by Susan Finlay
“No, no,” Steve said, shaking his head. “That’s recent. After we graduated college, Frank moved to Chicago and I moved to Los Angeles. Worlds apart. We stayed in touch though. Attended each other’s weddings, that sort of thing.”
Silence ensued. He’d given her the perfect opportunity to ask about his marriage and divorce but if she did, he would ask about her love life. Instead, she chose the safer route. “How did you both come to work here in this school district?”
His brow creased a little and he took a sip of wine. “I’m not married anymore in case you were afraid to ask. Been divorced for many years.”
She felt her face grow hot. “I—I, well Frank already told me that.”
“Ah.”
Again silence.
“Did both of you start working here at the same time?”
“No. I’ve been here a little over three years. Shortly after I started, one of the four assistant superintendents retired. I immediately thought of Frank.”
“That was really nice of you,” Claire said. “Friendships like yours are hard to find.”
“They are indeed. Though sometimes I worry if I did him a disservice. Don’t get me wrong. It’s good to have a job, and as far as jobs go, the pay is not bad here. But Frank’s job and my job are stressful. We put in tons of overtime and we have little time for private lives. He sometimes complains that he worries his wife and kids will forget him because he’s working such long hours.”
She nodded, not knowing how to respond.
“So what about you,” Steve said. “I don’t see a ring on your finger.”
She quickly covered her left hand with her right and felt daft for doing it. Obviously it was too late. She tried to make light of it. “You’re too observant. Has anyone ever told you that before?”
He laughed. “As a matter-of-fact, yes.”
Before he could ask anything else, the waitress miraculously appeared with their meals.
After she left, and they began eating. Steve quickly returned to the conversation. “So I take it you’re not married.”
“I’m not.”
“Divorced?”
She bit her lip and looked down at her plate, while she debated how to answer. Finally, she said, “No. I was engaged. We actually broke up a few months before the wedding date. I suppose now in hindsight that was for the best.”
“Certainly cheaper,” Steve said in between bites of food. “I mean finding out before spending the money for a wedding,” he added, smiling.
They went on to talk about global warming, super volcanoes, alternate energy, and other miscellaneous trivia. An hour later, as Steve put his credit card back in his wallet, he said, “Why don’t we catch a movie? I’m not sure what is playing. Maybe we can find something to see.”
“That sounds nice.” She hadn’t been to a theater in over a year. Until now, she hadn’t realized how much she missed it. She and Callum used to go every other weekend.
They left the crowded restaurant and stood in the parking lot together, trying to decide what to do about having two cars there.
“Why don’t we just both drive to the movie theater and meet there?” Claire said. Steve agreed. Once there, it didn’t take long to discover that most of the movies had started about a half hour earlier, but they did find one action movie that was about to begin.
It was around eleven o’clock when the movie let out, and Claire and Steve discussed the movie as they walked out to their cars. It turned out to be a much better movie than Claire feared. When they arrived at the parking lot, they stood next to Claire’s car, and she kept pushing her windblown hair out of her eyes. She knew she was stalling for time more than anything else. She wasn’t sure what was expected, so she said, “I had a good time, Steve.”
“I had a great time. I hope we can do this again.” He paused, and looked uncertain for a moment before he spoke again. “I don’t know how you feel, and I don’t want to pressure you. I like you and I’d like to see you again—outside of work, I mean.” He hesitated, looking thoughtful, then said, “Please don’t feel you have to go out with me, of course. I’d never pressure you, or anyone, that way. I’ve never dated someone who worked for me, and I really shouldn’t do it now. But with the long hours I work, how else am I supposed to find someone, you know? It’s tough finding the right person to be with.”
Claire bit her lip, again stalling for time.
“I’m sorry, this is awkward, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “I’ve never dated anyone that I worked for either.”
“I hope you don’t think I’m too old for you. Am I too much like your father?’
“You’re nothing like my father.” She would never date someone like her father, a man with sharp words and biting anger.
“I’m forty-six. Is eleven years too much of a difference?” He searched her face and she had the uncanny feeling he was trying to figure out if she really was thirty-five.
“Let me think about it? I’ll get back to you in a few days.”
AS SHE TRIED to get to sleep, she thought about Steve. She truly liked him—his easy-going attitude, quick wit, intelligence, and incredible self-confidence. But could she trust him? Was he setting some kind of trap for her?
She’d never been paranoid, and she didn’t think she was now.
If she said no to Steve, he might assume she didn’t like him, which wasn’t true at all. Or worse, he might think she wasn’t really available. Had John Richmond spoken to him about his belief that she was the senator’s mistress? If he had, Steve might interpret her declining of his advances as evidence that John was right and that she uses men to get what she wants.
On the other hand, she could be worrying over nothing. Maybe she was sabotaging herself. Wasn’t that possible? But then she thought about another possibility: that she might be afraid of getting involved with someone whom she might have to suddenly leave behind or who might hurt her fragile trust in people. Oh, bloody hell. She needed to get out of this job.
CHAPTER EIGHT
CLAIRE KEPT HEARING Kate’s and Angie’s words about the stranger as she dressed for work Monday morning. Her nerves were on edge driving across town, and she couldn’t stop checking her rearview mirror to ensure she wasn’t being followed.
She arrived at school an hour and a half before the first bell because she needed to work on a weekly report mandated by Steve. The report took an hour to finish, leaving less than half an hour at most to email her report and check her new emails. Opening her inbox, she was shocked to see thirty-six emails, far more than usual, unread and screaming for attention.
She groaned, sent out the weekly report, and began opening the unread mails one by one. In the middle of reading one from Frank, Ron stuck his head into her office, clearing his throat to let her know he was there.
“Hey, sorry to interrupt,” he said, “but we’ve got another problem.”
“What now?” Claire asked brusquely, rubbing the back of her neck with her left hand as she closed the inbox with her right hand. She sighed and glanced up at Ron, who looked taken aback at her reply. Immediately realizing what she had done, she said, “Oh, Ron, I’m sorry. It’s not your fault about the problems. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
He nodded, his face blank again. “Nancy Palmer got here fifteen minutes ago, grabbed a cup of coffee, and headed up to her classroom. That’s when she discovered a mess. Spray paint. Gang symbols. All over the hall floor and on the classroom doors. But that’s not the worst of it. They also hung liquid-filled condoms over all the doorknobs. At first she thought they were water balloons.”
Claire’s jaw dropped open. “Oh my God, please tell me you’re kidding.”
Ron winced. “Afraid not.”
“It isn’t throughout the school, is it? I mean, is the vandalism confined?”
“We thoroughly checked the second floor, and did a quick scan of the other floors. We didn’t see any vandalism in the rooms themselves and no fresh vandalism on the othe
r floors.”
Ha. Fresh vandalism. That was the only way to describe the difference, wasn’t it?
“Well, at least that’s a bit of good news,” Claire said. She tilted her head, then thought aloud. “So, why that floor? What kind of message were they trying to send?”
“Damned if I know,” Ron said. “I’ll call Hector Minosa. Have him get his custodial staff to start cleaning it up. I just don’t know how we’re going to prevent it from happening again.”
An hour later, while on her way back to her office, Claire heard a noise and turned to see where it was coming from. Something was happening outside the cafeteria. She rushed over in time to see five boys, all wearing orange bandanas, shoving two smaller boys, and laughing.
“Leave them alone,” she shouted. They turned at the sound of her voice, and then looked at each other.
“Did you hear what the pretty lady said?” one of the boys said.
While the gang members were distracted, the younger boys ran off.
One of the other members said, “Yeah. Ooh, I’m scared. Whatcha gonna do ‘bout it, huh? You wanna take us on, mama?”
Claire struggled to keep from showing fear. She was alone with these boys and no one knew she was here. She studied them briefly, trying to keep her demeanor calm, and although she dearly wanted to take each of them by the ear, be the strict disciplinarian and march them out of the school, cooler thinking prevailed. This wasn’t the right time or conditions. Finally, she spun around on her heels and walked briskly back to her office, not daring to look over her shoulder. Please let them not be following, she thought.
Later, sitting in her office, she replayed the morning’s events. As she slid from one scene to another, something clicked in her mind. Teachers need a discipline plan that encompasses clearly defined rules of conduct for all their students. It would make sense to develop and follow the same plan throughout the school, train the teachers, and then inform the students of the consequences and that they would be enforced.
A while later, she walked into Ron’s office and asked him to announce a second assembly. She would try again at ten o’clock today. Before the assembly, she searched through last year’s yearbook to see if she could identify the gang members she’d seen bullying the younger boys. She felt like she was looking at mug shots in the police station. Soon she found four of the five boys. Although she couldn’t do anything about them now, she would listen for any mention of their names among the faculty and students.
At five minutes before assembly time, Claire took a deep breath, let it out, and walked briskly up onto the stage. She’d spoken before large audiences thousands of times before in lecture halls, but most of those students had attended willingly and that had given her confidence. Facing a hostile crowd was a completely different animal.
After a brief introduction and pause, she continued. “I’ve learnt a lot about Midland in the short time I’ve been here. There are things that need to change.”
There were some shouts, some of them obscene, and much whispering among students. Stay calm, she told herself.
“This morning we had an incident of vandalism. After that I witnessed some students bullying other students. If you know who is responsible for the vandalism, please come to see Mr. Baker or me. If you are a victim of bullying, or know of someone who is, please also see myself or Mr. Baker. Don’t let the troublemakers ruin your education or your life. Over the next few weeks, this whole school will meet every other day in this auditorium.”
Again there were whispers and the occasional obnoxious, loud wise crack. Claire pushed on, raising her voice. “People here—students and faculty alike—have not been safe or happy. We have to change that. We have to fix our school’s problems. Fixing the problems is a huge task. No single person can do it alone, but with everyone working together, students and faculty alike, we can.”
As in her previous assembly, a ruckus broke out and Claire was forced to stop. She strained to decipher the sounds, and the best she could surmise, was that it was a mixture of boos and cheers, with boos unfortunately still outweighing cheers.
Ron and several teachers were busily intercepting students who left their seats.
Claire steeled herself, and then spoke as loudly as she could into the microphone. “We will begin the next assembly with new procedures. Before then I want you to come forward and tell what you know about the vandalism, the bullying, the—”
Ignoring her, students jumped out of their seats and stampeded toward the doors. Ron and a few teachers prodded them like cows to go on to their next classes. Afterwards, Ron walked over to Claire and he said, “You’ll never get them to rat on each other. You’re a fool for thinking kids will do that. In places like this, you say nothing, you lie, you do whatever you need to survive.”
Claire stared at him. “Are you giving up?”
“No, I’ll do what I can to help, but don’t kid yourself. Don’t expect miracles.”
TUESDAY MORNING, CLAIRE arrived at work groggy, having been up half the night with Marcus who’d had a nightmare and couldn’t get back to sleep. She probably wouldn’t have slept well anyway, still worrying about the watcher and not having heard from Brad yet.
Walking around to the front of the building from the faculty car park, she stared in horror at the building and leafless trees dressed with Maypole-like streamers of toilet paper and at the streaks of bright red spray-paint on the remnant snow blanketing the grounds in front of the building. Unfortunately, Gang symbols, ones that she’d come to recognize, were also painted on the snow-cleared sidewalk in black.
This was the worst she’d seen yet. And this coming after she started trying to fix the school’s problems immediately made her believe the gangbangers were sending her a warning.
Brad Meyers’s words about John Richmond popped into her head. “He was trying to intimidate you. It was a power play. That’s all. He was letting you know that he was ticked off because someone usurped his power and told him who to hire.” Wasn’t that similar to what was happening here? Wasn’t she trying to usurp the troublemakers’ power?
Don’t let them intimidate. Don’t let them win. Not John, and not the troublemakers here in the school. She glanced at the clock, then sent out a message over the school’s intercom, advising the faculty to report immediately to the school’s music room for a brief before-school meeting.
Fifteen minutes later, sitting on a stool on the music room stage, she said to the faculty, “We’re going to continue the school assemblies.” She’d selected this room because it had stadium-style seating and was cozier than the auditorium, yet able to accommodate one-hundred-twenty employees. Everyone faced her, allowing her to watch their reactions and also engage them in conversation. “We’ll hold them every other day until we don’t need them anymore. They’re working. It may not seem like it yet, but what we see today is retaliation by the school’s troublemakers. We’ve rattled them, and we’ll keep on rattling them.”
“And they’ll keep on retaliating,” one of the teachers said. “I don’t want to come to work in fear.”
Several other teachers nodded agreement.
“What, you don’t come to work in fear now? We can’t give in,” Claire said. “We have to keep trying.” She paused. History teacher Jerome Shaw was sitting off to the side, looking down at his lap. His fingers tapped on his iPhone, probably texting someone across the room. Claire’s eyes swept the rest of the room. History teacher Jill Barnes, who was Jerome’s ‘friend’, was doing likewise in the back of the room. They might be discussing the meeting, but more likely planning a hot date. Best let it go.
Claire took a sip of the tea she’d brought with her from her office, then said, “We can’t continue to allow a quarter of the student body to run this place. We must not let them intimidate the other students or us. They are robbing the other students of a good education. They are robbing each of you the chance to educate and to have a safe work place. This school can and must change for the better. W
e must make it happen for everyone’s sake.”
About a third of the employees smiled or gave some form of approval but the others whispered to one another, or fussed with their hair, their neckties, or their phones. Clearly, she still hadn’t convinced them. What would it take to get through?
“Those of you who are interested in fixing the problems, stay here and we’ll discuss ways to handle school fights. The rest of you may leave, but please think about what this environment is doing to your lives and the future lives of your students.” She’d done enough homework that she could give a brief lesson on school fights.
Roughly forty percent of them stayed and spent the next thirty-five minutes discussing the primary reasons teens fought in school, and the techniques for dealing with those fights: restraining techniques, getting back-up assistance, using firm nonverbal and paraverbal communication, etc. Everyone agreed that the team-restraining techniques, while usually suggested to be used as a last resort, would be invaluable at Midland. At the end of the meeting, she told them she would have another, more in-depth training session the following week.
When she returned to her office, she called Frank and informed him about the vandalism and the results of the faculty meeting.
Later in the day Ron came into Claire’s office, and said, “I heard from some teachers that someone wrote a threatening message on the mirror in the ladies’ faculty restroom near the main faculty lounge.”
Claire said, “Crap.”
She stood up, and together they walked to the restroom. Claire entered first, then stepped out and motioned to Ron that it was empty. They both stared at the large messy red lipstick message: STOP MESSING IN OUR BUSINESS OR YOU WILL DIE.
Ron looked as shaken as she felt. Her earlier resolve to not let them intimidate, to not let them win, flew out the window.
“What do we do?” she asked.
“Damned if I know,” Ron said, rubbing the back of his bald head. “Think we should we notify the police?”
She sighed. “I hoped that wouldn’t be necessary. But—” She looked back at the bloody-looking message. “I’ll call Frank. He’ll know what to do.”
