Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

NOVA

The first day of school arrived, and I was woefully unprepared to drop my kids off at a strange new place. We’d been in Arcadia Creek for over a week. They should have started days ago, but getting them registered took longer than it should have, no thanks to my irresponsibility in somehow leaving Alice’s birth certificate behind in New York and Carter’s snail pace in sending it to me. The extra few days did nothing to soothe my nervousness at leaving them with all new people and new rules and no one familiar to turn to if something went wrong.

The kids sat in our empty living room, bundling up in sweatshirts, scarves, and jackets to make the trek down the street to the elementary school. I stood at the kitchen counter in sweats and an oversized Neon Trees shirt that was more than a decade old, trying not to fret.

“PB&Js?” I asked, laying out the bread and spreading peanut butter over two slices.

“I want ham and cheese,” Ben said.

My smile twitched. “Then I’ll need to go back to the store. Can you eat a PB&J today and I’ll make sure we have what we need for ham and cheese tomorrow?”

He looked disappointed. “Can’t we take ham from the diner? Aunt Gigi has a lot.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Boundaries. That’s not our kitchen or our food. Gigi has to pay for all of it, and she makes her money back when people buy meals. It wouldn’t be right.” I picked up the jar of strawberry jam and tried to open the lid, but it wasn’t budging.

“But she made me a ham and cheese yesterday.”

I moved to the sink and ran the lid under hot water. “Which was nice of her, but we can’t use the diner as our personal grocery store.”

“If she wants us to, I don’t understand why we can’t,” Ben muttered before bending his neck to fasten the buttons on his jacket.

The jam lid still wasn’t budging. I hit it lightly on the counter a few times and tried again.

“I like PB&J,” Alice said, her head popping out of her sweatshirt. Her blonde hair was staticky, strands sticking out every which way.

“How do you feel about just PB?” I asked, straining against the lid with no movement. Would my children consider me unhinged if I chucked the jar on the floor just to watch it break open? Probably. Better set it down gently on the counter.

“ Just peanut butter?” Ben asked, affronted as if I had requested he disassemble his LEGO X-Wing and throw away all the black bricks.

“It’s all we have.” I gave the jam jar one last solid effort before returning it to the fridge in utter defeat. It needed to be out of my sight. I wasn’t a weak person, but looking at the jar hurt my feelings in a weird way, like the strawberry jam inside had meant to be unreachable. “I can’t get the jam open. ”

Ben sighed. “Fine.”

My entire body slumped. It was unfair that I was half a country away, justified in my frustration with Carter—especially after it took him three days to send me Alice’s birth certificate—and still wishing with the smallest part of me he was around to open the jar of jam. The man wasn’t home much to open jars in the first place, which was why it felt so unfair to wish he was here. No, not him. Just his arms.

It’d been over a year since he’d come home from work and asked for the divorce, then promptly moved out. We’d signed the papers quickly, moved through the divorce proceedings while I was still trying to figure out what was going on. Even then, I knew I’d have to leave the apartment to him when it was all finalized—it was rent controlled and had been passed down to him from his grandmother.

Me? I couldn’t afford to stay in the city. I used most of the settlement money to buy a car and get myself and the kids to Texas, where Aunt Gigi offered to take us in until I figured out what I wanted to do.

Carter would’ve paid for half of the kids’ private school if we’d stayed, but that meant me coming up with the other half and I didn’t even have a job. It was never going to happen.

Now here I was in an apartment that smelled faintly of diner food, screwing up my kids’ lunches on a stressful day, and I couldn’t even open one stupid fetching jar of strawberry jam.

Alice noticed my defeat. “I think peanut butter sounds good,” she said.

“You’re just saying that,” Ben snapped.

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes you are.”

“No. I really think it. I love peanut butter.”

“Not by itself you don’t.”

“Enough, please,” I asked, and the sharpness in my tone worked. I finished the sandwiches and cut up apples to go in their lunch bags.

“Can I have school lunch instead?” Ben asked, then stuck his tongue out at his younger sister.

It was the final straw. I put down the knife and looked at him. His blond hair stuck up a little in the back and his brown eyes were so defiant, I didn’t want to find any other reasons to put him on edge. This kid was nervous. I could see it in his challenging stare and closed jaw.

“Yes. You can have school lunch. Alice?”

“I want the peanut butter sandwich,” she said, sitting on the floor and looking through the keychains hanging on her backpack. A few of her friends in New York had given them to her as going away presents, and my stomach clenched in response. I wasn’t going to think about the fact that we still didn’t have a couch, let alone a kitchen table, chairs, or real beds. We had lunch and school registration and I had a job. In the triage of my life, I couldn’t let myself think about what I was lacking right now.

“Great.” I pasted on some semblance of a happy face, tossed Ben’s lunch into the fridge for me to eat later, and Alice’s in her backpack. “Let’s go meet your teachers.”

Arcadia Creek Elementary School, home of the Panthers, had the friendliest front desk attendant I’d ever met. Her hair was highlighted and curled within an inch of its life, and I was fairly certain none of her perfect teeth were real, but her smile when she welcomed us gave me a warm, buzzy feeling.

“The Walker family, isn’t it?” she thundered when we entered the office, coming out from behind her desk to greet us. She had the kind of voice that didn’t need a megaphone to reach across a room. “Welcome to our little school. We are overjoyed to have you.”

I could sense Ben trying to make up his mind about whether he liked this woman or not, since she was nothing like the staid attendants he was used to. Alice had already begun to soften, though. Her hand still held mine with ferocity, but she wasn’t trying to hide behind my legs any longer.

“I’m Ms. Corbin,” she said, then crouched to reach the kids’ eye level. Her voice lowered in conspiracy. “You both are so lucky—you got the best first and third grade teachers we have. When I read your transcripts, I knew right where you needed to be.”

I glowed a little at this. “That was kind of you.”

She lifted her eyes to me as if just remembering I was in the room. “Oh, don’t mention it, honey.” Her attention returned to the kids. “We want you to have the best experience at Arcadia Creek Elementary. Go Panthers!”

“Isn’t that the same mascot as the high school?” I asked, unable to help it.

“These kids are Panthers now, and they’ll stay Panthers clear until they graduate.” She returned to the computer. “Let me see your driver’s license and I’ll get you in our system, Mrs. Walker.”

“Ms. Walker,” I corrected, fishing in my purse for my wallet. I retrieved my New York license and handed it over.

She put it in a scanner and clicked around the computer for a bit before giving it back. “If you’ll follow me.”

Ben’s teacher was a young woman with curly black hair and a faint drawl. She welcomed him eagerly and showed us around the classroom. She had me write my email address on a Post-It note so she could send me everything I needed to know later. It was seamless. Ben waved at me as his teacher took him by the hand and led him through her back door onto the playground.

Alice’s teacher, Mrs. Vick, was precisely what I’d imagined Mrs. Claus to look like, with white hair drawn back and a rosy-cheeked smile. She spoke softly, ushering Alice toward her desk. “I’ve put you between Lily and Kendall because they are both very kind girls, and they have agreed to help when you need extra guidance. Do you want to come to the playground with me now and we can see if they’ve arrived yet?”

Alice looked at me.

“Go,” I ushered. “I’ll be here to pick you up when school is over.”

She crushed me in a desperate hug that made the back of my eyes prick with emotion.

“We’ll have a lovely day, Ms. Walker. Don’t you worry about us,” Mrs. Vick said, taking Alice by the hand.

I left the school feeling like my world was imploding, and I didn’t quite know why. Cold air stung my nose. I reached for my phone, finding Carter’s number like a reflex. It was ringing and nestled against my ear before I could think better of it.

“Nova? Is something wrong?” He sounded out of breath.

“No.” I left the parking lot and walked along the side of the road. It butted up against the backside of the buildings on Main Street, leading directly to the back door of the diner and the stairs leading up to our apartment. Houses lined the opposite side of the street, with wide yards separated by chain link fences. “I just took the kids in for their first day of school. Everyone seems great. Alice’s teacher is like a nice old grandma, which is perfect for our little girl.”

He was silent. I heard what I thought was him powering off a treadmill. “You take them out of one of the best schools in Manhattan, drop them in the middle of nowhere, and I’m supposed to be glad their new teachers are nice? Honestly, Nova, I don’t know what you want from me.”

“Nothing.” My hand clenched into a fist, my stomach dropping. “I figured you’d appreciate the update, but I can see it’s not a good time. ”

He gave a long-suffering sigh. “Not really, no.”

“Goodbye, Carter.”

“Wait.”

I was tempted to pretend I didn’t hear him and hang up anyway, but I waited a beat too long to make it believable. “What?”

“Will you have the kids FaceTime me after school?”

“Sure.”

“Great. Bye, Nova.”

He hung up before I could say any more.

It took a tremendous feat of self-control to refrain from chucking my phone against the cold concrete. That would only hurt me. I didn’t have the money to replace it.

I was still grumbling inwardly about the conversation when I let myself into the diner. Why did I even bother? He didn’t care, not really, or he would’ve overnighted Alice’s birth certificate immediately instead of waiting days to do it. The man had a secretary. He hadn’t had to do it himself. Anything that helped him feel better about abandoning his family was fair game, I guessed.

The kitchen was empty except for Dal manning the stove, his salt and pepper buzzcut tucked under a hairnet, and Lacey leaning against the counter sipping a cup of coffee.

“Good morning,” I said to them. “Is Gigi in?”

Lacey gave me a sympathetic look. She was half my age—or somewhere around there. I was thirty-one, and nothing teens said these days made any sense to me. This girl, freshly out of high school, was a whole different class, making her pity all the more painful.

I’d reached that point. I was aged.

“She’s brewing coffee,” Lacey said. “Want me to send her over once you’re dressed?”

I glanced down at my clothes. Skinny jeans—I’d thought to change out of my baggy sweatpants before taking the kids to school after Ben had given them a wary once-over—and an NYU crew neck I’d had longer than I’ve known Carter. My hair was in a messy bun, already falling to the side. No wonder the elementary school staff was extra nice to me. I looked like I needed charity.

My pride reared its messy head. “I’ll go speak to her now, but thanks, Lacey.”

She raised her Gen Z eyebrows at me. Why did every young girl have incredible eyebrows these days? Be a kid. You’ll be plucking for the rest of your life.

I pushed the door open, letting myself into the main dining room and straight to Gigi’s side. Her familiar helmet of white hair and rosy smile soothed me at once.

She peeked at me before returning her attention to fiddling with the coffee maker. “Good morning, honey. Are the kids off all right?”

“Got them settled in. It seems like a nice school.”

Gigi’s eyebrows went up.

“Okay, not nice facilities , but the people are.”

“They are,” she agreed, though she sounded distracted. “Stupid machine’s busted again.”

“Can I look at it? Carter had a fancy espresso machine that was always giving us grief. I might be able to do something with it.”

“I want you in the kitchen. Dal plans to show you how to do the chicken today.” She hit something and coffee started pouring into the pot. “Success. I better take this. I have a thirsty table over there.”

I glanced in the direction where she’d gestured and my eyes landed on Dusty. I couldn’t help but look at his arms, the width of them a product—no doubt—of free time in the firehouse gym. All firehouses had gyms, right? Because firefighters were notorious for using their time off to lift weights and build that people-carrying muscle so they could do their job in emergencies. All I could really see when I looked at his biceps, though, was the jar of jam that evaded me this morning.

Dusty could probably have popped the lid off with a flick of the wrist. He had such jar-opening arms.

But those arms were none of my business.

He was seated beside a blonde woman with a couple across from them. It very much looked like a double date. Weird. “Breakfast date?” I asked.

“Planning meeting. That couple is getting married soon.”

Which couple? Dusty and the blonde or the people across from them? “Should I warn them it’s not all it’s cracked up to be?” I muttered.

Gigi turned a sharp eye on me. “Did he make you cynical?”

He could only be Carter. My cheeks burned. I wanted to complain about the phone call I’d made that morning, but it wasn’t a good idea. Gigi was going to regret inviting me if I stayed bitter. “No.”

She hovered, holding the full steaming pot of coffee. “Get me a hot chocolate, will you? Extra sugar.”

“What does that mean? Like extra whipped cream?”

“Yes, ma’am. Tucker only drinks sugar on top of sugar. The boy is going to need a set of root canals one day.”

I pulled down a mug and got to work. By the time I finished piling on a mountain of whipped cream, Gigi had disappeared. I glanced around the room, but she was nowhere to be seen, and the double-date wedding planners were deep in conversation.

So much for needing me in the kitchen with Dal. I put the mug on a small round tray and carried it to their table. “Hot chocolate?” I asked.

The brown-haired guy across from Dusty lifted his hand, sending me a polite smile. “Mine.”

I set it in front of him before turning away, avoiding Dusty’s eye.

“Excuse me?” a woman at another table asked, her helmet of dark hair in a perfect, round fifties-grandmother style. “Would you mind refilling my coffee?”

“Not at all,” I said pleasantly and went for the pot. When I returned to her side, I glanced at Dusty’s table again and found him watching me. A weird flutter went through my stomach. Averting my eyes, I smiled at the woman and turned to hide behind the counter. Where was Gigi? Why had she left me alone? I was supposed to be learning something about chicken, not developing a schoolgirl crush on the hot firefighter.

That thought sent off a chain reaction of ick and disturbing feelings. Gigi or not, I did not need to remain out here any longer.

I moved toward the kitchen when a deep voice spoke behind me. “Nova?”

The hair stood up on my neck, proving I didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. Dusty.