by Lynne Silver
“Me too,” she said.
“Ooh, you’ll have to sit on his lap,” Eric, whose last name was Cohen, said.
“You’ll never work in a library,” Casey informed him. “First name?” she asked Sam.
“Sam, Sam Cooper. So you’ll be on my left.” He shifted over to make room for the redhead, or maybe her hair was blond. He couldn’t exactly pick one color, as every time the light hit it or she turned, the strands of her hair looked blonder or redder.
“I like the lap option,” Eric said, who was on Casey’s left. He patted his own. “You could sit on mine.”
Casey ignored him and turned to Sam, who couldn’t take his gaze off her. She was so much prettier than any girl in his old school. He racked his brain trying to think of something clever to say, but was interrupted.
“Done,” Ms. Reamer announced. “Two minutes, seven seconds. Excellent work.” They all sat a little straighter, decidedly pleased with themselves. “Enjoy these seats: you’ll be here for the rest of the day.”
They spent the rest of the day playing games and going over school rules. For most of the activities they had to pair up with the person sitting next to them, and for Sam it was Casey Cooper. She was nice. Way nicer than he expected a girl with her looks to be. By the end of the day, they were exchanging jokes and sly sideways smiles whenever Eric made a boneheaded comment. There were a lot of smiles.
Sam went home from orientation psyched for the first day of school in a new place where he already had a friend. He came home on the second day of school friendless.
Montgomery Prep, Present Day
Casey Cooper hung up her handset on her pristine desk knowing she had a frown and that it was going to cause a headache if she couldn’t relax her facial muscles. Or maybe it was that she’d neglected to put on the glasses that the doctor claimed she needed if she was going to be staring at computer screens and small print documents all day, every day. Whatever. Doctors didn’t know everything.
As cute as her glasses were, they didn’t project the image she wanted and therefore they disappeared into a drawer whenever she had an in-person meeting with a potential big donor to Montgomery Prep. She’d given a newly elected congresswoman and her children a tour of the school this morning along with the director of admissions. Not the usual protocol, but here in the nation’s capital, certain things needed a little finessing. The type of finesse at which she was an expert.
After the tour, she’d returned to her office to check on the RSVPs for the various reunion invitations that had gone out that morning. She’d been pleased to see a handful had trickled in for the class celebrating their twenty-year reunion and one or two positive responses for the ten-year reunion, her own class reunion.
Annie, Casey’s assistant, poked her head through the doorway. “What do you think? Are they going to write the check?” Annie had only been in her employ for six months, but Casey knew it was going to work and had plans to groom Annie to blossom under her tutelage. Lucky girl.
“I think so.” She crossed her fingers and held them up in one of the girlish moves she was so good at faking. Back when she’d been queen bee of this school, she hadn’t earned that position haphazardly. It had taken study; it had taken work. One of the things she’d learned was that people responded to girlish confidence and playfulness. People wanted to be around the fun girl. And so, dammit, Casey was fun.
“Any new RSVPs?” Annie asked.
“One. Did the decorator call back yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Give her three more hours, then we’re on to the next one.”
Annie looked at her wide-eyed.
“What?” She couldn’t afford to lose yet another assistant, she mentally reminded herself, or the school would start to look at her as if she was difficult. She wasn’t difficult; she had high standards and required anyone who worked with her meet those standards.
“We only sent out the request for proposal this morning. Maybe we should give at least twenty-four hours?” Annie asked.
“We give a lot of business to them. The least they could do is return our calls in a timely manner.”
Annie stared at her a beat, then released a breath and glued a smile back on her face. “All right. I’ll send another email and queue up the next potential vendor.”
As soon as Annie’s back was turned, Casey released her own breath. Annie had a point. A quality decorator would be working and couldn’t immediately return her call with a proposal. She didn’t want to deal with a decorator who had hours to sit around waiting for a job, and she also didn’t want to deal with a bigger corporate company who had admin after admin on staff answering phones. She wanted—no, needed—the personal touch for the upcoming reunion.
She’d been back at her high school as an employee for a year and a half since moving from another, less prestigious, private school in Atlanta. In her short tenure, she’d pulled in some big donations, but she wanted to lay a foundation for big donors and huge participation from the alumni. Montgomery Prep only had thirty percent donation rates from their alumni. Thirty percent! That was unacceptable to Casey. She’d heard of some private schools in the area that had ninety percent. Which meant that Casey was going for one hundred percent.
And it all started at the reunion. Bring them back to their high school days, give them a good meal and alcohol, and hit them up while they were feeling sentimental, not to mention competitive. Nothing brought out the sharks like a high school reunion. Everyone attending was there because they wanted to show off how successful they were. Successful enough to write big, fat checks to her development office, she hoped.
That’s what she kept telling herself. The fact that this ten-year reunion was her own class reunion was irrelevant. Oh, who the hell was she kidding? Casey Cooper had been head bitch in charge of her senior year; boys had fought to date her and girls had copied her style. Ten years later, she wanted to prove she still had it. If she requested donations, her former classmates better pony up.
It was too bad Arianna Rose no longer had her trust fund at her disposal. One check from her could’ve easily hit her yearly target in one swoop. Last year, Arianna had been the first call Casey had made upon taking the director of development job at Montgomery Prep. Casey had actually felt a twinge of guilt calling on the girl she’d teased for being too artsy in high school, just like she’d felt guilty every time she’d taunted Arianna in school.
With Ari’s gorgeous red hair and loaded bank account, she easily could’ve knocked Casey off the most popular shelf if she’d chosen, so Casey had had to act. Best defense was a good offense, and all that sports metaphor junk. Casey had swallowed her self-loathing and teased a girl with whom, in all honesty, she could’ve been friends.
More than ten years later, Casey had extended an olive branch, called Arianna to apologize and take her for lunch. They’d shared a fun hour, reminiscing and circling the touchy subject of Casey being a bitch back in high school.
“Hell, you’re still a bitch.” Arianna had laughed. “But at least now I understand how to hold my own, and I respect the bitchiness to a degree. Sometimes it’s the only way to succeed.”
Yep, Casey had thought she’d found the mother lode: a friend who was rich enough to donate six figures to the school without blinking. And then Ari’s life had exploded and Casey was left scrambling to make her yearly quota the old-fashioned way: by calling donors to suck up. Damn Stanley Rose. She’d sent a hasty email to Ari to check in that her life was okay, but she hadn’t offered her assistance, and truthfully, she felt guilty that she hadn’t acted the part of a good friend. A good friend would’ve shown up at Ari’s house with meals and a bottle of wine.
Casey had rationalized it, telling herself that Arianna wasn’t truly a good friend, more of an acquaintance, really. Still…she didn’t like feeling guilty, so she’d sent flowers when she heard through the alumni grapevine that Ari was engaged.
Ten minutes later, there was a beep on her phone, which w
as Annie’s code that The Mothers were coming. The Mothers were an interchangeable group of parents—mostly moms of current students who volunteered a lot at the school. Casey had come up with the nickname a week after she’d started at Montgomery Prep. Their hours of commitment were commendable, but the women seemed to think it also extended to having a say in the running and daily operations of the school.
Thus far, Casey had had it easy with them. They’d been a great resource in volunteering with the school auction and staffing various booths at the annual spring alumni soccer game. Other school administrators, such as the curriculum specialist and the food services staff, had worse run-ins with The Mothers, and a big part of their job description was finding the balance between actually running the place and letting the parents think they ran the place.
Casey had no idea why a faction of The Mothers was at her door now, but they’d contacted her (directly, of course, in the parking lot at dismissal time when she’d been running out early to a doctor’s appointment; they didn’t like jumping through hoops and going through her admin) to request a minute of her time. No biggie, they’d said. Which of course meant that hours of Casey’s nonexistent free time would be spent dealing with whatever request they made.
“Mrs. Forrest, Mrs. Cho, thank you for coming in.”
“Please, call me Beth,” Mrs. Forrest said, and both women looked pleased she knew their names without needing a reminder.
“How can I help you today?” Casey gestured for them to sit on the small couch in her office she kept specifically for this purpose. When potential donors came in to chat, it was friendlier to have it feel like a living room than an office. She rolled her desk chair around the desk to face them.
“We’re here to talk about the auction.”
Because she was head of the development office—aka the fund-raising office—the auction fell under Casey’s purview. Most of her workdays in the spring were taken up by the event, which raised money for the school’s operating budget. A little-known fact about private schools was that most operated at a shortfall. The tuition did not cover the costs, which was why most schools solicited donations and held other large campaigns to pay for things like STEM labs and scholarships. Neither of these women was on the auction committee.
“What about the auction? Our weekly update meeting isn’t for another three days—perhaps you should join us there?” she suggested.
“It’s the caterer.”
Casey’s stomach tightened. “What happened to our caterer?” she asked, and waited for some tale of disaster highlighting why their usual dependable caterer wasn’t going to do the party, and she’d be scrambling for another caterer three months out.
“Nothing happened to the caterer.” Both moms looked at each other. “We’ve been talking.”
“Not just us,” Mrs. Cho added, “others too.”
Casey could imagine that the kind of “talk” that had been circling the tight-knit group of perennial volunteers was nasty in its nature. Many of the mothers at this school had advanced graduate degrees and were formerly high-level executives who left the work force and now donated their skills and energy to their children. Sometimes Casey wished they’d all lean in and get back to their own offices and out of hers. But they were also the lifeblood of the PTA. Nothing extracurricular would happen at the school without them.
“We feel the food our usual caterer serves isn’t up to par.”
“Friendship Academy had a conveyer belt sushi bar at their auction.”
“I hear what you’re saying,” Casey said slowly, trying to think diplomatically. “I’m open to exploring other options, but we must remember that the owner of the catering company we’ve used for years is a parent at the school. Not only that, he donates the company’s services and food at a significant discount. If we switch caterers, the new company would have to meet the pricing, otherwise the auction wouldn’t make as much money. That would be disappointing.”
Since the bottom-line dollar amount the auction made each year was a point of competition among the yearly chairs, Casey knew she’d hit upon a hot point. “Why don’t you two get some proposals from other companies and then present your findings to the auction committee when you have some new data?”
Mrs. Cho and Mrs. Forrest glanced at each other. It wasn’t the answer they’d wanted, but Casey refused to spend hours of her day calling caterers only to discover an answer she already knew. No one else was going to meet the price of their existing contract.
“All right,” one woman said slowly, as they rose and prepared to leave.
Casey opened her office door to usher them out and was startled to see Matthew Melles waiting outside. Matt was a man she’d met through work, and they’d gone out for drinks a few weeks ago. She’d only received one text from him after their date, so she was surprised to see him. “Hi, Matt. What are you doing here?”
“Ms. Cooper, introduce us to your friend,” Mrs. Forrest said in a flirtatious tone as she eyed Matt’s tall frame.
Casey had to acknowledge that he was ridiculously handsome in a prep school way. With his perfectly coifed black hair that had the right amount of product, and a suit that looked more Manhattan than D.C., Casey could see how he’d appeal to the women. All women. “This is Matthew Melles, and I’m glad you’re meeting him, because he owns a tutoring and online test prep company. Maybe you’ve heard of it? It’s called Test Ace.”
Both women shook their heads.
“We guarantee to raise your child’s GPA by a third and add five hundred points to their SAT score.” Like a magician, Matt pulled his company cards from a hidden breast pocket and handed one to each woman. “The best part is that all services are online so your kids with their busy schedules can find the time.” He gave them a dentist’s dream smile. “And you don’t have to schlep them anywhere.”
The women each slipped the card into their oversized pocketbooks and smiled at Matt before exiting. When they were gone, Casey rolled her chair back to the business side of the desk, then spun, surprised Matt had followed her. His pale pink shirt was a centimeter away from her lips. Close enough to smell his strong aftershave.
“Oh, um…” Casey was blocked in at her back and side by her desk.
He moved even closer, leaning down for a kiss. Their date had been fine, but she didn’t think they were on hello-kiss status yet. She turned her cheek and let him buss it.
“I didn’t know you were back in town,” she said inanely. He’d been in Florida last week, as he’d explained via the text.
“I got back this morning and couldn’t wait to see you.”
“Wow. Really?”
“Of course.” He smiled and gave her space, moving back to lounge on her couch as if he owned it. “I had a great time on our date. I was hoping we could go for dinner tonight, so I stopped by to ask.”
“That’s really sweet.” And it was. She’d been iffy on the date. On paper, Matt was the perfect guy and good-looking to boot, but he hadn’t pushed Casey’s buttons. Perhaps she should give him another chance. Professional, handsome single men were a hot commodity in D.C.; it wasn’t smart to nix one because she hadn’t wanted to jump in bed with him after an hour together. “All right. I should be finished with work around six.”
“Great. I’ll pick you up then.” He stood. “Thanks for pitching my company to those moms. They’re the opinion makers and my bread and butter.”
“It was no problem. Happy to help. Of course, the school can’t officially recommend one test-prep service over another, but we do keep a list of recommended tutors and prep companies. I can try to find out how you get your name on the list.”
“That would be great.” He came closer as if he were going to try to kiss her again, but instead he glanced at her desktop. “Wow that’s an old computer. I thought at a school like this, you’d be kitted out with the latest tech.”
“They save that for the students. We employees get the old stuff, but the hope is to upgrade everyone’s system
with money raised at the auction this year, so cross your fingers we raise enough.”
He raised a hand with all his fingers crossed. It looked as though he’d had a manicure. While Casey was an equal opportunist and liked that a man was into personal grooming, she wasn’t sure how she felt about Matt’s fingers being as nice as hers. “Good luck. I’ll pick you up after work,” he called as he exited her office.
Sam bit into his sandwich and chewed, listening to the conversation swirl around him. Though their offices were located in downtown D.C., and there were a ton of cheap and tasty options, today they’d chosen to buy their food from the government cafeteria. Frequently he brought his own lunch from home to save money, but he’d overslept this morning and raced out the door.
Gathered around him were three other members of his Cyber Action team, a division of the cyber crimes unit of the FBI. On his left was his partner, Jack, and across from him was Ted Sanders, the special agent in charge of the unit. It was a rare event Ted joined them in the cafeteria, as he was usually meeting with muckety-mucks and other VIPs, trying to convince them their squad needed more funding.
“We got another report from the IC3,” Ted said, and Sam’s attention was immediately caught. The IC3 was the online complaint center for the FBI where people could report attempted hacks, phishing scams, and more. Basically it was a nightmare of a flood of complaints, some legit, and many from people who had nothing better to do than complain about annoying emails they claimed were spam. For Ted to mention a report from the complaint center meant something valid was happening.
“Another private school, this time in Arizona, logged a complaint that they had suspicious activity, but they’re not even sure if money got stolen, credit card numbers or what.” Ted shook his head. “These schools have millions of dollars on the line, but don’t invest in their IT. I don’t get it.”
Jack piped up, “Sam does. He’s from that world.”
Sam swallowed as all eyes turned in his direction. “Not really.”
“Yes, you are,” Jack said and poked him in the upper arm. “Show them. You got invited to your ten-year reunion.”