“I was ill,” Jaz muttered.
Mr. Lorimer leaned forwards earnestly. “Remember that this is a fresh start. Previous challenges only matter insofar as we can learn from them.”
“Guess I’lllearnnot to be ill then,” replied Jaz with a level of contempt I didn’t think I’d heard her use even with Oliver.
“I seem to remember,” Esther prodded, “the fighting was also something you wanted to improve on.”
Jaz scowled. “I want people to stay out my face, yeah. You can write that down as one of your little targets if you like. ‘People should stay out of Jaz’s face.’”
“Okay.” Mr. Lorimer nodded encouragingly. “But maybe we could phrase that in a more helpful way.”
“‘Jasmine would like,’” said Jaz, her voice dripping with so much sarcasm that it probably constituted a slip hazard, “‘to buildmore productive relationships with her peers.’”
The three other adults in the room made three other sets of notes. I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. “Unless I’m missing something, I don’t think she actuallymeantthat.”
Jaz shot me a look that was almost conspiratorial. “It’s quicker this way.”
“I know this seems a bit tickboxy and corporate,” Esther said soothingly. “But having clear goals really does help.”
Set boundaries. Have high expectations. Oliver would have been so much better at this than I was. I stayed mostly quiet while the rest of the room went through the frankly bewildering business of trying to set SMART targets for a child’s happiness. Having done a lot of this kind of stuff in Barbara Clench’s mandatory team-building meetings, it felt wrong to me to see it applied to something that mattered, rather than to the number of staples we were using. But I also kind of couldn’t look away. It was like a car crash, except a bunch of experts kept explaining very sincerely that if the crash went on long enough, the cars would actually come out of it better off.
After that there was the well-meaning conversation around what the school could do to support Jaz in achieving her specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-constrained goals that we were all, it seemed, now agreeing to accept. And once again I tried incredibly hard not to feel useless because I didn’t even know what sorts of things we should’ve been asking the school for. Someone brought up biweekly meetings with a pastoral support coordinator, and that sounded like a good thing? But maybe it was a bad thing or a thing that wouldn’t help or a thing that had been tried already or a thing that would make Jaz feel judged and overwatched.
I glanced over at her, hoping for some kind of clue about her, y’know, needs, but she seemed as in the dark as I was. Or perhaps she’d just given up on anything working. When I did catch her eye, I mostly got can-you-believe-this-shit looks from her that I triedreally hard not to mirror. Tried really hard and, ultimately, failed.
Because, like, could you believe this shit?
When we were done and we’d all agreed that we knew what our roles were and what we were accountable for and that we’d been appropriately pupil-centric and receptive, we set a follow-up meeting for half term.
“It would probably be best,” said Miss Collins, “if Jaz started formally on Monday, rather than coming in halfway through a school day. If you’d like to stay a little while”—she was looking at Jaz now—“we could get somebody to show you around, so things are a bit less confusing next week.”
To my utter unsurprise, Jaz gave one of her patented barely-shrugs.
A few short minutes later, an earnest-looking sixth former was getting ready to give us the tour. Butusturned intojust Jazwhen Esther touched me on the shoulder and said, “Luc, have you got a moment?”
Since Jaz was clearly going to be fine without me—and probably substantially happier—I had no excuse for telling our social worker Ididn’thave a moment. “Sure,” I replied. And then, because it felt like the responsible thing to do, I added to Jaz, “You going to be okay?”
I didn’t expect an answer. I didn’t get one.
Meanwhile, Esther ducked into a free classroom and I ducked after her.
“So,” she said. It was pretty much a sentence by itself.
I winced. “Did I fuck that up horribly?”
“No.” From her tone it was a veryliteralno. The no of “You didn’t fuck uphorribly,” not the no of “You didn’t fuck upat all.”
I was still wincing. “Yay?”
“You have the right instincts,” she told me. “You’resupposedto be on Jaz’s side, and more importantly she’s supposed tofeellikeyou’re on her side. It’s just…”
“Just?” I was asking a lot of one-word questions today.
“Don’t forget your job is to look out for her best interests. Not to make her like you.”
I let out a burst of nervous laughter. “Oh, don’t worry, I’m pretty sure there’s no danger of her liking me.”
“You know”—Esther had folded her arms and was giving me a too-insightful-for-comfort look—“I don’t think you actually believe that. I think you know you’re a likable person, and I think you know how to be charming when you have to be. And those are good qualities. You’re still allowed to be a human being here, Luc.”
