Mildly

Her words remind you of Monica and the students you have already sampled, and you bite back the denial that was on your lips, replacing it with a smile.

"Well, there are certainly a lot of pretty women at Pink Rose," you reply, looking at her smiling face. "I'm dining with one now."

"Now that is the kind of response a woman enjoys," she laughs, patting your hand before taking another bite of food. "I knew they taught courtesy in the Marines."

"Refined it, perhaps. I was brought up to be courteous, ma'am."

"Don't you dare call me ma'am!" she says in mock outrage. "It makes me sound positively antediluvian. I expect better of you sugar."

"Sugar?"

"A southern lady's prerogative. We reserve the right to call every gentleman between the ages of puberty and **** 'sugar.' You can take it as flirtatious, but it is to remove the necessity of remembering your name."

"That sounded like a shot," you chuckle.

"It was. A return on that 'ma'am' you were so ill advised to use."

"Point taken. If I can return to the original subject, why did you think Coach Watts might have been the first to...."

"Bang Di? Because she has met him before, and admired him from afar. It came to nothing at the time but she has been fanning the embers of a girlish desire for a few years. Don't look so astonished. Di is a devoted fan of our national pastime, and some few years ago she convinced me to accompany her on a road trip to Burlington to see a game. A certain young shortstop had a tremendous game, both hitting and fielding, and Di was thrilled to watch him. That evening we had dinner and drinks in a local tavern where many of the players happened to be, including the shortstop. He was the center of attention, particularly favoured by the young lovelies of the town. A very handsome young man, I might add. With a little encouragement from yours truly, Di went up to meet him where he was holding court at the end of the bar. Alas, her girlish nature became somewhat tongue tied, and although he seemed interested in her, she reverted to a shy and almost silent schoolgirl. An opportunity lost, one might say."

"The shortstop was Coach Watts?"

"Indeed he was," Honey says with a smile and a sigh. "And a fine young figure of a man he was. Still is for that matter."

"I can't believe she's been thinking about him ever since."

"Can't you? She talked about him all the way home the following day; all about his baseball skills of course, but she couldn't hide the yearning in her voice."

"Odd coincidence that he's teaching here."

"Not when you know how hard Di lobbied the Board of Regents to hire him. Oh don't look shocked. She pitched them on his coaching credentials, and what he might do for the sports programs, and how as a young teacher he would be less likely to come to Pink Rose with pre-conceived notions."

"She'd been thinking about him all that time."

"She has the ball that he signed for her that night on a little shelf to itself in her office. I think she regrets that she didn't go home with him that night. As I said, Di is sexually complicated. Repressed in some ways, conflicted in others. A little volcano waiting to erupt in my opinion. You were the beneficiary of one such eruption."

You shake your head, trying to process what you've learned and fit it into what you already know. This situation has become even more complicated than you imagined. You're trying to formulate a response when someone pulls out a chair and sits down beside Honey.

"Honey Thibodeaux you are shamelessly monopolizing the company of Dean Hawkfeather, keeping him to yourself down at this end of the table. Rachel Franklin, so very pleased to meet you," the newcomer says extending a languid hand to you.