Page 26 of Look Again

8

DEXTER

Teachers don’t have favorites, but I choose a couple of my favorites to be on the student committee for the Harvest Ball. We schedule a meeting with Joey and her half of the team. We gather at a picnic table on the quad on Saturday afternoon. It’s a perfect day, sunny and pleasant. This far north, we’re already losing the summer heat by the first week in September.

I owe Moreau three scripts tomorrow, and I have two of them ready. The third one is my favorite and therefore is in the least polished state. It’s really just a series of notes and stage directions. But every time I look at it, it makes me laugh. It’s so good. I mean, it will be so good. It has every intention of being so good.

I have a couple others I can pull out and hand over, just in case this one doesn’t make it. But she wants it tomorrow so she can look over all three before our meeting with the board on Wednesday afternoon. I wonder if she realizes that she gave me only a little more time to produce these scripts than she’s requiring to read them.

Does she know that’s not how writing works?

As Joey and the four kids talk over their ideas for the Harvest Ball, I keep tapping notes and clarifications into my document, half listening.

Okay, a quarter listening.

Joey has got this, anyway. The kids know what they want, and she can keep them in check.

I only realize they’ve all stopped talking when the silence gets awkward. I can feel all their eyes on me.

Still typing, I look up at them over the top of my computer.

They’re all staring.

“Okay?” I say, hoping that if they’ve asked me something, that’s a safe answer.

“You think?” One of the girls who Joey roped into the planning committee claps her hands together. “I’m so glad. It’s going to be excellent!” She taps a few keys of her laptop. “I’ll email each of you your assignments, and we’ll meet again in a week to go over our progress. If you need to contact us before that, reply-all to this thread.” She clicks another key with a flourish, and I hear the swishing “sent” sound.

The kids stand up together, as if they’ve heard a dismissal I somehow missed. Maybe I should say something officially adult, but it seems like they’ve got this handled.

“That was quick,” I say to Joey as the kids leave.

She stares at me.

Wasn’t that quick? I want to check my watch, but she’d see me, so I look at the clock at the top of my computer screen. Two hours? We’ve been meeting with these kids for two hours and all I contributed was “okay?” I still don’t know what I okayed.

Joey shakes her head and starts to walk away.

She’s annoyed.

As she should be.

“Hey,” I call. She stops walking but doesn’t turn around. She looks stiff and tense. “Thanks for taking point on this. I really appreciate it. Can I show you what I’m working on?”

When she turns back to me, there is no sign of a smile on her face. “You mean the project that is far more important than the dance we have to pull together in the next six weeks?”

I make an exasperated noise that I hope she doesn’t hear.

She hears.

“It’s not more important,” I say, using my pleading face. “It’s just maybe due in sixteen hours, not six weeks.”

I don’t know if it’s my sincere gaze or my logical excuse that does it, but she turns and walks back to the table.

“A script for Dr. Moreau?”

I nod. “With a little luck, it’s the script. I think it’s really good.”

She shakes her head. “Do you take daily confidence boosters?”