2 Death Makes the Cut (2 page)

Always a gentleman, he held the door open for me, leaving me no choice but to precede him into the hall. He pulled the door shut behind us, locking it and then nervously scanning the hall, then the stairwell.

“Fred—” I started, but he cut me off.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Jocelyn.” He walked to the stairs, then turned. “Thank you for … well, just thank you.” Then he hurried away, pattering lightly down the stairs. Maybe he wasn’t getting old after all.

I watched him go, feeling dissatisfied.

There should be a special place in purgatory for whoever had designed James Bonham High School. In the main academic building, the upper-floor corridors were lined with painted metal railings and provided a perfect view of the floor below, which in a high school was just an open invitation to spit. The architecture reminds first-time visitors of something they can’t quite place—I was there a whole year before I figured it out, and then only did because I’d just seen
The Shawshank Redemption
. Contracts to build schools go to the lowest bidder, and in this case the winning bidder’s most recent project had been the state correctional facility. And it showed in every loving detail, from the concrete floors to the cinder-block walls to the unheated and un–air-conditioned hallways. You could practically hear the clang of the bars and the shouts of the guards.

I suppose to the casual visitor, it might not seem so bad. The campus was spacious, liberally sprinkled with trees and consisting of four main buildings that enclosed a central concrete courtyard. Closer observation revealed that these main buildings were surrounded by what we less than fondly referred to as portables, which were basically double-wide mobile homes, each stripped of appliances and other niceties and divided in half to make two uncomfortable classrooms, poorly heated in the winter, poorly air-conditioned in the summer. Of course, this wasn’t much worse than in the permanent structures. Only the administrative building had central air-conditioning. The rest had individual heating and cooling units in the classrooms only, leaving the hallways to the mercy of the Texas weather. In fall and spring, the heat was stifling. In winter, the cold and damp turned fingers blue and cheeks red.

Now, I fought back the feeling of vertigo that I get from heights and leaned over the rail for a moment to watch Fred’s little white head disappear through the same doors that Mr. Richards had barged through just minutes ago. I was just straightening when a number of strangers walked in, led by the principal, Larry Gonzales. I leaned out again with interest.

Larry was doing his Lord of the Manor walk, which meant these were visitors of particular importance. All the teachers could tell the exact status of a visitor by Larry’s walk, and my friend Laura and I had set up a rating system. The all-purpose Brush-off was used for students and teachers alike—long quick steps, eyes focused on a sheaf of papers or a cell phone, a pretense of deafness. The Brush-off got him through the halls with minimal interruption and maximum efficiency. The PTA or “Tight-ass” walk was for parents—short quick steps, arms stiff against his sides, stern gaze focused on a vague point on the horizon. This walk conveyed a sense of mission and importance, although the shortness of the steps allowed a determined parent to keep up without breaking into a trot. The Concerned Administrator was reserved for groups of parents or teachers with actual grievances who needed to be “handled” to avoid unpleasantness, which meant anything from bitter letters to the editor to full-blown lawsuits. It was hardly a walk at all and involved slow, measured steps, a lot of head nodding, and the occasional sensitive touch on the shoulder or forearm, which let you know what a great and concerned guy Larry was. And finally, there was the Lord of the Manor—head thrown back, arms gesturing expansively, voice booming—the walk Larry reserved for visitors who needed to be impressed, which meant visitors who could do something for Larry.

I wondered who they were and what Larry wanted from them. Unlike the usual Lord of the Manor candidates, these three weren’t terribly impressive at first glance. A skinny blond guy with a ponytail was holding some sort of electronic device at arm’s length and swinging it this way and that. He walked beside an earnest-looking young woman with serious black-framed glasses that she apparently did not need because she kept pushing them down to the tip of her nose and looking over the top of the frame. And finally, a slightly older man in jeans trailed behind about ten paces, making notes on a legal pad. As they moved directly beneath me, I could hear the woman saying, “Yes, this will be absolutely perfect. Just fantastic.”

Then they turned a corner, and I decided to go back to my room instead of following them, feeling sure I’d hear about it sometime soon. Anything that rated a Lord of the Manor walk was bound to make its presence known and probably bite the rest of us in the ass.

I picked up the chair, which I’d knocked over when I raced out, and returned to the poster I’d been hanging. I’d saved this one until last, putting it in the corner where it could be seen by all my students. It was a picture of lemmings jumping off a cliff with the words, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Stepping off the chair, I looked around with satisfaction, feeling my room looked almost as nice as Fred’s. Of course, mine didn’t smell of lemon polish because it would never have occurred to me to dust with more than a damp paper towel, but still everything looked pretty good. Tomorrow was the first day of the new school year, August 24. A little later this year than in past years, but still the height of summer. Long days, cloudless skies, sizzling heat. There wasn’t a kid on the planet who wouldn’t have rather been at the pool, but at least I was ready for them.

I returned to my desk and started looking over the lists of student names again. This year, my day was made up of four history classes, two French classes, one planning period, and one lunch period. Which meant I had about 180 students. Going through the lists in advance made it easier remembering who was who when I finally met them all. I prided myself on my ability to know every kid’s name by the end of the first week. I was just going through the list a second time when the door to my classroom opened, and my best friend Kyla Shore walked in.

Although most people assume we are sisters, Kyla and I are first cousins. Our fathers are identical twins and we look enough alike to be twins ourselves. Maybe not identical twins, but we’d been mistaken for each other before, a fact that drove Kyla absolutely crazy. She would never admit there was anything more than a remote family resemblance. For my part I would have been happy if we looked even more alike, or rather if I looked more like her. Because, although I wouldn’t break mirrors, Kyla was drop-dead gorgeous—the kind of beauty that made men stop in the middle of the street to pick their jaws up off the ground. She was no fool either, and was fully aware of the effect she had on men. In fact, she shamelessly used it to her full advantage, telling me once that she hadn’t bought a drink for herself in five years. It might have made her obnoxious, but she was also completely charming. And to be fair, it didn’t seem to mean much to her other than as an entertaining diversion. She’d graduated with honors in computer programming and now worked as a lead developer for a software company, raking in money and bonuses.

Today she looked glum. And beautiful, of course. And stylish and elegant. August in Austin, Texas, meant the temperature outside was at least ninety-five degrees. It meant that touching a steering wheel could leave grill marks on your palms. It meant that the thirty seconds it took to dash from an air-conditioned building to an air-conditioned car could leave your shirt clinging to your back like a professional wrestler’s. However, in her white and yellow sundress, Kyla looked as cool and together as an ice sculpture. Even her dark hair curled and bounced around her shoulders with a life of its own. My own hair was pulled back in a limp ponytail, and I looked sourly down at my denim capris and oversized T-shirt. We could have been the Before and After shots in a makeover commercial.

Now, she dropped her purse on my desk with a thud and flopped dramatically into a chair with a groan.

“That doesn’t look like good news,” I said. “How did it go?”

Kyla had recently had a little trouble with the law.

“Pretty good. I guess. I got community service,” she added with a frown.

I whooped. “Hey, that’s great! You couldn’t have hoped for much better than that.”

She looked at me sourly. “The best thing would have been for them to give me a fucking medal for protecting myself and the public in general.”

“Well, yeah. But you pulled a concealed weapon on Sixth Street. They couldn’t exactly let that go,” I pointed out.

A look of outrage lit her sapphire eyes. “I don’t see why not. Was I supposed to just let those assholes carjack me? I don’t think so.”

“No, of course not.”

“If it wasn’t for me, those little bastards would still be out there, taking someone else’s car, maybe hurting someone.” Her finger jabbed the air at every word.

Now she was glaring at me like it was my fault.

I held up my hands. “You know I’m one hundred percent on your side. It’s just that carrying a gun down in that area is illegal. They had to do something. Think about it—community service is really just a slap on the wrist. It’s a good thing.”

“I don’t see what the good is of having a concealed-carry license if you can’t carry around bars. That’s exactly where you need to have a gun,” she grumbled.

“Yeah, maybe everyone should just walk around with holsters and six shooters on their hips.”

I was being sarcastic, but she considered it. “Not a bad idea. An armed society is a polite society.”

“Robert Heinlein,” I responded, impressed she knew the quote.

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Anyway, you’ll never guess what I have to do.”

From her tone, it was pretty nasty. “Pick up trash on the highway? Clean urinals at the bus station?”

“Worse. I have to teach a six-week seminar about girls in technology. You know, encourage high school girls to go into the sciences.”

I stared at her blankly. “You get arrested for carrying a concealed weapon, and the punishment is teaching children?”

My whole life, my whole career, reduced down to a community-service penalty.

Kyla was oblivious. “Yeah, does that suck or what? But here’s the good part. I got them to let me do it here.”

I choked a little. “Here?”

“Yup. Twice a week for six weeks. And you have to help me. I don’t know what to say to the little monsters.”

Which probably meant that she expected me to do it for her. I threw up my hands. “I have a full schedule. You know, my own classes.”

“Yeah, yeah. It’ll be right after school, so your classes won’t interfere. We can go get dinner and drinks after,” she said by way of bribery. “It’ll be fun.”

I sighed. “I’ll help with the first one, but then you’re on your own.”

She decided not to argue, but I could see she was already thinking of ways she could get me to do the whole thing. She’s devious that way.

The afternoon sun threw golden rectangles of light across the desks and floor, lighting up tiny motes that twinkled in the glow like fireflies. Outside, I could hear the roar of a mower accompanied by a dull thumping of rap music from the groundskeeper’s radio. I consoled myself with the thought that the owner could look forward to an adulthood of early deafness and pounding headaches.

“So how’s Alan doing?” Kyla asked, changing the subject. Conversations with her often bounced around with very little in the way of segues.

I winced a little as though at a sore tooth, then shrugged. “Okay, I suppose.”

She looked at me. “That doesn’t sound good.”

Alan was my … well, boyfriend, I guess. I felt a little old to have a boyfriend, but there didn’t seem to be a better term in the English language. What do you call someone whom you’ve been dating for a few months, but who lives in a different city and who never seems to be around?

I’d met him when Kyla and I had taken a tour of Egypt, a tour that had gone disastrously wrong and ended up with both Alan and me almost getting killed. That kind of experience usually draws people together, I suppose, but I had to admit I wasn’t completely happy with the way things were going right now. For one thing, Alan had not yet moved to Austin, although he kept saying he was going to as soon as he could make the arrangements to move his travel company from Dallas. For another thing, because he was the owner of WorldPal Tours, he seemed to be on the road a lot. He was extraordinarily attractive, which made up for a lot, but on the other hand, I was still spending most of my evenings alone, with only a glass of wine and my fat elderly poodle for company.

I finally admitted, “I haven’t seen him in three weeks, but we’re going to Port Aransas for Labor Day.”

“That sounds fun,” she said with patently fake enthusiasm. “Wait, no it doesn’t. Why Port A? You can do that any time. Why doesn’t he take you somewhere awesome? He owns a tour company, for God’s sakes. You guys could go anywhere in the world.”

I gestured to the empty desks around us. “Not in three days. I have a job, remember? Besides, I want to pay my own way. I can afford Port Aransas.”

“Pay your own way?” she said with outrage. “Why? Is he that cheap? He sure isn’t racking up any boyfriend points, is he?” She looked thoughtful, as though struck by a sudden idea. “Are you going to kick him to the curb?”

“What, are you waiting to snap him up?” The question wasn’t quite as far-fetched as it sounded. She’d had her eye on him when we’d been in Egypt, although admittedly since I’d been dating him, she’d been strictly hands off.

Now she snorted. “Ew. I don’t need your sloppy seconds, thanks very much. Especially not some cheap bastard. But there’s this new guy in my office who’s sort of cute, and I could introduce you. You might like him.”

“Alan’s not a cheap bastard, and no, I’m not kicking him to the curb,” I said. But even I could hear the uncertainty in my voice.