his office, having no real purpose whatsoever except to change the scenery. Maybe if he took a walk, he could get Jenna out of his mind. Get what Ally had said out of his head. All day he’d heard his dead wife’s voice in the back of his head like a never-ending audiotape.
Date Jenna. I think you’ll fall in love with her and marry her…fall in love and marry her.
The idea was utterly absurd, Grant knew that. The trouble was that at the end of the videotape, Ally had made him promise he would give it a try. She had asked him to promise her that he would at least try one date. When he’d heard Ally’s words, he had had no intentions of making any promises, verbally or otherwise. But the second time he watched the tape after the girls went to bed, the promise had just popped out of his mouth. Without thinking, he had said, “I promise.”
So, a promise was a promise. Obviously, that’s what the dreams were all about. That was why he couldn’t stop thinking about Jenna. Because he had promised his wife. The logical answer to the problem was to ask Jenna out, have a nice evening and then go back to his den and tell his dead wife face-to-face that there was nothing between him and Jenna but friendship. No spark. Ally understood “the spark.”
Grant found himself passing the nurse’s office, passing the library headed straight for the kindergarten and first-grade wing. Headed straight for Jenna’s classroom as if she were a magnet.
He rounded the corner, and nearly fell over Jenna, who was on her hands and knees on the floor of the hall, lining up wet paintings of what appeared to be apples…or maybe roundish fire engines.
Grant made a noise in his throat, caught off guard. He had almost stepped on her.
“Whoa,” she cried, glancing up, smiling. Jenna was always smiling.
“What are you doing?” He slipped his hands into his pants pockets, not because he wanted them there, but because he couldn’t think of anything else to do with them. Suddenly his arms were long, gangly appendages that seemed to serve no purpose but to make him look and feel awkward in Jenna’s presence.
She began to crawl along the floor, spreading out the paintings along the wall. “We were doing watercolor painting this afternoon. Nice huh?”
He glanced over her shoulder. “Nice.”
“Hey, I called about that software again, but I’m not getting anywhere. The guy said teachers can’t place the orders, only ‘the brass.”’ She glanced up at him. “Think you’re considered the brass?”
Today, she wore her golden-red hair in a ponytail the way his girls often did. It was the best hairdo he could manage when Ally had first gotten sick. He had branched out to pigtails, doggy ears and doorknobs, though ponytails were still his best ’do. But somehow the ponytail didn’t look the same way on Jenna as it did on his girls. On Jenna, it was almost sexy.
He stuffed his hands deeper into his pockets. “I’ll take care of it tomorrow. Leave the number in my mailbox.”
“Great.” She scooted along the floor, sliding more paintings against the wall, her fingertips tinted with wet red paint.
Inside the classroom, Grant could hear the children lining up to be dismissed. He could hear Jenna’s assistant, Martha, giving last minute reminders. If Grant was going to get this over with, he was going to have to do it now. “Um…” he said.
She didn’t seem to hear him. “Amy has soccer tonight. We didn’t find those Cliffs Notes for Hannah, so if you want me to, I can track them down tonight. I have a few errands to run anyway.”
“Hannah should not be using Cliffs Notes. She needs to read The Crucible. I read The Crucible in high school; you read it,” he heard himself babble. He stopped short, and took a deep breath. “Jenna, you want to go out to dinner Friday night?”
She glanced up at him, a soggy red paper in her hand with a name that resembled Anthony scrawled across it. She didn’t hesitate. “Sure. That would be nice.”
Jenna smiled and Grant relaxed. Hadn’t been so bad after all.
“Great,” he said. “Meet me at seven at that little French place you like?” He didn’t have the nerve to pick her up. That would, after all, make it a real date, wouldn’t it? “You know…separate cars in case I have to run home,” he explained.
“Sure. Works for me.”
The door to Jenna’s classroom opened, and kindergartners spilled out. “Oops, better get to the buses,” she said, getting to her feet.
Jenna went one way with her fifteen kindergartners, including his Maddy, and Grant went the other way. Only this time, his hands were in his pockets because he wanted them there, and he was whistling. He couldn’t remember the last time he had whistled.
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