Head Over Heels

She inserted the key into the ignition and called out as she flipped switches, “Taillights, brake lights.” She stepped on the brake pedal, recited, “Back-up lights,” then put it in reverse. “Tag lights on?”

“Yup.”

“Great.” She shifted back into park. “Now I have to check the engine.” She located the hood latch and pulled it. Then, with false confidence, she stepped out into the sun again, moving in front of the engine.

It was a mess. She’d been over it a thousand times in the past two weeks, taken notes, even drawn a rudimentary picture of it with identifying notes, but when she looked at it with no notes or instruction, she was lost.

She could not let Luke know she was anything less than completely sure of herself. She started with the one part she could identify most easily. “First I check the battery to make sure there’s no corrosion and to ensure that the cable’s on tight.” She did so, slowly and deliberately, while she frantically tried to collect her thoughts and figure out what was next.

He must have sensed her confusion, because, without a derisive word, he leaned over the engine, brushing his arm against hers in the process. “What’s that?”

Her bare skin tingled from his touch, and Grace was disgusted with herself. New low, she noted. It had been so long since she’d been with a man that even this lightest of touches from a guy she didn’t even like sent shivers running through her. Pheromones were blind.

She focused on the part he pointed to. “The, uh, the steering-wheel rod,” she said, her voice weak.

“What about it?”

Steering-wheel rod, steering-wheel rod…A flood of information came back to her, right in the nick of time. “I have to make sure that it’s secure, not loose.”

“Right.” He stepped back. “What else?”

She pictured the drawing she’d done. “I need to make sure the brake-fluid level is correct, and that the brake lines are tight and not leaking.” She rattled the list off without looking away from the engine. She could feel Luke behind her, his eyes on her, and she knew if she turned and looked at him, she’d forget all of it.

“I’d check the power steering,” she continued, pointing to various parts as she went along, “power-steering pump, water pump, carburetor, window-washing fluid.” She was on a roll. “I need to check the alternator, to make sure the clamp is on securely and the wires are secured behind it. Then there’s the heater hose, the coolant, the radiator hose, transmission fluid, and oil dipstick.” She checked it all and turned to him triumphantly. “And that’s it for the engine.”

“No, it’s not.”

“It’s not?”

She deflated like a balloon. As hard as she’d tried, as much as she’d concentrated, she’d still managed to forget something.

“You didn’t check your belts.”

Automatically her hand flew to her waist.

“In the engine.”

“I know,” she said, trying to look at him like he was crazy for thinking she’d had anything different in mind. She bent over the engine and tugged at the fan belt. “They shouldn’t give more than an inch.” She turned back to him. “Words to live by, right, Luke? Don’t give an inch.”

“You think I’m inflexible?”

“If the shoe fits…”

“Hey, you’re here, aren’t you?”

She looked at him in disbelief. “Not because of any great flexibility on your part!”

“I’m being more flexible than you think.”

Something in Grace snapped. She was so sick and tired of feeling like a burden to people—to her lawyer, who was letting her pay in installments; to her mother, who was letting them live with her; to Fred Bailey, who had taken it upon himself to get this job for her; and even to Luke, who had been “persuaded” to give her the job against his will and who now had to take the time to teach her the ropes—that she sometimes thought she might just scream.

“Look, Luke,” she said, with as much control as she could muster. “I know you don’t want me here. I know you think I can’t do this, and I know that even if you did think I could do it, you would resent the hell out of the fact that Fred Bailey suggested that you give me the job.”

He gave a short laugh.

She continued without stopping. “I know all of that, but none of it is going to make me quit. All it’s going to do is make me more determined than ever to succeed at this, so you should be glad that, whether you wanted to or not, you just hired yourself the best damn bus driver you could have gotten.” The timbre of her voice rose as she spoke, and she took a moment to breathe and regain her composure. “Now. I’m going to take the test in two days and I’m going to pass it and I’m going to drive the kids to and from school, and I don’t want to hear one more word about how undeserving I am—got it?”

He looked at her for a long moment, during which she doubted the wisdom of her mini-diatribe, then the wisdom of taking the job, then the wisdom of wearing cut-off shorts that made her feel as bloated as a poisoned cat.

The silence went on so long that she was about to ask if he was all right when he spoke.

“Hit your knees,” he said.

Grace’s mouth dropped open. “What?”

He gestured at the ground. “You’re not finished with the test. Hit your knees and identify the parts underneath the vehicle.”

“Oh.” The color came back into her cheeks. “Okay.”

“What did you think I meant?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly. “I knew what you meant. I’m supposed to check the parts underneath, front, back and sides. I know that.”

Smiling to himself, Luke watched Grace bend down and look under the front of the bus. He couldn’t help it, he loved the way she looked in those faded blue cut-offs. Her legs were long and shapely, and already tanned even though it was still early in the summer. Somehow those cut-offs reminded him of endless hot summers, and clumsy passion and foolish optimism.

“Luke?”

He was so lost in thought that he didn’t realize for a moment she was speaking to him. “Yeah. Sorry, I was…thinking about something.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You back now? Should I go on?”

“Absolutely, yes.”

“Okay.” She cleared her throat and turned back to the bus, giving him a pretty dazzling view from behind. “I check the stabilizer bar, guide arm, tie rod, tie rod ends—” she emphasized the tie rod ends, he noticed, since that was one of the items she consistently forgot “—brake lines to the disc brakes in front and the drum brakes in back, coil spring, shock absorber, power-steering pump, Pitman arm.” She took a breath. “Make sure there are no leaks in the power-steering box, radiator hose, fuel pump and water pump.” She stood up and slapped her dirty hands against the front of her shorts. “Everything’s okay from the front.”

“Good.” He’d barely been able to keep his mind on the engine parts, so he hoped she hadn’t forgotten anything major. She got down on her hands and knees at the side and started talking again. “All right, here are the transmission lines, and they are not leaking. The cross beams are secure, no cracks or leaks in the mufflers—” she looked back at him “—of which there are two. If you’re to be believed.”

“There are two,” he confirmed.

“It’s just that I’ve never heard of a car having two mufflers,” she said.

“This isn’t a car, it’s a bus, and there are two mufflers on it.”

“Okay.” She shrugged. “I’ve just never heard of it.”

“But you’ve seen them,” he said, exasperated. “You’re supposed to be looking at them right now.”

“Well, I am.”

He hesitated. “Grace?”

She looked guilty. “What?”

“Are you looking at them? Are you looking at anything as you identify it, or are you just rattling off a bunch of stuff you memorized?”

“Does it make a difference?”

“Does it make a difference?” he repeated incredulously. “Of course it makes a difference!” Grace was hopeless, he decided. There was no way she was going to pass the test unless she was able to charm whoever was administering it. If it was Bob Gaylord or Stan Vanderhof she’d be okay, but if she got Myrna Franz, Grace was in real trouble. “Grace, we’ve spent two weeks going over this damned bus, piece by piece. I know it’s not the most interesting thing you’ll ever do—”

“Luke.”

She spoke so quietly that he stopped.

He looked at her. “What?”

She crooked a finger at him, beckoning him over. “Come here. I’ll show you.”

He went to her and crouched next to her, and tried to ignore the seductive scent of her shampoo…which told him he was too close to her for his own good.

“That,” she said, “is the drive line. We’re checking to make sure the universal joints there—” she identified them correctly “—are secure.” She swept her arm down toward the back tire. “There you have the leaf springs, held on at the spring hanger and secured, as you can see, by a U-bolt. That also holds the rear axle there in place.”

She was right on all counts. He leaned in and looked to make sure. It was hot between them, but he wasn’t sure if it was the engine, the weather or something else.

“That’s the gas tank,” Grace was saying. “That’s the emergency-brake cable, and the oil filter is over there on the right side.” She turned to him, her face just inches from his. The blue of her eyes was so clear he almost felt he could see inside her. “And this—” she gave an ironic smile and pointed at him “—is a guy who is so convinced he’s right about everything and everyone that he’s unwilling to give anything a chance, even when it could be to his own benefit.” She flashed him a devious smile. “How’m I doing?”

He had to hand it to her. Not only had she learned all of the parts of the engine—a feat he had been certain she couldn’t accomplish even in a year—but she had done it in less time than it had taken the last two bus drivers.

Of course, she was wrong about him. He was nothing if not open-minded.

“You’re getting there,” he conceded, with a grudging smile.

A strange moment passed between them. For just a fraction of a moment, Luke thought that maybe he and Grace might someday, somehow, be friends.

But everything that had gone down between them came back to him in a flash. “Friends” seemed unlikely.

Grace’s smile widened. “I’m there, buddy, I’m finished. At least with the outside of the bus and the inside’s a piece of cake. I got everything right and you know it.”

He gave a nod. “I know it.”

“Ha!” She stood up and wiped the dirt off her hands again. “And you hate it,” she said, jabbing a triumphant finger in his direction.

“No, I don’t, Grace, I’m glad. I need you to get this right. I need for you to pass the test.”

She nodded. “I’ll pass.” She swallowed visibly, but kept her chin up in a determined way. “Don’t you worry about that.”

“There you are, Grace, Luke.”

Luke turned to see Fred Bailey making his way across the gravel parking lot. “I’m glad to find you both here. Saves me some time.”

“Hi, Mr. Bailey,” Grace said, sounding like a kid.

“What’s up, Fred?” Luke asked. If Fred Bailey was looking for him, he could be pretty sure it wasn’t to give him a lollipop. Fred only sought him out when there was a problem. Or a woman who needed a job.

The older man took a handkerchief out of his pocket and swabbed his forehead. “Hot as hell out here.”

“It is,” Luke agreed.

“Bet it’s worse in that tin box.” Fred nodded toward the bus.

Grace laughed. “Yeah. It has no air-conditioning.”

Fred seemed genuinely surprised. “No air-conditioning?”

She gestured toward the open bus door. “There’s a fan rigged up to the rearview mirror, but that’s it.”

Luke flashed Grace an impatient look. “There’s nothing wrong with the bus. On hot days, the driver can open the windows and use the fan. It’s just fine in there.”

Grace remained silent.

Fred Bailey looked at her quizzically, then shrugged. “You all know more about these things than I do. Tell you why I’m here.

“It’s about the funding.”

“Maybe I should let you two speak in private,” Grace said, glancing from one to the other.

“No, no. Part of what I have to say concerns you too, Grace.”

She raised her eyebrows. “O-kay…”

“Luke, I’ll get right to the point. Daphne Silvers has decided not to give the school the grant she promised. It was, as you know, substantial.”

Luke’s stomach dropped. Substantial was right. Daphne Silvers had promised the school fifty thousand dollars. He’d worked it into the budget and still come up slightly short of his five-year projections. The fund-raising plans he’d made were meant to fill the leftover gap, not a chunk as large as fifty grand.

“We’ve held an emergency meeting of the board,” Fred went on, “and we’re about to have another meeting this afternoon. Bernard Hall has offered an additional ten thousand on top of the donation he made this spring, but we’re still falling short.”

“Far short,” Luke said. “Though there’s a possibility that the state will give us a grant. I’ve got the paperwork on my desk.”

Fred shook his head. “Unfortunately, the deadline for that was yesterday.”

“What? That’s not possible. I went over every detail. I’m sure the deadline is next week.”

“Typo.” Fred waved his hand airily, as if to say the issue had already been raised and dismissed. “They sent out an amendment, but no one on the staff seems to have gotten it.”

Which meant that he’d have to wait another ten months to apply again. The school had only enough money, assuming full enrollment, to maintain itself for two more years. If that didn’t change, Connor Primary Day School would have to close.

“Why did Mrs. Silvers rescind her offer?” Grace asked.

“That’s beside the point—” Luke began.

“No, no, it’s a good question,” Fred said. “She rescinded her offer because of our policy change on the honor code at the end of last semester.”

Luke nodded miserably. He’d known some oldschoolers would disapprove of the change, but he’d felt strongly that the code, as written, wasn’t fair.

“What change?” Grace wanted to know.

“There was some cheating on the final exam. About six students in Amanda Bittner’s class. The old policy was that if anyone cheated, the entire class would be expelled. But that was plainly unfair.” He looked at Fred Bailey. “Surely you pointed that out.”

Fred nodded and swabbed his forehead again. “Several of us tried valiantly, but Daphne hates scandal. Didn’t want her name attached to anything that smacks of dishonesty. And she’s not the only one—she nearly got Ginger Anderson and Lynn Morrow on board with her.”

“But that’s so narrow-minded!” Grace objected.

Luke agreed privately, but aloud he said, “These are older folks who have been living in this town for half a century or more, Grace. Not only are their personal codes of conduct strict, but they hold almost impossibly high expectations for everyone around them.”

“Exactly so,” Fred agreed. “So we’ve got to walk the straight and narrow, Luke, the straight and narrow. We can’t have anything happen this year that has even the slightest appearance of impropriety.”

Luke nodded. “Absolutely.”

“Mr. Bailey, you said this had something to do with me,” Grace said, her voice a little smaller than usual. “I hope my presence here hasn’t been the cause of any trouble, what with my divorce from Michael and all.”

Luke shot a fast look at Fred. That hadn’t even occurred to him. Admittedly, Luke hadn’t wanted to hire Grace, but he wouldn’t stand for her termination on the basis of her personal life.

Fred looked surprised. “Certainly not, my dear. It’s nothing to do with your divorce. It’s about your job here.”

Grace swallowed visibly. “My job?”

The older man nodded and looked regretful. “I’m afraid so. One of the budgeting proposals before the board is to cut out transportation.”

Chapter Five

Grace’s stomach dropped. They might cut out transportation? As in, she might lose the only job she could get?

It was totally consistent with the year she’d had, she thought cynically. She’d lost her husband, lost her home, begged Luke Stewart to give her a job as a bus driver, and now she was going to lose even that.

Obviously—and this could not be overstated—she had really ticked off the Man Upstairs somewhere along the line.

“We can’t cut out transportation,” Luke said, with the merest glance her way. “People are counting on it.”

The glance was not lost on Fred Bailey. He followed it to Grace, then said, “There are other jobs.”

Luke hesitated a small but noticeable fraction of a moment. “Students are counting on it,” he said. “Some of these kids live miles away, with parents who, for whatever reason, can’t drive them to school. If we lose transportation, we lose students, and that means we lose revenue.”

“Tell me something, Luke. How many buses do we have here?”

“Two.”

“For how many students?”

Luke thought for a moment. “About twenty-five.”

Fred grimaced and swabbed his forehead again. “That’s only about ten percent of the student body. Last time I looked, we weren’t making much profit on transportation fees. With the cost of oil going up, we might even be working at a loss.”

“No way.” Luke shook his head. “We’re making several hundred dollars’ profit with each transportation contract we have.”

Fred gave a shrug that said he wasn’t quite buying it. “We’ll talk about it another time,” he said dismissively. “We’re not making any changes immediately.”

Luke expelled a tense breath and stood very rigid beside Grace. “I hope a few alternative plans were introduced.”

“Of course, of course,” Fred said. Grace got the impression that he’d already made up his mind about it. “Now there’s just one more thing.”

Grace could almost feel Luke’s agitation growing.

“What’s that?” he asked, clipped.

“As you may recall, the board wants the staff to be certified in CPR.”

“That’s right.” Luke looked at Grace. “Did you say you were certified?”

“Well, I took a class at the Red Cross, but I don’t have the actual certification.” She was about to add that she’d signed up for a refresher class at the firehouse already, but Luke interrupted her.

“That’s okay,” he said. “You can just take the course here. I should have mentioned it before. It’s a new policy, and I wasn’t thinking about it when I hired you.”

“She’s not the only one who needs the certification,” Fred said, raising an eyebrow at Luke.

“I know, Libby Doyle in the math department is already scheduled for a class in Dover this summer when she goes to visit her family.”

“What about you?”

“Me?”

For a second, Grace felt sorry for him. She’d been to his office; she knew he had a lot piled on his desk already. Although she questioned whether they needed to work on the bus so early in the morning, she did believe that it had taken some effort on his part to carve out that hour or so he had to do it.

“The entire staff needs to be certified,” Fred was saying. “My secretary already looked into it and discovered that the Red Cross is sponsoring an all-day course at the firehouse next month.”

“What’s the date?”

“Saturday the 20th,” Grace answered. “I saw the sign at the pharmacy and thought at the time it would be a good idea to refresh my memory, so I signed up.”

“Wonderful!” Fred was clearly delighted. “Such a clever girl. You are your mother’s daughter.” He turned back to Luke.

“So all we need to do is sign you up.”

“I’ll be there,” Luke said, sounding as if it were the last thing on earth he wanted to do.

“Excellent,” Fred said, patting his handkerchief along the back of his neck. “Glad you’re both willing to pitch in this way.”

Luke nodded, as if he’d had a choice, which everyone knew he hadn’t. Then he looked at his watch. “I’m sorry,” he said to Grace, “but I have to get inside for a conference call in fifteen minutes, and I’m not going to be around in the morning. How about if we finish this tomorrow evening? Say, around seven?”

“It’s a date,” she said, automatically.

He didn’t correct her, but he might as well have for the dark look he gave her. “Seven,” he repeated. “We’ll do one last drill. After that, you’re on your own.”

* * *

“When are we going home?”

“We are home,” Grace said to Jimmy for what seemed like the tenth time the next day. “For now.” She stabbed the ground with a trowel, thinking of Michael, and tossed the dirt aside. It was late to be planting tomatoes and basil, but she’d bought mature plants, and with a little luck she’d have a midsummer harvest. “You’re going to have to think of it that way.”

Jimmy rubbed his eyes with dirty hands, streaking mud across his lightly freckled face. His blond hair was sprinkled with dirt, like powdered sugar on toast. “But it’s not like home.”

“No.” Grace tried to temper her frustration at having to make him feel better about the move when she was having so much trouble feeling good about it herself. “For one thing, you’ve got this nice big yard to play in.”

“Yeah, and no one to play with.” She didn’t like the sulky edge to his voice. It sounded too familiar. She herself had said almost the same thing to her mother last night when they were talking about the unlikely possibility of Grace ever having a date again.

It’s not like there’s anyone to go out with in this town even if I wanted to, which I don’t.

“So you’ll have to get out and meet new people,” Grace said, like a tape recording of her mother.

“There are no new people here.”

She turned to him, startled. It was exactly what she’d said, but she had reason to say it. Blue Moon Bay held on to its inhabitants the way a spiderweb held flies…once you were trapped here it was difficult to leave. It was hard to say whether that was because people loved it so much or whether it was just too much trouble to move away. Unless, of course, one was an attractive eligible male.

But whatever problems Grace had with moving back, it should have been a dream town for a kid, with the ocean and the bay and the freedom and safety of living in a town where everyone looked out for everyone else.

“Everyone here is new to you,” Grace said.

“Everyone here is old!”

Grace laughed. “Come on, you’ve met Jenna’s kids.”

“They’re babies. They’re only, like, eight.”

“Well, don’t worry about it, because when you start summer school you’ll meet a bunch of new kids.”

“That’s another thing,” Jimmy said, like a little lawyer with his Evidence Against Blue Moon Bay all lined up. “Why do I have to go to summer school? If we were back home, with Dad, I’d get the summer off like normal kids. Like my friends.”

Grace winced inwardly. He was absolutely 100 percent right. But if he were back home, he’d be going to a school that was less academically challenging than Connor. “Well, in this case it’s a good thing you have summer school, because you will meet kids your age there. See? So it’s all working out perfectly.”

“Dad’s not here,” Jimmy muttered, kicking a bag of topsoil.

She was tempted to point out that Dad had seldom been around in New Jersey either, that whole days had passed when he got home after Jimmy had gone to bed and was asleep in the morning when Jimmy got up for school…but pointing out Michael’s parental inadequacies wouldn’t really make her feel better, and it for sure wouldn’t make Jimmy feel better.

Grace set her trowel down and pulled off her gardening gloves. “He’s not at our old home either, honey,” she said gently, putting an arm around her son’s narrow shoulders. “You know that. It’s not as if we could just drive back to New Jersey and walk into our old life. We’re making a new life, you and me. And if we can just be a little open-minded about it, we might be able to make a really great life here. Maybe we won’t even want to leave.” But she couldn’t imagine things turning out that way.