3
Seated next to me on the auditorium stage, Ted smooths a hand down his tie and speaks to the room filled with high-schoolers. “As you all know, Liberty Air Flight 23 traveling from Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport to Seattle, Washington, crashed a little over an hour ago. All 179 passengers are presumed dead. Men, women and children, people just like you and me. I’ve called us here so we can talk about it as a group, openly and honestly and without judgment. Tragedies like this one can make us all too aware of the dangers in our world. Of our own vulnerabilities, of just how fragile life can be. This room is a safe space for us to ask questions and cry and whatever else you need to do to process. Let us all agree that what happens in this auditorium stays in this auditorium.”
Any other head of high school would hold a school-wide moment of silence and tell the kids to get back to work. Ted knows that for teenagers, catastrophe takes precedence over calculus any day, and it’s because he sees everything, good or bad, as a learning opportunity that the students follow him without question.
I look out over the three hundred or so kids that make up Lake Forrest’s high-school student body, and as far as I can tell, they’re split pretty solidly down the middle—half the students are freaked by the images of an airplane filled with their maybe-neighbors falling from the sky, the other half giddy at an entire afternoon of canceled classes. Their excited chatter echoes through the cavernous space.
One girl’s voice rises to the top. “So this is kind of like group therapy?”
“Well...” Ted sends me a questioning look, and I dip my head in a nod. If there’s one realm Lake Forrest students feel comfortable navigating, it’s therapy, group or otherwise. Ours are the type of kids who have their therapists’ cells on speed dial. “Yes. Exactly like group therapy.”
Now that they know what’s coming, the students seem to relax, crossing their arms and slumping back into their plush seats.
“I heard it was terrorists,” someone calls out from the back of the auditorium. “That ISIS has already come out and said they did it.”
Jonathan Vanderbeek, a senior about to graduate by the skin of his teeth, twists around in his front-row seat. “Who told you that, Sarah Palin?”
“Kylie Jenner just re-Tweeted it.”
“Brilliant,” Jonathan says, snorting. “Because the Kardashians are experts when it comes to our nation’s security.”
“Okay, okay,” Ted says, calling everyone back to order with a few taps to the microphone. “Let’s not escalate the situation by repeating rumors and conjecture. Now, I’ve been watching the news carefully, and beyond the fact that a plane crashed, there really is no news. Nobody has said why the plane crashed, or who was on it when it did. Not until they’ve contacted the next of kin.” His last three words—next of kin—hit the room like a firebomb. They hang in the air, hot and heavy, for a second or two. “And moving forward, let’s all agree that there are more credible news sources than Twitter, shall we?”
A snicker comes from the front row.
Ted shakes his head in silent reprimand. “Now, Mrs. Griffith has a few things she’d like to say, and then she’ll be leading us in a discussion. In the meantime, I’ll be watching the CNN website on my laptop, and as soon as the airline releases any new information, I’ll pause the conversation and read it aloud so we’ll all have the same up-to-date information. Does that sound like a good plan?”
Nods all around. Ted passes me the mic.
*
I wish I could say I spent the next few hours staring at my phone, watching for Will’s call, but at seventy-six minutes postcrash, only ten minutes into our discussion and a good fifteen before the airline was scheduled to make its first official statement, CNN reports that the Wells Academy high-school lacrosse team, all sixteen of them and their coaches, were among the 179 victims. Apparently, they were on their way to a mid-season tournament.
“Omigod. How can that be? We just played them last week.”
“Last week, you idiot. You just said so yourself. Which means they had plenty of time between then and this morning to get on a plane.”
“You’re the idiot, idiot. I’m talking about how we lost the game that won Wells a tournament spot. Do the math.”
“Hold up,” I say, the words slicing through the auditorium before the argument can escalate further. “Disbelief is a normal reaction to news of a friend’s death, but anger and sarcasm are not good coping mechanisms, and I’m pretty sure every one of y’all in here knows it.”
The kids exchange contrite looks and slump deeper into their seats.
“Look, I get that it’s easy to hide behind negative emotions rather than confront what a close call our friends and fellow students had,” I say, my tone softening. “But it’s okay for you to be confused or sad or shocked or even vulnerable. These are all normal reactions to such shocking news, and having an open and honest conversation will help all of us work through our feelings. Okay? Now, I bet Caroline here isn’t the only one here thinking back to the last time she saw one of the Wells players. Was anyone else at the game?”
One by one, hands go up, and the students begin talking. Most of the accounts are no more relevant than same field, same time, but it’s clear the kids are spooked by the proximity, especially the lacrosse players. If they had won that game, if Lake Forrest had been the school with a slot in that tournament, it could have just as easily been our students on that plane. Corralling the conversation takes every bit of my concentration until just after one, when we break for a late lunch.
The students file out, and I pull my phone from my pocket, frowning at the still empty screen. Will landed over an hour ago, and he still hasn’t called, hasn’t texted, hasn’t anything. Where the hell is he?
Ted drapes a palm over my forearm. “Everything okay?”
“What? Oh, yes. I’m just waiting on a call from Will. He flew to Orlando this morning.”
Ted’s eyes go huge, and his cheeks quiver in sympathy. “Well, that certainly explains your expression when I came to your office earlier. You must have had quite a scare.”
“Yes, and poor Ava bore the brunt of it.” I waggle my phone in the air between us. “I’m just going to see if I can’t track him down.”
“Of course, of course. Go.”
I skitter off the stage and up the center aisle, pulling up Will’s number before I’ve stepped through the double doors. Lake Forrest is set up like a college campus, with a half-dozen ivy-covered buildings spread across an acre campus, and I take off down the flagstone path that leads to the high-school building. The rain has stopped, but leaden clouds still hang low in the sky, and an icy wind whips chill bumps over my skin. I pull my sweater tight around my chest and hustle up the stairs to the double doors, pushing into the warmth right as Will’s cell shoots me to voice mail.