Chapter 91 (2/2)

“It’s okay.” Her smile is contagious and I’m not even embarrassed at the mess I made. It feels weird that she’s not mad about it, and I don’t know why. She’s just smiling, looking from the mess to me, and shaking her head with her lips pressed into a smile.

Nora moves the mixing bowl out of the way and grabs a roll of paper towels. She turns the water on in the sink and uses her hands to push as much powder into the basin as possible.

“During my first semester at culinary school, I forgot to put the guard on a forty-quart mixer. A ten-pound bag of confectioners’ sugar went everywhere. Needless to say, I had to stay an extra three hours to clean and redo my assignment, and my teacher was such a prick he wouldn’t let anyone help me.” Her hands are moving quickly to clean the mess I made and I should probably be helping her.

“Did you pass the class? I mean, after you redid the entire thing?” I ask her.

“Nope. Like I said, my instructor was a real prick.”

I look at her and she lifts her sugary hand to scratch her face. She wipes at her cheek, smearing white on her tanned skin.

I grab a paper towel and start to help her. “That’s why I want to be a teacher.”

She tosses the empty sugar bag into the trash. “To be a prick?”

I laugh and shake my head. “No. To be the opposite. I had this teacher in tenth grade, Mr. Haponek, who went above and beyond his job. He was everything a teacher was supposed to be, but the older I got, the less my teachers cared about their jobs, and when I looked around my school, I saw so many kids who needed that one good teacher. It makes a difference, you know?”

“What was your high school like?” Nora asks.

Terrible.

A shithole.

“It was okay,” I say.