“A hundred dollars a day.”
“Almost a hundred,” Mrs. Copeland corrected her, her chin still resting on her clasped hands.
“I was hoping for something steadier.” Even a serial temp worker needed a little security in the short term.
“Trust me, it’s steady. My brother teaches and I know.” Mrs. Copeland picked up Callie’s résumé and slid it into a manila folder. “If you’re not interested in subbing,” she said, after placing the folder on a high stack on the rolling file cabinet next to her, “you can check back every few days, or check online. Maybe something will open up.”
“Okay. Thanks.” Callie left the office and walked to her hot car. Subbing…did she want to get back in the workforce that badly?
She gave herself a shake. Okay. The idea of trying to control a class of kids was intimidating, especially since she had zero notion how to do that, but…if it didn’t work out, she didn’t have to go back. Heck, if it didn’t work out, she probably wouldn’t be allowed back. She would go with Plan B then—taking the magazine contracts. She didn’t want to do that just yet because a small part of her was afraid that was all she’d ever do from that point on. She might never write anything worthwhile again.
Callie got into the Neon and drove the half mile to the school district office, where they practically hugged her for showing up with a bona fide college diploma and the desire—although Callie wasn’t quite certain that was the correct word—to substitute teach. These people were desperate.
After filling out forms and getting instructions on what to do with transcripts, she went to the sheriff’s office to be fingerprinted—a requirement for the sub license application. She’d looked around cautiously when she arrived, since once upon a time Nate’s father, John Marcenek, a man who’d never particularly cared for Callie, had been sheriff. But surely he’d retired by now. He had to be over sixty.
“Who’s sheriff?” Callie asked the brisk woman wearing too much perfume who took the prints.
“Marvin Lodi.”
Callie wasn’t familiar with the name. “John Marcenek retired then?” She was actually kind of hoping he’d been voted out of office.
“Yes. He’s chief of the volunteer fire department now.”
That sounded like the perfect retirement gig for Nathan’s dad. Something where he could be in command and throw his weight around.
Callie left the sheriff’s office and went back to Grace’s house, where she ordered her college transcript online, requesting that it be sent directly to the State Department. The extreme shortage of subs in the district meant her application would be expedited, according to the district office secretary. As soon as the paperwork was approved, all she had to do was wait for a call.
And in the meantime, she could try to force out some words.
Callie went into the kitchen with its sparkling linoleum floor, waxed in a bout of insomnia the night before, and glanced out the back window at the grass she needed to mow as soon as it cooled off. Then she smiled.
The baseball, which had disappeared from the birdbath a few hours after she’d put it there two days ago, was back, next to her bottom step. She went outside and picked it up, wondering if the owner was anywhere nearby.
The fence separating her property from the alley and the vacant lot next door was solid wood, but on the other side chain-link divided the backyards, so Callie was able to see Alice Krenshaw pruning her bushes near the corner of her house.
“Hey, Alice,” she called, her first voluntary contact since the memorial. She figured if they were going to be neighbors, however temporary, then they needed to develop a working relationship.
Alice looked up from under the brim of her gardening bonnet, her pruning shears still open, prepared for the next snip. “Do you know a little white-haired kid in the neighborhood?”
“He lives in the rental on the other side of the vacant lot. The Hobarts.” Alice pointed to the two-story house, which was a bit ramshackle, with worn paint and missing screens.
“Thanks. I need to return something.” Callie held up the baseball and Alice nodded before returning to her pruning.
Callie went through the back gate into the alley, half expecting to find a kid crouched in the shadow of the fence, waiting for the opportunity to retrieve his ball. She walked along the buckled asphalt to the house Alice had pointed out. The backyard wasn’t fenced and the weeds of the lot that separated the house from Grace’s were encroaching into the dried grass. A few toys were scattered about—a yellow dump truck and bulldozer, a half-deflated plastic swimming pool. Dead bugs and leaves floated on the remaining water.
No kids.
Callie looked up at the second floor windows and clearly saw two children looking down at her—the white-haired boy and a darker blonde girl. Callie held up the ball and they both instantly disappeared from view. But they didn’t come out the back door as she expected. She waited for several minutes, and when it became obvious that she could be cooling her heels for nothing, she walked down the alley and around to the front of the house, where she rang the doorbell. The bell made no sound, so she knocked. And knocked again.
Nothing happened.
Okay… Then it hit her. The kids must be home alone and had been told not to answer the door. It made perfect sense. Callie set the baseball on the weathered porch boards and headed back to her own house.
Maybe she could do a piece on latchkey kids….
NATHAN MOUNTED THE road bike and expertly locked his shoe cleats into the clipless pedals, then started down the road leading out of town. It had not been a good day, with deadlines stacking up like cordwood and a phone call from the big boss, Vince Michaels, insisting that Nathan put Vince’s high-school-aged son, Mitch, to work again. Mitch had worked as an intern the previous semester and had been about as useless as a screen door on a submarine. Then to complicate matters, Nathan found out Mitch had been harassing Katie, the part-time billing clerk, with sexual innuendos. Nathan had put a quick stop to that and had called Vince, who hadn’t taken the matter seriously until Nathan mentioned the potential for a harassment suit. Then he’d taken notice. Mitch had sulked and stayed away from Katie, but he’d continued to be as useless as ever.
Nathan didn’t need Mitch hanging around again, doing nothing and upsetting the people who were actually working, but he had him. Another Vince-related headache. Nathan had a lot of autonomy working at the Star, but there were areas where the boss needed to back off and keep his fingers out of the pie.
Nathan geared down as he approached the first big hill, and the tension on the pedals eased as revolutions per minute increased, allowing him to maintain speed as he climbed. The first time he’d ridden after getting out of the hospital, he’d gone all of a mile. His good leg had had to do the work; his injured leg had been along for the ride, the foot locked onto the pedal by the cleat mechanism in his shoe, the leg doing little more than bobbing up and down as the pedals turned. But as time passed, the remaining muscles in that leg started doing their job, and now he rode fifteen to twenty miles a night, sometimes thirty, depending on how late he left the office and how stressed he was. Despite the deadlines, he’d managed to get out relatively early tonight, before seven o’clock, anyway, because Chip had turned in two decent articles, proofread and well written for once.
It was twilight by the time Nathan had completed the loop around the edge of town, dipping down near the river, then back through the older section of town, where he lived. When he rounded the last corner before his house he saw his younger brother, Seth, backing out of the driveway. Seth caught sight of him and pulled the truck forward again.
“Good ride?” he asked, getting out. He had on his wilderness clothes—a light green microfiber shirt, khaki pants, hiking boots.