with a nod of her head. Steve knew what she’d just said was a standard reply and maybe it was just his imagination, but she seemed to mean what she said.
“Which one’s yours?” he asked, thinking it only fair to put the same question to her.
“Oh, I don’t have one in this class,” she replied.
He found that odd. Weren’t you supposed to have a kid in the room before you could address said class?
“Then—?”
As if anticipating the rest of his question, the woman beside him said, “The assistant principal thought it might be a good idea for me to come by today and address the class.”
Steve came to the only conclusion he could. The woman had to have a unique career.
“What’s your career?” he asked outright, unable to even venture a guess, especially not one that would involve a valise.
She opened her mouth, apparently to answer his question, when Mrs. Reyes spoke up and by the very act commanded that they all give her their undivided attention.
“Well, it’s my favorite Wednesday of the month again. Career Day,” she emphasized with feeling. “And first we will hear from Jason Kendall’s father, Steven Kendall, who is going to talk to you about what it means to be a business lawyer.” Turning toward him with a bright, welcoming smile, Mrs. Reyes said, “Mr. Kendall, the floor is yours.”
With that, Mrs. Reyes gestured around the classroom, in case he missed her meaning.
Steve rose and instantly became aware that his legs felt a little stiff. The last time he’d felt that, he recalled, he’d been in court, pleading his very first case. He’d won, but only by a hair, and while others might have become cocky because a win was a win, his win humbled him because he knew how close he had come to losing that first case.
It was then that he realized that things were decided by the whimsy of fate and although he was always prepared, always did his best, he never lost sight of that humbling lesson.
Coming before the class now—Mrs. Reyes had vacated her desk, so he stood behind that as he spoke—Steve remembered beginning, remembered his mouth moving as his brain raced from point to point, trying to hit all the points he’d jotted down for himself earlier.
He was acutely aware that while his audience of seven-and eight-year-olds all sat at their desks listening politely, not a single face in that audience looked the least bit interested, much less inspired by either his vocation or anything that he had just said to them.
Not that, he silently admitted, he had said anything terribly interesting or inspiring.
And certainly not very memorable.
When he was finished, applause came after a beat. Polite applause as if they had been coached to applaud anyone who appeared to have stopped talking. He was glad to reclaim his chair and sit down.
“And next we have Ms. Erin O’Brien.” Instead of announcing the next career, Mrs. Reyes smiled at her class. “You’re in for a treat,” she promised. “I think you’ll find Ms. O’Brien’s career very interesting.” Mrs. Reyes looked toward the next speaker, exchanging glances with her as if they had a shared secret. “Ms. O’Brien, the class is all yours.”
Rather than the young woman saying anything in response to Mrs. Reyes, another voice was heard. A muffled voice as befitting one that came from inside a suitcase.
“Hey, it’s dark in here, Erin. Lemme out.”
Erin’s hooded eyes covertly took in the room. Apparently, she had the entire classroom in the palm of her hand as children exchanged giggles and nervous glances with one another.
Erin looked at the valise on the floor next to her chair. She had a pseudoexasperated look on her face. “Tex, I told you to be on your best behavior.”
“This is my best behavior,” the voice coming from the valise insisted.
“If I let you out, you have to promise not to scare the children,” she warned.
“Children?” the voice asked, sounding very intrigued. “Tasty children?”
“That’s something you’re never going to find out. Now, do you promise to behave?” she asked.
The voice sighed. “Do I hafta promise?” Tex whined.
“Yes, you do,” Erin said, crossing her arms before her as she continued talking to the “occupant” of the valise. “I’m afraid if you want to come out, Tex, that’s the deal I’m offering. Otherwise, you’ll have to stay in the suitcase until we leave.”
There was another, louder sigh from the inside of the valise. Then the voice said, “Oh, okay, I guess. I promise.”
“That’s all I wanted to hear,” Erin told the voice.
Snapping the locks open, Erin quickly took out the valise’s mysterious occupant. The latter turned out to be a large green dinosaur whose head was bigger than his body, in direct contrast to an actual model of a Tyrannosaurus rex.
This T. rex was also wearing a white cowboy hat, which was in keeping with his Southern twang.
Once in her arms, Tex did an exaggerated long visual sweep of the boys and girls seated at their desks. “I know I said I’d behave, but can I just nibble on that little one over there?” The puppet nodded vaguely to his left, pretending to drool.
“No, you cannot,” Erin insisted. “We came to talk to these nice kids.”
“You talk, I’ll nibble,” Tex said, leaning over as he eyed certain children.
Erin drew herself up and gave the dinosaur a very stern look. “Tex, do you want to go back into the valise? Think carefully now.”
The puppet hung his head, ashamed. “No, ma’am, I do not.”
“Okay, then no nibbling,” she pretended to order him sternly. Her eyes swept over the eager young faces on the other side of the room. As always, a feeling of gratification washed over her.
Tex, however, was ever crafty, ever hopeful. “Then how about—?”
She shot the T. rex down before he could mention a single name—she’d taken care to ask for a seating chart and the names of all the children when she’d agreed to giving a talk. Using names made everything ever so much more personal.
“No.”
The dinosaur was nothing if not persistent. “Not even—?”
“No,” she said emphatically, cutting the T. rex off before he was finished.
The children’s laughter grew with each interaction between the woman and her puppet. “Now remember why we’re here,” she told the T. rex.
Drooling again, the dinosaur eyed his potential snack. “You remember. I’ll chew.”
Erin gave the puppet her very best glare. “Tex, you’re impossible.”
