He was a tall man who had a tendency to slouch, and the kids called him Frankenstein. Johnny seemed amused rather than outraged by this. And yet his classes were mostly quiet and well-behaved, there were few skippers (Sarah had a constant problem with kids cutting class), and that same jury seemed to be coming back in his favor.

He was the sort of teacher who, in another ten years, would have the school yearbook dedicated to him. She just wasn't. And sometimes wondering why drove her crazy.

“You want a beer before we go? Glass of wine? Anything?”

“No, but I hope you're going well-heeled,” she said, taking his arm and deciding not to be mad anymore. “I always eat at least three hot dogs. Especially when it's the last county fair of the year. “They were going to Esty, twenty miles north of Cleave Mills, a town whose only dubious claim to fame was that it held ABSOLUTELY THE LAST AGRICULTRAL FAIR OF THE YEAR IN NEW ENGLAND. The fair would close Friday night, on Halloween.

“Considering Friday's payday, I'm doing good. I got eight bucks.”

“Oh… my… God,” Sarah said, rolling her eyes. “I always knew if I kept myself pure I'd meet a sugar daddy someday.”

He smiled and nodded. “Us pimps make biiig money, baby. Just let me get my coat and we're off.”

She looked after him with exasperated affection, and the voice that had been surfacing in her mind more and more often-in the shower, while she was reading a book or prepping a class or making her supper for one-came up again, like one of those thirty-second public-service spots on TV: He's a very nice man and all that, easy to get along with, fun, he never made you cry. But is that love? I mean, is that all there is to it? Even when you learned to ride your two-wheeler, you had to fall off a few times and scrape both knees. Call it a rite of passage. And that was just a little thing.