Abby had never heard Major sound weak before.
“Not an accusation, Julius,” Abby’s mom said. “Just stating facts. I’ll be damned if you’re going to kick my daughter out of school for being poor and talking back. And I’ll be double damned if you’re going to rope me into doing your dirty work for you. If you want to throw my little girl out, you’ll have to do it yourself. And know this: the minute, the very second, that you write a letter saying she’s not suitable for Albemarle Academy, I’m going to be at the next PTA meeting questioning every single decision you’ve ever made. So you’d better have your ass covered or it’s going to be grass, and I’m going to be the lawn mower.”
Abby didn’t even know it was possible to talk to Major this way. Incandescent rage was radiating from her mother, but her voice wasn’t raised; she wasn’t yelling or carrying on. She was simply taking Major apart and glowing with a white-hot fury.
“Now, Mary,” Major said, “getting angry and blowing off steam in my office is all fine and good, but it’s not helping Abigail.”
“Save it, you puffed-up gym teacher,” Abby’s mom snarled. And, unbelievably, Major’s mouth snapped shut. “How a degree in physical education makes you qualified to run this monkey farm, I’ll never know, but that’s not up to me. Even back at the Citadel I didn’t like you. You always kissed up and kicked down.”
“Martin,” Major said, appealing to Abby’s dad, “out of respect for our friendship, I’m asking—”
“Oh, can it,” Abby’s mom said. “Martin never liked you, either.”
Abby’s dad stopped rubbing his pants for a moment and shrugged his bony shoulders.
“Now that’s not entirely true,” he said. “I just never thought about you long enough to develop an opinion.”
Major started to say something, but again Abby’s mother was on him.
“I know there are parents here who are sick and tired of the little club you run,” Mrs. Rivers continued. “I bet every single one of them would be only too eager to hear about my daughter being made a scapegoat for your incompetence. I bet they all have stories of their own. I bet if we all started talking, we could really make your job a whole lot harder.”
A long silence took hold while her threat settled.
“Mary . . . ,” Major began.
“We’re through here,” Abby’s mom said, standing up and hitching her purse over one shoulder. “I don’t want to hear any more about Abby moving to another school or having any more difficulties with you, and I don’t expect to be dragged into another waste-of-time session like this. My daughter flunks out or my daughter drops out, we’ll deal with her then—and trust me, I will tear up her hide. But this conversation right here? It is over.”
To Abby’s amazement, her dad stood up and her mom opened the door and they walked right out of Major’s office. Abby kept expecting Major to call her back or give them all Saturday School, but he didn’t make a peep. Abby was the last one out the door; she turned around to see him still sitting, bent over his desk, with his fingertips rubbing his forehead. She almost said she was sorry, but then her mother was pulling her through the little hallway, past Miss Toné, and outside.
The wind was blasting out of the marsh, scouring the Lawn, howling through the breezeway. No one said a word until they were standing by Abby’s mom’s car parked in the faculty lot, their hair and coats being tossed around. The only sound was the flag snapping in the sky behind them. For once, Abby was actually excited about going to her shift at TCBY. “Mom,” she said, “thank you. You were totally awesome and—”
Abby’s mom whirled; her face was such a mask of fury, it snatched the words right out of Abby’s mouth.
“Damn you for ever putting me in this position, Abigail,” she hissed. “How dare you have us called in here like a bunch of white trash. I have sacrificed so much for you, and this is how you repay me?”
Abby tried to put a sentence together.
“I—but I didn’t do anything,” she said. “You even said I didn’t.”
“I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt because you’re my daughter,” her mother spat. “But God help you if you make a liar out of me. How far do you think your scholarship goes? When’s the last time you looked at the bills? Your father and I scrape to keep you here, and this is how you act?”
Abby knew she looked stupid, mouth flapping open, trying to form words, but this wasn’t fair. None of it was fair.
“He said all that because he hates me,” she said. “He’s blaming me for what other people did.”
“Your job is to make that man like you,” her mother came right back at her. “He should speak your name one time in your life, and that’s at graduation when he hands you your diploma. He’s blaming you for what other people did? I wonder who those people are. I wonder why I heard Gretchen Lang’s name in there?”
Abby wanted to lie, but she was too raw.
“It’s not the way you think,” she began.
“I’m sure I can’t possibly understand anything about your wonderful friends,” Mrs. Rivers said. “I warned you those girls would take you down this path, and you thought I couldn’t possibly understand anything about your life. Oh, no, you’re too smart for me. So you ignored everything I said and here we are. Well, I hope you feel clever now.”
“I—” Abby began.
“Enough,” her mother snapped. “I have put up with enough from you today. I have to get to work.”
With that, she slammed into her car. Her dad walked slowly to the passenger door and got in. Abby watched as they pulled on their seatbelts, backed out, and drove away. Behind her, the halyard banged against the metal flagpole like an idiot trapped inside a cage, causing the metal to echo as the wind lifted impossibly higher. A sheet of white paper skirled across the sky, riding a crashing ocean of air currents over Abby’s head.
Abby watched her mom’s car brake at the stop sign, then turn onto Albemarle, chased by another sheet of paper snapping at its rear bumper. She looked back toward school and saw, framed in the breezeway, a blizzard of paper rolling and tumbling across the Lawn. Thin shouts reached her, and she started walking, then running, toward campus, her heart iced over with dread.
It was 4:05 and the sounds of volleyball practice were sucked from the open gymnasium door and torn to scraps by the wind. Afterschool detention was in full effect in Mr. Barlow’s computer room. Rehearsals for the Founders Day concert were under way in the auditorium. And a girl stood half naked on top of the bell tower, throwing papers into the sky.
One cartwheeled past Abby and she snatched it up. It was a photocopy of a handwritten note that began, “Dearest One, like a lily among thorns is my darling among the young women . . .” She let her eyes fall down the page to the signature: Bruce. There was only one Bruce on campus—Father Bruce Morgan—and she looked up and realized why the silhouette of the girl looked familiar, with her tan arms and white breasts.
A few students and teachers had stopped to stare, and more were drawn from their offices and classrooms; the girl on the tower was stumbling close to the edge. The ground lurched and rocked beneath Abby’s feet as the figure waved her arms, shouting, the wind pulling away her words and draping her hair over her face. Abby started to walk toward the bell tower. Now the box of photocopies was empty and the girl tossed it, but the wind didn’t lift it anywhere. It just fell straight down and hit the bricks, a dress rehearsal for what Abby knew would happen next.