You're My Baby Read Free Page A

up. Pam mustered alaugh. “Hope springs eternal. See you at the opening faculty meeting?”
    â€œSure thing. I’ve told Jim to make the headmaster’s address short and sweet.”
    â€œGee, you have that kind of influence?”
    â€œIt’s amazing what the love of a good woman can accomplish.”
    Pam hugged Connie, then climbed into her hatch-back. Connie was, indeed, a good woman. Before she married Jim, she’d been single for many years, supporting her mother and daughter Erin. If Connie could do it, Pam reasoned, so could she. But Connie hadn’t had to give up a job she loved.
    With a sinking heart, Pam acknowledged that she herself faced exactly that eventuality.
    Â 
    G RANT PAUSED in the doorway of his sterile classroom, looking at the blank, freshly painted walls, the student desks shoved into the corner, the newly carpeted floor. He crossed to the windows, raised the blinds, then stood, hands on his hips, studying the boxes and rolled posters piled along one wall. Time to tackle decorating his room, if you could dignify what he did by that term.
    Tearing open the top box, he began stacking supplementary geometry texts in the built-in bookshelf. Next week teachers’ meetings started and he didn’t want to wait until the last minute to bring order to his space. Besides, he needed to be organized if Andy came. But that continued to be a big “if.” So far, responses to his ads had been discouraging. Few applicants wanted to live-in, and, of those, they either demanded exorbitant wages or had personalities that never in his wildest dreams would be considered adolescent-friendly.
    Savagely he attacked the next box. Shelley was pressuring him for an answer, and if he didn’t find someone from the ad running this weekend… Surely she wouldn’t follow through on her threat to send Andy to boarding school. Maybe, since it wasn’t basketball season yet, she’d let Andy come whether or not a housekeeper was in place. Doubtless, in a matter of weeks, he could locate a suitable person.
    By the time he arranged his texts between the book-ends on his desk and finished tacking up the exhibit of geometric forms on his bulletin board, his stomach was growling. Taking one last glance at the transformed classroom, he stepped into the eerily quiet hall and locked the door behind him.
    He ran down the stairs and passed the first-floor office before becoming aware of music emanating from Pam Carver’s room. He’d thought he was alone in the building, but apparently not. He’d stop by, say hello, find out about her summer. Pam was one of his favorite co-workers—devoted to her students, realistic about school politics, often the voice of reason amid the cacophony of rumor and complaint and, besides that, fun to be around. Who else could have talked him into making a fool of himself annually in the faculty pep skit?
    Outside her classroom Grant paused, hearing above the soft strains of classical music the muffled sounds of weeping. Her door was ajar. Slowly he eased it open. Pam sat hunched over her desk, head cradled in her arms, shoulders shaking. Sure, she taught drama, but this was way too convincing to be an act. He took a tentative step forward. “Pam, are you all right?”
    Her head shot up, revealing a tear-streaked face. “G-Grant?” She grabbed a tissue from the box on her desk and hastily blotted her eyes. “I didn’t know anyone else was in the building today.” Her voice, usuallywarm and vibrant, sounded thin, and he had a sudden urge to protect her.
    â€œI wanted to get my room set up.”
    â€œMe, too.” She hiccuped, then flung an arm in the direction of the books and boxes piled haphazardly along the far wall. “The summer painting project is wreaking havoc, though. It’s been years since I’ve had to box up my stuff.”
    â€œIs that what’s upset you?”
    She glanced away