(Another somewhat long one, I'm afraid. Thanks go to Dawnj for helping out! Whatever mistakes there are, are entirely mine.)
I. Parents' Night
When Anne Tyler had dismissed her last class of the day she sat down at her desk and stared out of the window, without taking in the view. Three o'clock -- four hours before the parents' night would start. She rather disliked parents' nights. When she'd started teaching, almost twenty years ago, the general idea was that students with insufficient results ought to make more of an effort. Slowly, however, the idea had taken root that the teacher apparently hadn't done the student's best, and what was she going to do about it? What indeed! She'd liked teaching and everything about it then. But now most of her peers had gone on to different schools, or become important. She felt quite isolated, and she wished she had a friend to talk to. It seemed as if no one ever noticed anyone any more.
Then there was her housing situation. Gayle, with whom she shared an apartment, had a new boyfriend whom she abhorred. He really was a creep, and she felt unsafe in her own room. Moreover, Gayle officially rented the place, and she wanted her out. It was really impossible for her to stay. She made an effort not to worry about that just now, but instead she chucked her books into her old leather bag, ran her hands through her hair -- which didn't do anything toward making it look tidier -- got up and made for the teachers' common room. She almost ran into Mo Matheson, the head of English, in the corridor.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled, "I wasn't thinking."
He grinned at her. "Is it tonight's do?" he asked. "I don't particularly like that either. Always the same silly questions. Will you go home in between?"
She shook her head. Home...no place like home, probably, if you really had one. She swallowed. "I'll see if I can find something to eat in town," she said.
Mo looked at her critically. "Are you alright?" he said. "You look rather blue. Can I help or anything?"
Anne shook her head. Damn -- someone being kind... She got tears in her eyes. "I'm fine," she said. "Really."
"Honestly?" Mo asked, and then the tears started rolling down her cheeks. Mo took her arm and herded her into the nearest empty classroom. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her, and she sniffled and blew her nose.
He patted her back and then said, "I've watched you slowly go silent and cheerless, you know. I know it's none of my business, but I'd love to help if I could. I'll go home for dinner. Why don't you come along -- if you don't mind taking pot luck? If you want to, you can tell me all about it then -- and if you don't, well, there's no bones broken, either."
He stood looking at her a little awkwardly. Mo was a self-confessed bachelor, who lacked the ease in dealing with women that many of his contemporaries had, though he was quite appreciative of them. He had had a girlfriend once, but she'd run off with a gold necklace he'd inherited when his parents died, and since then he'd just been pursuing his own road, a little lonely but clearly his own, and his alone. However, he thought Anne was beautiful, and a nice lass, too -- she was just a little younger than his forty-five years. She had beautiful auburn hair that she wore half way down her back, or put up with a comb in a slightly untidy bun, which made her seem quite attractive, and she had a good figure -- nice legs and curves where he loved them best, breasts and bottom -- into the bargain. He was more aware of her, and admired her far more than he had any other woman in a long time, though he had never acted on it.
"Well, what do you think?" he prompted her, when she hesitated.
"Yes, please -- if you're sure?" she said. "It sounds nicer than eating out alone somewhere."
He nodded again, happy that they would be spending some time alone together. "I'm ready when you are," he said. .
She smiled a little wanly. "Okay," she said.
They picked up their coats, walked to the car park and got into Mo's car. "It's only ten minutes," he explained.
Anne looked at him from the corner of her eyes while he drove. She'd always thought he was a rather vague, friendly man -- the kind you take for granted, not someone you'd think would notice things. But the students liked him, she knew. And it seemed he was good at teaching. She had sometimes wondered about his life, and about what else he was good at. He had dark blonde hair streaked with grey, and he wore spectacles with very thin metal rims. She turned her head his way and looked at him critically for a moment. To her surprise, he actually looked quite nice. In fact, he was quite a handsome man, and it struck her with some force. She hadn't really looked at him before, and she realized she had been guilty of doing what everyone else usually did with him, and had not been paying attention to who he was. She looked ahead again, feeling bad about it.
They left the outskirts of town and drove through the wood. When they came out at the other end, there were meadows and trees. The road went uphill for some time, and when they rounded the top, Anne saw a few big fields with clumps of trees and a few hedges separating the fields. Mo left the road and turned into a kind of drive that ran between hedges for a few hundred yards.
Then he said, "We're here."
His house was fairly big and well kept, she saw. It was surrounded by a wide lawn, with some trees, most of them quite old, and very tall, and a few small flower beds planted with colourful perennials. He drove up to the front door and said, "Welcome," with a little smile. She got out and walked with him to the door, which he opened to let her in. Once inside, he took her coat, hanging it carefully in the hall closet.
"It's a somewhat idiosyncratic house," he said, "but I rather like it. I'll shove the meat into the oven and make something to drink. Tea or coffee?"
Anne chose coffee. Mo showed her into the living-room and went into the kitchen. Anne walked around, checking out the room. It was big and light and, she thought, a typically male room. Books, music, a lot of pictures on the walls, and a fireplace that could be closed with glass doors and was obviously used a lot. There were two big loudspeakers strategically placed next to the CD player, where there was the latest CD by Laura Marling, and on the floor a cardboard sleeve that said, "Chet Is Back."
She looked at his bookcase and saw that there were a few shelves devoted exclusively to poetry. He seemed to enjoy the works of Graves, De la Mare, St. Vincent Millay and the Elizabethans. On the wall there was one watercolour that caught her attention. It was a picture of a woman in a red dress holding a fan. When she looked at it closely she saw that it was signed "Matthijs Maris" in one of the sticks. She wondered who the painter and his subject were.
"That's nice," she said when Mo came in and saw her looking at it.
He nodded. "Yes," he said, "I like it a lot. She always cheers me up." He smiled. "That one does, too," and he pointed out a small nude in oils. "It's by Ted Auld, a friend of mine. I bought it a couple of years ago."
He looked at it pensively for some moments. He liked Ted a lot, and he wished he could paint and see a woman like that in the nude -- instead of only in paintings. He'd asked Ted who she was, but apparently it was a model with a few additions and changes of Ted's. He suspected the model might have been Ted's wife, Medbh, but she didn't have her looks.
