“Good morning, Juliette. Please call me Elyxandre, or I also respond to E, since my name is such a mouthful. Nice to meet you as well. Anything I need to know first thing this morning before I get to it?”
“There’s an email that lays out the schedule for the week, which you should have already gotten last week. Quick rundown for today—breakfast begins at seven fifteen, the all-district meeting is at eight o’clock in the auditorium, featuring the guest speaker, you’ll have a break afterward until one o’clock to do whatever you need, and then the high school staff meeting is in the all-purpose room until three fifteen. Did you need any handouts photocopied for your bit this afternoon?”
“Not today. I do need an updated map of the building though. I’m assuming I can find one on the main computer drive?”
“Just uploaded it yesterday, but I also sent a copy to you in your email as well. The superintendent sent me the list of items you requested, and I’ve been working on them this week. You need anything in the meantime, or can’t find something, just let me know. Oh!” She snapped her fingers. “Almost forgot! IT dropped your laptop off yesterday, as well. They said to call when you were ready, and they’d give you your username and password.”
“Great. And thanks. I appreciate the help.”
“You’re welcome. By the way, if you’d like me to coordinate your schedule for appointments and meetings, just let me know. I did that for our last SRO because he needed the extra help. Wasn’t too swift with computers. But if you’d rather do it yourself, no offense taken.”
Elyxandre smiled. “I’ll see how it goes. I’m good with computers, but if I find I need to delegate something, I’ll keep you in mind.”
“Have a great day, Elyxandre!”
“Thank you. You too, Juliette.”
She walked down the hallway, past the various main office rooms—two conference rooms, Dr. Vaughn’s office, two assistant principals’ offices, two restrooms, the scheduler’s office, and the athletic director’s office—to get to hers at the end. The only other rooms accessible along this walkway were the in-school suspension room and the nurse’s office, which students accessed from an outside door.
She’d been in her office once before on a tour the day she interviewed, but now, she stood in the silence of the bare room, soaking it in. She expelled a long breath. “This is a good thing for us, E,” she muttered to herself. “You know this was the rightchoice, all around. You can do it. He doesn’t get to win. No one does but you.”
Starting over was never easy, but Tejeda Springs High School wasn’t completely new territory. She’d graduated from here with her friends—Tripoli, Cosmos, Triumph, Panama, and Fereh. Tripoli was correct when he said her childhood memories weren’t good ones, and she had vowed she would never return to San Antonio, but sometimes, life was funny and sent you back to places you thought were better left forgotten. Twenty-two years had changed a lot of things in her life. Hopefully, this would be the new start she needed.
By the time she got her laptop situation taken care of, it was quarter after six. She spent the next hour walking the building with the map she had printed off, noting all the doors to the outside, labeling them with letters, and marking the placement of all the fire extinguishers, defibrillators, and ensuring that the numbers of each door in the halls coincided with what was on the map. In case of an emergency, she wanted to be able to tell police, firefighters, or a rescue squad exactly where to go.
Just after seven fifteen, she stopped her survey—time to go grab breakfast, plus introduce herself to a few people. When she arrived in the commons area, the hubbub was loud in the mostly glass-enclosed area, people greeting each other after three months away, laughing, and sharing their adventures in a last-ditch effort to ignore the work that would be starting shortly.
“Good morning, Officer Hookstead.”
Her brain flashed briefly on a stranger with brown eyes, water droplets shining in his hair from a dash in the rain, and a face that was all edges and angles on the outside, but a persona of concern and protection once you knew him a little bit.
She turned his direction. “Dr. Vaughn. Good morning.”
Well. Not what she’d expected. Obviously, his face hadn’t changed, but today he wore a gray jacket over a white dress shirt,with the top two buttons undone, paired with dark-wash blue jeans and black cowboy boots. No principal in her lifetime had ever dressed like an English professor with a touch of cowboy. It was a good look on him.
“I saw a car parked in the SRO slot this morning, but I didn’t see you in your office when I swung by. Settling in okay?”
“Yes, fine, thank you. I was out roaming the building and noting safety items on the map. Since I’ve got you, I was talking with Lieutenant Axton at the police department, and I was thinking. None of the entrance doors here at the school are marked. So, if we ever had an emergency, our directions to first responders would be fairly vague, unless they knew the school personally. Main entrance is easy, and so is the football field for locations. But perhaps we could work with one of the technical classes to get door signs made to put above each entrance. A. B. C, and so on. That way, if a particular door would be faster or better for entry, we wouldn’t have to say things like ‘Two doors left of the auto garage.’”
His brow furrowed, and she could see him nodding slightly. “I see your point. Definitely more efficient.” He smiled. “Let’s make it happen. And I like that you included the students in it. Gives them a sense of connection to the building. An ‘I did that’ moment they can show people and be proud of.”
She beamed, glad they were on the same wavelength. “Exactly. If people are invested in something, they respect it more.”
“As long as they make sure the signs match the building’s aesthetic and pass a quality inspection, I don’t see why not. Even if they had to redo a sign a couple of times, it would still be cheaper than hiring someone outside to do it. I’ll swing it past Superintendent Sealy tomorrow morning when we meet, but we’ll make it happen. Safer and it doesn’t affect the school’s budget? He’ll love it.”
“I’d appreciate that. I’ll have a master copy of the map for you by the end of the day. The teacher in charge of the project could still have the kids do a survey and all, but then they’d have my ‘key’ as a way to double-check they haven’t missed anything, and who knows? Maybe they’ll find something I missed.”
The look on his face still held a smile, but his eyes squinted slightly. “Being shown up by a bunch of high schoolers wouldn’t wound your pride?”
Was he testing her response?
“I’m a Tejeda Springs graduate, but the building has changed a lot since I graduated. Most of them will know the school far better than I do. I wouldn’t be surprised if I missed something. And because of all the remodeling, I’d planned to ask the custodial staff, as well as the rest of the faculty and staff, to confirm everything.”
The squint went away. “I think I’m going to like you a lot, Officer.”
Although he meant it in a professional sense, her heart felt a gentle squeeze. Praise instead of scorn had been rare in her life, so she’d take it where she could get it.
“Same here, Dr. Vaughn.”
