Epilogue
"Yes?"
"Miss Haverford, I was wondering if you could take a look at this Odyssey paper," Emily, one of Kate's students, was saying one day after school, having approached her desk, accompanied by her friend Erin, with whom she was inseparable.
Kate looked from Emily, who was about the same height as Kate sitting down, to Erin, who it required serious neck-craning to see. "Sure."
"Because," said the short girl rapidly, speaking, as usual, much more than necessary, "I was thinking, you know, I want to get a good grade, because I'm kind of failing math, and so I need a good English grade, and I thought you could look at the paper and let me know if its what you're looking for, or." She shrugged. "Whatever."
Erin, an attractive girls' varsity basketball player with long blond hair, shrugged her large shoulders.
"Do you want me to look at yours, too?" Kate asked, looking up as high as she could to make eye contact with Erin.
Erin grinned widely, a good-natured smile. "To be honest, Ms. Haverford, I haven't really done it yet. But don't worry, Emily'll nag me and make me get it done."
"I've been bugging her for days," Emily said fretfully, twisting a strand of curly brown hair around her short pointer finger, a distracting and annoying habit she seemed to do all the time. "But she just seems to ignore me. Apparently, I can't seem to intimidate her into doing it. I don't know, if I were a six-foot basketball player I would be terrified of me, but Erin seems to deflect my powers of intimidation."
"I wonder how," a languid, distinctly male voice drawled from Kate's door, and Kate smiled. Erin and Emily exchanged knowing glances.
"We'll leave you alone," Erin decided, waggling her eyebrows suggestively at Jake, who chuckled at Erin's direct acknowledgment of his relationship with Kate.
"Thanks," Jake smirked, and the girls grinned. "By the way, tell Claire I looked over her questions for Jamie Crosswell and I have some suggestions, she can come get it from me."
"Suggestions? For Claire? She's the best lawyer we've got. Jebus, she's been doing this forever. Longer than you guys, right?" Emily asked.
"Yeah, well." Jake reflected. "This is our third year, and she's a senior.so, yeah. But hey, even Claire can use suggestions. Everyone can use suggestions. And of course, she's under no obligation to use them, she knows that. Well, bye girls. See you at the next mock trial meeting."
Erin and Emily took this not-so-subtle hint, winking and nudging each other and grinning. "Bye guys!" Erin declared, waving.
Kate chuckled. "Bye."
"What's up, Kat?" Jake asked.
"Oh, not much," Kate replied, looking over her large stack of tests that needed to be graded.
Jake followed her gaze. "Ignore the papers," he urged her. "Come with me tonight. Dinner at Le Petit Pain. My treat."
"I insist on at least paying my share," Kate retorted, half-kidding. This was a discussion they'd had many times.
"Do I ever let you pay?"
"There's a first time for everything."
"Let me do this for you," Jake urged her, but his face had turned serious and Kate felt he probably wasn't talking about dinner anymore. He bent down on one knee, now looking up at Kate, his green eyes full of hope and sincerity. He took out a tiny box from his shirt pocket and opened it.
"Katherine Hillary Haverford, would you please do me the honor of being my wife?" he asked.
Kate watched her longtime boyfriend with shock and excitement. "Oh my gosh. Oh wow, I don't know what to say!"
"Well," Jake began, waffling, feeling incredibly discouraged, "you- you don't have to say yes. Don't marry me out of-guilt, or something."
"You don't understand," Kate declared. "I'm an English teacher. I have to find the exact right words to say how this would make me the happiest woman in the world."
"So-so that's a yes?" Jake asked tentatively. Kate couldn't help, after all these years, still loving that she could disorient the famous smooth operator Jake Wyndon. To answer him, she leaned over and kissed him extremely passionately, in a way that would embarrass their more prudish students.
"That kiss was kind of naughty," Erin murmured amusedly to Emily from outside the door as they eavesdropped, and Emily nodded fervently, chuckling a bit.
"Come on," Jake murmured afterwards, taking his fiancée's hand and helping her to rise. Realizing that Jake and Kate were going to leave and discover them, Emily and Erin scampered outside to catch their bus. Jake and Kate exited her classroom and headed to the staff room. They flipped on the light switch, and Kate gasped in shock again. The room was decked out in balloons, streamers, and a large banner that read "Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Wyndon!" now festooned the generally dull staff room. Mr. Craiser, the principal was there, as well as Leanne Rowland, Kate's gossipy friend, Marianne and Charlie, and Kate's parents, as well Jake's family, who Kate had met multiple times and whom she loved, and her other closest friends.
"Oh my gosh, thank you so much! This is so sweet!" Kate exclaimed.
Once she had met and greeted everyone, Kate pulled Marianne aside with a question that had occurred to her when she saw the party setting. "Marianne, you had this whole thing set up in advance-what if I'd said no?"
Marianne chuckled. "It says 'Better luck next time, Jake' on the back of the banner."
"Are you serious?" Kate demanded, almost laughing at the absurdity of Marianne's statement.
"No. We all just decided to be optimistic. Besides, I knew you'd say yes. And if you hadn't, I'd have come into your classroom and had a little 'chat' with you, and convinced you that you'd better say yes, or I'd disown you. Didn't I tell you I'd set you up with the man you were going to marry? Didn't I? Now, let's think about this. Which sister made you dance with him? Which sister made you spend time with him so you could fall in love with him?"
Kate grinned, too joyful to be irritated with Marianne's smugness. "My only sister, you. You were right and I was wrong. Happy?"
"Thrilled," Marianne announced, grinning at her sister, waving, and going off to chat with their mother.
Almost instantly, another figure approached Kate, this one tall, broad-shouldered, and masculine. "Reginald!" Kate declared, aghast to see him at this celebration. He had avoided her quite steadily the past two years, and she still didn't think he and Jake had ever really reconciled. Why in the world would he attend a party rejoicing Kate's permanent attachment to another man?
"I just wanted to say, I don't hold any hard feelings toward you, or Wyndon," he declared solemnly. "And I wanted to say congratulations."
"Well, thank you, Reginald," Kate answered, still slightly baffled but equally impressed.
"I should get going, I don't want to disturb the festivities," he said bashfully, glancing at Leanne Rowland, who was glaring daggers at him, clearly recognizing him as the Side Guy Who Doesn't Win the Girl But Is Detestable, a key role in any cheesy romance novel that she just happened to 'confiscate' from her second period. "I just came to tell you that it's okay, and congratulations."
But he isn't detestable, Kate thought to herself. And even if he hasn't won this girl, he'll win a girl someday. He doesn't fit Leanne's profile, in any event. Forgiving him for all the horrid things his students accused him of, she hugged him briefly and said, "Thank you for coming, Reginald. Don't worry, you'll find a good woman for yourself someday."
"Thanks," Reginald smiled briefly, then left.
Kate chatted with a few friends of Jake's, who thanked her profusely for "getting him off our hands! And thanks for accepting. If you'd said no, you know we'd be hearing him whine to us for the rest of our lives."
Finally, someone set up a CD in a portable stereo brought in from the chorus room, and Kate and Jake began to dance. He slipped his hands comfortably around her slender waist, and she placed hers around his neck, tousling his hair gently. Their family and friends smiled and Jake leaned softly in to her ear. "You know how happy you've made me, right?"
"Ditto," Kate whispered softly as they revolved slowly in a circle to the slow song.
"You know, I never thought I'd settle down with one woman," Jake confessed, grinning that same crooked mischievous grin.
"Is that so?" Kate asked, grinning slyly. "Aren't you glad you are?"
"Of course I am," Jake said, now completely serious. "This.I mean, it feels so.just.right."
"I know," Kate murmured to him, burying her head into his neck and kissing him. "To me too. Can you believe we're such a perfect fit for each other?"
"Yes. I always knew we were. Remember, the day I met you? When I was flirting, and you got all huffy?"
Kate smiled. "Yes."
"That's when I knew we'd be a perfect fit," Jake explained, grinning. "And I was right."
So you were, Kate mused to herself, unable to wipe the grin off her face. So you were.
A/n: Okay, it's not a spectacular ending. So it's not even really a good ending. Endings are not my area of expertise. Plus, we just took the PSAT today so my brains are all muddled. Anyway, lest I bore you with further things, I do have a favor to ask:
I'm having trouble naming a character for my new story-please tell me which name you prefer of these three: Adam, Jonathan, or Nicholas. Help me, I'm uninspired. Or, if you have a favorite, let me know, give me ideas. I'll try to work on it, but I wouldn't expect anything for at least a couple of months (I know, I'm horrible. But at least I'm better than Meg Cabot. You know she's completed the sequel to Haunted already and it won't be out till January '05? Talk about cruelty.) Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed my story, and be sure to register or re-register for my alert-list of when a chapter or story is posted if you're interested. Again, you can indicate so by saying so in a review (and even if you don't want to be a part of the list, PLEASE review anyway! Reviews make me happier than you can know) or by e-mailing me at [email protected] Thanks again to all my readers, you all rock all possible socks. :-)
"Yes?"
"Miss Haverford, I was wondering if you could take a look at this Odyssey paper," Emily, one of Kate's students, was saying one day after school, having approached her desk, accompanied by her friend Erin, with whom she was inseparable.
Kate looked from Emily, who was about the same height as Kate sitting down, to Erin, who it required serious neck-craning to see. "Sure."
"Because," said the short girl rapidly, speaking, as usual, much more than necessary, "I was thinking, you know, I want to get a good grade, because I'm kind of failing math, and so I need a good English grade, and I thought you could look at the paper and let me know if its what you're looking for, or." She shrugged. "Whatever."
Erin, an attractive girls' varsity basketball player with long blond hair, shrugged her large shoulders.
"Do you want me to look at yours, too?" Kate asked, looking up as high as she could to make eye contact with Erin.
Erin grinned widely, a good-natured smile. "To be honest, Ms. Haverford, I haven't really done it yet. But don't worry, Emily'll nag me and make me get it done."
"I've been bugging her for days," Emily said fretfully, twisting a strand of curly brown hair around her short pointer finger, a distracting and annoying habit she seemed to do all the time. "But she just seems to ignore me. Apparently, I can't seem to intimidate her into doing it. I don't know, if I were a six-foot basketball player I would be terrified of me, but Erin seems to deflect my powers of intimidation."
"I wonder how," a languid, distinctly male voice drawled from Kate's door, and Kate smiled. Erin and Emily exchanged knowing glances.
"We'll leave you alone," Erin decided, waggling her eyebrows suggestively at Jake, who chuckled at Erin's direct acknowledgment of his relationship with Kate.
"Thanks," Jake smirked, and the girls grinned. "By the way, tell Claire I looked over her questions for Jamie Crosswell and I have some suggestions, she can come get it from me."
"Suggestions? For Claire? She's the best lawyer we've got. Jebus, she's been doing this forever. Longer than you guys, right?" Emily asked.
"Yeah, well." Jake reflected. "This is our third year, and she's a senior.so, yeah. But hey, even Claire can use suggestions. Everyone can use suggestions. And of course, she's under no obligation to use them, she knows that. Well, bye girls. See you at the next mock trial meeting."
Erin and Emily took this not-so-subtle hint, winking and nudging each other and grinning. "Bye guys!" Erin declared, waving.
Kate chuckled. "Bye."
"What's up, Kat?" Jake asked.
"Oh, not much," Kate replied, looking over her large stack of tests that needed to be graded.
Jake followed her gaze. "Ignore the papers," he urged her. "Come with me tonight. Dinner at Le Petit Pain. My treat."
"I insist on at least paying my share," Kate retorted, half-kidding. This was a discussion they'd had many times.
"Do I ever let you pay?"
"There's a first time for everything."
"Let me do this for you," Jake urged her, but his face had turned serious and Kate felt he probably wasn't talking about dinner anymore. He bent down on one knee, now looking up at Kate, his green eyes full of hope and sincerity. He took out a tiny box from his shirt pocket and opened it.
"Katherine Hillary Haverford, would you please do me the honor of being my wife?" he asked.
Kate watched her longtime boyfriend with shock and excitement. "Oh my gosh. Oh wow, I don't know what to say!"
"Well," Jake began, waffling, feeling incredibly discouraged, "you- you don't have to say yes. Don't marry me out of-guilt, or something."
"You don't understand," Kate declared. "I'm an English teacher. I have to find the exact right words to say how this would make me the happiest woman in the world."
"So-so that's a yes?" Jake asked tentatively. Kate couldn't help, after all these years, still loving that she could disorient the famous smooth operator Jake Wyndon. To answer him, she leaned over and kissed him extremely passionately, in a way that would embarrass their more prudish students.
"That kiss was kind of naughty," Erin murmured amusedly to Emily from outside the door as they eavesdropped, and Emily nodded fervently, chuckling a bit.
"Come on," Jake murmured afterwards, taking his fiancée's hand and helping her to rise. Realizing that Jake and Kate were going to leave and discover them, Emily and Erin scampered outside to catch their bus. Jake and Kate exited her classroom and headed to the staff room. They flipped on the light switch, and Kate gasped in shock again. The room was decked out in balloons, streamers, and a large banner that read "Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Wyndon!" now festooned the generally dull staff room. Mr. Craiser, the principal was there, as well as Leanne Rowland, Kate's gossipy friend, Marianne and Charlie, and Kate's parents, as well Jake's family, who Kate had met multiple times and whom she loved, and her other closest friends.
"Oh my gosh, thank you so much! This is so sweet!" Kate exclaimed.
Once she had met and greeted everyone, Kate pulled Marianne aside with a question that had occurred to her when she saw the party setting. "Marianne, you had this whole thing set up in advance-what if I'd said no?"
Marianne chuckled. "It says 'Better luck next time, Jake' on the back of the banner."
"Are you serious?" Kate demanded, almost laughing at the absurdity of Marianne's statement.
"No. We all just decided to be optimistic. Besides, I knew you'd say yes. And if you hadn't, I'd have come into your classroom and had a little 'chat' with you, and convinced you that you'd better say yes, or I'd disown you. Didn't I tell you I'd set you up with the man you were going to marry? Didn't I? Now, let's think about this. Which sister made you dance with him? Which sister made you spend time with him so you could fall in love with him?"
Kate grinned, too joyful to be irritated with Marianne's smugness. "My only sister, you. You were right and I was wrong. Happy?"
"Thrilled," Marianne announced, grinning at her sister, waving, and going off to chat with their mother.
Almost instantly, another figure approached Kate, this one tall, broad-shouldered, and masculine. "Reginald!" Kate declared, aghast to see him at this celebration. He had avoided her quite steadily the past two years, and she still didn't think he and Jake had ever really reconciled. Why in the world would he attend a party rejoicing Kate's permanent attachment to another man?
"I just wanted to say, I don't hold any hard feelings toward you, or Wyndon," he declared solemnly. "And I wanted to say congratulations."
"Well, thank you, Reginald," Kate answered, still slightly baffled but equally impressed.
"I should get going, I don't want to disturb the festivities," he said bashfully, glancing at Leanne Rowland, who was glaring daggers at him, clearly recognizing him as the Side Guy Who Doesn't Win the Girl But Is Detestable, a key role in any cheesy romance novel that she just happened to 'confiscate' from her second period. "I just came to tell you that it's okay, and congratulations."
But he isn't detestable, Kate thought to herself. And even if he hasn't won this girl, he'll win a girl someday. He doesn't fit Leanne's profile, in any event. Forgiving him for all the horrid things his students accused him of, she hugged him briefly and said, "Thank you for coming, Reginald. Don't worry, you'll find a good woman for yourself someday."
"Thanks," Reginald smiled briefly, then left.
Kate chatted with a few friends of Jake's, who thanked her profusely for "getting him off our hands! And thanks for accepting. If you'd said no, you know we'd be hearing him whine to us for the rest of our lives."
Finally, someone set up a CD in a portable stereo brought in from the chorus room, and Kate and Jake began to dance. He slipped his hands comfortably around her slender waist, and she placed hers around his neck, tousling his hair gently. Their family and friends smiled and Jake leaned softly in to her ear. "You know how happy you've made me, right?"
"Ditto," Kate whispered softly as they revolved slowly in a circle to the slow song.
"You know, I never thought I'd settle down with one woman," Jake confessed, grinning that same crooked mischievous grin.
"Is that so?" Kate asked, grinning slyly. "Aren't you glad you are?"
"Of course I am," Jake said, now completely serious. "This.I mean, it feels so.just.right."
"I know," Kate murmured to him, burying her head into his neck and kissing him. "To me too. Can you believe we're such a perfect fit for each other?"
"Yes. I always knew we were. Remember, the day I met you? When I was flirting, and you got all huffy?"
Kate smiled. "Yes."
"That's when I knew we'd be a perfect fit," Jake explained, grinning. "And I was right."
So you were, Kate mused to herself, unable to wipe the grin off her face. So you were.
A/n: Okay, it's not a spectacular ending. So it's not even really a good ending. Endings are not my area of expertise. Plus, we just took the PSAT today so my brains are all muddled. Anyway, lest I bore you with further things, I do have a favor to ask:
I'm having trouble naming a character for my new story-please tell me which name you prefer of these three: Adam, Jonathan, or Nicholas. Help me, I'm uninspired. Or, if you have a favorite, let me know, give me ideas. I'll try to work on it, but I wouldn't expect anything for at least a couple of months (I know, I'm horrible. But at least I'm better than Meg Cabot. You know she's completed the sequel to Haunted already and it won't be out till January '05? Talk about cruelty.) Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed my story, and be sure to register or re-register for my alert-list of when a chapter or story is posted if you're interested. Again, you can indicate so by saying so in a review (and even if you don't want to be a part of the list, PLEASE review anyway! Reviews make me happier than you can know) or by e-mailing me at [email protected] Thanks again to all my readers, you all rock all possible socks. :-)