Whatever It Takes, page 8
“I really am,” Emily agreed, helping Jess with the last of her things before making her way out to the car.
If everything went according to plan, it’d be her best Halloween yet.
Years ago, back when Emily was young enough to go to Williams Middle School as a student, the halls had been covered in decals, orange and black streamers, and blinking lights above every classroom door. So to see the halls completely bare not only made Emily sad, but it also made her feel terribly out of place.
“Maybe I should’ve asked first,” she thought as she walked the mostly empty halls toward the stairwell.
If the halls and rooms were free of decorations, then maybe she wasn’t supposed to dress up at all. She knew the controversy around decorations and the right way to wish someone a happy holiday during the winter, but to lose Halloween as well?
Her heart dropped.
With Jess gone and the day already started, it wasn’t like Emily could rush home to get a different outfit, either. She didn’t think to bring a spare because she honestly thought she’d be okay with what she had on.
Deep in thought, Emily didn’t hear Sarah’s footsteps until she was right next to her.
“Oh my god, we couldn’t have planned this better if we’d done it ourselves,” Sarah said with a huge grin on her face.
Startled, Emily paused to look at her friend and smiled in return. Apparently, Sarah was a fan of Halloween as well.
Dressed all in black, she’d made her hair a shade darker than it usually was and wore a crooked witch hat on top.
“Glinda?” Sarah asked with a tilt of her head.
“The one and only.” Emily gestured to herself as she turned a circle. So what if she’d worn a similar costume three years out of her entire childhood? Not all witches had to be bad.
“Where’s your wand?”
“You know what, Jess asked the same exact thing.” Then, pausing outside her classroom door, she said, “where’s your apple?”
“Apple? Oh, you mean like the witch from Snow White?”
Sarah made a gesture with her hand. “That’s way too tame for me. Just don’t throw water on my clothes and I should be fine.”
Emily snickered, then dug in her lunch bag for the apple she’d packed first thing this morning. “You can use it as a prop,” Emily offered. “Just get it back to me before lunch.”
Sarah took the apple and smiled. “Will do. So do you have any plans tonight?”
“We don’t really get that many trick-or-treaters at Jess’
apartment, so I’m going to leave a basket outside. Then I plan to have a night in with some papers I really need to grade before next week.”
“Sounds… fun.” Sarah wrinkled her nose. “I’ll catch up with you after class. Have a wicked day.”
“You too, only a good one. You know what I mean.” Emily sighed with frustration. “Words are hard first thing in the morning.”
“Coffee,” Sarah said in a singsong voice. “It’ll fix everything.”
With that, she disappeared into her own classroom, depositing her things behind her desk before placing the apple right in the middle of it.
The apple didn’t move for the rest of the morning.
Ghouls, demons, princesses, and cartoon characters filled Emily’s classroom, their costumes an array of colors and made from various fabrics. There was the wolf all the way in the back, some kind of pixie in one of the corners, and even a football player up front. The football player wasn’t as impressive, but it was still enough to bring a smile to Emily’s face.
Standing in front of her desk, she leaned against it with a bowl of candy in one hand and a makeshift wand in the other.
After getting teased by Jess and then again by Sarah, Emily made a quick trip to the cafeteria, fashioning a wand out of a large straw and a star she’d cut out of a cardboard box. It wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t shiny, but it would work for now.
Unlike Sarah who continued on with her lesson plan, Emily gave her kids the day off, deciding to play a game instead.
“Okay. Who wants to go first?” she asked, looking out at her students. “Billy,” she said, spotting a Cheshire Cat all the way in the back. “Name your favorite scary movie. There are no right or wrong answers. Everyone who plays the game will get something from the basket.”
Two dozen heads looked up from their desks.
“I thought you might like that,” Emily laughed. “Well? Do you have an answer for me, Billy?”
“Way to put a guy on the spot, Ms. Barnes,” he replied, slouching in his chair a moment later. “Can it be a series?”
“Nope. You need to pick just one.”
“Final Destination,” he said with a curt nod.
“That’s not a scary movie,” someone said from one side of their circle.
“It can be,” Emily said. “I jumped a few times watching the second one.”
“The first one was better,” Billy told her.
“I probably should’ve watched them in order. It was hard to get into the first one after watching the second one, but I can see how they’re connected.” Unlike the rest of the series which seemed like a cash grab more than anything else. “Who else has a favorite scary movie?” she asked after tossing Billy a piece of candy.
On and on the morning went with some of their favorites matching her own. That is until someone mentioned Chucky.
Anything with dolls or clowns in it was a no-go for Emily.
By the time lunch rolled around, Emily’s nerves were shot.
She hadn’t thought about her own reactions to her little exercise, her nerves tightening in her stomach when the kids started to discuss some of the movies’ darker themes.
It was actually good as it made them think creatively and would likely help in their next writing assignment, but talking about ghosts, possession, and how the mind of a murderer works were enough to put Emily on edge.
Needless to say, when Sarah knocked on the inside of her door, Emily jumped.
“Wow, and I wasn’t even trying to get you,” Sarah said with an apologetic smile. “Is everything okay?” She glanced around the room, then leaned over to pick a candy wrapper off the floor. “You gave them sugar? You know they turn into evil-doers when you do that.”
Emily laughed at that. “It was only a few pieces,” Emily assured her. “We were having fun. As to why I jumped, the kids got on this discussion about how to get away with murder.”
“There’s a show about that.”
“It’s a drama,” Emily corrected her, “not a how-to.
Anyway, they started off talking about how someone in a movie like Friday the 13th can’t ever seem to understand that going into a dark room is a bad idea. Then they moved on to why the more villainous characters acted the way they did.
Eventually, we talked about motive and means and… I have to say, some of these kids have an amazing imagination.”
“They’re writers,” Sarah said gently. “What did you expect? You used to brainstorm with me all the time about stuff like that.”
“How to make portals and win the day, not how to kill someone.” Emily never came close to having to plot out something like that.
“Try writing a murder mystery sometime. You might be surprised.”
“It’s not really my thing.” Though Emily had said the same thing about romance until she tried it out.
“Oh, and you can have your apple back. I took a bite out of the one side, but it’s just a tiny one.” When Emily looked at her, she smiled. “What? I had to make it believable.”
Emily took the apple, inspected the very small bite, then set it on her desk.
“I barely touched it,” Sarah said, removing her witch hat so she could fix her hair. “Your tiara’s falling off.”
“I noticed.” Emily removed the bobby pins and placed them along with the tiara on her desk alongside the apple.
“And you owe me another apple.” She gestured at the green fruit and left it at that.
“Oh, come on. We’ve shared things before.”
“That was a long time ago,” Emily reminded her, “and we aren’t really at that stage yet, are we?”
They might’ve been friends, and they might’ve started hanging out, but were they really as close as they’d been before Emily left? She wasn’t sure, and looking at Sarah, neither was she.
“I can get you a new one downstairs,” Sarah said, taking the apple from Emily’s desk so she could use it later. “You’re free to join us, by the way. Chris usually brings in a wicked batch of sugar cookies that are shaped like pumpkins, and trust me, you don’t want to miss out on that.”
“I was planning to hit the courtyard to detox a tiny bit before this afternoon, but if there are cookies involved—”
“There are, and if not, I can get you one of the chewy cinnamon raisin ones from the cafeteria.” She was looking right at Emily, her eyes practically begging her to play along.
Not wanting to say no or to let Sarah down, Emily offered her a nod, locked her things in her desk, then followed her across the hall so Sarah could do the same. Once she did, they walked side by side all the way to the lounge.
The entire time they did, all Emily could think about was Sarah and how she blushed whenever Emily looked her way.
Today’s going to be an amazing day.
Chapter Twelve
The lounge was just as loud and busy as Emily remembered. Coffee filters sat out on the counter alongside a bunch of coffee grounds someone hadn’t bothered to clean up.
The pot was almost empty, so Emily busied herself with that before wiping up the counter as Sarah dug into the tin of cookies Chris had brought along with him.
Some of the teachers weren’t around, probably because they were busy looking after the kids down in the cafeteria.
Emily had done the same thing a handful of times, though the cafeteria was usually covered by the time she arrived.
“So she finally pulled you out of your shell, huh?” Chris asked once Emily sat down at a round table. “She’s been whining about you sitting in the courtyard for months.”
“I have not,” Sarah said from her place beside the fridge, opening it up to grab a container of pasta she’d probably had the night before. “And it hasn’t been months.”
Chris leaned in close to Emily and lowered his voice. “She has, and it’s been at least a month and a half.”
Emily snickered, covering her mouth with her hand when Sarah glared in her direction.
“Aw, don’t be like that,” Chris soothed. “I think it’s great.
It’s about time she found someone to obsess over besides her students and work.”
“You’d be surprised,” Sarah said once she took her place on the other side of Emily. “She’s just as bad if not worse than I am.”
“What?” Chris asked, looking at Emily. “No.”
“She’s right,” Emily said as she removed the cellophane from around her sandwich. “Even when we hang out, I end up talking more about my kids than anything else.”
“Just wait until you have kids of your own,” Judy said as she walked into the room. “Then they really are the only thing you talk about. I used to go nuts about my husband, but then we had Cameron, and now, I bring her up whenever I can.”
“Like right now,” Sarah teased. “What’s Cameron going as this year?”
“A pony. She wanted to be a Power Ranger, but they didn’t have it in her size.”
“That’s how I got stuck in this,” Emily said as she gestured at herself.
“But it isn’t like you hate it,” Sarah said, looking from her to the rest of their small group. “She wore almost the same exact thing three years in a row when we were kids.”
“It was easy,” Emily said in her defense. “I was taking ballet lessons and I had a pink tutu so…” She shrugged and left it at that.
“I still think it’s so weird you two were childhood friends but never hang out,” Judy said from her place in front of the sink.
“We do,” Emily said, glancing at Sarah before saying anything else. “I just really like sitting outside. I always have.
So while I might not visit the lounge that often, we do catch up sometimes after work.”
“So how did she manage to get you in here with us today?”
Judy asked.
“Cookies,” Sarah said before Emily could do the same.
“She has a mad sweet tooth, one that’s probably a lot worse than my own. I’ve started to cut back on my sugars, but it looks like Emily is still going strong.”
“I only ate a handful of candy,” Emily said, “and you know I can’t say no to baked goods. Especially ones that are homemade.” She reached across the table to grab a pumpkin cookie from the tin, thanking Chris in the process.
“Oh, those aren’t homemade,” Judy told her. “Not unless you count taking them out of a can and baking them as
homemade.”
“But I did decorate them,” Chris said with pride.
“And you did a fantastic job,” Emily praised, pointing half of her cookie at Chris. There was just enough icing to cover the cookie but not too much to make them overly sweet.
“These are great.”
“She’s being generous,” Sarah said as she took part of a cookie out of the tin to test it out. “There’s too much baking powder in it.”
“But that isn’t his fault,” Emily said. “It isn’t like when you used to make pancakes and refused to mix the batter for the right amount of time. Now that was a lot of baking powder.”
“I’ll have you know I make some amazing blueberry pancakes. If you’re lucky, you might get to try them someday.”
“Uh oh,” Chris snickered from his side of the table. “Be careful, Emily. Sarah can get rather defensive when you judge her cooking.”
“You cook?” Emily asked with mock surprise. “Do the cooking instructions say anything about using the microwave?”
Sarah crossed her arms in front of her chest and glared in Emily’s direction. “Hey Em, how are your grilled cheeses these days?”
Emily opened her mouth to say something but thought better of it. It wasn’t like she meant to burn the crust every single time, she just got distracted.
“I thought as much,” Sarah said victoriously.
“You know, the way you two have been going back and forth, it’s almost like Emily never left,” Chris pointed out once they were through.
“It is,” Sarah agreed. “I just wish we could go trick-or-treating again.”
“You can,” Emily offered, “but it would look a little weird unless you took a kid with you.”
Sarah looked across the way at Judy who was diligently picking through her food. “Maybe we could borrow Cameron for the evening.”
“Oh no,” Judy said with a shake of her head. “This is the only time I let myself cheat, and I won’t let anyone take that away from me. Cameron’s my ticket to free candy. You two will just have to get your own.”
Emily and Sarah looked at one another and laughed.
“What? What’d I miss?”
“What’s wrong with having kids?” Chris asked.
“Nothing,” Sarah replied, “but kids were never part of our plan.”
“Your plan?” Judy asked.
Sarah looked at Emily, smiling when she sunk in her chair.
“Back when we were kids, we made a deal. If we weren’t married by the time we turned thirty, we’d own houses right next to each other. We’d each have a dog so we could take walks together and so they could play. We’d also hang out on Friday nights and every other weekend since Emily’s folks used to be fairly religious and had family dinners every single week. If we were still alone by fifty, we’d sell our houses and travel together. We never thought about kids.”
“Well, of course, you didn’t,” Chris said with an exasperated sigh. “You were twelve. Little girls might plan their weddings and even say they want babies, but you don’t really plan for something like that. I mean, I guess you do the best you can, but if you wait until you’re financially ready, chances are it’ll never happen.”
“Wait,” Judy said. “You’re already in your thirties, so does that mean Emily’s going to move next door?”
Emily’s face turned bright red. Everyone’s eyes were on her, and as silence fell around them, Emily sunk in her seat a little more.
“That was before things went sideways,” Sarah said, saving Emily from even more embarrassment. “We kind of had to hit the reset button, but we’re slowly catching up. So I’m thinking maybe in another four, possibly five years?” She looked at Emily for guidance. “Yeah, five years. In another five years, we’ll move in together. I mean next door to each other.” Now it was Sarah’s turn to blush, and hell if she didn’t make Emily smile. “I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”
Chris was nodding before she could finish. “Yup, but to be fair, you two do make a cute couple. Just saying.”
Emily’s heart dropped into the pit of her stomach. While she and Sarah had agreed to give their relationship a try, it hadn’t been that long. Had she already told her small group of friends about them, or was it that obvious?
As though he could read her mind, Chris said, “I was the one that pushed them together. Or, well, I pushed this one, anyway,” he said, gesturing at Sarah. “I think Emily was ready as soon as she walked through the front doors.”
“Always the dreamer,” Sarah said, batting her eyes at Emily. “And I would’ve gotten there eventually. I just needed some time to get around my own thoughts.”
“Or to get out of your way,” Judy said as she got up to wash her hands. “You self-sabotage all the time. What happened to what’s-her-name?”
Chris tapped his chin, then said, “Missy, was it? Or maybe it was Jill. I honestly can’t keep track.”
“What we’re trying to say is that no one has been able to hold her attention or her interest more than you,” Judy said as she looked back at Emily. “I don’t know if it’s because of your past or what, but whatever the reason, keep with it. Eventually, that hard exterior has to break.”
“Now I know I’m glad I came in here,” Emily said with a big grin on her face.
