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She still taught at Barrington Woods but was also slowly chipping away at earning her doctorate because she had the aim of one day either making the switch to university teaching or becoming head of the Fine Literature department at Barrington Woods or another suitable high school.

“Mrs. Meskin, you remember her, just has to be considering retiring soon,” Morgan added, mentioning the current department head at Barrington Woods. “I mean, during yesterday’s staff meeting, the woman actually told us a first-person story of something that happened to her during the Truman administration! Christ, how old is she?”

She had done some traveling over the past six years: Greece, Tokyo, England, Amsterdam, Spain, a Caribbean island cruise.

“Greece was my favorite,” she said. “My God, Mykonos!”

She then talked about the challenges of teaching from home because of the pandemic, how it wasn’t as enriching an experience as being in a classroom, able to interact in person with her students. Nonetheless, she added, she considered herself very lucky. Because Barrington Woods was one of the top-performing and most expensive private schools in California, the students were not the types to shirk their responsibilities just because they were learning from home. Also, the students all came from families that have no problem affording the technologies needed to connect remotely.

“And speaking of teaching from home,” Morgan said. “I also just bought a house! My very first one!”

“Awesome!” Chloë said. “Congratulations!”

“Thank you! It took me a while to be able to do it. I don’t know if you’re aware of this but California is an expensive place to live in.”

“I heard a rumor about that,” Chloë said after pretending to think for a bit.

“Did you also hear the rumor about how schoolteachers are not particularly well-paid in these great United States of ours?”

“I heard that one too, yes. But I thought for sure it was, like, the same as UFO sightings.”

“No, I’m afraid not,” Morgan said with a chuckle. “The rumor is true. Anyway, I finally was able to buy one here in town. I considered having a housewarming party but, you know…Covid. Anyway, you should come over one day, let me show off my grand estate.”

Even Morgan was surprised at the invitation. Yet, the invite to Chloë had popped out as if it were the most natural thing in the world despite the fact that she hadn’t seen Chloë for over six years.

“Really?” Chloë asked.

And Morgan realized that, yes, really…she wanted Chloë to pay her a visit. Why not?

“Really,” she told her former pupil, smiling. “Please come.”

“Awesome! I will! What should I bring? Nobody has ever invited me to their brand-new house before.”

Oh my God, she’s so young!

Morgan shrugged.

“How about the name of a good tattoo parlor?” she said.

Chloë’s eyes widened.

“Wait, why?”

“Oh, just something silly I was thinking of doing as a way of celebrating the fact that I bought a house. I was going to treat myself to my first tattoo. I’ve always wanted one.”

The problem was, Morgan had discovered soon after deciding to get a tattoo, that there were so many tattoo parlors to choose from! And her normal research criteria of price and location didn’t necessarily apply in this case. This was for a tattoo, after all; something that will be permanently inked on her body, and she had watched too many episodes of Tattoo Nightmares to want to simply choose the cheapest and closest parlor. Yet even after a few weeks of reading Yelp reviews and looking at online galleries of tattooists’ works, she had all but given up on determining on her own which parlor to go to.

“Dude, I totally know a great shop!” Chloë exclaimed.

Dude!

“You do?”

Chloë nodded. “Yeah, it’s called The Ink Well, down in San Diego. My friend Lexx owns it and my friend Sienna works there. She just got her license and I’m super excited for her! I’m going there tomorrow to be her first official customer.”

“What tattoo are you getting?” Morgan asked. “And do you have any others?” Morgan hadn’t noticed any ink on Chloë’s skin while checking her out earlier at the coffee tasting.

I was not checking her out! What the hell? Admiring her! That’s what I was doing!