Read Online Must Love Dogs by Claire Cook, Carrington Macduffie - Free Book Online

eyes as he strolled back to his seat. He ignored me, however, because he’d just fallen in love with Eileen Sullivan. Somehow I blamed his defection on the nuns, as if I’d been a subject of discussion in Mother Superior’s office.
Sarah Hurlihy
, the nuns might have said to Bobby,
surely you can do better than that, Mr. Healey
.
    Austin’s father was saying something, but I’d missed it. Austin had gone to the other side of the room. He uncapped a dry erase marker and began drawing on the white board. It looked like a picture of Dolly’s trailer. Maybe it was his father’s trailer.
    “Do you live in a trailer?” I asked the new Bobby. Bob.
    “I prefer to think of it as temporary asylum.” His hair was curly like Austin’s, darker though, and streaked with occasional coarse strands of white. His chinos bagged at the knees and looked as if they might have been slept in, but he wore them with a fresh- from-the-cleaners shirt the color of raspberry sherbet. Unbuttoned at the neck, sleeves rolled up to just below the elbow, curly hair peeking out from his chest, twirling around on his forearms.
    I hoped I wasn’t checking him out too obviously, but I’d never really noticed just how good-looking he was. Nice, too. And potentially single. Eventually. I stood up a little straighter and pretended to rearrange a display of autumn leaves thumbtacked to a bulletin board.
    “So what has Austin told you?” he asked. His eyes focused on mine as if I were about to say something interesting. I tried to rise to the occasion.
    “About you? That you’re incorrigible. And taking a break from your marriage.”
    “I think that particular phrasing came from his mother. You must hear a lot. I never thought about what kids tell their teachers.” He looked down and then back into my eyes.
    “In one ear and out the other,” I assured him. I resisted the urge to take a step closer to see if he smelled like soap or cologne or just himself. It was so amazing the way the next part of your life might have been standing right in front of you all along.
    “Yeah, right.” He smiled. “By the way, how do you know the infamous, man-eating Dolly?”
    “My father’s dating her.” I felt myself start to blush at the mention of dating. Of course, I wouldn’t be comfortable actually dating Bob Connor until his son was no longer in my class. But if we started a friendship now, it could develop at a leisurely pace and blossom into romance right around the end of the school year. Much better than risking the personal ads, where you never knew who you might meet.
    “Oops. Uh, brave man.” He turned his head as June entered the classroom. She looked especially beautiful, dazed and sleepy-eyed. She must have found a new place to meditate. Smiling as she passed us, she walked over to Austin, knelt down beside him and picked up a marker. She began to draw little yellow flowers around the trailer. As soon as she finished each one, Austin colored the stem and leaves green.
    Bob Connor and I watched them. We stood close together and our elbows were almost touching. Finally he turned to me and whispered, “Isn’t she gorgeous?”
    I smiled and bobbed my head like one of those motion-sensitive animals people put on the dashboards of their cars. With each bounce, little bits of self-esteem drained down my body and out through the ends of my toes. Somehow I managed to say good-bye to the parents and students, even to June and her gorgeous-ness.
    When the classroom was empty, I sat in one of the kiddie chairs. I automatically reached down to feel how much of my hips and thighs were spilling over the sides of the seat, a little test I always did to make sure I’d notice if they started to spread at an alarming rate. It hadn’t occurred to me to start checking for signs of invisibility. Maybe I was fading away, as my bones shrank and my eggs shriveled, and soon if not already men like Bob Connor, maybe all men, would only practice their eye contact