed?

“So what’s your name?”
Grunge boy popped the other earphone out of his ear and swiveled his chair to her.

Sara
reluctantly swiveled to face him. “Um, Sara. Sara Fairbanks.”

“You got it bad for him
, huh?” He scooted closer to her and nodded to Beau.

“What?”

“It’s all over your
face.” He pushed a school newspaper toward her. “You should check out what Beatrice has to say about how to make a move on a man. She has great advice.”

“What’s all over my face?”
Sara couldn’t even focus on the unknowing compliment.

Grunge
boy looked her up and down appraisingly. “Seriously, Beatrice knows what she’s talking about—you should read it.”

Sara
rolled her eyes. “I don’t think her advice is that good—plus, I don’t even know him.” She felt herself blushing and hated it.

Grunge
boy’s eyes lit up and his whole face looked more wholesome. “Whatever, do you want to come see my band play Saturday night?”

Sara
couldn’t stop herself from smiling at him. “What was your name?”

“Oh, right.
Rob. Rob Joyman. I don’t think it’s going to be my stage name. But I haven’t changed it yet. What do you think of Duke? Is it a good stage name? I thought about Ty, but I think it might be overused, too close to Tom, you know Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks . . .”

“Right,
I think Duke has more potential for sure. And, it sounds more royal.” She smiled, thinking that this whole day was starting off like some insane dream.

Rob smiled, like they were speaking the same language.
“Exactly.”

Sara
laughed at the absurdity of this conversation, feeling lighter.

“I can see things are going well here.”
Beau was standing behind them in the row.

“Dude, you scared me.”
Rob jumped a little in his chair.

Sara
looked over her shoulder and caught a hint of satisfaction in Beau’s face. “Great,” she said.

“And what
is your name?” He put his hand out to Rob.

“That’s totally funny
; we were just talking about that.” Rob pointed between them. “Rob, but I’m thinking about Duke.” He nodded, giving Sara a questioning glance.

Sara
nodded conspiratorially. “Definitely.”

Beau
looked slightly confused at Rob then turned to her. “And your name?”

Sara
hadn’t expected this. She glanced at him sharply, then put out her hand and smiled like a groupie meeting a rock star. “Oh my gosh. My name is Sara Fairbanks. Like, wow, you’re Beau Hennings. It’s so nice to meet you.” She tried to act like a groupie meeting a rock star.

Beau stiffened
politely, pulling his hand away like he’d touched something hot. “Glad to have you in the class, Ms. Fairbanks.”

It annoyed her that she felt angry he’d pretended not to know her.

Beau fixed the polite smile in place as he turned to greet another student.

Rob
popped his headphones back into his ears. “Dude, it’s worse than I thought.”

Chapter 9

She hated him. Thinking of what a good instructor he’d been, making simple concepts come to life made it even worse.

“Are you okay,
Sara?” Kevin was looking at her through his rearview mirror. Genova had insisted that she come with them to family home evening. They were meeting at Vedauwoo, a rock formation about twenty minutes outside of Laramie. She’d been trying to carry on a conversation with Kevin and Genova, but her thoughts kept going back to Beau.

Sara
quickly put on a smile, realizing her face must have been betraying her thoughts. “Fine, thanks. Just thinking of an annoying professor I have this year.”

They pulled up to the gathering site.
Sara loved hiking at Vedauwoo. The large boulders stacked against one another made her feel a certain reverence for the land. And she loved to hike, that had been the primary reason she’d agreed to go with them, instead of working on the crazy amount of homework she was already accumulating. Many of the other singles were already there standing around talking.

Geno
va put an arm around her as they got out of the car. “Are you really okay?”

Kevin tromped in front of them.
“I’ll let you have a girl chat.”

The genuineness of her voice
opened Sara up to the vulnerability she was feeling. Tears came to her eyes and she tried to think of something else. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” She closed her eyes tightly. “Do you think it’s going to work with me and Jonathon?”

Genova
stopped walking and pulled away from her. “What do you mean?”

Until this moment
Sara hadn’t realized how much she’d been stuffing these feelings down. “I mean, you know the whole story. It was fast between us. Really fast. But he’s such an amazing person and, I mean, you’ve read our letters. We’re meant to be together—right? He’s the one for me?”

Genova
shook her head up and down. She pushed the hair out of Sara’s face. “What’s this all about?”

Then
Sara noticed him, talking to Linda over by the check-in point. Wiping her eyes, she put her sunglasses back into place. “This is unbelievable.”

Genova
followed her gaze. “That’s the guy from the dance?”

“The new prof
essor.”

Genova
stifled a laugh. “You can’t be serious. He’s a professor?”

Sara
nodded again.

Genova
put her arm back around her, pulling them to Kevin’s side. “Just stay with us.”

Kevin
looked up from the group he’d been talking with and grabbed for Genova’s hand. “Where have you been all my life?”

Genova
laughed.

Sara
liked Kevin, she really did. But she didn’t want to be the third wheel tonight.

“Okay.
” Margie Kramer, one of the organizers of the activity, stood up on a log. “We’re going to have an opening prayer, then do the hike. Please stay with a buddy and be careful. It’s not a race, so take your time.”

Someone she didn’t recognize said the prayer and everyone started moving toward the trail head.
Sara noticed Beau wasn’t moving ahead, distracted by another girl, Michelle—the one she and Genova affectionately called ‘lycra girl’ because she wore as much lycra as humanely possible.

Panicking,
Sara searched up ahead for someone else she could hang out with—she did not want to get stuck next to him.

Carey emerged beside her, decked out in running clothes.
“Need a buddy?”

Even though she was weary of him, they’d been running buddies last semester
, and she knew he could keep pace with her.

Carey
looked repentant. “I won’t be weird tonight, I promise.”

Taking off in a run,
Sara laughed. “Only if you think of this as a race like I do.”

Carey
trotted to catch up with her. “Absolutely.”

Sara
tightened her backpack. After running all summer on the ranch, she was ready.

Carey
was faster, but he matched her rhythm. “Are we going to run this semester in the morning?”

“Let’s just manage the dance lessons for right now, okay?”
Sara didn’t want to commit to anything with him.

Carey stopped running
and tugged at her arm. “Ouch. Hey, I am never too busy for you. You know that, right?”

Putting her tongue in her cheek,
Sara looked away from him.

“I just have a lot academically this year.
I have a lot to get done before Sue gets home. You understand that, right?”

Sara
nodded and started jogging, again. “It’s no big deal, Carey, I get that. I just think Martha and Larry look forward to our visits.” And, in fact, it was a big deal to her.

Carey snorted and moved beside her
. “Sara, just say it’s about us, okay. Don’t pretend it’s about them. Just say you want to spend time with me.” He swiped at her hair playfully. “Cause maybe I want to spend time with you too.”

Sara
stopped jogging, studying Carey’s face. And, it was then she realized why he had been so weird lately. “What?”

Carey nervously grabbed a branch from the ground and chucked it over the valley below.
“Well, don’t you think we’ve been skirting this issue long enough?”

Shaking her head,
Sara coughed.

Moving in front of her, Carey
roughly took her head and kissed her.

Sara
used both hands to push him back from her. Panic rose in her throat. “How dare you?”

Carey stepped closer.
“Missionaries are supposed to be Dear Johned, don’t you know that? It’s in the rule book under growth.” He smiled and leaned in to kiss her again.

Sara
shook her head quickly and started up the trail. “Stay away from me.”

Carey was beside her.
“Sara—c’mon.”

Sara
put her hand up to stop the conversation. “I had no idea about . . . this.”

“Really?”
Carey suddenly got angry. “All the dancing, all the running, and all the time we’ve spent together. You didn’t have a clue?”