There's Always Plan B (6 page)

Hard to believe she'd ever been that innocent and silly. Good times, she thought wryly.

She led the way to the administration desk. None of the staff looked familiar, which made sense. She'd been out of high school nearly…

Carly did the math, redid it, then groaned. Nearly twenty-two years. Was that possible? No way. She wasn't
that
old, was she? Apparently she was. Talk about depressing.

“May I help you?” the young woman behind the desk asked as Carly leaned against the counter.

“I'm here to register my daughter. Her transcripts were sent ahead. I called last week to confirm.”

The woman smiled. “Of course. Tiffany Spencer.”

Tiffany shuffled up to the counter and gave the heavy sigh of a child being punished by horrible parents.

“I'm new,” she said with as much cheerfulness as those facing certain death in the Spanish Inquisition.

“I know settling in to a new school can be difficult, but you'll do fine, honey,” the woman said. “I'm Jenny. I work here in the office. Let me get your file and we'll figure out what classes you're taking. Oh, and you'll want to meet with Mrs. Beecham, the girls' vice principal. Just this one time,” Jenny added with a wink. “You don't want to make a habit of hanging out with her.”

Jenny bustled out of the front office and disappeared into a rear room. Carly looked at her daughter.

“She seems nice.”

“Sure. And lame. We're not going to be friends. Why does she want to pretend any of this matters?”

“Can't she just be a nice person who wants to help?”

“Right. Plus it's totally weird that you went here. It was a really long time ago, but still. What if one of the teachers remembers you? I don't want anyone talking about that. Then I won't make any friends for sure.”

Carly thought about pointing out that most of the kids in the school were locals and most likely their parents had attended the school, as well, but she doubted Tiffany would find any comfort in that.

“A lot of my teachers were pretty old,” she said instead. “I'm guessing many of them are retired.”

There were a few exceptions. Her gym teacher had been in her twenties and Mr. Everwood, her math teacher, had just finished college. Carly almost mentioned that when she remembered how both she and Maribel had had huge crushes on the man. He'd been maybe twenty-five and very hunky, in an older man sort of way.

She and Maribel had sat together in his geometry and algebra classes, giggling softly at the wonder of being so close to the object of their affection. Mr. Everwood had broken their hearts their second year when he'd invited them to his wedding.

Maribel had been out of town that weekend, but Carly had bravely attended with a couple of other friends. She'd found her heart miraculously mended when a junior on the basketball team, also a student of Mr. Everwood's, had danced with her twice, then asked her out for the following Saturday.

“What's so funny?” Tiffany asked suspiciously. “You're smiling. It's because you're thinking of a new way to make me miserable, aren't you?”

Carly laughed. “Not even a little. I'll tell you a secret, Tiffany. Not everything in the world is about you.”

“I know. Just the bad stuff is.”

 

Thirty minutes later Tiffany had a class schedule, books, a locker and was being led away by the ever-cheerful and pleasant Jenny. Carly turned from the administration office and walked back toward the main entrance. As she reached for the door handle to head to her car, someone called her name.

“Carly? Carly Washington?”

Carly stopped, turned and blinked at the tall man walking toward her. He was familiar. Older, sure, with gray at his temples. He wore his dark hair shorter, and there were more lines than she remembered. The brightly printed shirts he'd favored had been replaced with solid-color ones, and he'd probably put on ten or fifteen pounds. Otherwise, he was exactly the same.

“Mr. Everwood,” she said, feeling herself blush even though she knew there was no way he could have a clue that she'd been thinking about him a few minutes before. “Wow. You're still here.”

He grinned as he approached. “I know. I should have gone on to bigger and better things, but I love teaching. I've tried not to, but I think it's too late for me to change now.” He stared into her eyes. His were still dark brown.

“But that's great. We need good teachers and you were that. I'm sure you still are.”

“I like to think so. You wouldn't recognize the old classroom. These days we do a lot with computers and programming. Every student has a computer station in nearly all the classes.”

“That will make Tiffany happy. She's of that generation—the one that doesn't remember a world without computers.”

Carly nearly groaned. Could this conversation be more lame? Could
she?

“How old is your daughter?”

“Fifteen.”

“She might be in my class.”

“I hope not,” Carly said, trying to relax. “She's deathly afraid of coming face-to-face with one of my old, um, former teachers and have him or her tell the class I used to go here. So if she is in your class I would appreciate you not saying anything. Lucky for me, I didn't mention I'd ever had Mr. Everwood for math.”

He raised his eyebrows. “We're both adults, Carly. You can call me Steve now.”

Steve? Steve? No. That wasn't going to happen. She'd been raised to call teachers by their last names and there was no way she could ever think of Mr. Everwood as anything but a teacher. Steve?

“Okay. Sure.”

The humor faded from his eyes. “I sometimes speak with your mother,” he said. “I'm sorry to hear about your divorce.”

News sure spread fast, she thought, knowing she shouldn't be surprised. “Thanks. I'm okay with it.”

“I'm glad to hear that. Of course your husband's stupidity is my gain.”

Carly knew her mouth was open because she'd felt her jaw drop. Was Mr. Everwood coming on to her?

“Yes, well, at least we've managed to stay on speaking terms.” She swallowed. “Me and my ex-husband. Not you and me. Of course we can speak, too.”

“I'd like that.”

He would? Why?

“Okay. Great. Look, I really have to get back to the B and B.”

“Sure. Would you mind if I gave you a call sometime?”

Him? Call her? For what?

She wanted to run shrieking into the night, except it was day and shrieking would only make her look stupid.

“That would be fine,” she said as she backed toward the door. “You probably have the number.”

“Of course. Good to see you, Carly.”

“You, too, Mr., um, Steve.”

 

Carly drove directly to the B and B, then breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Maribel's car still parked in the side lot. She flew across the gravel and raced into the kitchen.

“Where's my mom?” she asked Maribel, who had just put a bowl into the refrigerator.

“Upstairs. Why? Is something wrong? Were you in an accident?”

“What? No. Oh, God.” Carly pulled out a stool and sank down, then she looked at her friend and started to laugh. “I registered Carly for school,” she said, between bursts of laughter.

“Sounds like it was a fun experience.”

“It was fine, but afterward I ran into Mr. Everwood.”

Maribel sat next to her and patted her arm. “We're all adults now, Carly. It's okay to call him Steve.”

“That's what he said,” Carly told her even as she lost control of another burst of giggles. “I think he asked me out. He said he was going to call. Mr. Everwood. Twenty-three years ago I would have been thrilled, but now it's just plain weird. Besides, isn't he married?”

“A widower, and something of a ladies' man. You be careful around him.”

Carly held in another shriek. “Our former math teacher is a ladies' man? I can't grasp the concept. And you don't have to worry about me. I'm not going out with him. There's a huge
ick
factor. This guy used to be my teacher.”

“Twenty years ago.”

“I know, but still. I can barely call him Steve. I certainly can't date him.”

Dating? Not in this lifetime. Or at least not for a very long time. She already had too much going on.

“I'm still trying to get settled here. Plus, I was married for nearly seventeen years. The last thing I'm looking for is another man.”

“What about sex?” Maribel asked with a grin.

Carly stared at her. “You can't expect me to have sex with Mr. Everwood!”

“I guess not if you can't call him by his first name. He's actually pretty nice and not bad looking. I'm just saying be careful. He has a reputation for being a love 'em and leave 'em kind of guy.”

“This is too surreal,” Carly said. “Tell me it's five o'clock somewhere. I think I need wine.”

 

Instead of drowning her sorrows in a glass of chardonnay, Carly chose to put her morning activities behind her and work on her plan. She'd decided to make a formal presentation to her mother, putting everything in writing so they were both clear on where they were going. Assuming this all came to pass.

After spending most of the past four days brainstorming ways to bring the inn back to profitable status, she found herself getting more and more excited about the possibilities. If her mother agreed with Carly's ideas, there was a better-than-even chance they could make a lot of money. Things had a chance of going badly, as well, but Carly didn't want to think about that.

She ran the numbers for the fourth time that afternoon, then made sure all her spreadsheets were in order. While she would have liked to do her presentation on the computer, she thought her mother would be more comfortable with actual paper in front of her.

She was so engrossed in what she was doing that she didn't notice the time, and was shocked when Tiffany stormed into her room.

“I'll never forgive you,” the teen announced as tears spilled down her face. “Never, ever.”

Carly glanced at the clock and was surprised to see it was nearly three-thirty. She was supposed to meet with her mother at four.

She put aside her paper and rose to face her daughter. Obviously her first day at a new high school hadn't been a success.

“Tell me what happened,” Carly said quietly.

“Nothing. Exactly nothing. No one talked to me, no one even looked at me. It's like I was invisible. I sat by myself at lunch. That's
never
happened to me before. I'm the popular one. I'm the one who gets to say who's in and who isn't.”

She wiped her face, then threw her books on the bed. “Plus you let Grandma come pick me up. Do you know how humiliating that was? She was standing outside the car! She called my name and waved.”

Carly winced. When her mother had offered to pick up Tiffany, Carly had been grateful for the extra time to polish her work. She hadn't thought to warn her not to acknowledge Tiffany in any way until she was in the car and they were safely out of sight of her friends.

“I'm sorry about that,” Carly told her. “I know this seems horrible now, but it will get better.”

“How do you know?” Tiffany demanded. “You never changed schools when you were growing up. You never had your life destroyed. I hate you! This is all your f-fault.” Her voice broke on a sob. “If you weren't such a bitch, Daddy never would have left us. We wouldn't have had to move here.
You
did this. You—”

Her eyes widened and her mouth opened, as if she'd just realized what she'd said.

Carly experienced her own brand of shock. Her daughter had gotten angry with her before—countless times—but she'd never sworn at her. Sympathy turned to annoyance and threatened to grow into something else.

She wanted a chance to have her own tantrum. When did she get to rage at the unfairness of it all? She wanted to give her daughter a few facts about where the blame lay, and point out that her precious father had only called under threat of a court order.

Then the anger grew and was joined by the sharp pain of raising a teenager and being the bad guy all the time. Eventually she and Tiffany would reconnect. Eventually her daughter would understand what was important, but that era of peace and unity was years away. Until then there was only this.

“I meant it,” Tiffany said, raising her chin. “I don't care if you punish me. What does it matter if I'm grounded? I don't have anywhere to go or anyone to see.”

Carly turned away. “Get out of here.”

“What? Aren't you going to punish me?”

“Right now I don't even want to look at you. Go to your room and stay there.”