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KATARINA GAZED AT THE brass knob, its surface marred by the sweaty palms of generations of eager young minds, and realized that the whole problem was she could imagine what might happen. Not with the mysterious biker. That was out of the realm of imagination. But with the class.
They’d hate her. She would bore them. They’d ask her questions she couldn’t answer. She’d run out of things to say. People would get up and leave early. And on and on.
And the really frustrating part about it all? She had absolutely no experience when it came to dealing with these kinds of anxieties. Up until the shooting, she had been fearless, some coworkers at Curtis Worldwide Home Products Inc., would have said even reckless, especially those she had passed by in her rapid rise to senior vice president for finance. But then, she had never had a reason to doubt herself.
From an early age, Katarina’s single mother had taught her to be independent. This was the same single mother whose own independent streak now took her to Antarctica to carry out geological research. And why should Katarina have doubted her word? After all, Katarina had been blessed with the two best qualities a single child could have: the ability to amuse herself with long hours of reading, and the self-confidence to believe she could do anything if she set her mind to it. She had succeeded in school, college and business school, graduating at the top of her class and sailing into a dream job out on the West Coast. If someone needed a report by midnight, she could produce it. A partner to climb Kilimanjaro? No problem.
But ever since a bullet had ripped though her right knee, that kind of fortitude, some might even say bravado, seemed to have vanished.
Still, the mantra “Zemanova women are tough” had been needlepointed into every pillow in the house in a figurative sense, and Katarina hadn’t dared tell her mother and grandmother about her anxieties. Instead, she had assured them that there was no need for either to fly out during her long convalescence. And it went without saying that she’d thrown herself into her postoperative physical therapy with the same overachieving ardor that had propelled her to accomplish so much already.
Despite the tedium and the pain, she had been all smiles for her doctors and therapists. Over the phone to her family, she had conveyed nothing but upbeat sentiments. When her company said, “Take as much time as you need before you come back,” she had said that she was sure she wouldn’t be long. Yet, deep down she knew it was a lie.
She was already drifting, unable to make decisions, even the simplest like whether to wear brown pants or black, to have coffee or tea, to do the crossword puzzle in pen or in pencil, or not to do it at all.
So after four months of physical recovery, she had gravitated back to the one place that had always felt safe no matter where life had taken her—Babička’s house in Grantham. Lena had never challenged her, didn’t ask her about her short or long-term plans, and didn’t question her feelings. Until this matter of the Adult School, that is.
So Katarina mustered the same family backbone that had gotten her grandmother through early widowhood as a recently arrived immigrant. It had also gotten her mother through college and graduate school raising a young child alone. Alone because she had insisted from the moment she’d discovered she was pregnant that the father was out of the picture, and refused to reveal his name. Likewise Katarina now took a deep breath and reached out, adding her own sweaty palm to those that had come before her. What was Franklin Roosevelt’s adage: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself?”
She pushed the heavy wooden door with so much conviction that it swung wildly and banged into the inside wall. Well, that got everyone’s attention, she thought before saying out loud in a forthright manner, “Good evening, everyone.”
She crossed the floor to the desk at the front of the classroom, listening to the distinctive squishing sound made by the crepe soles of her shoes. She unpeeled her raincoat, dropped it over the back of the chair and wiped aside her wet hair. Finally looking up—she could delay the inevitable no longer—she offered a tight-lipped smile to the students in her night school class. Why wasn’t she surprised at what she saw?
Clearly, Babička’s maneuverings had gone beyond securing her this part-time post. Among the eager faces looking to her for guidance and inspiration were several of her grandmother’s friends and aquaintances.
Katarina nodded hello, first to Carl Bedecker who sat front and center. Carl’s wine-colored V-neck sweater had a Kiawa Island logo stitched on the upper left, above his prominent bulging stomach that stretched the knit fabric below. He greeted her with a beaming smile showing somewhat yellowed teeth. The twinkle in his rheumy eyes brought to mind a kindhearted Norman Rockwell figure on a Saturday Evening Post cover until…
Until he winked at her with what was definitely not a Norman Rockwell kind of smile. Katarina sighed internally but tried to tell herself to be charitable. According to Lena, who had felt the need to catch her up on the local gossip in the first hour of her arrival, Carl’s wife, Trudy, had passed away two years ago. Since then he had let his two sons take over the family nursery, and with too much time on his hands, he was at something of a loss.
Carl is probably just lonely, Katarina told herself, possibly a little rusty when it comes to social interaction.
Carl winked again.
Forget rusty. Katarina pretended she didn’t see the gesture and shifted her attention to a woman on Carl’s left. She was well into her seventies, but talk about denial. Multiple hoop earrings dangled from her earlobes and her short, spiky hair had phosphorescent purple highlights. This could only be Wanda Garrity, no question about it.
Wanda was a member of her grandmother’s Thursday tennis doubles group. Babička had told her that Wanda always brought her Boston terrier, Tiger, to the tennis courts even though dogs were strictly forbidden. In fact, recreation department authorities had even posted a sign to that effect, expressly with Tiger in mind. Wanda had taken absolutely no notice, obviously considering herself a higher authority.
The rec department hadn’t dared to argue.
Katarina couldn’t help noticing the enormous tote taking up most of Wanda’s desk. Katarina didn’t need X-ray vision to hazard a guess as to what was inside. That the bag jiggled at random intervals confirmed her suspicions.
The door closed softly behind her and Katarina turned.
“Sorry I’m late,” came a gravelly voice. “I don’t move as swiftly as I used to.”
Katarina immediately recognized Rufus Treadway, moving slowly with the aid of a walker. As one of the vocal leaders of the black community, Rufus was an institution in Grantham. He also owned the Nighttime Bar whose decidedly downscale, painted cinder block exterior defied the gentrification of Grantham with a confident sense of reverse snobbery. The Nighttime Bar had been serving Rolling Rock on tap for more than sixty years, ever since Rufus’s late father decided to change his gas station into a watering hole. The dark wood stools with cracked faux leather seat covers had supported the weight of countless patrons. Everyone from governors residing in the local mansion, to garbage men sharing rooms in boardinghouses. They all came, drawn by the beer, camaraderie and quality of the live jazz.
Katarina smiled and held her hand out to an empty chair in the front. “The hip replacement still acting up? Lena told me you had had an operation not too long ago,” she said. She rested against the front of the teacher’s desk to take the weight off her own sore leg.
Rufus nodded. “Don’t you know it? The doctors tell you it only takes three months to recover, but they don’t tell you that those three months will be hell.”
“If you knew ahead of time, you’d never go through with it,” Katarina said. She knew only too well from personal experience. “Still, I know that my grandmother is expecting you to be out there for the summer seniors’ basketball league, so you’ve got to keep up with your rehab.” She reached around for her briefcase and pulled out the class list.
“For those of you who don’t know me—or my grandmother—” Carl chuckled a little too loudly “—my name’s Katarina Zemanova, and I’m your instructor for ‘Fundamentals of Personal Investing’. By way of an introduction, I recently moved back to Grantham from California where I was the financial officer for a major household products company. So, not only can I teach investing, but I also know more than most people about bleach.”
She saw Wanda rummage around in her enormous bag and lift what looked to be a white tennis skirt. Katarina cleared her throat. Wanda let it slide back in.
“Anyhow, why don’t I take the roll so I can put some names to faces for those of you I don’t already know?” As she worked through the list of about fifteen students, Katarina made small talk, putting people at ease. Finally she reached the last name on the list. “Worthington. Matthew Worthington.” She looked up. “Matthew Worthington?”
A pale hand rose from a back corner of the room. “Just Matt,” came the reed-thin voice.
Katarina slanted a few degrees to get a better view. She slanted a few more. “Just Matt” was maybe all of sixteen. The spray of pimples across his forehead confirmed that his adolescent hormones were making their presence felt. Unfortunately pimples weren’t the problem. His age was, at least as far as the rules were concerned.
Katarina worried her bottom lip before saying something to that effect.
“I know that…ah…this class is supposed to be for adults,” he said as if sensing her ambivalence. His voice cracked as painfully as chalk on the blackboard, and he halted in midstream, visibly gulping for air. “I thought that, though…you know…that maybe you might make an exception since what I want to do is…ah…maybe find out about saving for college? You know?”
“I do know,” Katarina said. “I went to college on a scholarship and worked jobs the whole time.” Zemanova women did not shrink from responsibilities or “Cry in their mlieko” as Babička was want to say.
“So, far be it from me to discourage your desire. Still, given the structure of the Adult School and the fact that you probably already have homework from earlier today, wouldn’t it be better if your mother or father attends the class instead?”
“That might be kind of hard. My mom’s dead.”
Katarina felt a little piece of her heart crack off. She rested her palm on the desk and gripped the corner hard with her fingers. “I’m so sorry,” she said, feeling inadequate with her clichéd response, even if the sentiment was genuine. “Not only for your loss but the fact that you’ll shouldering more responsibility than most young people your age.” She paused, groping for a solution.
“What about your father? Would that be possible?” she asked.
The boy cleared his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing painfully. “It’s not like we talk all that much.”
The door opened behind her, but Katarina didn’t turn around. She was trying to stay focused on the teenager. “I know how parents can be busy, especially single parents. Still…” She waited, trying to coax a reply.
Matt tucked his chin into his concave chest. The writing on his T-Shirt, Pirates Are Way Cooler Than Ninjas, cupped his jawbone like a cotton nest. She saw his lips move, but couldn’t hear his words. “What’s that? I didn’t quite get what you said.”
“What he said was that he doesn’t like to bother me, which may explain why he failed to let me know where he went this evening.” The voice, a deep baritone, came from behind.
Katarina watched as all the students shifted their eyes, and collectively held their breath. And for a fraction of a second, given the mean age of her students, she had this crazy hope that the Adult School kept a defibrillator on the premises. She glanced down at her watch. Not even fifteen minutes into her first class and already she was facing a crisis.
“Mr. Worthington, I presume?” she said, giving a pretty good imitation of an offended schoolteacher. She slowly turned around while heartily congratulating herself on being a better actress than she would have imag—
Holy mother of…
The darkness of night hadn’t done justice to the way his shoulders filled out the jacket. Nor had it allowed an onlooker to see how the angles of his face came together in a combination that wasn’t so much handsome as arresting. And now, without the helmet, Katarina could see how his inky-black hair tumbled over his brow and curled around the collar of his leather jacket. Lines fanned out from his dark green eyes, lines that didn’t seem to go with anything remotely resembling smiling. The grim line of his full lips and the determined set of his jaw confirmed that judgment.
Forget offended. Before her stood a smoldering Brontë hero. Heathcliff or Mr. Rochester. No, definitely Heathcliff.
“Actually it’s Mr. Brown,” he said, but he didn’t bother to shift his gaze from the back of the room.
Katarina pushed away from the desk, wincing with the sudden pressure on her bad leg. “Sorry. Mr. Brown. I just assumed that you and Matt had the same last name. My mistake.” She held out her hand. “I’m Katarina Zemanova, the teacher for this class, and even though these may not be the best of circumstances, I am delighted to welcome you here.” She might not feel brave inside, but Katarina could at least make a good show of it on the surface.
The man glanced down at her hand as if not quite sure what to make of her gesture. There certainly was no immediate reply, and just when she thought she would have to rescind her invitation, he abruptly thrust out a hand.
The brief contact should have passed without fanfare, except for the annoying little voice in her head that kept pointing out how big his hand was, and how the pads of his fingers were rough with calluses. How his skin was cold to the touch but somehow warm, very warm within. Maybe, just maybe, that little voice had read too many of her grandmother’s romances?
Katarina ended the handshake after one firm up-and-down motion; then she reflexively tried to wipe away a lingering tingling sensation. “Won’t you have a seat then?” she offered.
He stood still and silent.
It was like pulling teeth. “I know how anxious you must have been, but now that you’ve found your son, you can relax.”
“There’s no relaxing when you have a teenager,” Rufus said from his seat in the front. That raised a nervous twitter from several students.
Katarina looked around the classroom. All eyes were on her to do something. Except two green ones that stayed focused on Matt. The cords in his neck strained like the stretched lines on a skiff heeling hard against the wind. His nostrils narrowed as he breathed in deeply.
Katarina rubbed the side of her nose. She could do this. What was dealing with a little father/son strife when she’d faced down a bullet? She could do this, right? Right?
“Perhaps I could be of service?” Carl said, starting to rise. “I’m the father of two grown sons.”
Katarina cleared her throat.
“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary, Carl,” she said, smiling, buying a few moments as she figured out what she was going to do. “You see, ah…I was thinking that rather than hold up the class any further, perhaps it would be better if I…ah…if I chatted with Mr. Brown and Matt at the break? Yes, the break. That way, we could get on with the lesson and not hold everyone up.” She glanced around the classroom, looking for a response.
There arose an audible sigh of agreement, as well as the buzz from someone’s hearing aid. Marginally more confident, she turned back to the new arrival. “So, Mr. Brown, if you’d just take a seat…” She pointed to a chair next to his son in the back. And was greeted by an even larger frown…
THE TEACHER COULD HAVE been indicating the path of Halley’s comet for all Ben was aware because the plain truth was that he wasn’t listening. All his attention, all the mounting stress that had constricted his airway and frazzled his nerves to the point he couldn’t even feel the tips of his fingers, had been focused on finding Matt—his son.
His son. He still couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that he had a son. If someone had ever suggested that he’d be one of those men who nervously patrolled the sidelines of their child’s soccer game or attended piano recitals, listening proudly to halting renditions of “Für Elise,” he would have scoffed, poured two fingers of the finest single malt scotch and gone on about his business of making money for him and a bunch of people who already had too much money for their own good.
Well, scoff away. He had become one. A father. An instant father to be exact. And no matter what critical words had been said about George Benjamin Brown—and there were maybe too many—he had never been accused of shirking his responsibilities. Even when it came to something as uncomfortable as fatherhood.
Ben narrowed his eyes and reassured himself that the skinny kid slumped over in a chair in the back of the classroom was indeed his son, Matt, and not some imposter. Then he let go a giant breath of air he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Was it always going to be like this? The anxiety? It was one thing to mentor up-and-coming young bucks in the workplace. If they performed well, he recommended them for a fat bonus. If they fell flat on their faces, he had had no qualms about giving them the heave-ho. Either way, it wasn’t personal.
But with parenting, everything was personal. He couldn’t fire his kid because he skipped out at night without asking permission or leaving a note, nor could he promote him if he made his bed two days in a row. As someone who had never known his own father, the underlying assumption that there existed an unwavering bond of love between a father and a son was an alien concept to him. Would he ever feel it? Even more scary, given his own emotional development, would he mess up his son forever? It was this fear that kept him up at night and kept him from reaching out to get closer. So why he had panicked when Matt had failed to show up?
As an afterthought, Ben glanced over at the teacher who was moving her lips and pointing her finger, giving every sign of talking to him. For the first time, he looked at her, really looked at her. It allowed him to notice the way her mouth formed a small circle while her cupid’s-bow upper lip puckered as she was waiting. Waiting for him to say something.
And that’s when it dawned on him that she was the one. Not the one, but the same woman he had met earlier. The one with the flyaway umbrella and pint-size grandmother and that unexpectedly mesmerizing combination of vulnerability and determination. Though the elements had assaulted her, she had stood resolute.
Tearing his gaze away from her delectable mouth and dove-gray eyes, he tried to focus on her outstretched arm. The gesture to “Sit down” was clear as daylight, and it was one he had seen all too often from his own frustrated teachers.
Ben hesitated. All he wanted to do was collect Matt, find a quiet corner and lay into the kid for scaring him half to death.
“So, Mr. Brown, if you’d just take a seat,” he heard her say.
Ben cleared his throat. “Listen, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt your class. I was just looking for Matt.”
“Well, now that you’ve found him, why don’t you sit next to him? As you can see, we certainly have room for one more.”
He backpedaled. “Taking a class wasn’t really what I had in mind when I headed out tonight.”
“Yes, but you’ll never know if it’s a good idea unless you try, correct? Anyway, just think of the motto printed in the front of the course booklet, something along the lines of education doesn’t end with graduation.” She scanned the class as if looking for confirmation.
“‘Education: the Wellspring of Life,’” Carl said. He opened his copy and showed the class how he’d highlighted that declaration in Day-Glo yellow. He turned back at Katarina and beamed. “And that goes double when the teacher’s a pretty gal like you.”
“You’re not supposed to say things like that anymore,” Wanda chastised. “Though I suppose in this postfeminist era of Camille Paglia, chauvinistic statements are now considered meta-statements of female sexuality.”
That had everyone stumped.
Spare me, Ben growled inwardly. Now he was prepared to say, “Thanks for the offer, but tonight is really not the night,” when he noticed the way the teacher’s auburn hair framed her face like a maelstrom of fiery locks….
Maybe the confrontation with Matt could wait, at least until the first break in the class? Then, after offering his apologies, they’d be outta there, at which point he’d attach a chain so strong to the kid, nothing short of heavy-duty bolt cutters could set him free.
That settled, he made his way to the back of the room. Not without considerable difficulty, he scrunched his oversize body into the desk next to Matt.
“Hey, what do you mean taking off without a word to anyone?” he whispered to Matt. “I was worried sick.”
Matt chewed on his lips. The top one was already worked raw. He stuck out his pointy chin, making more conspicuous the few wispy whiskers that protruded at haphazard angles. “How was I to know you’d be worried?” he said. “Anyway, it’s not like I haven’t been looking after myself for a long time already.”
Ben didn’t know anything about fatherhood, but he knew enough from his own rough growing up that bravado was a handy mechanism for hiding fear. Matt had already had to live with more fear than most adults ever encountered in their lifetimes. With no close relatives to turn to, Ben had learned from the lawyer in Colorado that Matt had been left alone to witness his mother’s painful decline.
“Well, now there’s someone around to look after you,” he told him as matter-of-factly as he could.
Matt scowled at him as if he were the spawn of Satan. Clearly, the gesture hadn’t had the desired effect. “You don’t need to. Anyway, you should be relieved. All I wanted to do was take an adult school class. It’s not like I was doing drugs or going to some sex orgy.”
“What do you know about sex orgies?” The boy was being sarcastic, wasn’t he? “I mean, what do you know about sex orgies?”
Matt rolled his eyes. “Do you really want to know?”
Ben held up his hand. “Okay, not really, at least not right now. We’ll leave that discussion for another night. But for now, you’ve got to understand, I was sick with worry. If I hadn’t gotten hold of your friend…what’s his name, Victor…Vincent…whatever…I never would have known you’d enrolled in some night school class.”
“It’s Verjesh, not Victor. Can’t even get my one friend’s name straight?”
“I’m not good with names. So sue me.” Ben scanned the class. “What is this course anyway? By the look of the average age, I’d say it was something to do with the virtues of bran and regular exercise.”
“Do you always have to be so sarcastic? You know, there are some people who try to find out what’s going on before they pass judgment.”
“Are you saying I’m judg—”
The teacher’s voice floated above the clanking of the heating pipes. “Iris Phox, the director of the Adult School, had located a guest lecturer for us tonight.”
Ben tried to count to ten to rein in his temper. He made it as far as six. “—that I’m judgmental? Okay, maybe I am, but you’ve got to admit—”
“If anyone can sniff out a speaker, it’s Iris.” Wanda’s strident voice came out loud and clear.
The class chuckled.
“—that if you’d just stop to eval—” Ben stopped midrant.
“Yes, well…he’s a former leading light in the investment community, but now something of a recluse here in…”
