Under An Adirondack Sky

“Look, I got braces, Ms. D.”

“I went to band camp and almost drowned.”

“Do you have more Skittles?”

The bell shrilled and she herded the group inside, promising to set up this week’s lunch group visits and her candy jar right away. How good it was to be here. She felt warmed to her toes, her heart full. She was accepted. Loved even. She hoped, as a school psychologist, that she gave back a fraction of the happiness the children gave her. She could not lose this job.

This was what she’d wanted last night when she’d stumbled into the pub and lingered, reluctant to leave such an understanding listener. If Rebecca had waited, she would have found the understanding she needed right here at school.

Of course, then she would have missed out on a surreal encounter with a man whose hazel eyes had hijacked her thoughts all morning... Her disorientation on waking earlier had turned to horror when she realized she’d passed out at the bar and slept in the pub owner’s apartment. Luckily, it’d been an early enough hour to escape without running into anyone.

Her principal’s unmistakable heel clack sounded in the now empty hall ten minutes later. The diminutive woman, whose teased brown updo strategically added a few inches, appeared. “Rebecca, I know this is early, but we have a readmit hearing in five minutes. Can you pull Connor Walsh’s file and join us in the conference room?” Mrs. Carpenter made a face, her bright red lips twisting. “The superintendent’s already here,” she whispered in warning, then clattered back down the hall before Rebecca could request a meeting about her tenure.

Whoa. So much for easing back into her routine after working double shifts this break. Rebecca hustled to her office, breathed in the clean scents of freshly waxed floors and polished counters, and crossed to her file cabinet. Connor Walsh...he’d caused trouble the day before their break. A fight, if she recalled...

She’d been working with the bright loner on his impulse control and anger issues for a few weeks prior to the incident. When he’d failed to make progress with the other school psychologist, Mr. Miller, they’d transferred Connor to her. Despite it tipping her strained relationship with the traditional-minded, senior therapist into cold war status, she’d been proud and excited to see what she could do with the boy.

In three weeks...not much. Not yet, anyway.

Some of the teachers tossed Connor out of class at the first sign of trouble, but she liked the kid. Saw some of herself in him, especially when he’d admitted to being on his own a lot at home, his guardian mostly absorbed in his job. Since the man had evaded her recent attempts to meet with her, claiming work obligations, she imagined him to be some career-obsessed suit. Definitely not a fatherly type. She already couldn’t stand him.

She scooped up a mug of coffee she’d made earlier in the teacher’s lounge and gulped. Not bad. Not latte. But it was better than supporting JavaHut. As for Connor, he deserved better, too. If the school didn’t grant readmission, she wouldn’t be able to help him with his disruptive behavior and make him discover his self-worth the way she had.

In fact, she and fellow area psychologists had designed an innovative intervention program that’d be perfect for him and other students with behavioral issues—if only he’d have the chance to take part. She wished she had time to peek in his file and familiarize herself again with his background specifics, having met with him only a few times prior to his fight. But with the superintendent already here, Rebecca had to rush.

She grabbed his folder, tucked it under her arm and speed-walked as fast as her narrow heels allowed. “It’s nice to see you, Rebecca. How was your vacation?” boomed the superintendent, Mr. Williams, as she took her seat at the conference table. He smoothed his red tie over a trimmer waistline than she remembered, his gray goatee also new.

The narrow room overflowed with staff members, paperwork and coffee cups. To her left sat Connor’s guidance counselor who advised on academic rather than behavioral issues. To her right sat Mr. Anderson, the math teacher who’d broken up the fight before vacation. Both looked at her with barely disguised disapproval, judging her, as they sometimes did, when one of the students she counseled acted out.

Did they think she had a magic wand hidden in her desk? A Taser? As for the inconvenient, first-day-back-from-vacation timing of the meeting, she had no control over that, either. Another black mark. Would it tip the scales about her tenure? She knew the board strongly considered the staff’s opinions when they made such decisions. Could her disapproving colleagues be part of the reason it hadn’t been granted in January? Was a plan in place to let her go at the end of the school year?

Given that schools typically did their firings over the summer, to minimize any disruptions to students, it was a possibility.

“Great,” she fibbed, as a flashback to double shifts at the coffee shop and the calluses left on her feet came to mind. Not to mention getting laid off... “And yours?”

“We vacationed in Hawaii,” piped up his wife, the high school’s assistant principal. Her clipped hair looked freshly frosted at the tips, though her green eye shadow sparkled as bright as ever. “And put away your iPhone, Jim. Rebecca doesn’t need to see you dancing with hula girls, for heaven’s sake.”

Her superintendent slipped his phone into his suit pocket just as a knock sounded on the door. The secretary’s short perm peeked around the frame.

“The family is here. Shall I send them in?”

“Please, Martha, before Jim starts showing us more video of his dolphin swim,” sighed his wife.

“I’d like to see it later, Mr. Williams,” the principal, Mrs. Carpenter, said, then nudged Rebecca’s toe beneath the narrow table.

Rebecca fought back a smile that faded when a tall, dark-haired man with broad shoulders and hazel eyes filled the doorway. Eyes she remembered...

She nearly spit out her coffee. Last night’s handsome bartender. Her cheeks warmed as she took in the muscular forearms exposed by the rolled up sleeves of his dress shirt. He’d carried her upstairs; she remembered it vaguely now, along with the fairy-tale feel of his heart against hers. What must he be thinking as his gaze traveled the room and stopped on her, his eyes suddenly wide?

“Welcome, Mr. Walsh. Connor.” The principal smiled and gestured, her long, French-tipped nails pointing to empty seats in the middle of the conference table. “Please sit and we’ll begin with introductions.”

As the staff took turns giving their name and position, Rebecca ducked behind the file. She perused the cover sheet, noting with disappointment that this was Connor’s guardian, his older brother, Aiden. The neglectful workaholic. Not the sympathetic man she’d imagined him to be last night, after all.

If she’d been in a better state, she would have thought to ask for his last name. Connected him with Connor. Known who she was dealing with and not opened up so much. Now that she thought about it, hadn’t Connor mentioned his family owned a pub in SoHo?

“Ms. Day.”

The silence pressed around her and she lowered the folder, her eyes leaping to Aiden’s. How humiliating. After last night, he must think the worst. Given his flinty expression, his disapproval came across loud and clear. Parents and guardians also had the right to speak up during tenure hearings...

“Sorry about that.” She pulled her chair closer to the table with a scraping sound. “I’m Rebecca Day, school psychologist. I’ve had the privilege of working with Connor these last couple of weeks.” Mr. Anderson scowled at her and she smiled nervously. “Hi, Connor.”

He returned her wave with a slight nod, his frown temporarily disappearing as his rounded eyes flashed from beneath overgrown bangs. Looking at his defensive body language and frightened expression, Rebecca felt her heart go out to him. She knew how it felt to be on the receiving end of negative attention...the only kind he probably ever got.

The principal cleared her throat. “Yes, well. We’re here to discuss readmitting Connor to school after his altercation. Connor, would you care to share with us what happened?”

“No,” the teen muttered. He lowered his head to the table, his vertebrae showing through his worn shirt.

Rebecca looked over at Aiden. To her rising irritation, his thumbs flew across what must be a cell phone screen on his lap. Didn’t he care at all?

“Tell everyone what happened, Connor,” Aiden commanded without looking up, his voice low and authoritative. Even Rebecca’s spine straightened. But the youth only slid lower in his seat and shook his head, his eyes on the floor.

Did Aiden actually think his directive would work? Of course Connor would defy an inattentive guardian. Rebecca ran her eyes over the file again, taking in that Aiden indeed ran the White Horse Tavern and was raising six siblings after his father had died of a heart attack and his mother became afflicted with early-onset Alzheimer’s. On paper, he looked like a sympathetic figure. In person, not so much.

“Sorry about that, everyone. An urgent supply order mix-up.” He pocketed his phone. “Connor...” Aiden prompted, staring at his silent brother for a long, uncomfortable minute.

“Yes. Well,” Mr. Anderson interrupted, clicking his pen impatiently. “Clearly this is a waste of time, as Connor has no intentions of cooperating with us, the school or Ms. Day’s—shall we say—unique therapy approach.”

His pointed glance at the clock spoke volumes. He wanted swift judgment—as did many of the old guard teachers, who’d vocalized their frustration with her positive rather than punitive approach to behavior modification. She’d heard some had even vowed to request the superintendent not recommend her for tenure this year, a move that may have worked so far, though she had no proof that they’d gone through with it. Just whispers.

Why couldn’t they see that she gave kids chances, not free passes, and stop whispering about her inability to discipline and control students? After her own straitjacket of a childhood, she wouldn’t—couldn’t—be a negative force in their lives.

Her gaze slid to Connor. Surely she was right not to be tough on him...

She stopped chewing the tip of her pen and tucked back a strand of hair that’d escaped her bun. Her rewards-based system might take more time to show results, but the effects lasted longer and had the best chance of becoming permanent. Implementing the progressive program took patience, however, something the overtaxed staff seemed to have in short supply.

She had to change their opinions before they succeeded in convincing the board to deny her tenure. Success with Connor and other disruptive students would earn her the credibility needed to gain a permanent staff position. If she didn’t get tenure... Her brain halted the terrifying thought.

The prospect of failing and having to return to her old life where money, not people, counted, where prestigious jobs, rather than rewarding ones mattered most, loomed dark and ominous. If she moved back in with her aunt, she’d demand Rebecca “do something important” with her life, like open a private practice that served a more privileged clientele. Not that this group didn’t have real problems, too...it was just that kids in the public school system needed her more.

She downed more coffee, then drummed her fingers on the side of her mug. Somehow she had to make this work. Prove to the staff, once and for all, that she was an asset to the school and deserving of joining them permanently.

“When I arrived,” continued the educator, clearly relishing his dramatic tale, “I had to pull Connor off another student. Since he was still swinging, I took a punch to the shoulder. It didn’t look as though it mattered who he hit, even an adult.”

Connor’s shoulders rose and fell as an irritated breath escaped him.

“Do we know why this fight happened?” asked the guidance counselor. Dark circles rimmed her eyes. With graduation approaching, she must have spent long hours over break checking transcripts, Rebecca guessed.

“Look, I know Connor comes across rough around the edges, but he’s had a hard life.” Aiden leaned forward, his eyes earnest. Connor glanced at his brother and his mouth opened slightly. He tapped a stray paper clip on the table until the assistant principal yanked it away with a stern look.