Learning Curve. Terry McLaughlin

local male population. Might as well go for truth in advertising and hang a flashing neon Hot Babe sign around her neck.

      “I was wondering,” she said, “if I could sit in on all your classes today, since it’s a noon dismissal schedule.”

      “If you want to. It’s going to be pretty routine, just handing stuff out. Texts, course schedules. Threats.”

      “Anything I can do to help?”

      There it was, punching him right between the eyes in the first five minutes of the first morning of the school year: one of the many reasons he didn’t want a student teacher, even one who didn’t look like Emily Sullivan. It was going to be a lot of work for him to find work for his student teacher to do. “I could probably come up with something,” he muttered.

      “Great!”

      Great. It was going to be like training a puppy. An eager, squirming puppy that followed him everywhere, licking his shoes, looking up at him with big, wide puppy eyes no matter how many times he scolded or stepped on it. He hated stepping on puppies, but it usually happened sooner or later, because the damn things always managed to get right under his feet. Crowding him.

      Might as well kill two puppies with one stone, so to speak. Give her something to do, far away from him. He pulled the folders from under his arm and chose some prep work. Emily could do it. She could feel useful and needed, a valuable partner on the educational team. She could establish a meaningful relationship with the copier. “Do you know where the copier is?”

      “Linda showed me.”

      Probably during some female bonding ritual involving office equipment. “Class rosters are inside. Copy the assignment sheets and reading lists, with a couple extra for each class, okay?”

      “Okay. I can handle that.” She hesitated, her smile dimming just a bit around the edges. “But do you think I’ll be finished by the time the first bell rings?”

      Squish. “If not, we’ll finish up at the break—my prep period is right after that. Don’t worry about it.”

      Emily’s beam bounced back. “I’ll see you in class.”

      Joe stood rooted to his spot, watching her blond twist bob through the hall, wondering how he was going to get through five class periods of puppy eyes following his every move.

      “Hey, Wiz.”

      He turned as Matt Zerlinger, a senior in his Government and Current Events classes, motioned with his chin toward Emily. “Heard you got a student teacher this year. That her?”

      “Yeah.”

      “Whoa.”

      “Yeah.”

      Matt grinned. “Shit happens.”

      “Yeah.” Joe sighed. “And because I have a student teacher, and I need to set a better example, I have to warn you to watch the language in the halls, Matt.”

      Matt’s smile widened. “This is going to be fun.”

      “Shit,” said Joe.

      “Oh, that reminds me.” Matt cast a glance down the hall. “Dornley was looking for you.”

      The athletic director. Probably looking for another sucker to coach another orphan team. “Damn.”

      “Yeah. Just thought I’d warn you.”

      Joe clamped a hand over Matt’s shoulder as they headed toward the stairway. “In addition to running interference for Dornley, I see you’ve registered for two periods with me. What’s the angle?”

      “An awesome recommendation for Berkeley.”

      “So, you’re going for it.” Joe squeezed Matt’s shoulder before dropping his hand back into his pocket. “Is Walt going to come through with the funding?”

      Walter Mullins was Matt’s latest stepfather. Matt’s mom went through husbands like she went through bottles of cheap vodka, but Walt seemed to have some staying power.

      “I’ve been working on him,” said Matt, “but it’s too soon to tell. Gonna have to hit the scholarship scene pretty hard.”

      “Let me know what I can do to help.”

      “Count on it.” Matt shrugged his backpack higher on his shoulder. “Walt says since this is all your idea in the first place, the least you can do is find a way to help pay for it.”

      Joe knew it wasn’t wise to get too attached to a student, but Matt had snuck under his emotional radar as a scrawny freshman using his wits to keep pace with the upperclassmen on a backpacking trip. Matt was still a little on the scrawny side, but once he filled out the gangly frame and ditched the lab tech look, the womenfolk would start paying more attention. “Hey, two smart guys like us should be able to come up with some college funds.”

      “Yeah.” Matt scrubbed the toe of a stiff new Birkenstock against the floor. “Wonder if that hot new student teacher would be of any assistance.”

      “The student teacher’s name is Ms. Sullivan. And she’s not going to seem so hot after she starts handing out detention slips and essay tests.”

      “I don’t know.” Matt shook his head. “Hot is hot.”

      “She’s too old for you, Matt.”

      “I don’t want to date her. I’m just going to enjoy the scenery. Besides,” he added, “the student betting pool is placing the best odds on Walford to make the first move.”

      Real pros, those student bookies. “He’s married.”

      “Yeah, but it’s kinda shaky right now. His wife went to Boise to visit her mother right after the Fourth of July picnic, and she hasn’t come back yet.” Matt shook his head. “And he’s enough of a loser to hit on the hired help.”

      Hitting on the hot new student teacher—the worst kind of power play. And where power was involved in a relationship, it opened the door to some pretty ugly things, with exploitation heading the list. Good thing Joe kept reminding himself of the potential for disaster. Good thing bright and bouncy Emily Sullivan wasn’t his type.

      The first bell sent Matt jogging back to his locker and Joe trudging toward the stairs. He tried to focus on his first period class, but all he could come up with was visions of wide blue puppy eyes and the student bookies branding his forehead with an L for Loser.

      EMILY WAS SURE that most people never realized how much energy it took to be energetic.

      She turned down Main Street shortly after a late lunch at Al’s Pizzeria, so tired she was afraid she’d lose the steering wheel tug-of-war with her battered, bullying ’92 Chevy pickup. It was a good kind of tired, though. The kind that carried a kick, with sparks of self-satisfaction snapping beneath the layers of exhaustion.

      She had moved a mountain of texts up a mountain of stairs, had overseen a pile of photocopying and a fist-bruising stack of stapling. There had been enough paperwork to tie up the State Department in a red-tape bow, enough crises to keep a soap opera afloat for a season and no chance for a coffee break. Her back hurt almost as much as her feet, and she suspected her bladder had stretch marks.

      But there had also been dozens of shy smiles and friendly greetings. Her welcome to campus had been so warm, so energizing, that if someone asked her, at this very moment, to shift her growling truck to light speed, she was pretty sure she could pull it off.

      Cast in the afterglow of all this goodwill, the heart of Issimish sparkled. Main Street’s shop windows reflected the polish and flair filtering down the interstate from Seattle’s suburbs. Even the town’s rough and rowdy origins were getting a stylish makeover, something a little more quaint and a little less quirky.

      She thumped over the railroad crossing at the edge of the new industrial park and sped out through orchards lining the old county road, rolling down the window to inhale