Someone behind us snorts softly.
Someone else coughs.
Charlotte makes a strangled noise.
And I realize exactly what’s going on.
Opal’s telling me how to push Flint’s buttons to get Junie on the soccer team.
Either that, or she’s completely sabotaging me.
“Are you seriously telling me bribes work around here?” I whisper.
“Bribes? You’re not the type of woman tobribe. You’re the type of woman who’d go above and beyond the call of duty to get to know your child’s teachers, since you’re doing this solo for the first time in your life and you know how important it is to be involved.”
She is.
She istotallytelling me how to bribe Flint to get Junie on the team.
Well then.
Not like I have a lot to lose on that front at least.
I beam at Opal. “Meeting you is making me so glad I had a hair mishap.”
She smiles back at me. “Let’s hope you still feel that way after your haircut and cherry crisp.”
Chapter 7
Flint
My first day back in the school building to prep for a new year after having the summer off is always one of my favorite days.
The hallways are empty except for my fellow teachers and the small administrative staff. Everything smells like fresh paint. No one’s smoked anything in the bathrooms yet, and there’s an air of possibility permeating my classroom.
My new posters are hung. Myask a questionprize jar is full. I’m lounging in my chair, feet up on my desk, scrolling through my rosters on my laptop, when someone walks past my door.
I glance up, expecting to see one of my fellow teachers, but instead, it’s a woman I’ve never seen before. She’s in a soft-blue sundress with short, sun-kissed hair, a long neck, straight posture, a round ass, and strappy-heeled sandals.
I sit straighter.
Is that someone new from the district?
Why wasn’t she at this morning’s staff meeting?
I crane my neck, twisting to look closer, but she’s gone, sashaying down the hallway and around the corner.
Probably just as well. I’m not opposed to having some fun—and I do likefun, even if I refuse full-on relationships—but work is one place I make an effort to not find fun.
Learned that lesson the hard way.
Left my last school district to move back here because of it.
I grunt to myself and go back to scrolling the roster. Looks like I have Juniper Spencer in my second period. Trigonometry. So she’s advanced.Ifthey stay, I’ll have her in calculus class next year.
I grunt again. It’s a small class every year, maybe five students, which means we get tight.
Crap.
