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Lauren was waiting outside the art room with her arms crossed.
“So,” Lauren said.
“No,” Allison said.
“Rory texted me.”
Allison stopped. “Rory has your number?”
“Rory has had my number for five years. Rory has never once used it. Rory texted me at seven fifty-one this morning.” Lauren held up her phone. “It says, and I quote, It has happened. Brook. Seven forty-five. Together. Noted for the record.”
Allison put her face in her hands.
“And then,” Lauren went on, scrolling, “Molly texted me. And Judy. And somebody I think is Vera Hutchins, although she spells it like she’s never touched a phone. And Charlie sent a photo of herself in a snowbank with no caption.”
“I saw the snowbank.”
“Everyone saw the snowbank.” Lauren lowered the phone. Her honest face was trying very hard to look stern and failing completely. “I said it in October. I would like that on the record too. October. Harvest festival. I said it.”
“You said it in October.”
“Thank you.” Lauren uncrossed her arms and hugged her, hard, right there in the hallway. “I’m so happy I could throw up,” she said into Allison’s hair.
“Please don’t throw up.”
“No promises.”
* * *
Her second period class was fourth graders, and they lasted almost six minutes.
She was demonstrating how to mix a warm gray when Marcus raised his hand. Marcus did not usually raise his hand. Marcus usually just said things.
“Yes, Marcus?”
“Ms. Hayes,” Marcus said, in the voice of a boy who had been sent as an ambassador by the entire table, “is Mr. Colter your boyfriend?”
Every single child in the room stopped painting.
Twenty-two faces turned toward her.
She opened her mouth. She closed it. She felt her face going red from the collar up and could do absolutely nothing to stop it.
“Why do you ask?” she said, which was the teacher answer, and all of them knew it.
“My mom said Charlie Keller said you went to The Brook with him,” Marcus said. “And my grandma said about time. And then my mom said everybody said about time.”
“Everybody said about time,” the girl next to him agreed solemnly.
Allison looked at twenty-two small, painted, extremely interested faces.
She put on her very best teacher voice. The calm one. The one that had gotten her through eight years of field trips and glitter spills and a class hamster escape she still didn’t like to think about.
“What I do outside this classroom,” she said, “is my business. What you do with that paintbrush is my business too. And right now your paintbrush is supposed to be making warm gray.”
There was a pause.
“That’s a yes,” somebody whispered at the back table.
