really need a job. Any job.” She hated to beg the help of a woman who clearly wouldn’t share a canteen of water with Grace even if her clothes burst into flames, but she had no choice. “I’m broke.”
The other woman shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “I am sorry for your misfortune, but—”
“I don’t want your pity.” Grace swallowed hard. “I’m not here asking for favors. I have a ten-year-old son to take care of now. I need the work. Please, Ms. Lindon—” she reached out and touched the older woman’s hand “—please tell me what you have.”
A long moment passed, during which Grace wondered if Ms. Lindon would let that tennis ball fall in her court or if she’d just lob it back at Grace by the sheer force of impatience. “All right,” she said at last. “But I don’t think you’re going to like it.”
Grace tried to keep calm. “What have you got?”
“It’s at Connor Primary Day School. You know, over on Bayshore Drive?”
Grace nodded, feeling a dull ache grow rapidly in her chest. Dread. Another shoe was going to drop any minute, she knew it, and it would be a size-fourteen stiletto. “I went to school there.”
Ms. Lindon gave her a look of slight skepticism but didn’t say anything. “Well. You may be able to work tuition for your kid into the deal if you get the job. There’s one perk anyway.”
That didn’t sound so bad. She’d kind of like Jimmy to go to the same school she went to, if only briefly. “Really? So what do they need?” She tried to imagine what job Ms. Lindon thought Grace wouldn’t like. “Playground assistant?” she asked, to let the other woman know she was willing to take that kind of job. “After-school care?”
“Bus driver.”
Grace felt as if she’d missed the bottom step of a very steep staircase and fallen flat on her face. “I beg your pardon?”
“They need a bus driver.”
That was it, the other shoe she’d been waiting for. There was a moment’s silence while the news bounced around the room and into Grace’s consciousness.
“If you’re willing to do it, I can call and set up an interview.”
“But a bus driver?” Grace was still back at square one. Visions of meaty tattooed arms and screaming kids came to mind. “But I don’t know anything about driving a bus.”
Ms. Lindon shrugged. “It says here that they’ll train the right person.”
Grace shifted her weight in her seat, which had suddenly become extremely uncomfortable. “Are you sure there’s nothing else?”
“Nothing.” She pushed the book aside. “You’re clearly not suited for that kind of position, though.”
“But—”
“I’ll tell you what. I’ll keep a special eye out for anything that might work for you and I’ll call you immediately if I see something.” She started to stand up.
“Wait.” Grace put a hand up. “How much does it pay? The bus-driver position, I mean.”
Ms. Lindon looked in the book and quoted a figure.
Grace did some quick calculations and said, “That could work. I could survive on that pay.” She’d carefully budgeted what she needed to save each month in order to be able to move back north in one year. This salary would cover that and leave a little over at the end of the month for incidentals. It would be a strenuously budgeted life, but it would be temporary. “I’ll take it.”
“That’s only if they hire you, of course.”
There was that knot in the pit of her stomach again. “Do you think they won’t?”
“I don’t suppose you’ve ever driven a bus before?”
“No.” Of course not.
The older woman shrugged. “Might not matter. It does say they’ll train. You’d have to interview first, of course. I can only refer you. Whether or not they hire you depends on how that interview goes.” She hesitated before adding, “If you really want to try it.”
“I do.” Grace took a slow breath. She wasn’t going to get sidetracked into a discussion about whether or not she knew what she was saying. “You mentioned there’s a tuition benefit for my son?”
“Says so here. You can talk to Mr. Stewart about that more if you interview.”
Grace noticed that if. “Okay, set up an interview.” She straightened and brushed a fly off the front of her dove-gray Armani suit. She’d bought it in Milan two years ago. Things were different then. “I’ll be a bus driver.”
The familiarity of the Connor Primary Day School campus was disconcerting to Grace. It was as if nothing had changed in the twenty-some years since she’d attended, except that the trees were a little taller and the buildings looked a little smaller. Hope mingled with melancholy as she parked the car and got out to walk to the old red barn where the garage was located. Was it merely familiarity that was making Grace’s stomach flutter this way, or was it a premonition that she would get the job and everything would—eventually—be all right?
Having always been an optimist, she decided to believe the latter.
The office door was shut when she reached it, and for one terrible moment she feared that Ms. Lindon had sent her on a wild-goose chase. Grace had been so insistent about interviewing for the job that maybe the woman had just sent her out here to get rid of her. Her fear was exacerbated when she knocked and there was no answer. Within a few seconds, she’d almost convinced herself that there wasn’t even anyone here when a movement behind the old mottled-glass door caught her eye. Someone was here. Ms. Lindon wasn’t that mean—Grace had just let her imagination get carried away. She took a quick breath to bolster her nerve and knocked again, more firmly. A voice called out something inside, but she couldn’t understand what it said. Come on in? Or maybe Go away! Or even Get help, fast, I’m being held at gunpoint!
Now what was she supposed to do?
Deciding it was better to go forward with confidence than to appear timid, she opened the door and poked her head in, surprised to find she was so blinded by the sun outside that she couldn’t see in the dark, cool office. “Mr. Stewart?”
“That’s right. What can I do for you?” The man’s voice was nice. Smooth and kind, and she felt herself relax when it reached her.
She stepped in from the heat and said, in the general direction of the voice, since her eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the light, “I have an appointment to interview with you. About the job opening here.”
There was an uncomfortable moment of silence while the splotchy figure across the room sat unmoving. Just as he was beginning to come into view, he said, in a voice she was suddenly able to place with absolute clarity, “Grace?”
Her stomach dropped. She imagined it plunking on the ground next to her and bouncing like an india-rubber ball. She blinked hard, and within a few seconds her vision came back to normal.
She almost wished it hadn’t.
There, before her, was a face she’d envisioned a million times over the years, a face she’d never thought she’d see again. A little older, of course, but the same golden tanned skin, now with a faint web of lines around the clear blue eyes. Same dark wavy hair that, in contrast, had always made those eyes absolutely striking. She’d always reacted physically to them, and to the charismatic man they belonged to.
Luke Stewart.
Grace couldn’t have been more surprised to see him if he’d been lassoing steer in her mother’s