The First Husband (10 page)

I nodded. “Great, but I thought he told me he wasn’t heading over there until eleven or so,” I said. “What time is it?”

“It’s twelve forty-five.”

“Twelve forty-five?” I asked. I was in total disbelief. In my life, the entirety of it to that point, I had never slept that late. In the entirety of my life, I had never slept anywhere close to that late: work starting at 6:00 A.M. most days, work supposed to have started
today
at 6:00 A.M., so I wouldn’t be so late getting the latest column to Peter.

“It’s those brown curtains, right?” he said. “They’ll do you in if you’re not careful.”

“You’re not kidding,” I said.

“We got a late start too, and I’m now completely screwed for my meeting,” he said. “Unless I go eighty miles per hour all the way there. Who am I kidding? Even if I go eighty all the way there.”

“Who is your meeting with?” I asked.

“My faculty adviser,” he said.

“Jude Flemming?”

“Jude Flemming,” he said. “I need to ask her for an extension on my dissertation. I get a little nervous asking her for anything.”

“I can understand that.” I poured myself some more coffee. “How late are you getting the dissertation in?” I asked.

“You know, about nine years.”

I stopped midpour.

“There are reasons,” he said.

I nodded. “I’m sure,” I said.

Then he stood up, his tie loose around his neck, and he began grabbing for several things at once: his keys, the mostly empty thermos, a shabby briefcase on the counter. “So you think you could take them?” he said.

I looked at him, confused. “Take who?”

“Sammy and Dex,” he said. “To school. The afternoon part, at least. It’s walking distance from here. And it would really help me out. They have an indoor peewee soccer league afterward that will keep them busy until after I’m back, but can you take them over there?”

“Me?” I said, turning to the twins, who were still busy with their waffles, not so much as looking in my direction. “But they don’t know me, Jesse. Won’t that be weird?”

Jesse turned toward them too. “Okay guys, this is your Aunt Annie.” He patted the top of my head. “Tell her hello.”

They turned to me, giving me a once-over, neither of them saying a word, neither offering a wave.

“Hi guys! ” I smiled at Sammy who was holding on tight to his watering can. “I like your planter,” I said.

Still, nothing.

“Okay, so, whichever of my big guys wants Annie to take them to school today
more
should tell her his name
loudest
, right now,” he said. “Winner gets a hundred bucks.”

Both boys raised their hands high.
“Me! Me!”
they screamed in a rising, vocal unison.

Then Dex waved his arms and screamed out, “I’m Dex! I’m Dex!” And Sammy held up his yellowing watering can and—using its spigot as a microphone—joined him with, “I’m Sammy! I’m Sammy!”

Jesse smiled down at me, his tie somehow magically tied. “There we go,” he said. “One problem solved.”

W
e must have been a sight on the way to school, the wind and snowfall kicking up: Sammy and Dexter on either side of me, wrapped in enormous winter coats entirely covering their little bodies (Sammy’s watering can sticking out from beneath his), me in a light fleece unequal to the wind, all of us holding hands—shouting at the cars passing by, shouting at street signs, shouting at the sky.

Even with the hundred dollars on the table, the boys had seemed nervous and unhappy to see their father go, and, so, in an attempt to cheer them, I suggested playing a game of I Spy as we walked.

I wasn’t sure if it was exactly age appropriate, but Jordan played it with Sasha and that seemed like endorsement enough for the time being. And the boys seemed to enjoy it. In the twenty or so minutes it took us to go from door to door—from the quiet outskirts of town to its slightly less quiet center—they spotted train tracks, an out-of-business ice-cream parlor, a broken bicycle, several snowmen, a closed-down fruit stand (with the sign SEE YA IN MAY!), a giraffe (or, rather, a statue of a giraffe in someone’s yard), and dogs of several sizes (the people walking the dogs, the twins were far less interested in).

When we got closer to school, they also spotted the Williamsburg General Store, where I made the mistake of stopping. Because there, on the newspaper rack in front of the store, were copies of several national newspapers, including the
New York Times,
complete with a small advertisement for
The Unbowed.
The ad consisted of a photograph of a creepy playground at night, complete with a blurry image of a couple on the swings, so blurry you could almost miss them. But you couldn’t miss what was on the bottom of the print, in bold black letters. His name: NICK CAMPBELL.

My heart clenched. My heart clenched just seeing his name, right in front of me, where I couldn’t ignore it.

After Dexter “I spyed” the General Store, I was pretty close to adding,
Funny because I spy a ghost.

But by the time we turned onto the elementary school’s grounds, I’d pulled it back together, which was a good thing because, despite the school not being impressively large, it was impressively busy: a sizable group of kids finishing their afternoon recess, another group starting a basketball game, another playing boxball, wrapped up tightly in hats and gloves and winter coats. I spotted a teacher by the front door, clipboard in her heavily mittened hands, who pointed us to the kindergarten classroom on the far end of the floor.

As we made our way there, I could hear music coming from the classroom. I was happily surprised to peek through the open door and take in a bright and colorful classroom full of paintings and art, and the entire kindergarten class, twenty-plus kids, engaged in a massive game of freeze dance. To Bach.

I knocked softly and one of the two adults circling the massive bunch of dancing peanuts gave me a big smile. She hurried over to the door, her high ponytail bobbing behind her.

“Hi hi hi!” she said. “We were wondering when you guys were going to get here! Come on in, we’re on the French Suites.”

She heralded the twins inside, and, as they joined the musical fray, she slipped back through the doorway and joined me in the hallway.

“I’m Claire, Dexter and Sammy’s teacher,” she said.

Then she pointed to the other woman in the classroom, outfitted in an oversized UMass sweatshirt with matching sweatpants. “And that’s Carolyn, the assistant teacher. She’s a graduate student in early education over at the university. We have her two days a week. Sometimes three. Needless to say, they are much better days.”

I smiled. “I can imagine,” I said. “I’m Annie. I’m the twins’ . . . well, I guess I’m their aunt.”

The words felt a little weird coming out of my mouth, but it was also the simplest explanation, or so I thought.

Except that Claire crossed her arms over her chest, a grin taking over her face. “I didn’t know Cheryl had a sister!” she said. “It is
fantastic
to meet you. I know she and Jesse are in a bit of a hard place at the moment, but she’s been checking in with me regularly. She’s a strong lady, your sister. . . .”

I shook my head, intending to correct her, and quickly. “No, I’m actually not related to—”

But, before I could finish, there was a loud bang from inside the classroom. We turned to see Sammy and Dex, still in their long winter coats—standing on either side of the boom box—now on its back on the floor.

“Oh boy,” she said. “That’s my cue. It’s really nice to meet you, Annie. I hope to see you soon.”

“I’d like that,” I said.

She started to head in, but then turned back, something occurring to her.

“Actually, you know what? Is the end of next week too soon? ”

“Excuse me?” I said.

“Well, the kids have a class trip to the Children’s Museum. The science and nature museum in Hartford?” She shook her head, as if already imagining the chaos of that. “Anyway, it’s looking like we’re a mother short for the excursion. And could definitely use the extra pair of hands. Aunts’ hands count. Would you be willing to join in? Are you still going to be in town then? ”

“I’m supposed to be, but I really never know my work schedule for sure. I’m a travel writer and I’m definitely heading back out on the road soon. I’ve actually never been on a break this long, but I just got married and . . .”

“Great! ” she said. “Then it’s settled! That’s really great. Thank you! And if you have a minute on your way out, you should head down the back stairs and check out the breezeway. The holiday art show is still up. Our art teacher, Ms. Henry, is beyond incredible. And the twins did a painting of a purple Christmas tree. It rocks!”

I laughed. “I’m sure it does.”

“Go see for yourself.” Then she pointed at my fleece as she walked back inside. “And if you’re sticking around, you need a real coat or you’ll get a bad cold. And good luck getting rid of it before spring.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

“Anytime.”

The door flew shut and I was left in the quiet hallway. I stared at the closed door for just a second—watched through the small window as she scrambled to right the boom box and get the kids dancing again. Then I headed the way she told me, down the staircase, toward the open breezeway, partly because I wanted to see the purple Christmas tree and partly because I wasn’t so anxious to head back outside in my too-light fleece.

I was glad I did. As soon as I stepped onto the breezeway, I saw how right Claire was. A truly great display of paintings and collages and charcoal drawings was taped over the windows. I was captivated, walking slowly down the hall, checking out the artwork of each grade: snowmen and reindeer, bright scenes of stick-people Thanksgiving dinners. There was also a beautiful drawing of several pears among the second-graders’ lot. (I wasn’t sure what pears had to do with the holidays, but it was beautiful nevertheless.)

I was staring so hard at the pears that it took me a minute to realize I wasn’t in the breezeway alone. There was another woman, who had made her way from the other end, trailing a metal dolly behind her. She was diminutive in a tea-length turtleneck dress and a beautiful, bright orange scarf, her long blond hair falling down her back. She was reaching high above her head to remove one of the paintings from its perch.

Even on her tiptoes, she was struggling to reach both corners at once, and was looking less than steady. So I walked over and reached for the upper left-hand corner, and the two of us pulled off the painting together.

“Oh, thank you for that!” she said, giving me a large smile as she rolled up the brown paper painting and gently placed it onto her dolly. “One down. A thousand to go.”

“Seems like I got here just in the nick of time,” I said.

She nodded, tilting her head to the side, and I couldn’t help but notice that up close she was even more striking, with birdlike features, high cheekbones, dark eyelashes.

“Are you looking for anything in particular?” she asked.

“A purple Christmas tree, I believe.”

“Ah . . .” Her smile got bigger as she pointed in the direction of several paintings a little farther down the breezeway, a forest of purple Christmas trees, grouped together under the sign KINDERGARTEN.

“I take it you know one of Claire’s students?” she said.

“Two, actually.”

“I do the best I can with them, but, this year, I got the kindergarteners in to see me twenty-four hours after they were shown
Barney’s Great Adventure
. What can I say?”

I laughed. “So you must be the incredible art teacher that Claire was just telling me about?”

“Art teacher, home ec teacher, currently going crazy teacher,” she said, pushing her hair behind her ears. “But I’ll gladly take Claire’s description in place of that. And who are you?”

“Annie,” I said. “Annie Adams. I just moved to town.”

“Welcome!” she said. “I had a couple of clues that you’re not from here, actually. You know, in addition to my having lived here my entire life, and the not-knowing-you part.”

“What were those?”

She pointed at my Converse sneakers, and then at my fleece. “You can get pretty sick dressed like that,” she said.

“I’m getting that idea,” I said. “I recently got married and my husband’s from here. Grew up here, actually. But, except for a work trip to the Berkshires last summer, I haven’t spent any time in the area to speak of. So I guess I’m still figuring out what it’s going to be like.”

“Cold.”

“And pretty,” I said, hopefully.

“And cold.”

Then she reached for another painting, started to pull at it. It had a blue ribbon underneath it. First prize written in gold on the front. Which was when I noticed every one of the paintings had a blue ribbon underneath it. First prize gold on all of them.

She shrugged. “There
was
supposed to be one winner, but I’m not a big one for competition,” she said. “So I made it a two hundred–way tie.”

“Sounds like a good solution,” I said.

“It became less of one when all of the kids began asking me which one of them won the most.” She shook her head in disbelief. “What are you going to do?”

Then, as she deposited another drawing on the dolly, I looked at the long wall, completely covered with artwork.

“You know what? I’m not in any rush. Can I give you a hand with some of these?”

She shined her smile at me, happily. “Really? You sure that you wouldn’t mind?” she said. “I was going to ask the janitor to give me a hand, then I remembered we don’t have one.”

I laughed, reaching for the painting in front of me—of two stick figures hitting turkey drumsticks—gently pulling at the tape on the corners.

“It’d be my pleasure to help out.”

She took her scarf off her neck, handed it over. “Well, please wear this while you do. I made it myself, lots of wool.”