“How did it go?” she blurted out. “Scott’s meeting with the teachers today. I haven’t heard from him. I haven’t heard from anyone.”
Michael Tayson’s smile wilted only a fraction. “I don’t think …”
“I mean, I’m not concerned, of course. I always thought it was a crazy rumor. But … still. Was everything all right?”
“Well, I wasn’t part of the meeting. The teachers are formulating an opinion and will report to me in a few days.”
Formulating an opinion? What was there to formulate? Scott had gone in and confessed to something horrible or he’d shrugged and said he knew nothing. They’d found something on him or they’d absolved him. Did that really require several days of formulating?
“You don’t even know if the hazing was happening,” Sylvie whispered.
“There were bruises on his body,” Michael Tayson stated.
“There were?”
He nodded. “And cuts.”
She felt as though someone had punched her. “Where?”
“I don’t know. I just heard that there were.”
“What is the father saying?” she exclaimed. Her heart was beating inhumanly fast. “The boy’s father? What does he think?”
Michael Tayson looked alarmed. The question surprised Sylvie, too. “Does the father believe there was hazing?” Her voice rose higher and higher.
“I can’t …” He sighed, defeated, and looked toward the large windows that opened out to Geoff’s big backyard. “I’m not really sure this is the place to talk about it, Mrs. Bates-McAllister. Maybe we should meet in my office in a few days, when the opinion comes in. This just doesn’t seem the right …”
“Whatever you know, just say it,” Sylvie insisted. “I want to know what’s going on. This has been terrible for me.”
Michael Tayson’s hands formed a steeple. “Look. I don’t know anything about the father. I don’t know what happened in the meeting. I’ve turned this over to an independent third party for just these reasons, because I’m too close to it, because the board is too close to it. What I do know is that some of your colleagues on the board are quite concerned. They’re afraid this is going to blow up into something much bigger, and they want to extricate themselves from it as much as they can.”
A lock of hair fell in Sylvie’s eyes, but she was too stunned to brush it away. “The board members know? How?”
He pursed his lips and looked down. He had told them.
“But you … you said you wouldn’t say anything,” she whispered.
“It’s their right to know. And I said I’d keep the board members out of the meeting with your son and the teachers. I never said anything about keeping it from them entirely.”
She ran her hand down the length of her face. Her skin felt numb. “Why haven’t they said anything to me about it?”
“They are trying to be discreet, I guess.”
The way they’d sat around the meeting the other day, acting oblivious to all of it. The way Martha had sifted through Christian’s interests, as if she didn’t already know plenty about him. The way they’d patted her hand when she said stop, acting sympathetic and sensitive. It was crueler than if they had come right out and told her what they’d heard and that they felt uncomfortable. And the insidious way Martha fed her to Michael Tayson just now! Had they been planning an intervention all along?
“Well!” she blurted.
Michael Tayson cleared his throat. “I told you, this isn’t the best place to talk about this. But they’ve come to me with their concerns. They’re all worried about this—how this could make the school look, especially since Scott is your son. We have it contained, but as I said, if the autopsy comes back conclusive, if someone else confirms the story about the hazing, if the father takes this to lawyers or to the press, whatever—well, we may need to make some preemptive changes. You want to protect the school’s reputation, don’t you? This is the school your grandfather re-founded, for God’s sake.”
“What are you getting at?” she cried.
He stroked his tie. “Your friends would never ask this of you. I’m sure they’ll stand by you. But they also defer to me, to do what’s best for the school. No one would vote you out, of course, but …”
Sylvie laughed. “Are you suggesting I resign?”
A muscle in his cheek twitched.
Sylvie let out a small, ragged breath. “Oh.” She pressed her hands together. It felt like she had no nerve endings on her palms—she couldn’t feel anything. “Oh. Well.”
He shifted his weight, inspecting her carefully. His nostrils flared in and out slowly, calmly. “They’re willing to give you a settlement. Your family has been such a part of the school, and they want you to know what you mean to us.”
Sylvie widened her eyes. “You’re going to pay me to leave?”
“Unless, of course, you find a way to resolve this yourself.”