“I love watching you,” he said. “There’s one small problem—I can’t wait to get you alone.”

“Are you dancing much?” she asked.

“Very judiciously and as little as possible. Giggly high school girls are just not my thing. Besides, I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on things, make sure the kids aren’t getting into trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Oh, you know, sneaking out to the parking lot to be too alone or to get a bottle or smoke a joint or get in a fight over something, like a girl. You know.”

That was the point, she didn’t know. “Really?”

“Been a while since you’ve been rockin’ the high school dance?”

“You could say that,” she said. “I thought this would be boring. I can’t remember when I’ve had so much fun.”

“Just remember, don’t fall in love with anyone because you leave the dance with me.” He grinned at her.

She noticed that Troy danced with Iris. Not a slow dance, but not so fast, either. He twirled her around and they laughed. She had no worries that Iris would invade her territory, none at all. But did Troy still wish that romance had worked? She forced herself to look away. When she looked back, Iris was talking to her husband. Troy was nowhere in sight.

He was right behind her, claiming a dance. It was an old tune with a good beat—“Knock On Wood”—and Troy improvised, moving her two beats left, two beats right, a little twirl. She’d been very impressed by his dancing tonight. And it was sexy! Then the tune segued into a bebop beat and she noticed a few kids getting together for another line dance, but Troy pulled her back from the crowd, gave her hands a little shove and made a jitterbug move. “Huh?” he asked, lifting his eyebrows.

She laughed at him. “As long as you don’t slide me between your legs or toss me onto your hips and over your shoulder.”

“Aw,” he said, then led her into a really good jitterbug, so good that kids stopped what they were doing to watch. This guy knows what he’s doing, she thought.

When the song ended, there were a few claps from the crowd. Grace heard a teenage girl say, “Oh, God, why can’t he just marry me!”

Five

Four hours flew by and at almost midnight they were on their way to Grace’s place in Troy’s car. She was completely amazed by the variety of music, from oldies to current rock to hip-hop and even country. And now that she thought about it, Troy was up to speed on all of those dances, even picking up the line dance steps quickly. “Care to explain that dancing, Fred Astaire?” she asked.

He laughed. “Short story. I dated a dance instructor. Not like Arthur Murray—she taught little kids. Her sister was getting married and she wanted someone who could dance to go to the wedding with her, so she taught me a bunch of moves, including the tango. It was fun, to tell the truth. She broke up with me the day after the wedding.”

“Aw, was your heart broken?”

“A little bit,” he said. “I didn’t think I’d ever have fun dancing again.”

“Well, you wowed ’em tonight. I even heard a marriage proposal.”

He laughed.

“Does that ever become...you know...difficult?”

“What?”

“The girls,” she said. “They crush on you! And some of them are beautiful! And look older than me, by the way! Does that ever worry you?”

“Worry me in what way?” he asked, his brow crinkling.

“What if one of them got the wrong signals? Thought you were romantically interested or something?”

He chuckled. “They do all the time, but not because of anything I do—because of their imaginative, nubile young minds mixed with the irresponsibility of raging hormones. Grace, teachers have to play it real safe or find themselves in a bad place.”

“What does that mean?”

He shrugged. “There are very specific guidelines. We don’t touch the students, except maybe a hand on an arm or shoulder to say, ‘Wait up a second.’ We can never have private conversations with students with doors closed. We don’t give them a lift home even in a nice little town like this. We don’t make gestures that could be interpreted as seductive, and we don’t respond to such gestures—the list is long. And it’s not just for young male teachers but for all teachers—young women, old women, crusty old codgers, guys like me. Counselors like Iris. If she closes her office door, the door to the main hallway is closed to the passersby, but all the offices are internal cubicles that share a common hall between them so that a conversation can be private but if someone yelled or called out, it could be heard. Counselors, principals, nurses—they have to be afforded a degree of privacy to do their work. Students need to feel safe. I, however, am always seen in a crowd. During my private conversations with students, the door to the classroom is open. And we’re on opposite sides of the desk.”

“But has it happened, Troy? That some girl takes her crush too far?”

“You understand that I like women, but women my own age, right? I’m not tempted by children. High school students are minors. And our school system forbids fraternization with students even of legal age, like eighteen-year-olds. There is absolutely no compromise there.”

“Of course,” she said. “But...”

“To a certain degree, there are some normal feelings in the mix for the kids. Little girls sit on their daddy’s laps and promise to marry them and the fact is, they probably will marry a man just like their father. Crushing on teachers is not unusual, but they’re children and it’s the adult teacher’s job to keep that from escalating. You get to be good at recognizing the signs and creating appropriate distance and barriers before...” He stopped. He pulled up behind her building and parked. He turned to her. “Gracie, why are you asking me this?”

“I just thought it must sometimes be challenging.”

He rubbed a knuckle along her cheek. “Honey, were you molested? Assaulted? By an older man or teacher? Someone in a position of authority?”

“Me?” she asked, genuinely shocked. “No! No, of course not.”

“Then you knew someone who was,” he said matter-of-factly.

Boy, did she! Years ago, and it all ended so tragically it marked one of the most traumatic experiences of her life. But that was not the direction Grace wanted this conversation to go. Not tonight. So she smiled gently.

“You must either be a very wonderful teacher or so intuitive it’s scary,” she said. “Once, I thought someone I knew was a victim, a younger girl, but even though I had suspicions, I never had proof. She wasn’t a good friend of mine, just a girl I knew. Seriously, I didn’t bring it up to discuss that—that was so long ago. I really was curious about how you manage the situation with the students. I’d have asked Iris all the same questions if it had ever come up. It was the dance that brought it to mind. Some of those girls are gorgeous. And you do kind of make them giggle.”

“The really scary part is I don’t have to do much to make them giggle. There’s a real dearth of young teachers in Thunder Point. Another one who gets their constant attention is Coach Lawson. But he doesn’t have female students.” He leaned toward her and put a small kiss on her lips. “You must be exhausted.”