Jessica pointed at the box. “So what’s in there?”
“Cupcakes. It’s Sam’s birthday.”
Jessica lifted the lid. “Oh, man. These are like, gourmet.” She gave Paige a quizzical look. “They’re way too good for six-year-olds.”
“Yeah, that occurred to me after I got them.” She should’ve gone to the grocery store.
“Next time you won’t break the bank.” Jessica closed the box again.
“Actually…” Paige didn’t know why she was hesitating to tell her best friend this. “I didn’t buy them.”
Jessica raised her eyebrows. “I don’t see how you could’ve stolen twenty-five cupcakes. Which, by the way, would be wrong. Impressive, but wrong.”
“The guy behind me in line paid for them.”
Jessica’s mouth dropped open. “Just totally out of the blue?”
“Yeah.” Well, that wasn’t exactly true. “But before that, I was sitting next to him and we were talking.”
Her friend’s eyes narrowed. “How old was this guy?”
“A few years older than me, I guess?”
“Was he cute?”
Extremely. Or handsome might be the better word. The truth was, Paige had sat down right next to Dylan on purpose with a vague idea of striking up a conversation. Then she’d almost chickened out, but when he’d seemed to be looking at her, she’d said hello.
Jessica added, “He must’ve been very interested in you.”
“It wasn’t like that!” She’d already told herself about three dozen times that it hadn’t meant anything. “He was just being friendly. And generous.”
“Sure. People buy stuff for strangers all the time. You won’t even tell me what he looked like?”
“White guy, tall, brown hair, brown eyes, wearing a nice suit.” After Jessica spread her hands wide in impatience, Paige added, “Yes, he was good-looking.” She felt that flutter in her nerves again, the same one she’d felt earlier with Dylan. Some kind of unspoken connection had flared between them.
But that was nonsense. She’d just met him.
Jessica asked, “What did you talk about?”
Still trying to act casual, Paige shrugged. “I told him about Clean Slate Mondays.”
Jessica’s eyes widened. “What did he think of that?” Paige knew that sometimes her best friend found her optimism a little over the top.
“He wasn’t convinced.” And he wasn’t the kind of guy to ever be taken in by fanciful notions, she was sure. “Listen, he wasn’t dating material. He’s a banker or something. And he was working on a spreadsheet.” She shuddered.
“Um, excuse me. Steve works on spreadsheets.”
Paige winced. Jessica’s fiancé was an inventory controller. The truth was, Paige had never found him to be very easy to talk to. But he and Jessica loved one another, and that was the important thing.
Dylan’s corporate vibe wasn’t the only reason she had mixed feelings, though. “He asked me if I worked on Mondays. I work very hard.” Of course, things weren’t as difficult as her first year on the job, when she’d still been trying to figure everything out at once, and the sheer mental effort had left her exhausted at the end of the day. But it still took a lot of organization, energy, and prep work at home.
Jessica gave a dubious shrug. “He was making conversation.”
“He also said he was busy. Like I wasn’t.” Well, maybe he did work long hours, given the fact that he’d been poring over columns of numbers before seven a.m. But still.
“He paid for your order. What else does he have to do, write ‘I’m interested in you’ on a big sign?”
Paige smiled. The truth was, when he’d said That’s very kind of you, and had looked at her like he could see straight through to her soul and appreciated it, Paige had melted. And that had been before he’d paid for the kids’ treats.
Jessica said, “I don’t suppose you got his name and number.” She was already shaking her head at the lost opportunity.
“Just his first name. Dylan.”
“Well, that’s something,” Jessica said. “Does he go to that café a lot?”
“It sounded like it.”
“Great! All you have to do is hang out there in the mornings until you see him again.”
“Because that wouldn’t be pathetic at all,” Paige said…as if she hadn’t considered doing that exact thing. Her ears burned with sudden embarrassment.
Jessica looked up at the clock. “I better go.”
For reading circle time, Paige had picked out a book about a lost dog. “This book has our sight word of the day in it.” She pointed to the word she’d written on the board. “Kind. K-I-N-D. Does anyone know what this word means?”
“It’s like, what kind of cupcake do you want,” Sam burst out. Paige had told him privately about his birthday cupcakes at the beginning of the day, explaining that they’d have them after lunch and he’d be able to choose his favorite flavor first. Sam’s eyes had lit up, and clearly, he hadn’t thought about much else.
“Yes, exactly,” Paige said. “Kind can mean a type of thing. For instance, there are lots of kinds of animals: dogs, cats, and so on.”
“And birds,” someone added.
“Dragons.”
“Dragons aren’t real!”
“But they’re still animals!”
Paige said, “Kind also means something else. It means nice. If we yell at each other, that’s not being kind. But if we share with each other or say nice things to each other, that’s being kind.”
“I shared crayons with Ava yesterday,” Katy said.
“That’s a good example of being kind,” Paige said. One time, when Linda had stopped into her classroom, she’d told Paige she shouldn’t ever let the kids talk unless they raised their hands and Paige called on them. But during circle time, Paige relaxed things a little. “Okay, I’m going to read today’s story.”
Clara, a little girl with light brown bobbed hair, raised her hand. Secretly, the girl was Paige’s favorite, although she tried to encourage all of them. Paige asked, “Yes, Clara?”
“Could you read one of your stories instead?”
Several voices assented to this plan. Paige lit up inside. At least somebody liked her writing. The most important somebodies, in fact.
“Miss Reynolds?” Jaden had his hand raised.
“What is it, Jaden?”
“Um, why are stickers sticky?”
Well, he’s got me there. It wasn’t the first time the child had stumped her with a question. He was easily her brightest student, and not particularly good at following directions or staying on topic.
“I’ll get back to you on that,” she told him. She was going to have to do more with science in this class.
Clara raised her hand again. “Yes, Clara,” Paige said.
“Do you have a new story?”
“I’ve started writing a new one,” she admitted. “It’s about