job?” Though his manner didn’t show it, he must have been rattled, because she’d already said why she was here. “There’s only one job opening here, and that can’t be…driving the bus?”
“Yes.” Grace raised her chin defiantly. “That’s the job I’m here about.”
He laughed. Laughed! “Give me a break.”
“What?”
“Come on. You’re Junior League, not bush league. You can’t be serious.”
“I’m completely serious.” Then she added, under her breath, “How many times am I going to have to say that today?”
A year ago, Grace couldn’t possibly have envisioned herself begging to be a bus driver. Someone could have won a lot of money on this bet.
He studied her for a moment, then said, “I don’t believe it.”
“What, do you think this is a joke? Do you think I just blew into town and decided the first thing I had to do was track you down, take some abuse about my marriage, then pretend to beg you for work? Does that make more sense, Luke, than Bayside Jobs sending me here looking for legitimate employment?”
“Actually, I have a hard time envisioning either scenario. But if Mary did send you here to drive the bus, I can’t even imagine what she was thinking. I’m afraid she had you come out here for nothing.”
“Mary?” Who was Mary?
He turned and looked at her sharply, as though he’d caught her trying to making faces at him. “Mary Lindon. You did say you were sent from Bayside.”
“Y-yes.” Mary? Lord, Grace must have called her Ms. Lindon forty times today and the woman hadn’t once stopped her and said, as almost anyone else would have, “Call me Mary, please.” Grace cleared her throat. “Mary thought I’d be perfect for the job.”
“Really,” he said, but his tone said bull.
Grace nodded. She had to compose herself, had to return the tone of this meeting to something less personal, more professional. “Obviously this is a little awkward, since we know each other. Is there someone else I should speak to instead?”
“Someone higher up, you mean?”
“Well…”
“I’m the headmaster,” he said, flatly. “I’m afraid it’s up to me.”
Headmaster? Oh perfect—she’d really blown it then. “Okay. Well, I came here for an interview, like anyone else off the street, so pretend I’m a stranger.” She drew herself up. “Now, are you going to interview me or not?”
A muscle ticked in his jaw for a moment, before he said, “Sure. If that’s what you want.” He jotted her name on the back of a telephone book on the desk and drew a line under it, then looked at her, obviously trying not to smile. “Tell me how long you’ve been driving school buses now, Grace.”
Heat rose in her cheeks. He wasn’t going to make this easy. “The job description clearly said that no experience was necessary.”
“Maybe not necessary, but it helps. More qualified drivers will have the edge there.” He made a note of it. “You have a commercial driver’s license?”
She heard a single minor piano chord ring ominously in her brain. “Oh, come on, Luke, what do you think?”
He leaned back in his chair and gave her a lazy look that would once have made her toes curl, but now just ticked her off. “I think you’re applying for a job driving a bus, so you must have at least some vague notion of what that job entails.”
She tried to stay calm. “I think it entails starting the engine and driving from place to place picking up children and bringing them to school, which is pretty much what we, in my old neighborhood, called ‘car pooling.’ How different can it be?”
“For one thing, you need a commercial driver’s license in order to do it here.”
“I can get one, right?”
He gave a half shrug that said wrong. “Have you learned your way around an engine since I last saw you?” he asked. By now his face wore the same bored expectation of a negative response that an airline clerk had asking if you’d packed your own suitcase.
This was no time to give up, Grace reminded herself, however tempting that might be. “I can learn.”
He released the pencil, letting it clatter to the desk. Then he leaned back, took a deep breath and let it out slowly, not unlike a hissing bus tire that had just run over the sharp shards of her broken heart. “Grace, I ask you this in all seriousness—do you have any idea what’s involved in taking this job?”
She straightened in her seat and smoothed her jacket, instantly regretting the prissy gesture. As a prospective bus driver, she should have brought a toothpick to chew on or something. “Not entirely.”
“For the license test, you’ll need to know the bus’s engine inside-out. They’re going to pop the hood and have you identify and locate every part of the engine, then they’re going to have you get down on your knees and identify the parts from underneath.” He counted his points triumphantly on his fingers. “Then they’re going to ask you what happens if any of those parts fail or wear out, and they’re going to ask you how to fix them.” He gave a small but meaningful shake of his head. “If you pass all that, then you get to take the driving test.”
It did sound daunting, but not as daunting as another registered letter from the IRS. “And you’re saying you don’t think I can do that?”
“I can’t see it, no.” Clearly he was harboring his old hostility toward her. “Point is,” he went on, “I’m expecting to hire someone who already has.”
“What if you can’t hire someone who already has?” she asked. “What if no one like that applies?”
“They will.”
“When do you need a driver?”
“For summer school. In four weeks.”
“Four weeks!” She threw up her hands. “And you’re only looking to hire someone now?”
“You’re not helping your case.”
“I’m trying to help yours. And mine.” She could tell she was getting nowhere with him. She remembered a chocolate bar for Jimmy that she’d put in her purse earlier, and made a mental note to inhale it the second this miserable meeting ended. “Look, maybe I should talk with someone else about the job, since you obviously can’t be objective about me.”
“As a matter of fact, I’m in the unique position of understanding just how wrong you are for this position.” He sighed and softened his voice. “Grace, you’d be miserable. Why are you even here?”
“Because I need work,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “And this is the only possibility in town.”
“But
