A Bend in the Road by Nicholas Sparks Page B

want you to forget that because of what’s going on here.
And it’s obvious that he worships you.” “Thank you,” he said simply, meaning
it.
    “You’re
welcome.” When she smiled again, Miles turned away, hoping she didn’t realize
what he’d been thinking earlier and at the same time hoping she did.  “Hey, thanks for the fan, by the way,” she
went on after a pause, referring to the industrial-size fan he’d dropped off at
her classroom earlier that morning.  “No
problem,” he murmured, torn between wanting to stay and talk to her and wanting
to escape the sudden wave of nervousness that seemed to come from nowhere.
    For a moment
neither of them said anything. The awkward silence stretched out until Miles
finally shuffled his feet and muttered, “Well . . . I guess I’d better get
Jonah home.”
    “Okay.”
    “We’ve got some
stuff to do.”
    “Okay,” she said
again.
    “Is there
anything else that I should know?”
    “Not that I can
think of.”
    “Okay, then.” He
paused, pushing his hands into his pocket. “I guess I’d better get Jonah home.”
    She nodded
seriously. “You said that already.”
    “I did?”
    “Yeah.”
    Sarah tucked a
strand of loose hair behind her ear. For a reason she couldn’t quite explain,
she found his good-bye adorable, almost charming. He was different from the men
she had known in Baltimore, the ones who shopped at Brooks Brothers and never
seemed to find themselves at a loss for words. In the months following her
divorce, they’d begun to seem almost interchangeable, like cardboard cutouts of
the perfect man.
    “Well, okay,
then,” Miles said, oblivious to everything except his need to depart. “Thanks
again.” And with that, he backed away in the direction of his car, calling for
Jonah as he went.
    His last image was
of Sarah standing out in the school yard, waving at the retreating car with a
faintly bemused smile on her face.
    • • •
    In the coming
weeks, Miles began to look forward to seeing Sarah after school with an
unchecked enthusiasm he hadn’t experienced since adolescence. He thought of her
frequently and sometimes in the strangest of situations—standing in a grocery
store while selecting a packet of pork chops, stopped at a traffic light,
mowing the lawn. Once or twice, he thought of her as he was taking a shower in
the morning, and he found himself wondering about her morning routines.
Ridiculous things. Did she eat cereal or toast and jelly? Did she drink coffee
or was she more of an herbal tea fan? After a shower, did she wrap her head in
a towel as she put her makeup on or did she style it right away?  Sometimes he would try to imagine her in the
classroom, standing in front of the students with a piece of chalk in her hand;
other times he wondered how she spent her time after school. Though they
exchanged small talk every time they met, it wasn’t enough to satisfy his
growing curiosity. He didn’t know much about her past at all, and though there
were moments when he wanted to ask, he held himself back from doing so for the
simple reason that he had no idea how to go about it. “Mainly I had Jonah work
on spelling today and he did great,” she might say, and what was Miles supposed
to say next?That’s good. And speaking of spelling, tell me—do you wrap your
head in a towel after you shower?  Other
men knew how to do these things, but damned if he could figure it out.  Once, in a moment of courage supplied by a
couple of beers, he’d come close to calling her on the phone. He’d had no
reason to call, and though he hadn’t known what he would say, he’d hoped that
something would strike him, a bolt from the sky that would imbue him with wit
and charisma. He’d imagined her laughing at the things he was saying, being
positively overwhelmed by his charm. He’d gone so far as to look up her name in
the phone book and dial the first three numbers before his nerves got the
better of him and he’d hung up.  What