Chapter 3

Clarke finished with his eyes. She was beginning to be frustrated that despite her skills, catching the brightness of his big baby browns was proving to be difficult and she found herself erasing more than she would've liked. Clarke's last period of the day was a preparatory period.

The back of her mind knew that she had things to do. She had lots of work to grade and all the tables where a complete mess. Besides the normal, paint, eraser shavings and pencil smudge, she had noticed earlier that the spot where John Murphy and Nathan Miller usually sat had something profane written next to a drawing of a penis and at the adjacent table, someone had clipped their fingernails during class. She had meant to get that cleaned up before anyone else saw it. But in the front of her mind was Bellamy Blake, almost obsessively. Responsibility was nagging her, but this need to finish setting his features on the easel was more than enough to keep her feet from moving and her right hand to keep at it.

The bell rang. It still didn't pull her away. It pushed her forward. She had a grip on those eyes now. Deep set, dark, but lite, bright and full of energy. Fixed under a slightly furrowed and experienced brow. Cautious, serious, but still innocent. Far from Naive.

She took a step back, finally to a place where she could anticipate peace. She was happy with those eyes. What did they know? She scanned the rest of the work. His nose was perfect, the bridge straight and aligned leading to a slight round, just enough to turn it upward, surrounded by light freckles. She followed them down to his mouth, which intrigued her. When she drew simple portraits, she usually didn't remember people smiling, but despite the complexity of her depiction of his eyes, his mouth was subtly, but noticeably turned up more than down.

She thought back to his actual person. A smile was all she could place him with. She recollected mostly a shy expression, but whether it was shy, embarrassed or enthusiastic and passionate, it was all smiles with Bellamy Blake. This made her smile. She continued to take in his graphite lined expression as a whole. All the shapes together. She stopped at his chin. The actual Bellamy Blake had a very distinct cleft in his chin. It made it turn upward in tandem with his nose.

Determination caught hold again and she tightened her mouth and took up that pencil. It wasn't much of a change, but it made all the difference. All his features were aligned now. She let out a quick breath and placed the pencil in its usual place behind her ear.

Perfect, she thought. She put her hands on her hips and turned to see someone at the door.

"That's quite nice, Miss Griffin."

The Vice Principal Marcus Kane stood straight and authoritative with his hands behind his back. He wore an awful tan suit and a white shirt with a navy blue tie. It was getting easier for Clarke to stifle laughter when she saw Mr. Kane in the halls or addressing everyone at meetings. It would be different if his personality didn't remind Clarke of a rabbit being chased by a hound. Fortunately for the school, him and Principal Jaha's personalities were very compatible. If Kane was the rabbit, Thelonius Jaha was the hound.

"Thank you, Mr. Kane," Clarke said with a curt nod.

"I just stopped by to see if you would like to head a little project for homecoming week."

"Homecoming week? Right, that's next week."

Clarke looked at her desk. Already it had quickly started filling with projects. Grading art was hard. She always loved everything the kids did. Even John Murphy's work, however dark and laced with masochism it was.

"It's only Tuesday. What the hell."

"Um, yeah I think I can handle a little something extra." she smiled politely.

"Great," Kane said folding his hands together. "Do you think you could gather some volunteers from your classes and help them create advertising banners for the football field and the front door?"

Clarke remembered how hard it was just to get a volunteer to model for her. But she had already agreed.

"Sure, not a problem. When do you need them done by?" she asked.

"By Friday, ready to be hung Monday."

That was plenty of time to get things done. She would gather volunteers first thing tomorrow morning and still have time to grade everything. Maybe Friday could be a carefree day.

"That sounds great, Thank you."

Kane turned to face the classroom. Suddenly Clarke was reminded of how messy it was. Her eyes got wide. There was nothing to say, nothing to do. She held her breath and waited for Kane's reaction.

A smile crept onto his face as he examined the papers all over the floor, the pencil shavings and the paint stains. He turned his whole body and looked at her paper easel again. Then back at the messy room.

Clarke stood motionless as Kane looked at her with raised eyebrows.

"Miss Griffin, how well are you acquainted with Bellamy Blake?"

Clarke caught the breath that she had been holding onto and laughed a little at the attempt Kane had made to make that question seem as casual as asking the time.

"Um, Bellamy?" She paused. Was that the first time she had said his first name outloud? "We've only talked some. Why?"

Kane's smile got wider at her obvious discomfort.

"Well you're both the youngest teachers here. I thought you two might have found more than work in common."

Clarke had nothing to say. When Kane saw this, he bowed his head at her.

"Have a good day, Miss Griffin."

Clarke waited until he had walked some distance down the hall. Then she let out a huge sigh and rushed to the sink. She had been holding her breath that whole time.

She soaked and wrung out a stained rag and began scrubbing the penis drawing off the back table.

"Thank God he didn't walk back here,"

"Dammit, John Murphy!" she hissed under breath. The blue bic pen he had used wasn't coming off easily, but she kept scrubbing as a sudden realization came forward.

The way that Bellamy had compared their lunches. And the way Kane looked at her drawing and the room.

"They have that same quirk."

Clarke laughed a little to herself as she weighed what she knew about her two colleagues together and a smile remained as she thought about how different they were.

She stopped the helpless cleaning task and looked at the easel. His was a face that she felt familiar with. But she didn't know him at all. She remembered the dinner invitation and suddenly became nervous. But there was still light in her eyes, because even though the thought of dinner was intimidating, it was all smiles with Bellamy Blake.