Touched by Angels (Angels Everywhere #3)(68)

A second pause while Jenny was left to wonder who was at the other end of the line.

“Of course. . . . No, it’s no problem whatsoever.” She pressed the mouthpiece against her shoulder. “It’s Trey. He wants to talk to you. Do you want me to tell him you’re here, or would you rather I made up some excuse and told him you were out for the day?”

Fourteen

Emilio was absent from school the following afternoon. Brynn’s heart sank. She couldn’t very well cancel the most important test this term because one student hadn’t bothered to show.

Emilio had left school the day before without returning to class, but when Brynn had tried to reach him later, the phone had gone unanswered. With her own commitments, she hadn’t been able to seek out Roberto, nor had she been able to talk to him.

Her day felt incomplete without some form of contact with Roberto. Little by little she’d opened her heart to Emilio’s older brother. There was such passion in Roberto, such intensity. The other men she’d dated had been neither hot nor cold. Nothing excited them. Not injustice. Not good fortune. Not tickets to a play-off football game. Brynn had been left wondering what would happen if any of them ever won the lottery.

There was no doubt in her mind, however, where Roberto stood on any number of subjects. He rarely hesitated to make his opinions known. Although she often disagreed with him, she appreciated the fact that he was willing to take a stand. He cared deeply for those he loved. That was what had attracted her to him in the beginning.

Every time he kissed her the experience left her shaken. One thing was certain: Roberto Alcantara would never be a lukewarm lover.

“Is everyone ready for their midterms?” she asked the class. Standing in front of the room, she cradled the test papers against her chest.

A low rumble of responses came from her students. As the papers were being handed out, Brynn noted that Emilio wasn’t the only student absent that day. Modesto’s desk was conspicuously empty. His condition remained listed as serious, but from what she’d heard he would soon be upgraded to satisfactory.

Mike Glasser was gone as well. That disappointed her. She’d tried hard to bring the loner out of his shell, but nothing had worked. His attitude baffled her. When she looked directly at him, she assumed his mind was a thousand miles away, yet when she quizzed him, he knew the answers. The boy was keenly intelligent, but he refused to apply himself.

Brynn walked around the room while her class took the exam. This was by far the most important test she’d given, and she’d worked long hours composing the essay questions. Her students’ responses were the best way she had of gauging how well she’d done her job.

The class discussions were thought-provoking and often heated. Brynn was thrilled that she could make her students care about what had happened in the world fifty years earlier. She felt it was important for them to do more than memorize dates and names.

Her goal was for them to look back at history and learn from the past. She wanted them to gain insight and perspective from a journal written by a teenage Jewish girl, who, despite the years separating their worlds, wasn’t unlike them. It excited Brynn when her students recognized that they shared the same dreams, the same aspirations, as Anne Frank.

More important, Brynn wanted her students to reason through this material and willingly share their feelings with her. A number of the test questions had no right or wrong answers. All she wanted was for each of her students to reflect on this time period in American and European history and then express their thoughts.

When Brynn strolled past Suzie’s desk, she was surprised to discover that the girl’s paper was blank.

Unwilling to break the concentration of any of the others, Brynn resisted the urge to ask Suzie if something was wrong. She noticed that the girl wore a maternity top and wondered if anyone else recognized Suzie was pregnant.

Pen in hand, Suzie briefly acknowledged Brynn, then bent forward and started to write.

As Brynn walked past Emilio’s empty desk, she couldn’t help wondering what had kept him from class. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t known about this test or realized its significance. Brynn had been talking about it for several days, reviewing the material so it would be fresh in their minds. Now and again she’d purposely screw up the dates and would take pride when someone, often a student she wouldn’t expect to know the difference, would correct her.

After class had been dismissed, Brynn quickly reviewed the test results and was pleased with what she read. Because she was anxious to talk to Emilio, she left school as soon as she could without checking for messages. She rarely received anything more than the dittoed sheets the school printed for all staff members. With the advent of Christmas, and most all the classes winding down, she didn’t expect anything of real importance.

Eager to see Roberto, Brynn walked to his garage first. The sky was dark with thick gray clouds the color of tempered steel, and the wind added an extra chill to the late afternoon. Nevertheless, Brynn was happy. She’d had her first real date with Roberto, and even though their evening had ended abruptly, their time together had proved what she’d long suspected. Roberto cared about her the same way she did about him.

Brynn’s parents were anxious for her to come home for Christmas, but she’d already decided against making the trip. She hadn’t told her mother, and wouldn’t, but she preferred to stay right here in New York with Roberto. She’d mentioned him in passing several times, and in the last telephone conversation, she’d confessed she was strongly attracted to him.