Iris would ask some megamogul to speak at a night school class.” She watched his thick black curls tumble over his long fingers. Nice.
“About the speaker…I really think you should know—”
“The case is closed on the speaker.” She held up her hand to make a stop sign before glancing down at her watch. “Look, break’s almost over, Mr. Brown. So, what do you say? Will you do it?”
He hesitated, sizing her up and down twice.
Katarina felt as if he was measuring her mettle. She sat up straighter.
“You’re determined to help us out, even after class?” He looked at her askance, one eyebrow raised.
She nodded encouragingly. She would not go down without a fight. “It’ll be good for me, too. Promise.”
The buzzer sounded, signaling the end of break. She stood, wincing as she put weight on her leg. “Do we have a deal then, Mr. Brown?”
He carefully levered himself from the tight desk to an upright position.
Once more Katarina was struck by his size and strength.
“All right, Ms. Zemanova. I’ll do it. But only if you call me Ben.” He tilted his head and waited for a reply.
She breathed in slowly. You can do this, girl. No sweat. And then she held out her hand to secure the deal, all business, just like she used to do in her old life. “All right, Ben. And you must call me Katarina.”
He clasped his hand in hers. Firm, warm and masculine. “Katarina.” This time there was no mistake. “But one thing?”
“Yes?”
“You have to promise to protect me from my son.”
Katarina ended the handshake and clutched the papers to her chest. The real question, she realized, was who was going to protect her from the father?
CHAPTER FIVE
LENA WAITED IMPATIENTLY where the two hallways bisected each other on the second floor. Break was almost over, and Wanda had yet to show. Lena tapped her toe, and each time the rubber from her rain boot came in contact with the linoleum flooring it created a one-of-a-kind noise. She glanced over at the handmade poster on the opposite wall, promoting the upcoming Science Olympiad. Well, if she had to wait much longer, she could have completed her own science project for the competition!
When at last the door at the top of the staircase swung open, she saw Wanda’s head. “Finally,” Lena said greeting her friend. “I thought maybe you took a wrong turn.”
“Excuse me but some of us do not have the largest bladders in the world and need to go to the little girl’s room.” Wanda had her duffel bag over her shoulder, and it squirmed of its own accord.
Lena looked at it suspiciously. “Are you sure you were the one who needed to go tinkle? Never mind. Put that bag on the floor. It’s too heavy. I can’t have you tearing your rotator cuff in your shoulder when we’ve got a big match tomorrow.”
“I’m so glad you have my welfare in mind,” Wanda said. She gently lowered the bag to the ground and unzipped the top.
A wet black nose preceded a pair of alert pointy ears, followed by the dark brown and white blotchy face of Tiger. To anyone but Wanda, the dog was hardly a thing of beauty. The best that could be said about it was that it was quiet. The worst was that it emitted silent but highly pungent farts, a tendency that was totally unredeemable in Lena’s estimation.
But Lena and Wanda had known each other far too long to begin apologizing to each other. They knew that in times of trouble, whether the sudden death of Lena’s husband from a brain aneurism almost fifty years ago, or more recently, Wanda’s bout with breast cancer, they could count on each other for unqualified support.
“So, how did she look? Nervous?” Lena asked pointblank. She thrust her hands into the pockets of her slim-fitting, robin’s egg-blue hoodie. It matched her track pants—the whole ensemble being a great buy at Marshall’s. In combination with the Crayola-yellow rain boots, she was not exactly subdued.
Wanda scrunched up her mouth in thought. “On a scale of one to ten, with one being comatose and ten being ready to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, I’d say she was a six—not obviously sweating, her pupils not particularly dilated, but a little too much tight laughter and some hesitation. Whatever, she’s a doll.”
Lena nodded. “Don’t I know it!” Then she frowned and leaned forward. “How was the leg?”
Wanda shook her head. “Not the best. She was limping but trying not to show it.”
Lena sighed. “So typical. She refuses to talk about it. Never admits she’s in pain. I wish she’d ask for help sometimes, let other people do things for her.”
“Like she had such a good example from that crazy daughter of yours?” Wanda remarked.
“Zora was stubborn from the day she was born. She was never a joiner, even when it came to Brownies. She always knew better. I still remember the terrible fights she’d have with her high school teachers.”
“You forget. I was one of those teachers. She was the brightest student I ever had in all my calculus classes, but she was also the biggest pain.”
“That would be Zora. Totally committed to doing things her way. I suppose that’s why I wasn’t surprised that when she got pregnant her senior year of college she insisted on keeping the baby. And the father? ‘He’s nothing more than a sperm donor,’ I remember her saying. You know, I’ve never said this out loud, but I sometimes wonder if it really was the right thing to have done, in terms of Katarina. She never knew her father, always on the move, following her mother’s academic appointments here and research fellowships there, never stopping long enough to have a real home, with real friendships. And can you believe it? Now Zora’s in Antarctica! Anyway, not that Zora would have listened to me if I had said something, but maybe I should have tried a little harder, especially when it came to Katarina.”
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