The Good Daughter by Jane Porter Read Free Book Online Page A

wooden lunch table in the staff room rather than at his desk.
    Kit would have preferred it if he had stayed at his desk.
    Bob was a noisy eater and she was trying to ignore the whistling, wet sound he made as he ate his sack lunch at the far end of the table, but it was impossible. He was loud. Worse, he ate with his mouth open.
    The quintessential Catholic school computer science nerd, Bob was ruddy-faced, balding, and heavyset, particularly in the hip area, which was never a good look on men, but he was a bachelor and didn’t know better. Kit had come to view him as an original. She’d come to find his mustard shirts, his claret ties, his baffling mix of plaids and prints charming. She told Polly he was eccentric. Encouraged Fiona to see the best in him. But the chewing sound he was making right now…that wasn’t charming. But Kit couldn’t, wouldn’t, say anything to him. It would be far too rude.
    It wasn’t easy, but she forced her attention back to the essay before her. Unfortunately, it was an incoherent essay, with no thesis or conclusion and endless padding of random thoughts to reach the required word length. Depressed by the student’s lack of effort, Kit made notes throughout, marked it with a D, and added a “see me” note on the bottom near the footer, before moving on to the next one.
    The faculty room door opened with a bang and Polly entered the staff room at a run.
    “I hate cafeteria duty,” Polly gasped, peeling the plastic off her Cup Noodles and then the paper top, so she could fill the foam container with water. With a glance at the clock on the wall, she thrust the cup into the microwave and hit buttons. “I hate the noise. The smell. The greasy food. It honestly makes me want to hurl.”
    Polly was a reformed vegan who periodically toyed with a macrobiotic diet when she wasn’t doing a juice fast. Fried anythingoffended her organic sensibilities. But her healthy lifestyle didn’t stop her from enjoying a good drink, or three.
    Kit grinned up at Polly, delighted by her appearance. “You can swap cafeteria duty for parking lot duty. Spend forty-five minutes every day after school in the parking lot waiting for the little darlings to be picked up and you won’t mind the smell of fried food quite so much.”
    “At least you get fresh air,” Polly answered darkly, getting a spoon from the drawer. “The cafeteria smells like eau de throw-up.”
    “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Shelley Jones, the PE teacher, volunteered from the far side of the table. “We do have a number of students who are bulimic.”
    “Or, you could be pregnant,” Bob said, looking up from his tuna fish sandwich on white bread. Bob ate tuna fish Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and egg salad on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
    Polly rolled her eyes as she retrieved her shrimp-flavored Cup Noodles from the microwave. “I’m single, Robert, and teaching at a Catholic high school.”
    “It happens,” he answered, delicately blotting his mouth with a paper napkin.
    Polly tipped her head, giving him a hard look. “I know it happens, but I’m not pregnant. It’s just the food we serve here
sucks
. I don’t know why we can’t offer more fresh fruits and vegetables and less secret meat.”
    Kit ducked her head and took another bite of her salad.
    “I’ve always loathed Taco Tuesdays,” Polly added, grabbing a spoon from the drawer, “because the taco meat smells like cat food, but today’s Meat Loaf Medley was even worse. I swear to God, today they were serving cat meat.”
    “They eat cat in China,” Shelley volunteered cheerfully, happy to have something to discuss. Lunch had been awfully quiet today. “It’s supposed to be a delicacy.”
    Polly looked at her. “I heard that.”
    Bob cleared his throat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve had the meat loaf in the past, and I found it quite tasty.”
    Polly’s eyebrows arched. “Did it taste like cat?”
    Bob adjusted his glasses. “I