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The Spring Before

The halls of Greenbelt Senior High School were mostly empty. It was a professional development day, which meant that the students stayed home and most teachers showed their faces for a couple of hours in the morning before finding themselves free to go about their days. Jade Dunn, on the other hand, took it as an opportunity to get a bit of real work accomplished. Using the kind of focus that could be maintained only when she and the bookkeeper were the only ones in the building.

She was sitting behind the desk in her classroom, switching between grading quizzes and looking at her defensive line playbook, when the sound of something heavy rolling down the hallway caught her attention. Ignoring the instinct to be nosy had never been her strong suit, so she peeked her head out of the doorway, expecting to see someone from the custodial staff.

Instead, she sawher.

Ms. Lim.

Wearing a pair of slim-fit khaki pants and a button-up as she rolled a…

“Is that a SMART board?” Jade was incredulous.

Lim stopped in her tracks just across from Jade and smiled widely at her. “It sure is.” She patted the side of the giant screen.

“Where did you get that?”

“We got a little bit of funding, and Ms. Lim here submitted a pretty great proposal.” Principal Fletcher Coleman appeared like a gust of wind from one of the classrooms down the hall. “It was delivered today.”

“I’ve been trying to get a SMART board for my classroom for a year and a half,” Jade said, gritting her teeth. “She’s been here five minutes, and she just gets one handed to her?”

“Well, um.” The older man turned red in the cheeks. “The funding—”

“The funding was for the arts,” Lim interrupted with a smile. “And Iamthe art teacher.”

“And what does an art teacher need with a SMART board? What are the kids even going to do? Paint all over it?”

“Now, Ms. Dunn—”

Jade was incensed as she cut her boss off. “I’m sorry, Principal Coleman, I really am. But I just don’t understand how it makes sense that her class could use that tool more than mine. One of those boards would help my students get a leg up on literal hands-on learning.”

“And it would help mine too.” Lim still had that little smile across her face. “This board is going to enable me to incorporate more interactive learning into my lessons. The kids will be able to learn about the new frontier of digital art.”

Jade scoffed. “The new frontier of… Coleman, you cannot be serious.”

“Ms. Dunn.” The man’s scolding of her was gentle but firm. “We can revisit your proposal, but there’s no need to be antagonistic.”

“Exactly, Ms. Dunn. We can all have things here. Me having a SMART board is a positive for all the students.” Ms. Lim may as well have winked at them both.

Jade’s eye twitched.

Ms. Lim turned that smile back on Jade, only it wasn’t as sweet as it had been seconds earlier. Its edges had gone sharp, not quite smug, but definitely knowing exactly what she had done. It ground the ever-loving fuck out of Jade’s gears.

Everyone loved Ms. Lim. She’d come to Greenbelt and the people had taken to her so fast that everyone had forgotten about a time she hadn’t been there. Jade… had not had such an easy time. Not with the students and not with her fellow staff either. And she’d been there her whole damn life.

People tended to find her intense. Serious, even. But Ms. Lim was all easy smiles and warm kindness. People took to her immediately. In the two years she’d been in Greenbelt, Jade hadn’t heard a single person say one unkind thing about her. Not even a student.

Jade didn’t really understand people like that, and it was enough to make her bristle. But not enough to stoke the flames of the intense dislike she felt for the other woman now. No, that had been driven by something else.

Ms. Lim hadn’t ever done anything to cross Jade. Honestly, she’d even been helpful once or twice. For a moment in time, Jade had thought that she might be able to look past Lim’s sunny disposition. Then, during an end-of-the-year field day, she’d seen Ms. Lim coach her ass off during a friendly flag football game while the head coach of Greenbelt Senior High’s football team watched with clear approval written all over his face.

It had taken one afternoon for that particular piece of straw to seat itself on the camel’s back. A later conversation with a staff member who revealed that Lim had real coaching experience had broken that back completely. Jade could see the woman’s game from a mile away. Francesca Lim was coming for her spot—Jade didn’t need confirmation or threats from the woman herself, she couldfeelit. And it made her furious.

Now Lim had gotten a SMART board. A SMART board that should’ve been Jade’s.

She disliked the woman immensely. She wanted her gone. Out of her school, out of her town, and especially far, far away from her goddamn football team.

Everything inside Jade ached to curse her out. Of course, she couldn’t quite do that in the middle of a high school without drawing even more ire from her boss. So she swallowed the urge, even though it tasted like tar going down her throat.