Authors: Marisa Logan
Sandusky walked away, muttering something under his breath and bumping his shoulder against Stanley’s shoulder in the most childish and dramatic fashion. Helena didn’t care. Neither did Stanley.
“Thank you,” she said.
“I didn’t do anything,” Stanley said with a blush.
“You didn’t give me away,” Helena said. It was true. Stanley could have played oblivious, but he liked that he had played along.
The bell in the gymnasium rang. It was time for the students to go back to their respected classes, and the neighboring schools to return to their buses.
“It was very nice meeting you, Helena,” Stanley said. He didn’t want to overstep a boundary, but it felt right saying her name.
“You too, Stanley,” she said. She turned to gather her students but paused.
“Wait, I’ll need your number. And I’ll give you mine too.”
“Oh…” Stanley said.
“You’re still picking me up on Friday at 7:30 right?” Helena smiled. She looked hopeful.
“To give you a tour?” Stanley asked.
“No silly. Like a date. Be cheesy about it. Bring me flowers,” she said. She sounded sarcastic, and Stanley wasn’t sure if she was serious or not. She had taken a small book out of a bag and was furiously scribbling in it. She tore the page out of the book and handed it to him. She waited for him to recite his number to her, and she scribbled that into her book and put it back in her bag.
“Flowers? Sure, I can do that. Friday at 7:30,” said Stanley.
Helena had a puzzled look on her face, but she smiled when he confirmed the time.
“Friday at 7:30,” she made her fingers into a gun and clicked the back of her tongue when she pretended to shoot it in Stanley’s direction.
“And Helena…what kind of flowers do you like?”
Helena shrugged and turned a bit to get ready to leave.
“I don’t know. Surprise me…”
END OF EXCERPT
A Contemporary Romance
J.L. STARR
Copyright © 2016 by J.L. Starr
All rights reserved, worldwide.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Book Description
Being assistant curator at a historical railroad museum isn't as glamorous as Amy Loch once thought it would be. There are stressful grade school tours, janitorial duties she has to help out with, and a broken clock that the museum can't afford to fix.
Though the job does have its perks. Such as when she touches the heart of a sweet little boy, then catches the eye of his father.
Without even searching for romance, Amy finds herself forging a connection with someone she never expected. After a stroke of serendipity brings them together, Amy discovers a chance to mend a hole in a broken family, and, with the help of her new friends, restore a piece of history.
Chapter 1
“Look out!” I called back to the train passengers as we came around a bend in the track. “There's bandits!”
Nearly a hundred second-graders hollered and squealed as the “bandits” hopped onto the train in a feat of daring acrobatics, firing their cap guns. Of course, the train was only going about five miles per hour, but for the kids, this was always the most exciting part of the trip.
“Hands up, ye varmits!” John called out, waving his toy gun at the nearest kids. Their hands shot up, even as they giggled and pointed at him. John's costume was about as cliched as a railroad bandit could get, right down to the red neckerchief he was using as a mask. “This here's a robbery!”
“Oh no!” I called out, staying in character while I worked on the train's controls. “Can anyone save us?”
As if on cue, one of the braver kids rushed forward and karate chopped John's hand. John played it smooth, crying out in faux-pain and dropping his gun. The kid grabbed it and fired several times, shouting “Bang, bang!” in time with the popping of the caps.
The kids applauded. John dropped to his knees and pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket, waving it around in the air. “I surrender!” he cried out. The other bandit dropped his gun and threw his hands into the air, to avoid meeting John's cruel fate.
The train pulled back up to the museum's rear entrance while the kids were still applauding. “Okay, passengers,” I said, putting the parking brake on and standing up to get their attention. “It's time for lunch, and then we've got a special show all about the history of the American railroad. Find your partners, and follow Rebecca. She'll show you to the cafeteria.”
The kids started getting off the train, along with the handful of parents who'd come along as chaperones. Their teacher, Mrs. Szabo, stood waiting at the door to count heads as the kids walked past her in pairs. The museum always implemented a buddy system for school trips, so that the kids would help keep their partners accountable. It usually worked. Usually.
Towards the end of the line, I noticed a little blonde-haired girl walking alone. I checked her paper name tag, in the shape of a train, naturally, and saw her name was Laura.
“Laura, dear,” I said, bending down to meet her at eye level. “Where's your partner?”
She looked away, shy, and tried to walk past me. I followed her and moved in front of her so she had to stop. “Laura, I asked you a question,” I said, using my calm, patient, yet authoritative voice.
“Are we missing someone?” Mrs. Szabo asked. She looked up and down the train, but there was no one still on board.
I crouched down in front of Laura and touched her arm. “Laura, sweetie, who was your partner?”
She kept looking away, refusing to make eye contact. But I didn't let her off the hook. Finally, she whispered, “TJ.”
“Oh,” Mrs. Szabo said. “Of course.”
I stood up and raised an eyebrow at her. “Does he do this sort of thing a lot?”
She sighed and nodded. “He tends to run off when he's upset. Usually he hides in the woods behind the school. Or wherever else he can squeeze himself into. He's got...family issues at home.”
“I'll go find him,” I said. “He can't have gone far. The tracks are enclosed, and there's a fence. I know a couple of places he could be hiding.”
Mrs. Szabo took Laura by her hand and led her off to the cafeteria with the rest of the kids. I started searching the tracks to find the missing TJ. There were a lot of props in the different settings where a little kid could easily hide. Most of the area was in an old west theme, with a rickety old saloon, a corral filled with plastic horses, and a little farmstead with haystacks and an old barn. There used to be an Indian encampment with teepees, but we'd taken it down after receiving some complaints from a local Native American tribe that it wasn't historically accurate and it reinforced inaccurate stereotypes about their people. There was a mine shaft there now, with an old miner mannequin bent over a stream, panning for gold.
I headed for the mine first, cleaning my glasses on my shirt as I walked. Most of the other buildings were nothing but false fronts, held up by wooden frames around the back. But the mine shaft was the size of a small shed, with wooden planks across the front blocking off the interior. We used the inside for storage of old equipment.
“Hello?” I called out as I opened the entrance. Inside I saw the old teepees and unused Native American mannequins, along with some gardening equipment and tools that the maintenance guys kept out here. And huddled against one of the teepees was a little boy, presumably the infamous TJ.
I crouched down in front of him, keeping my distance. He sat there, watching me, with his knees hugged against his chest.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi.” He sniffled. His eyes were a bit red and tear-stains marked his cheeks.
“Are you TJ?”
He nodded.
“You know it's lunch time?” I smiled, hoping to coax him out without having to get tough on him. “Are you hungry?”
He looked away, staring at the wall, but he nodded.
“Do you want to come with me? I can bring you to the cafeteria. We've got
really
good hot dogs.”
He shook his head.
I sighed and tried to think of a new approach. I'd had enough experience with emotional kids working at the museum that I knew sometimes you couldn't push them. “Was someone picking on you? If they were, you can tell me.”
He shook his head again. I wasn't that surprised. Lots of times kids were afraid to be a snitch. It usually led to them getting in more trouble with the bullies later on.
“I'll tell you what,” I said. “I'm not allowed to bring food out here, or I'll get in trouble. But if you don't want to sit in the cafeteria with the other kids, you can come to the special museum lunch room where only the employees are allowed to go. You can get some hot dogs there. How does that sound?”
He nodded, then wiped his eyes with his sleeve. I got up and walked over to him, offering him my hand. He took it and I helped him up. Now that I could get a better look at him, I noticed he was pretty chubby. I knew what that was like. I'd been teased for my weight plenty of times as a kid. And a few times as an adult, even.
I led him inside and took him to the employee break room. I sent John to go fetch Mrs. Szabo and tell her the wayward child had been found. I brought TJ a soda, a hot dog and a little bag of chips. When Mrs. Szabo arrived, I stood off to the side, letting her talk to him. My job was just to give the kids a tour of the Brandenburg Railroad Museum. Taking care of disciplinary issues was their teacher's job.
They spoke quietly at first, but then TJ started saying “No” over and over again to everything Mrs. Szabo said. Then he slammed his hands down on the table and said, “I want to go home! I want my dad.”
Mrs. Szabo sighed and said, “I can call your mother to come pick you up.”
“No, not Mom,” TJ said. “I want Dad.”
“But your mother—”
“No!” TJ got up and ran into the corner, hiding under a table.
Mrs. Szabo walked over to me, crossing her arms. “Separated parents,” she said.
“Ahh. The mom has custody?”
She nodded. “His father is still listed as authorized to pick him up, but I've spoken to his mother a few times, and she doesn't want TJ going to his father's place except on his visitation weekends. I'm not sure what to do.”
I wasn't sure what to suggest. I felt bad for the kid. I'd been in his shoes more than once in my childhood. There was this one mean little girl who used to call me “Bubble Butt.” To this day, I heard her voice when I looked at my butt in the mirror. It had always been far rounder than I would have liked, even if I had grown more comfortable with my body as I got older.
“He can stay here if he doesn't want to join the other kids,” I said. “And I've got some activity books I can give him to keep him occupied.”
“That might be best,” Mrs. Szabo said. “If you'll excuse me, I have some calls to make.”
I eventually coaxed TJ out from under the table. I brought him some railroad-themed coloring and activity books and a box of crayons. I sat with him and colored as well, to give him the sense that he wasn't alone.
I was putting the finishing touches on a rainbow-colored locomotive when Mrs. Szabo returned. “Well,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “Looks like you're in luck, TJ. Your mom is in a meeting and is going to be out late. She said it was okay for your dad to come get you. He's on his way.”
TJ didn't answer, but I saw the tension fade from his posture. I could only wonder what was going on between his parents that made him hold such anxiety about the thought of being picked up by his mom. I hoped it wasn't an abusive situation. Though he didn't show any signs of having been physically harmed. More likely, I figured, Dad was just the lenient parent and Mom was the strict one.
It was more than an hour before TJ's dad made it to the museum. Though I was sure that was mostly because we were located in Western Pennsylvania, a good distance from Philadelphia and most of its surrounding suburbs. Most of the school groups that came to the museum took the bus in from an hour or more away. The rest of our guests tended to be families on vacations. We weren't far from Lancaster, which was right smack in the middle of Amish country. A lot of people either came out this way for trips to see the rustic countryside, or stopped by on road trips on their way further west.
The rest of the kids were finishing up the tour, and about to get on their buses to head back home, when TJ's dad walked in the door. He was younger than I expected, maybe in his mid-to-late twenties, making me wonder how old he'd been when TJ was born. He was tall and a little bit overweight, though he wore the weight well and looked comfortable with himself. He was dressed in simple jeans and a blue striped button-down shirt. I wondered whether he had come in from work, and if so, what kind of place he worked in where he could dress so casually.
He walked across the lobby, looking around at the tables filled with model trains driving around miniature models of Brandenburg. “Hi,” he said. “I'm Tom Conklin. I'm here to pick up my son, TJ.”
“Hi,” I said, extending my hand. He shook it, and I noticed his grip was firm, yet soft. “He's been hanging out in the employee break room. He was upset earlier, but he's doing fine now.”
“Do you know what happened? His teacher wasn't too clear on the phone.”
“I think it was some bullies,” I said. “He didn't want to talk about it, but it was pretty clear he wanted to keep away from the other kids. Which is a shame. He missed some of the best parts of the tour.”
He sighed and shook his head. “Thanks for your help. We've been...well, we've been going through a lot lately.”
I gave him a sympathetic smile. My parents had divorced when I wasn't much older than TJ, so I had an idea what he might be going through. Though it was a bit harder for me to understand what his dad might be dealing with. I didn't have any kids, even though I'd once thought I'd be married and have two kids by the time I was thirty. I'd passed that benchmark a few years ago without accomplishing that goal.
I led him into the break room, where TJ was reading one of our gift shop books about railroad history. I noticed he had picked one of the more advanced books, one written at an adult reading level. I wondered if he always read at such an advanced level.
“TJ,” I said, “your dad is here.”
He looked up at his dad. “Hey.”
“Hey, Teej.” Tom walked over and gave TJ a hug. “You ready to head home?”
TJ looked up at me. “I didn't get to see the big trains.”
I smiled at him to show it was okay. “You can come back another time. The trains aren't going anywhere.” Our biggest exhibit was the Hall of Locomotives, where we had half a dozen real trains on display, from old 1800s coal-powered trains to modern electrical ones. The kids always loved climbing all over them, tooting the horns, and playing with the controls. And that was in addition to the Virtual Train Ride, where kids could operate the controls on a locomotive simulator, basically a realistic video game that let them experience what it was like to drive a real train. It even rumbled and shook while the screen showed a first-person view of the train racing down the tracks.
“Are you guys open on the weekend?” Tom asked.
“Yup,” I said. “We're open every day except Monday. And we close on bank holidays.”
“How's that sound, kiddo?” Tom asked. “We'll come back this weekend, just the two of us. I'm sure the nice lady...” He looked at me, making a questioning gesture.
“Amy,” I said.
“I'm sure Amy will be happy to show you everything. Sound good?”
“Yeah,” TJ said. They headed for the door, but Tom stopped and whispered something in TJ's ear. TJ turned to me and said, “Thank you. Sorry I was a pain.”
“You're welcome. And you were no pain at all.” Just before they stepped out, a thought occurred to me. “Oh, here.”
I grabbed the book TJ had been reading and brought it over to him. “On the house. You want to see how it ends, right?”
TJ grinned and clutched the book to his chest. “Thanks.”
“Thank you,” Tom said. “We'll see you this weekend.”
The other kids were already getting on the bus to go home. Tom stopped and talked to Mrs. Szabo for a few minutes, then took TJ to his car. I watched them drive off, then turned to find John waiting for me with a pair of brooms.