Head Over Heels. Beth Harbison
seemed like twenty minutes that Grace stood there, trying to recapture her breath and find a voice beneath the stomach and heart that had lodged themselves in her throat. It wasn’t merely surprising to see Luke, it was deeply disconcerting. It had always been disconcerting to be around Luke Stewart, but why hadn’t she outgrown this particularly juvenile kind of heart-pounding, lip-trembling, struck-dumb reaction?
Just because once upon a time, a long time ago, she’d thought she’d loved him.
But instead of telling him, she’d married his best friend.
It was Luke who finally broke the silence. “You’re back.”
She nodded. “For a while.”
He held her gaze. She felt as powerless as a mortal in a Greek myth, unable to look away. “I thought you were gone for good,” he said.
Grace hoped she could sound calm and unaffected while her insides raged. “You just never know about people,” she said pointedly.
“No,” he agreed, just as pointedly. “No, you don’t.” He took a deep breath and blew it out, shuffling papers on the desk. “So. How long are you planning to stay?”
“About a year. I want to take my son back to New Jersey as soon as I can. To his friends and his school and all.”
Something flickered across Luke’s expression, but it was gone before she could identify it. “I heard about Michael. I’m sorry.”
Had he heard it from Michael himself? Surely not. They’d been pals in high school, but as far as Grace knew, they hadn’t spoken in years. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”
He shrugged. “Never did. What are you here to talk about, Grace?”
“I’m here about school business, of course.”
“Of course. How old’s your boy?”
“Ten.” Grace tried to think of something else to say, but she was stymied. She began to be aware of perspiration trickling down the center of her back, and wondered if it was the unusual May heat or this conversation with Luke that caused it.
She was completely over him.
Had been for years.
All of which was for the best, since he had never shared her feelings. In fact, during the three years of high school when they’d seen each other the most, they’d spent about 90 percent of their time arguing.
“So you’re looking to enroll him here for the year.” Luke nodded as if he’d figured out a puzzle. “We should probably move this discussion to my office and start over.”
“This isn’t your office?”
He looked around at the mess. “No. This is the garage. You wanted the main building. It’s just lucky I happened to be here.”
Lucky wasn’t the word that came to Grace’s mind. “This is where I was told to come,” she said, feeling her face grow warm and hating herself for it.
“Someone told you to come to the garage?”
She sighed. “Look, Luke, I’m not here to enroll my son and volunteer for classroom cookie duty, I’m here about the job. So are you going to interview me or not?”
“The job?” he repeated, as if the idea were incomprehensible. “What job?” Though his manner didn’t show it, he must have been rattled, because she’d already said why she was here. “There’s only one job opening here, and that can’t be…driving the bus?”
“Yes.” Grace raised her chin defiantly. “That’s the job I’m here about.”
He laughed. Laughed! “Give me a break.”
“What?”
“Come on. You’re Junior League, not bush league. You can’t be serious.”
“I’m completely serious.” Then she added, under her breath, “How many times am I going to have to say that today?”
A year ago, Grace couldn’t possibly have envisioned herself begging to be a bus driver. Someone could have won a lot of money on this bet.
He studied her for a moment, then said, “I don’t believe it.”
“What, do you think this is a joke? Do you think I just blew into town and decided the first thing I had to do was track you down, take some abuse about my marriage, then pretend to beg you for work? Does that make more sense, Luke, than Bayside Jobs sending me here looking for legitimate employment?”
“Actually, I have a hard time envisioning either scenario. But if Mary did send you here to drive the bus, I can’t even imagine what she was thinking. I’m afraid she had you come out here for nothing.”
“Mary?” Who was Mary?
He turned and looked at her sharply, as though he’d caught her trying to making faces at him. “Mary Lindon. You did say you were sent from Bayside.”
“Y-yes.” Mary? Lord, Grace must have called her Ms. Lindon forty times today and the woman hadn’t once stopped her and said, as almost anyone else would have, “Call me Mary, please.” Grace cleared her throat. “Mary thought I’d be perfect for the job.”
“Really,” he said, but his tone said bull.
Grace nodded. She had to compose herself, had to return the tone of this meeting to something less personal, more professional. “Obviously this is a little awkward, since we know each other. Is there someone else I should speak to instead?”
“Someone higher up, you mean?”
“Well…”
“I’m the headmaster,” he said, flatly. “I’m afraid it’s up to me.”
Headmaster? Oh perfect—she’d really blown it then. “Okay. Well, I came here for an interview, like anyone else off the street, so pretend I’m a stranger.” She drew herself up. “Now, are you going to interview me or not?”
A muscle ticked in his jaw for a moment, before he said, “Sure. If that’s what you want.” He jotted her name on the back of a telephone book on the desk and drew a line under it, then looked at her, obviously trying not to smile. “Tell me how long you’ve been driving school buses now, Grace.”
Heat rose in her cheeks. He wasn’t going to make this easy. “The job description clearly said that no experience was necessary.”
“Maybe not necessary, but it helps. More qualified drivers will have the edge there.” He made a note of it. “You have a commercial driver’s license?”
She heard a single minor piano chord ring ominously in her brain. “Oh, come on, Luke, what do you think?”
He leaned back in his chair and gave her a lazy look that would once have made her toes curl, but now just ticked her off. “I think you’re applying for a job driving a bus, so you must have at least some vague notion of what that job entails.”
She tried to stay calm. “I think it entails starting the engine and driving from place to place picking up children and bringing them to school, which is pretty much what we, in my old neighborhood, called ‘car pooling.’ How different can it be?”
“For one thing, you need a commercial driver’s license in order to do it here.”
“I can get one, right?”
He gave a half shrug that said wrong. “Have you learned your way around an engine since I last saw you?” he asked. By now his face wore the same bored expectation of a negative response that an airline clerk had asking if you’d packed your own suitcase.
This was no time to give up, Grace reminded herself, however tempting that might be. “I can learn.”
He