Maybe not.
It’s amazing how the smell of a high school hallway never changes. The janitors can try, they can swap out the district-issued lemony-fresh cleaning products for summer-rain-scented potpourri, but the underlying stench of scuffed linoleum, spiral notebooks, and teenage angst embeds itself in every loop of nondescript carpeting, in every inch of every number-two pencil, and in every rusted, dented corner of every locker of every high school in the world. Mercy was no different.
The girls deposited Will and me at the administration offices, where we were greeted by Heddy Gaines, school secretary—her little carved wood veneer nameplate placed prominently on her desk.
Heddy looked like every school secretary in every high school teen angst-slash-comedy ever made. She had a beige bouffant that was spun like cotton candy with perfectly rounded bangs that barely licked her forever-surprised red-brown brows. Her face was warm and matronly, as was the lacy Peter Pan collar on her dress, as she shoved a little cut-glass bowl of hard candies toward us. As I took a grape candy—and took her in—there was a tiny niggling at the back of my mind. Did I remember her? Her eyes flitted over mine, then went to Will. She offered us a practiced smile, her orange-red lips pressed tightly together.
“May I help you two?”
I stepped forward. “We’re the new teachers,” I hiss-whispered, and one of Heddy’s eyebrows went up even more than usual.
“Teachers?” she hissed back.
“Heddy, Heddy, I’ve got them.”
The gentleman speaking strode over to us, his tie flopping on his chest. He jutted out a hand. “Principal Lowe,” he said, shaking my hand so heartily I thought it’d snap off at the wrist.
For every inch that Heddy looked stereotypically secretarial, Principal Lowe looked atypically principal. He was tall, eye to eye with Will, with close-cropped salt and pepper hair and pale blue eyes that were kind, but rimmed with clear exhaustion. He was slender enough to make me suck in my gut, and his navy-blue suit—white button-down shirt, sans tie—gave him a cool but approachable edge. I vaguely wondered when Lowe had taken over, wondered if it was directly after the cranky old woman who had been the principal when I’d attended Mercy. Principal Stockman had lived up to her name as if it were an honor. She was built like a fireplug with a shock of fuzzy, blue-grey hair, turned-down eyes and a perma-scowl. Or, maybe the scowl was only for me. I shifted now in Principal Lowe’s visitors’ chairs, remembering the hundred or so times I had sat here, shrinking in Principal Stockman’s shadow as she told me that “girls will be girls” and that if I’d just ignore the mean girls’ comments, they would eventually forget about me and move on.
In my freshman year that had seemed like sound advice. By senior year I knew it was a crock of shit.
“I really appreciate you both coming out here,” Lowe said, his pale eyes moving from my face to Will’s. “And Ms. Lawson, I understand that you are a Mercy High, uh, alumna, is that correct?”
I shook my head quickly, then cleared my throat. “That is correct, sir.”
Lowe and Will both broke out into smiles. “You can call me Edward, Ms. Lawson. You’re not in any trouble here.”
I felt a hot blush warm my cheeks and the smile dropped from Edward’s face.
“Well, not in here. But out there”—his eyes flashed to the halls behind us and he shook his head—“I’m not so sure.”
I suddenly snapped into information-gathering mode and pulled my notebook and pen from my shoulder bag. Every cop seemed to have his own black leather flip-open notebook—Alex kept his in his back pocket—and I knew professionally, I would need my own. I couldn’t exactly find the model the cops used, but found that my Target standin with the glittery, big-eyed unicorn on the front cover still got the job done.
“Do you have any additional information you can give us, Edward? Anything at all about either of the missing students or any suspicions about your current class?”
Edward blinked at me blankly and Will put a soft hand on my knee. “What she means is, is there anything we should know before going out there?”
Edward shuffled some papers on his desk before handing one each to Will and me. “You’ll be teaching English Two, Ms. Lawson, and Mr. Sherman—”
“Will, please.”
“Will, thank you. You’ll be teaching American History.”
I let out a yip that was half nerves, half amusement. “He’s teaching American History?” I jerked a thumb toward Will. “He’s English.”
“With all due respect, love, we English have a pretty good working knowledge of what’s happened here in the States. We did own you and all.”