Take a Chance on Me by Kate Davies

between them. That didn’t appear to be an option anymore. With only two weeks until Tolo, he needed to round up a full list of chaperones as soon as possible.
    “This is one of the joys of administration,” Celeste added cheerfully.
    “What’s that?”
    She winked. “Delegation.” On that note, she stood and walked to the door. “Don’t stay too late, Tom. It’s not good to spend your entire life inside this building. Besides, if you work longer hours than I do, you might make me look bad.”
    With a laugh, she opened the door and was gone.
    Tom leaned back in his chair, hands splayed through his hair. After months of consciously separating himself from the rest of his colleagues, he was going to have to make nice in order to find chaperones. And that was a direct order too.
    Celeste’s lecture had made it perfectly clear that his chaperone list had better include Jessica Martin, with whom things had gotten just a little too nice today. He sighed, finger-combing his hair back into some semblance of order.
    He would invite her to chaperone because he had to, but after that he had to find a way to minimize future interactions with her. His nice, quiet, structured life was starting to spin out of control, and he had to put some serious distance between himself and a certain English teacher if he was to have any hope of regaining his equilibrium.
    And that was what he wanted—wasn’t it?
     
     
    Her front door refused to open. It probably didn’t help that she couldn’t find her key.
    Jessica pawed through her bag, dislodging papers, pens, books and other random detritus in her frantic search. She finally gave up, admitting that her house key was missing. Cursing the loony idea to keep her car keys separate from her house key—for safety, she’d thought at the time—she leaned her forehead against the weathered wood, closing her eyes in frustration.
    The really depressing part of it all was she knew where she would find her key tomorrow.
    The floor of the theater, under the last row of seats. Next to where she had dropped her bag. While she’d been rapidly exploding in flames as she and Tom kissed.
    Jessica dropped her bag and stepped off the porch, silently apologizing to her too-expensive pumps for the indignity awaiting them. Her heels bit into the turf of her postage-stamp-size lawn, leaving twin holes pocking the ground. Bits of grass and dirt clung to the edges of her one and only pair of designer shoes. Belatedly, she realized she could have just taken the stupid things off and walked barefoot.
    Rounding the side of her tiny rental, Jessica hefted herself onto the cedar deck and reached into the wasps’ nest tucked under the low overhang. It had been empty for over a year now, thanks to generous quantities of bug spray, but served as a handy hiding place for her extra key.
    Grumbling now at the wasps for placing the nest in such an inconvenient location, Jessica wobbled back to the front porch, carefully choosing a different section of yard. At least the lawn would benefit from the impromptu aeration.
    Door finally unlocked, Jessica dragged her overstuffed bag into the house. Minutes later, she was safely tucked in her family room, shoes kicked off, afghan wrapped around her shoulders, steaming cup of tea on the cherry wood table next to her favorite overstuffed chair.
    Sighing deeply, she rolled her head from side to side, stretching the tension out of her neck. Then she picked up her school bag and pulled out the stack of audition sheets.
    Over one hundred girls, all eager to star in Summit High’s spring Shakespeare presentation. And if Jessica tried to produce Romeo and Juliet now, with only four female parts to be had, the protests would no doubt be loud and long.
    Not the best way to prove to the district that they really wanted to hire her.
    Jessica sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. If only there was some way to cast more girls in the show. Why had she insisted on Shakespeare? As far as