Donald parked the truck up on the sidewalk and looked up at the old Hanley place. The shutters were closed but her car was in front. He'd driven past the school on the way there and checked the lot to make sure he wasn't going to arrive at her place too early, he wasn't sure what time schoolteachers got out anymore, especially as these days there were far more kids per adult.
It was odd, he hadn't felt anxious or nervous at any point in their friendship so far, not up to this point anyway. After she'd left his house five days previously that Friday night he had taken his scrapbook up to bed with him and looked through the pictures and drawings and embarrassing adolescent musings until he fell asleep. It hadn't taken long for him to drift off, she hadn't bored or tired him, physically he had felt a little tired and their encounter definitely resulted in a better night's sleep than he would usually get. But he had not sat there like a teenager excited about his new relationship, neither did he feel relieved like a pensioner that she was gone and he could sleep, he reflected on the previous hours and only felt amused that the evening had gone the way it had, he did not wonder what would happen the next time they saw each other, whatever happened would happen. His body and mind were relaxed and he was able to read his old memories and smile at them and he slept better than he had in months.
He looked down at the bag on the passenger seat, he'd brought some books and photograph albums for her. He suddenly wondered in a sort of paranoia that he hadn't felt since he was a teenager whether she was even interested in any of the old shit he had to offer her. He wasn't a young man so he could bring her nothing romantic- though she did not want that anyway… his grandson took preserves, oil, cornflour to his girlfriend's parents, maybe he should have done that. Jeez, he hadn't even brought beer- that was the normal thing to take to friends. It'd been so long since he'd had friends he'd forgotten and he'd turned into some old fart bringing round his old photograph albums so he could torture her with stories about when he wasn't so close to death.
He considered for a moment leaving them in the car but then shook his head. He knew she'd liked the diary, he would leave them for her to look at if she wanted to, there was no law saying she had to. He looked up through the dusty window to see her standing at her porch looking down at him.
"Are you coming in then?" she smiled and called out to him, she folded her arms, she was wearing her work clothes, "or are you going to sit in your car all night?"
Donald got out of the truck and brought the bag with him, "You have to be nice to me, I'm old and infirm," he said dryly as he shut the door.
"Yeah, yeah," she smiled up at him as he walked to join her on the porch, "that won't work on me," she told him and she kissed his cheek as he touched her arm in a sort of half-hug hello. "Come on, I'm dying to open that bottle."
They walked into her house and Carrie shut the door behind them and swept the faded green curtain across the doorframe, Donald looked up at it and smiled, his parents had had a curtain across the door, they'd only ever closed it in winter to keep out draughts. She smiled up at him and he followed her down the hall to her kitchen. "Is Tom at Lois's?" she asked as they walked.
"Yep. She was at ours on Monday afternoon, it's his turn to talk to her folks."
"Do you ever leave them alone in the house, Donald?" she smiled and raised an eyebrow as she brought two glass tumblers out from a cupboard and set them on the side before reaching for a cloth and wiping them dust-free.
"I haven't," he started and she looked up in surprise and spoke.
"They were seeing each other when Murph was still at school, that was nearly four months ago!"
"Really?" he raised an eyebrow.
"They're what, 19? They're steadies and they haven't had any time alone together?" she asked, "You should come here, give them the house for a day."
"I think her parents are nutso religious types," Donald smiled, "I have offered, Carrie. Tom hasn't taken me up on it, it's their choice." He watched her as she removed the screw top lid from the red wine and poured them a tumbler each. "Between you and me," he told her as she handed him the glass, "I'm not worried. Tom hasn't really had a problem in the past with me being in the house when it comes to girfriends. I say in the house, but hey, I always sat out on the porch with the radio on, usually pretending to read a book, or hid out in the barn pretending to look at one of Coop's machines. He's different with Lois, they always want to sit and talk to me or just sit and talk to each other."
"That's nice," Carrie smiled and she shrugged, "I guess."
"It is nice," Donald agreed, "I'm glad he has a good friend like her."
"Friendship," Carried moved her glass to his and clinked it before taking a sip of her wine. They stood at her kitchen table and drank their wine, Donald drank and looked around at her small kitchen, he'd put his plastic bag down on the table when he'd come into the room and had not felt any need to draw attention to it, he looked down at his host standing next to him, "That's not bad," she looked up at him and back down at the wine, "it's usually just a beer for me at the end of a school day, there are a few bottles of wine kicking about downstairs but I don't want to open any if it's just me."
"I haven't had wine since Christmas," Donald admitted.
"What do you guys do at Christmas?" Carrie smiled.
"just get together, same as most days I guess, but we tell stories and play board games, the kids like it. Do you go to friends'?"
"The last three years, yeah," she smiled, "we do the same, lots more drinking probably than you guys though." She shrugged, "mom and dad liked to drink," she said quietly, "I mean, not like- like alcoholics, but a good wine, that was what Christmas, what birthdays, holidays, what made them special for them. I guess that's why I don't want to drink on special occasions. I don't really think a special day should be special because you don't quite remember it."
There was a pause, "but you still do drink at Christmas and birthdays," he clarified.
"Yeah, but that's not what it's about," she blushed and looked down at her glass on the table, her hand stayed fixed on it, "I like to have fun too," she looked up and spoke quietly, "mom and dad didn't like to have fun."
"You want to play a game, Carrie?" he tried and she raised her eyebrows in surprise.
"What kind of game?" she asked a little nervously and she smiled.
"Get us some paper and pencils, " he told her and she grinned and left the room, leaving her glass on the table.
They sat at the table, opposite each other and played a fifth time, the game they had been playing since he arrived. It was Carrie's turn to listen and to draw. The first time she had been slightly confused but by the end of her turn she got it and she found it very funny.
"Ok," Donald held the book in front of him and looked through his glasses at the picture in front of him, "you ready?" he double checked and looked at Carrie, red faced and smiling from her glass of wine she grinned and giggled and nodded with her pencil poised, Donald looked up at the clock on the wall and waited for the second hand to touch the 12. "So there's a cat sitting in a sort of box, the cat has stripes and it looks tired. The cat's owner is a young man with curly hair and big goofy eyes, he's smiling and looking at the cat and holding a balloon in the shape of a dog with tall ears, the balloon is bigger than the cat."
"Is the guy to the left or the right of the cat?" Carrie asked quickly and she didn't look up from her paper as she drew.
"Oh, to the right, and the balloon is floating above the cat."
"Thank you!" Carrie continued to draw and Donald glanced up at the clock.
"Ten seconds," he smiled and he looked back at the drawing, "the guy is wearing a turtleneck sweater," he added and Carrie made a squealing sound and tried to rub some of her drawing away with the eraser on the end of her pencil. "Time's up." He told her and Carrie laughed and covered her drawing with her hands.
Donald put the book face down with it's pages open on the table, "let's see then," he told her in his best teacherly tone.
"No, I want to see the book first."
"That's not the rule," he smiled at her, "you show me, I know the image, so I'll know if it's good or not."
"Ok, fine," she smiled and showed him her drawing. She watched him take it, look at it, smile and laugh, his face contorted in confusion at parts of it. "Don't be so cruel!" she laughed at his reaction.
"I'm sorry, Carrie," he grinned, "just, I mean, are you sure you should be allowed to teach kids art?"
"You're such a bastard!" she grinned and she reached for the book and turned it over.
"It's that one, there," he pointed at the panel in the comic strip. "Good effort, but I did say the dog was bigger than the cat."
"Yeah well, you should have said the guy has a small nose and large hands!" she laughed as she compared the image she'd drawn to the one in the book. "how many points do I get?"
"three out of five I'd say, it's pretty much the same thing. Except your Garfield doesn't look as bored as he should."
"I'm only giving you two out of five for describing, you never even said the cat has a blanket round it- and he's lying down, not sitting!" she exclaimed.
"Garfield always looks like that."
"I didn't know what Garfield was until now!" She grinned and she laughed. Carrie stood up and walked to the side to retrieve the bottle of wine. She went to another cupboard and brought out a packet of tortilla chips, she brought them back to the table and topped up their glasses and opened the bag. She sat back down and took the large, well thumbed, book from him. It was a book of comic strips, funnies, each page was different and all the gags were self-contained. The book was old, it's spine had long since gone and all that was left was a bit of fabric weave. Donald had brought it for her to read- as most of the characters in the funnies were animals. "Now that I know the rules," she said in her own teacherly tone, "I say you're at an unfair advantage still."
"How so, Miss Hanley?" Donald smiled and took a few corn chips from the bag.
"You've read this book a million times, you know what every picture looks like. I think the only way to make it fair is if I describe to you some pictures from my books."
"That sounds fair," he agreed. There was a pause as she looked down at his book and opened it at random and looked at the comic strips. She seemed to get distracted by its colourful pages and Donald watched her eyes dart and read and the corners of her mouth smile as she enjoyed it. "Do you like it?" he asked her.
"The game?" she looked up and she smiled, "it's really good," she grinned, "I think the kids at school would love it and it's about vocabulary as well as drawing, isn't it?" she grinned and laughed, "how good the drawing is depends on how good the other person is at describing something in front of them, it's brilliant."
"You like that book too," Donald observed as she dropped her eyes back to it, reading silently and smiling to herself, he drank more wine in the silence.
"It's the best," she grinned as she looked at it, then she looked up at him, "more well written than that diary you sent me," she joked and he laughed, she closed the book and put it down flat on the table. "What else did you bring?" she smiled and asked politely, "I didn't expect you to bring anything at all, this is very exciting," she confessed.
"You are easily excited after a glass or two," he told her calmly. "I just brought you your comics there and a couple of photo albums, excess photos from my interailing trip and an album of Egypt with Rachel, Janey's mom."
"Egypt!" Carrie breathed in excitement.
"Yeah, I guessed you'd like it," he smiled a little, "they're for you to look at," he added, "we don't have to look now."
"No, no, I'd love to have you tell me about them," she insisted, she stood up and picked up both their glasses of wine, "we should go in the lounge, let's go in the lounge," she smiled.
In the lounge Carrie turned the side lamps on and they buzzed dully, their bulbs warming the dark room slowly, Donald sat down on her sofa and put his photograph albums to one side, he was more interested in the stacks of books on her coffee table. Three piles of schoolbooks, she must have been marking work when he'd arrived.
"Is this for tomorrow? Did you get it all done?" he asked her as he picked up one of the books, he held it up and smiled at her, "Our friend Stephen James," he noted, "how's he doing in math?" he looked through the work and noted all the red ticks and good grades, he made a sound of surprise, "maybe that kid's not as stupid as he looked," he said to himself and Carrie smiled but didn't laugh.
"None of the kids are stupid," she told him and she took the book from him and put it back in its rightful pile, she smiled a small smile as she sat down next to him, "I know it's different to how it used to be, the system I mean, but the class sizes are small, Ben and I can give a lot of our time if anyone's struggling with anything."
"I know, I know," he smiled, "I actually think it's probably better now, kids get more attention when the teachers know them all."
"I have thirty four students at the moment," she stated as she looked not at him but at her books, she pointed at the piles, "fifteen little ones, (ten to twelves), seven middlers and nine in their final couple of years."
"What the heck is a 'middler'?" Donald laughed.
"Oh," she smiled and blushed, "that's what we call them, the ones in the middle."
"Doesn't it get confusing, having all these different age groups in one class? Teaching them different things at the same time?"
Carrie looked at him a little blankly then smiled, "It's how I was schooled- and Jane," she added, "and no, it's not. Everyone has something to get on with, and if there's nothing to get on with then you read quietly until I get to you." She reached for their wine, she'd set both down on the side table next to her, she gave him his glass and drank from her own, "And because it's not an age based system of teaching no one is forced to progress at levels that are too hard or too easy for them. Murph was on finals stuff all last year. Oh," she smiled and looked up at him, "and everyone is friends no matter what age they are, they all do art together. Just like us," she grinned and he smiled down at her.
"You like your job, don't you?" he asked. She was animated as she spoke, it was evident that she was passionate about it. It made Donald happy to know that she had something in her somewhat habitual life that she was really excited about still after nearly twenty years of doing it.
She shrugged and hid behind her glass, "I like the kids, I like that I'm teaching them things that they didn't know before and that they are excited by it or, or at least I try and make sure they all get something out of it, English, history, art, some of them even get something out of math," she joked a little but spoke quietly. "I think teaching used to be about preparing people for being grown up, going out into the world, but, but you know what it's like… The kids round here, their parents are farmers, they already know how to do the work they're going to go in to. I hope that what we give the kids at school is knowledge, interest, and with the arts, well, I guess I just want them to have something they can enjoy on another level, a level that doesn't feel like work."
Donald watched her drink her wine, she finished the glass. She enjoyed giving the kids she taught a taste of a world that was dead and gone, it was what she enjoyed getting from him and his memories and photograph albums. He found it a little sad but he was glad that she was the kind of person in charge of the town's kids. She looked up at him, "I know you weren't supposed to be a farmer, Donald," she said quietly, "what would you have liked to do? Do you mind me asking?"
"You ask whatever you like, sweetheart," he smiled and spoke softly, he shrugged. "This didn't start to happen you know, 'til I was 31. The Earth degenerating I mean, the economy, the networks, fuel, everything crashing down around us, it took a while before people even admitted it was happening."
"I know," she said quietly and he nodded, of course she knew, he felt a little light headed from the wine and in the dim light he forgot for a moment he wasn't talking to a kid, but a teacher of nearly 40, she knew her history.
"I did my masters in Humanities, I told you that, right?" she nodded, "I started doing a phD, I was doing it when I met Rachel, I was lecturing at the college- in Chicago," he added, "I was living in Chicago- and tending a bar downtown between my research but I never really wanted to go into teaching, lecturing, that was just what you did." He laughed and shook his head, "wow, it's been years since I thought about any of this stuff," he admitted and he smiled down at the books on her coffee table, "I actually had big ideas, big ideas that became totally pointless of course, but I don't know, it's funny," he trailed off, "listening to you talking about what you do, what you actually do for the kids, it's kind of what I wanted. The arts," he told her simply. "I was campaigning for the arts. Everything was digital, people worked remotely, isolated by technology, at schools kids were taught digitally, computers everywhere, it was ridiculous the lack of human interaction that last generation got. I mean yeah, great, Cooper was a whizz-kid, engineering scholarship at 15, but by 19 when they finally gave in to the death of technology he was working on a farm, all the kids were. The arts became neglected in those final boom years, and I know it's stupid to talk about it now, but I'm really pleased, Carrie, I'm so fucking pleased," he stressed, "that teachers like you exist."
Carrie touched his arm, he'd become quite tense as he talked, he looked down and relaxed, shook his head and smiled, he patted the hand in thanks and took his hand away from hers. "It was Michael's farm," he looked down at her, "my brother, you remember, the one covered in the ice cream sandwich," she smiled and let go of him. "you know that, right?"
She shrugged, "sort of. It's a small place, my folks liked to know who everyone was, I don't remember your brother being there, but I think I knew it was his first."
"He went straight into it after school, he liked farming. We were an odd family I guess, I liked the old arts, he liked even older traditions, growing things, working outdoors. I don't know what I would have ended up doing if Michael hadn't let me come and work for him."
"What did Rachel's folks do? Was she from round here?"
"Rachel was from Milwaukee, her parents worked for Honda. They- they were supposed to join us out here, but they stayed one too many winters and when the lakes flooded the whole city was gone. They were gone," he sad quietly, "she never really got over that, I mean, how the fuck could you?" he shrugged a little.
Carrie said nothing for a moment then asked quietly, "What was she studying? She was at Chicago with you, right?"
"She was," he smiled, "a beautiful undergrad studying fine art and I was a tall balding phD student of 26 who could get her and her buddies discount drinks at my bar without asking for their IDs."
"Donald!" Carrie laughed and closed her eyes, leaning back on her sofa and shaking her head. "You seduced an underage girl with booze! That is not what I was expecting at all! You're awful!"
"Only just under drinking age, Carrie," he stressed, "drinking age is the important bit. 20 years old, kind of a homebody, she went home every weekend to see her folks, but they liked me. Turned out Rachel had always had problems with being away from home, she liked going on holiday with her parents but she didn't like being away from them. As soon as she got a boyfriend though, she had no trouble going away- transference, that's what that is. We went all sorts of places in those first four years, all over the country, then to Russia, Indonesia, Africa, they were wonderful years. She liked taking pictures too," he told his friend, "so I brought you Egypt to see."
Carrie clapped her hands and shuffled in her seat as he reached for the album, the cover was red and patterned with stripes and spots, a sketchy, tribal design.
"Oh, look! Look!" Carrie smiled as soon as he opened the book and they looked at the first page, four views of the pyramids of Egypt and one view of Rachel standing goofily on the balcony of their shabby apartment and pretending to hold the distant pyramid tiny in her hand.
Carrie turned the pages of the book and looked down at the pictures with interest. The young man in his late twenties was already verging on the edge of forty somehow, his hair receding and his height and broad shoulders emphasized more by the smallness and youth of the pale freckled brunette in the pictures with him. Carrie had no memory of Rachel, it had always been Donald who'd picked his daughter up from school or been at school plays and concerts, the girl in the picture was a stranger to her, she could see Jane in her but the more Carrie thought of Jane the less she could remember of her as well. She suddenly felt tense and wondered if she was being insensitive to make her guest look at pictures and tell her stories about his long dead wife, so she looked at the pages silently.
Pictures of yellow rocks and sands under bright blue skies, camels, brightly coloured markets, pots, jewelry, people. Huge palaces, rocks and ruins. The deep blue river against the white sands and buildings, green palms stuck out like miracles in the whites and yellows, the colours were so different to the ones in his journal of Europe but still amazing to see. And what was extra nice about it was how goofy his girlfriend was, Carrie was pleased to see Rachel enjoying herself, she even grinned and sighed little breaths of laughter as she looked at the pictures of the two of them together larking about. There were some nice shots of each of them and of both of them, young, carefree, serious about each other but nothing else.
"How long were you there?" she asked quietly as she noticed she was running out of pages and they hadn't said anything to one another.
"Just five days, not long enough," he replied.
"Do you think it's all still there?" she said even quieter still.
Donald was silent and he listened to Carrie turning the pages. "Yeah. I think it is," he said quietly, "even if it's underwater. It'll always be there."
"Sorry," she said quietly, "that was kind of morbid."
"I'm a grown up," he told her, "I can deal with it."
"Did you guys have a nice time?" Carrie looked up at him, "it looks like a really nice time," she smiled, "Rachel must have been good with the sun cream."
Donald laughed and looked down at the pictures, "She was!" he said in amazement, "she always was. I'd forgotten." He smiled, "we did have a good time, a really good time. "
"Good," she said quietly. "Do you want another glass, Donald? I reckon we'd better finish it," she told him as she stood up and walked around the coffee table and to the door, "in case it goes off or something," she tried and she smiled and left the room.
Donald picked up his photograph album and looked down at the pictures of Rachel, she was 23 in the pictures, a child, he had trouble remembering her that way, even though she had only lived ten more years it was a much older Rachel in his memories. He looked up at the schoolteacher as she topped up his glass with the last of the wine. Carrie was already older than his wife had ever been, hell, the wine was older than his wife had ever been.
"How old were you, first time you had a proper boyfriend, Carrie?" Donald heard himself ask suddenly, the voice that came out of his mouth sounded embarrassingly ancient.
Carrie raised her eyebrows and beneath her blonde fringe her forehead wrinkled as she thought, "18, I guess," she shrugged, "I was with him for four years, Henry Jospeh, you know him, right, works on the Pritchards' farm, married and has five kids. I teach two of them," she looked at him and noticed his faraway look, "why?"
"Nothing," he shook his head. "Just wondering if maybe Rachel was too young to settle into that kind of relationship so fast." He looked at his friend, "she's a kid in these photos. That's not how I remember her at all."
"People were kids for longer then," Carrie said quietly, "she was studying art, she lived with her parents, she was a kid, and so were you. Just, you know, you were like, a bald kid," she grinned a little and he laughed. "Donald, all my friends were already married at 18. To be 22 and be single I was already an old maid! And I'm guessing Rachel in these pictures is older than me when I earned my spinster badge."
"Is that why it didn't work out, you and Henry? You knowing your true vocation- spinsterhood?"
"Well, yeah," she grinned and she crossed her legs, sitting up on the sofa. "He wanted to get married and have children and I knew I never wanted that, so he left. I wasn't sad about it. He was pretty mad though," she confessed and she smiled still, "he considered our years together just a big waste of time, rather than thinking fondly on some nice times we had."
"Ah well, he's over it now."
"My parents never liked him."
"Well, I've never really liked him either," he confessed.
"Shall we play a drinking game?" Carrie smiled and asked suddenly.
"Sweetheart, it's Wednesday, you've got school tomorrow, there's no way I'm letting you open another bottle," he smiled at her and she laughed while looking back at him, "I'm glad you're a fun drunk, but really, this is enough."
"I don't mean open anything else, I mean we've got a glass each left," she smiled and held up her tumbler of wine, "we play I Have Never and then the drink is gone and it's bed time and then school and so on until the weekend."
"Oh, yes, Tom asked me to remind you you're invited on Saturday, have dinner with us, Murph will be back, it'll be nice."
She smiled and her face flushed red, "Oh, well, thank you, I mean, thank him for me… I meant to say," she smiled a little and looked down at her glass in her hands, "after Friday, Tom's grown so big and he's so nice, he's just like you," she smiled at him and Donald did a little double take and was speechless for a moment himself.
"Thanks. That- that's a real compliment, that you think I'm like him I mean. Tom would probably think it was a horrendous insult the other way round. So, will you come on Saturday?"
"Will you play I Have Never?" she grinned.
"Fuck, ok, then," he gave in and she smiled and nodded.
"Ok, I will then, I'll be over on Saturday." She rolled up her sleeves a little, "ok, I have never…" she thought about it, "been abroad," she finished matter of factly.
"Carrie, you're just trying to get me drunk," he took a sip of his wine. "I have never kissed a boy," he retorted and Carrie smiled down at her drink and took a sip, she looked up to see Donald drinking as well.
"Donald!" she grinned.
"Yeah, I forgot," he admitted, "I made out with Charlie once."
"Charlie, from your Europe trip?" she said in amazement, "that wasn't in your diary!" she grinned and laughed.
"It wasn't while we were in Europe, it was at an undergrad party in a situation similar to this one, ie during a drinking game," he smiled back at her. "He was good though, he had technique, that's why he was such a ladykiller."
Carrie snorted with laughter, "All right, all right, let's just find out a bit more about you, I have never fucked a boy," she said and she drank and looked at him expectantly. Donald did not drink, "that's ok," she shrugged and smiled, "I wouldn't have been surprised though."
"Really?"
"Well, you're arty, aren't you?" she smiled at him and he shook her head.
"Ok, my turn. I have never crashed a car."
"Me neither," she said after they both paused and looked at each other not drinking.
"Maybe I will driving home after all this wine."
"I have never had a bath," she smiled and she raised her glass to drink, then giggled as he drank and raised an eyebrow, "I forgot the rules," she admitted, "I really haven't," she told him honestly and held the glass in front of her and made a point of not drinking it.
"You will," he told her.
"I've not much left," she told him, "better think of something exciting you've done so you can catch up."
"I've never lied to get a job," he tried and he drank the penultimate gulp from his glass, to his surprise she drank too. "What did you lie about? Your parents gave you your job? Did you tell them you had a doctorate or something?"
"I'm talking about my first job, not being a teacher," she said confidentially and she smiled and put her glass down, she moved closer to him on the sofa and nudged him conspiratorially, "I worked at the Baptist church when I was fifteen, just typing out their programs, helping out, dusting things."
"You lied to the church?" he said solemnly and Carrie was taken aback before she realized he was joking and she hit his chest softly.
"Shut up," she giggled, "I told them I believed in God," she whispered and she smiled, "my mom had already got me the job, I don't even know why I did it, I guess I was trying to prove how dedicated I would be to, you know, my job of straightening chairs."
"I told the bar I knew how to mix cocktails," Donald admitted his lie, "I knew two cocktails, a Manhattan and a Mojito. My lie is probably worse than yours."
"Well, yeah," she agreed, "I didn't lie about my qualifications!"
"So am I the winner or the loser because I still have a drink?"
"I think you're the loser," she smiled and her teeth shone through her lips.
"I think the scoring system of this game is flawed." He looked up at the clock on her mantelpiece. It was nearing nine pm. "Come on, honey, time to drink a pint of water and off to bed with you."
Carrie looked back at the clock and sighed and frowned, "You just wait 'til Summer vacation!" she pointed angrily at it. "I'll stay up 'til two drinking everything and anything!"
"Yeah, you tell that clock," he said quietly and he finished his wine and stood up and reached for her glass.
"Donald," she looked up at him from her seat on the sofa, "I like how big you are," she told him.
"Thanks, sweetie," he told her and he took the glass from her hand and took it to her kitchen, setting the glasses in the sink and then running the tap and fetching her a large glass of water.
He brought her the glass and sat down next to her. Carrie drank the water with a sudden thirst. "I think it was time for water," she told him once more in a confidential tone. "None for you?"
"I'll be ok," he told her, "perks of being big," he explained and smiled a wry sideways smile but didn't look at her. Carrie blushed behind her glass.
She felt tipsy and seeing him tower over her she had felt excited remembering the Friday night before, but she had so enjoyed their evening and was now invited for Saturday dinner as well with his family, kids she used to teach, she had to make the effort to be just friends. It was what she'd told him she wanted and she knew it was what they both needed, to just be friends.
"Come on, Miss Hanley." Donald said kindly, "get up and get to bed." He looked at her, she'd finished the glass of water silently. He stood up and she did too.
"I'll see you out first," she smiled at him and spoke softly. "I had a really nice time, Donald, thanks so much for coming to play." She grinned and he smiled down at her and laughed quietly.
"I'll leave you the photo albums," he told her, "no rush to bring them back."
"Thanks."
They walked to her front door and she swept the curtain aside kicking up a bit of dust in the gloomy air. She opened the door for him and he stepped out onto her porch. "You'll still get a good night's sleep." He told her, "You did finish marking those books, didn't you? You never answered."
She nodded. "Course I did," she smiled quietly, "I've been doing this twenty years," she reminded him.
"I know, I know," he shook his head, "sorry."
"Come here," she told him, she reached up and put her arms around him, he hugged back, held her a moment or two longer than a friendly goodbye and she shivered slightly and dug her fingers into him. Donald kissed her cheek but Carrie moved her mouth to his and kissed him, he let her and kissed her gently, then let go of her gradually. "Sorry," she whispered and she looked at her hands as they came down his arms and she let go of him, she looked up and blushed. "You know I'll be bored of you in six months anyway," she tried and joked, he grinned at her.
"That's fine by me, Carrie." He paused, "see you on Saturday, ok? Come round about six." She nodded and smiled and Donald walked to his truck. She closed her door and her curtain then walked to her lounge, sat down and picked up her red pen and the pile of books she hadn't graded yet.