Fiona smiles at me.
"I think what you're doing for the school is amazing. That’s going to make a difference for a lot of kids."
"I hope so. That's the whole point."
"What inspired you to do something like this?"
"Woodworking, contracting, plumbing... all the skills Gramps taught me were the foundations to my life. Without him teaching me those skills when I was younger, I don't know where I would have ended up."
"There isn't another job you might want?"
"It's not just that," I say. "I started spending time with your grandparents because my parents weren't taking care of me the way they should have. It's not like I was a little kid anymore, but I was still at that age where you need guidance and protection, but I was forced to kind of figure out the world myself. That's when things could have gone really badly. Being with your grandparents meant I had that guidance and protection, but it also gave me something to be interested in. Finding out I was a natural at all that stuff felt amazing. I never thought I would be any good at anything. Coming from the home I did, I didn't exactly have the best of role models. I know my parents loved me, but they had no idea how to parent. They certainly didn't have any skills, hobbies, or abilities they excelled at or were interested in. It never occurred to me I could accomplish anything. But Gramps changed that. He showed me I could be good at something, and that I could make a skill my own. But Gramps was a smart man. He knew just having a talent or hobby wasn't enough to change the course of my life."
"What do you mean?"
"He would always teach me just enough to lure me in, would get to something interesting, and then stop for the day. That way, I'd want to come back and learn the rest of it. Then he'd do it again. He'd present challenges for me to figure out, and he'd always have the next thing ready for when I mastered a skill, or if I started to look bored."
"So… He One Thousand and One Arabian Nights-ed you."
"Yes, he did. Gramps-herazade. But, it worked. I learned the skills, fell in love with the trade. Having that is what saved me. This program will give me the chance to share that with someone else who might need it. If I can help just one kid stuck at the crossroads of making a terrible, life-altering decision, all the money and time I’ve invested in this will be worth it.”
Fiona rises up on her toes to kiss me. Suddenly, her face changes.
"Wait. If all that teaching was for your benefit, why did I get dragged along and forced to learn about things like nails and the seven thousand distinct types of sandpaper? I didn't need to know any of that stuff. I didn't have any other option but to be there, so he didn't need to keep me fascinated."
I laugh, wrapping my arm around her waist as we head inside.
"You, babycakes, were bait."
"I was eleven!"
"The perfect age for a cradle-robbing thirteen-year-old."
* * *
Two hours later…
It feels strange to be walking down the hallways of the high school again. I haven't been back here since dropping out, and when I first walked back through those doors, I still felt like it was possible at any second for a teacher to come out of a classroom and drag me in.
We make our way toward the office, and I see the secretary's eyes narrow slightly when she looks at me. Her head tilts to the side as we approach. She looks familiar, and I realize it’s the same woman who sat behind this desk during my years at the school. She's older now and the years of dealing with students, and the occasional irate parent, flowing in and out of the office, have taken a toll on her once-smooth face. In the lines and wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, though, I see kindness, understanding, and a flicker of recognition.
"Cade Sawyer," I say. "I have an appointment."
Her eyes light up, and she grins.
"I thought that was you!" she gushes. I see her evaluate me, her head slowly shaking back and forth. "Well, look at you. I can hardly recognize you." She pauses briefly. "Cade Sawyer. I can't believe it. You certainly have grown up. Looks like you've done well for yourself."
I smile.
"I have to look good for work," I say. "I have to look professional. Make a good impression, you know."
"Well, you certainly do."
"Thank you." I glance over my shoulder to where Fiona stands a few feet behind me. "I bet you remember Fiona? Fiona Helms?"
"Hi, Miss Lee," Fiona says.
"Of course, I do," the secretary says. "Everyone knows Miss Rose's little girl. I guess you aren't such a little girl, anymore, are you? You grew up, too.”
"Is Mr. Norton available?" I ask. "I have an appointment with him."
Miss Lee flashes me a wry smile. "He's in his office, Cade. I'm sure you remember where that is."
It's meant as a lighthearted jest, but it feels like a pointed barb. Stepping back, I wrap an arm around Fiona's waist, guiding her in front of me so we can make our way down the narrow hallway toward the office. The door is standing open, and I edge in sideways behind Fiona.
"Mr. Norton?" I say.
I'm so focused on the man sitting behind the desk I almost don't notice Franklin sitting across from him. He stands when he hears my voice and beams at me.
"Hey, Cade," he says.
Hey? Did he just greet me with 'hey'?
I notice instead of his usual suit, Franklin is wearing a pair of slacks and a light sweater in a pale blue shade I'm sure some saleslady told him went perfectly with his eyes. I've done enough shopping in pretentious clothing stores to know when it comes to the wispy women in tight skirts and tall heels roaming the shops, they would gush about how well a neon yellow shirt complimented the man's eyes. I'm fairly certain it's in Chapter One of the “I Work on Commission” handbook.
Is it possible my assistant has decided he came dangerously close to tipping over the edge of insanity, and has now decided to try to play it cool and casual, or as close as he can come to it, as his approach to wooing Mr. Norton?
I'll go with it.
"Hey, Franklin. I didn't know you'd be here."
"I'm your assistant. I'm here to assist."
He laughs and, lord help him, Mr. Norton laughs, too.
"Hi, Franklin," Fiona says from behind me.
She sounds distinctly more pleased to see him than she did to see Miss Lee.
"Hey, Fiona," he says. His eyes drift back and forth between Fiona and me, and I see something flicker across his eyes. He leans back slightly toward the desk as if trying to get Mr. Norton's attention without looking at him. "Michael, have you had a chance to meet Fiona? Fiona, this is Michael Norton, the principal of the school."
Fiona steps into the office and extends her hand toward Mr. Norton.
"Hello," she says. "Cade told me about you."
I glance at her. I told her that he existed.
"Fiona is an alumna of Hoot Owl High," Franklin says, then turns his eyes toward me, "and a very...old friend of Cade's."
He knows.
"It's nice to meet you, Fiona," Mr. Norton says.
"You, too. It's funny – I still came in here expecting to see Mr. Hayes."
He smiles.
"So, it's been a while since you've been back to the school."
She nods.
"A few years."
I don't know why, but I'm starting to feel impatient. All this nostalgia is making me uncomfortable, and I want to just get on with it.
"Should we go over the plans from the donor here, or would you like to show us the program facilities first?" I ask.
The three of them turn to look at me, and I stare back, unflinching. I'm done with the small talk, and ready to move on to the point of the visit, so it was time to bring that particular conversation to an end.
"I suppose we should start with showing you the facilities," Mr. Norton says. "Then we can discuss what you've seen, and how it aligns with the vision of the donor."
"Sounds fine."
I realize then I never fully entered the office, and I have to step furthe
r in to get out of the way so Mr. Norton can walk past me. We fall into step behind him. Mr. Norton, Franklin, Fiona, and then me form an awkward little parade as we make our way through the outer main office and into the hallway that leads further into the school.
"The donor?" Fiona asks quietly, looking up at me.
I glance down at her.
"Yes."
"I thought you were the one paying for this program."
"I am."
"Then... what?"
"Mr. Norton doesn't know I'm the one paying for it. You're not the only one who doesn't know about my money. I like to keep it to myself. So, Mr. Norton is under the impression a very wealthy benefactor came up with the idea of the woodworking program for the school, contacted Endeavor to be the vendor and consultant for services, and assigned me to be the point of contact and head of implementation."
"And why is he under that impression?"
"Because that's what I told him."
"First...what? Second...call the man Michael."
I smile, ducking my head down to brush a quick kiss over her lips while no one is looking.
"I'll explain it all later. And I still think Mr. Norton fits him better."
We make our way through the school, and I notice more students drifting in and out of the classrooms. I wonder which ones of them are there for summer school to try to save themselves from being held back, and which are the overachievers who spend the majority of their lives at the school as if trying to suck up every bit of the experience they can.
Finally, we make it to the furthest back section of the school and a set of heavy wooden doors I know lead into a shop. I don't have any memories of this space from when I was in school, but the smell of sawdust and heat from power tools hangs in the air. It's a familiar smell and one that always brings me comfort and reassurance. It smells like the potential I see in a piece of raw lumber. Mr. Norton – Michael – opens the doors, and we step through into what looks like a warehouse space. The floor is smooth grey cement, and white tape marks off safety areas around each of the power tool stations set up throughout the room.
The smell is stronger here, which tells me someone was in here not long ago working on something. Michael looks around for a few seconds like he expects someone to be there, then heads for a door on the far side of the room. The narrow window down the middle makes it look like the door to a classroom, and when he opens it I catch a glimpse of desks lined up inside. I hear muttering, and then he comes back toward me followed by a middle-aged man with dark blond hair and thick black glasses. This man holds his hand out to me as he approaches.
"Winston James," he says. "Nice to meet you."
He says it like I should know who he is, but not in an arrogant way. More like it's a name I should have already heard, which it probably is. I glance at Michael as I take his hand.
"Cade Sawyer," I say.
"Winston is going to be the head of the department," Michael says. "He teaches the current woodshop classes and works with the theater department for sets."
"I'm looking forward to expanding the department," Winston says. "I think there's a lot of potential in the plans I've reviewed."
"I think so, too," I agree.
"Let me show you around some," Winston says. He heads further into the room, and I follow him. "We expanded the shop space quite a bit over the last several weeks. The rooms on either side were mostly used for storage, so it wasn't too hard to remove the walls."
"It looks like the teams did a good job," I say. "Those are some of Endeavor's most trusted contractors, so I wouldn't expect anything less."
"The extra space definitely fits the equipment better. I'm amazed by the tools the company donated."
I nod.
"The donor holds this program very dear and wants to make sure everyone involved has access to the very best resources available. He wanted me to reassure you that he, and Endeavor, will continue to be available to you even after implementation of the program. We want to make sure the students have access to everything they need. If you ever need anything at all, don't hesitate to get in touch with me personally."
"Thank you," Winston says. "I'm looking forward to Orientation. I think the students will be really excited when they see the potential of the program."
"I do, too. To that end, why don't we sit down and go over some of the plans? I'd like to hear your thoughts about the details of the program and give you a chance to ask any questions you might have."
Winston nods, and we make our way into the classroom where he leads us into an office I hadn't realized was there. Sitting on heavily cushioned wooden couches, we spread all the notes and plans for the program out across a heavy table and discuss every detail.
Almost two hours later, the meeting is finally over, and Fiona and I are wandering the school together. Our hands play between us, occasionally clasping so we hold them like the teenagers who usually roam these halls.
"It's kind of odd being here with you," she says after a few silent minutes. "We knew each other before either of us went here, then we went to school here, and yet we still missed each other. We never went to school together at all. We always had to wait to see each other until the summer. Sometimes on the occasional break. I wish you had stayed long enough for us to at least go to school together for a year. It would have been nice.”
I feel my heart clench. It's something I've thought about a thousand times before.
"Me, too," I say. "I wish someone had presented it to me that way. When I decided to drop out, I didn't see any point in staying here and wasting all that time just so I could get a piece of paper that said I did it. It never occurred to me that there might be more benefits to getting all the way through school than just graduating so I had a diploma. I even talked to Gramps and Grammie about dropping out, and neither of them discouraged it."
"Really?" she asks. She sounds surprised but quickly tries to cover it. "I mean, what did they say when you told them?"
"They said my life was mine, and I needed to do what I thought was right for me. I explained to them I just wanted to get my life started, and not bother with school anymore because I didn't think it was really benefiting. They said if I had a plan, and I thought I was making the right choice, it was mine to make. I guess since Gramps never graduated either, he couldn't really justify forcing me to stay."
"That's true. He was never the type to go with the 'it was a different time' defense. He trusted you. He knew you weren't going to do something just because you felt like it, or because you wanted to push back against the system."
"Except, that's exactly what I did. I pushed back against everything," I say.
"But not when you dropped out. At least, that's not what it seemed like to me."
"What did it seem like to you?"
"That you didn't feel like you were getting any good out of sitting around in school." She takes a breath and releases it slowly. "Like you had gotten over the life you were living here and wanted to leave it behind."
There is something unspoken in that sentence, and it makes my heart ache. I want to reassure her, but I'm not sure how to respond. As we turn down another hallway and I see a bulletin board with pictures from the last school year, I turn Fiona toward me and wrap my arms around her waist.
"There's another thing being here makes me wish," I say.
"What's that?” she asks, sliding her hands up my chest so she can loop her arms around my neck.
"I wish I had asked you to your prom."
A slightly sad smile crosses her face briefly. I can see the memories in her eyes, knowing she remembers that spring the same as I do.
"You do?" she asks.
I nod. I hold her a little closer. Nothing will ever be able to tell her exactly what I feel, or how sorry I am for wasting all those years, but maybe being in my arms can be a start.
"I wish I had just stepped up and asked you, or at least said yes when you asked me."
"You came," she says.
She's defending me, but she knows as well as I do that it wasn't the same as us actually going together.
"I showed up," I say. "That's different from taking you to prom. You deserved the whole experience. I should have asked you, picked you up, been there for the pictures... everything. From the very beginning, that's what we were leading up to. It should have been that way. I should have made it that way."
"Why didn't you?" she asks.
I lean my forehead against hers.
"I didn't think you'd want me to ask you," I say. "I thought you wouldn't want to go with me because I wasn't in school anymore. Barely anyone here knew me. Those who did, knew me as the one who had dropped out and gotten in trouble. I didn't want you to have to deal with that, especially if someone else asked you. I wanted you to be able to say yes."
"You would have been fine with someone else taking me?"
There's a note of surprise in her voice.
"Fuck, no. I would have hated every second of it and contemplated slashing his tires while you were in the dance just to punish him. But I wanted you to live the life you wanted. I had dated other girls, and as much as I wanted you all to myself, I figured I would let you have a normal high school experience before whisking you away."
"I wanted you to ask me," she says. "I waited for you to ask me. I was so happy when you came. I loved you, Cade. Even then."
I kiss her softly, then take her hand to guide her out of the school. As we're getting into the car, I notice her glance at her phone.
"Something wrong?" I ask.
"I haven't heard from Grammie," she says.
"I'm sure she's just having fun with her friends," I say.
"Me, too. That's the problem."
"What do you mean?"
"I have a theory," she says as she clicks her seatbelt into place. "I don't think she's actually hurt."
I look at her, trying to keep my expression neutral. Trying not to tell her what's really going on with Grammie is exhausting and frustrating. What started as a fun game has reached the point where I don't know if I can keep it up anymore.
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