Excerpt: Unexpected

“All right guys, let’s go into the subject of tax,” Joel began after Tyler took his seat. Everyone groaned, but then fell silent as the door knocked. Joel was rather surprised himself, never having been interrupted in all the five years he’d been teaching there. It was another rule of thumb to never disturb the learning process, and everyone knew it couldn’t have been a student; they would have simply walked in.
Unsure of how to proceed, still holding the chalk in the air as he was about to write an equation on the board, Joel hesitated. “Uh, come in,” he said carefully.
In walked a raven-haired woman in her mid twenties, dressed in some flashy purple snake skin pants and a bright orange tube top. Her makeup was rouged in a blush pink that would have offset just about any other outfit than the one she had on, but in this case it was perfect.
“Binge?” Joel was dumbfounded. Suddenly he realized that the class understood that he knew her, and unconsciously he flushed. The entire class gawked at her as if she were some sort of grand sign from God himself.

Hating the awkward silence, Keira spoke up. “I apologize,” she began politely, “but I didn’t realize your class was still in session. They told me I’d find you here and that your class should have been out by now.”
Joel looked at his watch and noticed how pale his arm had become. “Well, there’s actually one more minute in the day, but—“
”Aw, just end it already,” Tyler said, completely amused. He was enjoying this encounter and would most definitely bother Joel about it the next day.
Sighing, Joel relented. “All right guys, we’ll study tax tomorrow–but I expect you all to know it already. Be prepared for a quiz!”
The class groaned even louder than the moment before.
“Aw, come on. If I don’t teach you guys, who’s gonna? Ha, see you tomorrow kids.”
Joel and Keira silently watched as the second graders paraded clumsily out of the room, watching a woman instead of their balance. Joel lay back on his desk chair and Keira fumbled with her nails. “You’re really pretty,” the shy kid, Angelo, managed to say before he left. He was always the last one out, and he looked around to make sure that no one heard what he said.
Keira took this to heart. She had been told dozens of times in the past that she was pretty, but never when it mattered. Whose opinion was she going to trust better: a heartfelt child or a man who thought with his dick? These sort of moments touched her like no other and she immediately regretted her outfit.
“Why thank you, honey!” She beamed. Joel noticed this and couldn’t help but smile. He would have chided her about it, even, but his nerves were enough on his mind.
Angelo left, waving as he walked out the door, and Joel got up to close it. “Never thought I’d see you again!” He couldn’t resist grinning.
“As a woman of class, I thought I should bring this back to you,” she replied defensively. In her hand was a hat that she knew plain well wasn’t his, but that she found the night of the auction. She was ready for him to deny that it was his and to thank her for going through the trouble anyway and that perhaps she might have changed her mind about going out with him again. A little sigh betrayed her, reminding desperately that she was completely out of her comfort zone.
“Oh, thank you,” Joel said, humoring her. He took the hat, dusted it off a little, and put it on his head. “I was wondering where this old thing ran off to.” The print read “Victorian Antique Roadshow 95'” on the front, a very obnoxious neon green color that clashed with Joel’s classic shirt and tie, clean-cut look. He looks good dressed up, Keira thought to herself and immediately regretted thinking it.
“Please,” she said, keeping her cool. “You’re at a Victorian Antique Roadshow just the same as I’m winning the Nobel Prize.”
Joel gaped at her. “Really? To what do I owe the honor of being in the same room as you, let alone the pleasure of your acquaintance?” Teaching pleased him like nothing else, and even his nerves couldn’t stop him from his goofy mood after all. Keira smacked him lightly on the arm—a clear sign of flirting, she reminded herself.
Sighing, she continued. “So you got me. My friend Lavi wanted me to come and see you one last time before I make my inevitable decision that you’re a weirdo and that I want nothing to do with you.”
“Charmed, I’m sure,” Joel said with a wink. He knew by this time how terribly stubborn this poor woman was, and that it took a lot of guts for her to be talking to him again. “Boy, I didn’t know you were even listening to my last words. Part of me was wondering when I first saw you how you ever managed to find me.”

“Believe me,” Keira said with pride, “I have a good memory. I could recite dozens of poems to you on the spot, right here.”
“You’d certainly make a good teacher then!” Joel said, delighted. “I’ll have to take you up on that offer sometime.” Before Keira could reply, Joel raised his eyebrows as if he just realized something.
“Wait a minute. Did you say your friend’s name was Lavi?”
“Yes,” Keira replied carefully. “Why?”
“My friend Manuel has a date with her tonight.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Yea, funny huh? I guess all this stuff is destiny more or less, yea? Our good friends are going out, so why shouldn’t we?”
“And I don’t have to say that I have any interest in you and whatnot?”
“None whatsoever. See, I told you it was a good deal, didn’t I?”
Keira sighed lightly. “You’re still weird.”
“Hey, I’m not the one that walked in on a Catholic boy’s school while class was still in session, dressed head to toe in stripper attire. I say we had better call it even.”
Men never treated her with such dignity and intelligence as Joel had over the past five minutes, and Keira felt a little embarrassment flush over her cheeks. For one fleeting moment she was even ashamed of the way she had dressed, but shrugged it off because she ought to have been going to work in a half hour or so.
“You get one more chance, and then I’m calling it quits. Yea?”
Joel smiled. “So how are you spending my three thousand dollars anyway?”
“God help me, I even forgot about that part! It’s bad enough you went to a strip club to make friends, but then to spend three thousand dollars? Why? And especially since I’m willing to bet that I have absolutely nothing in common with you.” Keira suddenly realized that she was being herself around him and not putting on any type of show as she usually would have around men she was only acquainted with. Something about him made her feel comfortable somehow.
“God forgives ya,” Joel said, amused.
“Forgives me? For what?”
“For forgetting about that part. Or was that not an apology?”
It took Keira a second to understand what Joel was getting at, but finally she rolled her eyes and smirked. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”