Page 33

Miri

“ B reathe in, in, in… and now breathe out, out, out,” Miri instructed softly.

The circle of kids around her followed along, their little legs followed under them.

Meditation time was her favorite time of the day.

The kids surprisingly loved it—probably because they knew their art hour started right after and they could go crazy with the markers as soon as they were done humoring her.

“Now, in, in, in… and?—“

A knock on the door cut in, ruining the calm vibe she had finally maneuvered her kindergartners into. Miri opened one eye and frowned at the intruder. Headmaster Dolan?

Both of her eyes flew open. That definitely wasn’t good.

The stuffy old man never so much as poked his head into her classroom, claiming that children this young were too loud and chaotic, and gave him migraines.

Miri could count the number of times he had ventured down the kindergarten hallway on one hand.

“Headmaster?”

“I need to borrow you for a bit, Ms. Brown.”

She looked pointedly at the circle of children watching curiously. Was she just supposed to leave them unattended?

“The secretary will watch them until you return.” He waved the young woman through the door and gestured for Miri to follow him.

Miri scrambled to her feet, her stomach tying itself into knots. That wasn’t weird or anything.

She quickly followed after her boss. They walked into a small conference room and Miri froze in the doorway. The entire board of directors was seated around a large table, her mother included. Her heart dropped. There was no way this was going to end well.

Jason leaned against the wall, his arms folded over his chest. An enormous black and purple bruise covered the left side of his face, his eye nearly swollen shut. Miri bit her lip to keep from laughing. Ace really had smacked the shit out of him.

She turned back to the table and took a step inside the small room.

“What’s going on?”

The headmaster waved her toward the only open chair. “Have a seat, Ms. Brown.”

Miri sat down. Looking from one face to another, she searched for some kind of hint of what the interruption was about. She’d never been dragged out of her classroom before.

“Thank you for joining us, I wish it were under better circumstances.”

And she wished she had any idea what the hell he was talking about.

“What exactly is going on?” Her eyes flicked to her mother, but Elaine sat silently with her hands folded in her lap.

“Due to recent circumstances, you are facing disciplinary action, Ms. Brown,” Headmaster Dolan continued.

Disciplinary…? What in the actual fuck?

“For what?” Miri asked, utterly bewildered. Sure, she’d been sneaking and using her a phone a bit, and she definitely took the last of the coffee in the teacher’s lounge without making more yesterday, but neither of those were all that serious.

Jason stalked forward and pointed at his swollen, purple eye. “For this!”

“Why? I’m not the one who punched you.”

“You sic’ed those freaks on me!”

Her face darkened. “Unless you want the other side to match, I suggest you think long and hard before you call my boyfriends ‘freaks’ again.”

Miri turned away from the pouting man and turned back to the board of directors. Why were they even there? The headmaster could have easily handled this on his own… which meant Jason must have tattled to more than just the principal. Jackass.

Her mother looked straight past her, eyes locked on the wall behind Miri. Great, she was going to be no help. It wouldn’t have killed her to at least get Miri a hint of what was happening.

“Is this a joke?”

“Does my face look like a fucking joke?” Jason shouted. “That fucker broke my cheekbone!”

He definitely did not want her to answer that. If he kept screaming in her face, Miri was going to tell the little slime ball exactly what she thought of him and his precious face, job be damned.

“You will sit quietly or you will be removed from this meeting, Mr. Wilson,” one of the board members said sternly.

The board ignored his belligerent sputtering and focused on her.

Miri forced herself not to squirm under their disapproving frowns.

It was like sitting in front of ten different versions of her mother after she had broken a window with a tennis ball when she was eight-years old. That hadn’t ended well for her either.

“It’s not just the altercation with Mr. Wilson, there have been complaints from parents.”

“Which parents?” Miri was absolutely seething.

“We can’t reveal?—“

“Was it John Callahan?” she interrupted. Her blood was starting to boil as she stared down the wrinkled old headmaster. “He was pretty nasty at his daughter’s conference after I shot down his sexual advances.”

“We have no choice but to investigate all complaints against academy staff,” her mother said shortly, her eyes never leaving the wall. “It’s policy.”

Oh, now she wanted to speak? Where was that energy when Miri was getting dragged into the room for a meeting? Where was the phone call warning her this was coming? She knew she wasn’t her mom’s favorite person, but that just stung.

“And if I submit a complaint against Mr. Callahan for sexual harassment, will that complaint be taken equally seriously?”

A man with a large mustache snorted. “Mr. Callahan is one of our largest donors?—“

Another board member shushed him. The headmaster shifted in his seat, his cool, collected mask slipping. She would take that as a resounding “no.”

Miri shook her head. Had she stumbled on the way to work and fallen headfirst into another dimension? They couldn’t seriously be considering firing her for refusing to flirt with a student’s parent?

“Can I be blunt with you, Ms. Brown?”

“Please do.” Miri’s humorless laugh was cold even to her own ears. “I could use a break from the bullshitting.”

The old man winced at her word choice.

“Between recent complaints from parents and the incident with Mr. Wilson?—“

“The incident that was off school grounds that I was merely a witness to?”

“— you are on thin ice here at Stoneworth Academy.”

Miri laughed again. At that point, there was nothing else she could do. She was getting railroaded for not bowing and scraping to some moth-winged moron with a hard on and a glass ego.

“So, let me get this straight. One complaint in my seven years of employment and one completely unrelated incident with my ex— and yes, he’s an ex in case he left that bit out— and I’m—what, on probation? Fired?”

“This is becoming a pattern of behavior and we have to wonder if it’s a part of recent developments in your personal life,” her mother said quietly.

A pattern of behavior? Recent developments in her personal life? Miri stared at her mother. Was she really going to use the demons against her, now of all times?

Her voice was frosty when she finally managed to speak. “And what developments would those be?”

Elaine Brown opened her mouth but was cut off by the headmaster before she could speak.

“Your behavior does not fit the image Stoneworth Academy is trying to portray to the public.”

“And what image is that?” A stuck up, prejudiced bastion of bullshit?

“A virtuous and diverse, upstanding establishment that only offers the best for our students.”

Virtuous. How cute. She had personally seen two teachers stealing office supplies, the janitor smoking in the gymnasium, and one of the kitchen staff baking pot brownies. But her extracurricular activities were somehow the problem.

Miri folded her hands on the polished table. If they were going to can her for banging a bunch of demons, she was damn well going to make them say it.

“I have the most well-behaved class in the school and my student always place high on district test scores. I have worked at this school for a decade without a single complaint and have been given glowing yearly reviews. So, exactly what part of your ideal Stoneworth Academy image don’t I fit? ”

“Well, virtuous for a start.” Jason scoffed from his place against the wall. “How many demons did you have hanging off you the other night? Five? Six?”

“So, that really is what this is about?” Miri shook her head. So much for being ‘diverse’. The headmaster really should have thought a little bit harder before tossing that descriptor into his speech. “I’m in a polyamorous relationship and that doesn’t fit in your narrow little box?”

She turned to look at Jason and his bruised face over her shoulder. “Or is it because they beat your ass for trying to put your hands on me?”

Spinning back to the board, her lips twisting with distate. And she had thought parents were the worst part of her job?

“Or maybe it’s because I turned down a major donor’s inappropriate sexual advances after he sexually harassed me in front of his own child?”

Miri looked from one face to the next, her rage overpowering her good sense as she stared them all down. The awkward silence dragged on.

“Well, which is it?”

Multiple board members were shifting in their seats. The two in the corner were whispering to each other behind their hands.

“Legally, we can’t dictate your romantic partners,” the headmaster said carefully. “But flaunting such behavior?—“

“Flaunting?” Miri gritted her teeth. “Having a drink with my boyfriends and some friends is not flaunting. In fact, I’m sure the bar would love to supply the security tapes.”

“Consorting with multiple demons?—“

“Oh, so it’s the monster population you have a problem with?”

“That’s not what we’re saying?—“

“Let’s be honest here, Dolan. You’re not saying much of anything because you’re trying to make sure your ass is covered during this bullshit witch hunt.”

Was Miri handling the meeting well? Eh, debatable. She definitely wasn’t making the situation any better, but she was filled with too much anger to address them any other way.

“You’re dating four demon, Miriam?—“

Miri cut her mother off. She wasn’t going to take this prejudiced crap from Jason, the board, or her mother. She’d thought she had made her stance clear at the coffee shop, but apparently she was going to have to do it again.

“And what exactly is the problem with that, Mom? That my boyfriends are demons or that there is more than one of them? Just because it doesn’t fit your small minded idea of the world, does not make it wrong.

” Miri rose from her seat, shoving her chair back so hard it tipped over.

“You know what, I don’t actually care what the board’s bullshit reasoning is this. I quit.”

Ignoring the voices calling after her, Miri started to walk out. She paused in the doorway.

“Oh, and good luck finding a teacher that meets your precious standards after the local news station hears about this. ‘Prestigious Private School: Prejudiced?’ should make a lovely headline.”

Miri waved cheerily and closed the door behind her.