Dear Heart

4. Wendy

4

Wendy

Too late, Wendy realized she hadn't swapped phone numbers with Ollie and now had no way to contact him. Crap.

Well, there was nothing to be done about it now. She just had to focus on work. A task that was proving impossible, thoughts of Ollie clouding her mind.

"Um, Miss Altman?" Heather asked, and Wendy knew she'd spaced out again.

She gave herself a little shake and smiled at her students. "Right. So. Shading." No matter how miraculous and life-affirming Ollie's reappearance was, she couldn't let it distract her from work – a job that was almost as miraculous, given she'd thought her fine arts degree wouldn't lead to any sort of beneficial employment. Dad had been able to make it work, but, well – that was Dad. And this was her. But by some divine intervention, the newly opened Braswell Institute in Williamsburg had offered her a coveted teaching position.

The day of The Phone Call was imprinted in her brain, along with the day she met Ollie, the day she wanted to kiss him, the day she told him goodbye in front of the shop. Ugh. Ollie. But The Phone Call was a purely positive memory: fingers covered in bright streaks of acrylic paint, hair slipping out of its elastic, chest heavy and aching because she didn't know what the hell she was going to do about anything. And then the phone had rung, and it had been Emerson Neal, dean of the Braswell Institute, and he'd liked her application. And he'd interviewed her right there, over the phone, while she stood in front of a half-finished painting that looked more and more like sunny grief smeared across the canvas.

Her rent had been due the next day, and she hadn't bothered to pay it; just packed her art supplies, her clothes, and everything else she could fit in the Road Runner, and left her mismatched dishes behind for the super to deal with. She'd been on the road for Brooklyn within hours, and hadn't looked back once.

Thank God the interview had gone well.

And thank God she loved her job, which she did. It was kind of a dream come true.

Just like finding Ollie again.

~*~

Tate popped in as her class was dismissing. He stood well to the side of the classroom's double doors as students burdened with thick portfolios and cross-body bags lugged their things out into the hallway. "That Miss Altman is cruel," he told them as they passed, face a mask of pretend horror. "Keeping you the full two hours on a Friday. For shame, Miss Altman," he called in to her.

Several of the students chuckled and Wendy rolled her eyes.

When they were alone, Tate crossed the large room – (it was the most beautiful classroom she'd ever seen, with high ceilings, a plethora of windows letting in natural light, tons of open space for the students to set up their easels and chairs) – expression growing concerned. "You okay?" He stopped at the easel she'd been using for demonstration purposes, picked up one of her fine-tipped pens and toyed with it. Always fidgety, that was Tate. He could never keep still. "You were a little" – he weaved on his feet, head tipping back in a comical drunk impersonation – "last night."

She flashed him a small smile and started gathering the scattered fruit she'd set up for a still life. "Yeah. I just...it was a shock. Seeing him again."

Tate folded his arms and sat down on her teaching stool. No cop had ever had a more penetrating I-want-details look. "Ollie," he said, simply.

"Ollie," she said, and it was so strange and wonderful to feel the shape of his name in her mouth again. She'd tucked it away deep in her heart, unable to say it for the pain it caused. But now he was home, and she could let him slide off her tongue like old times, like he was someone in her life who she could talk about with the other someomes.