“Hello? Yes, Richard, I got your email. I’m afraid now isn’t a good...” Another confused look—Why are you still here?—before she turned her back on me. “Oh dear. I really can’t,” I heard her say as I lingered in the doorway. “I have to pick up... Yes. Yes, of course, I understand. All right. Five minutes.”
She ended the call. “Shit.”
“I could get them,” I heard myself say.
“Excuse me?”
I took a step forward. “Your daughters? I could pick them up from school.” I wanted to make myself useful. I wanted her to like me.
Her blue eyes rested on me thoughtfully. “I suppose you’re quite trustworthy.”
“Totally,” I promised. “I used to watch my sister all the time.”
“If it were anyone but Richard... And youarein the program.”
I held my breath.I was in the program.
“Yes. All right.” She smiled suddenly, making us allies. “Some of my colleagues still behave as if a penis is a prerequisite for serious scholarship. As a mother, I simply can’t appear to ask for special treatment.”
I smiled back, honored by her confiding in me. Trusting me. “I’m happy to help.”
“Sophie has football practice.”
“I can take her. As long as it’s not too far.” I didn’t have a car. Maybe I could call a cab?
“There’s a bus. Quite simple. Lily knows the way. But the school won’t release Sophie to her sister unless I make prior arrangements.”
I nodded sympathetically. “I get it. I used to have the same problem with Toni. My sister.” By the time I was nine, I had become an expert at forging our mother’s signature on release formsand permission slips. A fact I did not share. But I asked, “Is there some kind of form or—”
“I need to call the school.”
“I can wait.”
But she was already speaking into her phone, one finger raised in the universal gesture forDon’t interrupt. “Glenda Norton. I need to authorize an emergency pickup. Yes, for today.” She opened a drawer and withdrew a sheet of paper. “You’ll have to take this with you,” she said to me.
She trusted me! “Sure.”
She bent over her desk, pen poised. “Dee, you said?”
I gaped. Didn’t she know my name? “Um. It’s Dorothy, actually. Dorothy Gale.” I spelled it for her, just in case. “G-a-l-e.”
She wrote it down, scrawling her signature with a flourish. “There. You’ll need to show ID at the office.”
I listened as she gave bus routes and directions, grateful to have specific marching orders.
She handed me the form. “Lily and Sophie. If they ask, our safe word is ‘hairbrush.’ ”
“Hairbrush.” I committed it to memory.
“Give me your phone number.” I entered it into her phone. “My husband will pick up the girls after practice. You’ll stay until he gets there.”
“No problem,” I assured her.
I was used to accommodating someone else’s schedule—those friends-of-friends, Aunt Em, or Gray. Helping out. Fitting in.Not a problem, that was me.
“So helpful,” she murmured.
I beamed, feeling as though I were finally getting somewhere with her.
