“That was fantastic!” Ashley said, her smile wide and her hands on Spencer’s waist.

“Really, it was ok?” Spencer asked, wrinkling her nose.

“Spence, are you kidding? I loved it.”

It was almost a week after her late-night phone call with Aiden. Spencer’s class had just performed their play, finishing to a flurry of clapping students, parents, and other various family members. But in Ashley’s eyes the star was Spencer Carlin, who had stood just behind the thick, black curtain and watched her students with her hand on her heart. She had been nervous, but they managed to pull it off, and she had managed to make it through the entire show without whispering anyone’s lines from off-stage. Not to mention that no one had been seriously injured by the deadly cardboard swords Spencer had already been forced to replace twice.

“I’m just glad it’s over…back to cumulus clouds, Spanish conquerors, and division.”

“So I was wondering if you had plans this weekend,” Ashley said, her eyes shifting nervously toward the ground.

“I don’t know, do I?”

“I was thinking of spending a couple nights at my mom’s house.”

“Wow, really?”

“Yeah, and you’re encouraged to join me.”

“Is your mom in town or something?”

Ashley laughed and looked at Spencer as though she had suddenly been struck with some rare case of amnesia, “Are you serious? You know my mom’s never in town. She’s probably somewhere sipping giant margaritas…on a beach in the Costa.”

“Hey, I can’t blame her. That sounds amazing right now.”

“I tell you what, we’ll sit by the pool all weekend. I’ll bring you as many margaritas as you want…just promise you’ll come with me. I’ve really missed you this week.”

“I’ve missed you too,” Spencer said, tugging slightly on Ashley’s collar, “ok, we’ll make a weekend of it. Just let me walk my class back to the room to get their stuff and I’m all yours.”

Ashley smiled and nodded, watching Spencer slip into the sea of parents. She slipped her hands into her small black clutch and pulled out the even smaller black box that would make or break the weekend ahead.

Ashley struggled to find the key to her mother’s house, shuffling her collection of keys around the ring in search of the right one. She was nervous and it was made obvious by the way her hands were shaking, moist with perspiration even in the cool fall breeze.