Minor Dramas & Other Catastrophes

by Kathleen West

“Tracy Abbott told me about it, crying, in the hallway yesterday after my meeting with Mary. It’s some mother gossip group. Apparently, Julia Abbott posted some private information about me.” She paused, hesitant for the first time since she’d donned her power dress. “I should probably tell you. . . .”

  Lyle, sheepish, interrupted. “Is it that your dad was a financial criminal?”

  “Word travels fast,” Isobel said, staring at her shiny shoes. She was quiet for a beat and then said, “I’m sorry I never told you. You’re my closest friend here. I just haven’t talked about it for so long.”

  Lyle shook his head, his hair falling a bit over his brow. He swiped it easily back into place. “I can see how you might want to keep the family felonies private.”

  She laughed, appreciating his aim at humor. “Still,” she said, “you’re a good friend.”

  “It’s all good,” Lyle said. “But really, what are you doing here today?”

  “I want my job back,” she said. “I’m ready to do a little more of what you said. I’ll put my head down—be more like you and Eleanor.”

  Lyle peered at her, skeptical. “And you’d feel okay about that?”

  “Is it too late?” The fear of missing her chance made her short of breath. She could still impact students at Liston Heights—she could still watch them understand the power of empathy—without alienating everyone.

  “Isobel!” Jamie poked her head into the room. “I thought I heard your voice.” Lyle, Isobel noticed, went right back to the paper he’d been grading, ignoring their young colleague.

  “Hi.” Isobel smiled.

  “Wow, you look great,” Jamie said.

  “Thanks. Hey, I was just asking Lyle, have you heard of a Facebook group called Inside Liston?”

  Jamie recoiled, her smile disintegrating and her mouth forming a small shocked circle.

  “That’s a yes, then?” Isobel asked, amused.

  Jamie shook her head. “I think Mary mentioned it to me,” she said, and Isobel instantly doubted that this was the whole story. After years of working with teenagers, she had a pretty good radar for adolescent half-truths, and Jamie was only twenty-three.

  “Are you sure?” Isobel pressed.

  “I think she asked me about it during our meeting. . . .” She trailed off. She obviously didn’t want to mention the interview she’d had with Mary, either.

  Isobel studied Jamie’s face. “I know Mary interviewed everyone.”

  Jamie took a step backward. “Anyway,” she said, “it’s really nice to see you.”

  “Do you want to have lunch?” Isobel asked. “I’ll meet you in your classroom,” she said smoothly, not giving her any time to back out. Why would she want to back out?

  “Okay,” Jamie said, her pale cheeks pink as she retreated into the hallway.

  Isobel shrugged as she looked at Lyle. “What was that?” she asked.

  Lyle opened his desk drawer and flipped through the legal pad he had stored there. “You know, Mary said that the interviews with your colleagues were almost universally positive.”

  “She told me that, too,” Isobel said. “I’m assuming just Eleanor trashed me, per usual?”

  “I don’t have all the specifics.” Lyle looked up at her. “But I heard Jamie said a couple of things. Mary was vague.”

  “Jamie?” Isobel blurted. What could Jamie Preston possibly have said against her?

  “You know I’ve never seen that ‘spark’ or whatever you like about her.”

  Ordinarily, Isobel would have offered a defense of her protégé, but she’d just behaved so oddly.

  “Go schedule a meeting with Wayne,” Lyle said, waving her away. “Tell him you’re willing to change a little. He’ll be open to it, especially since there’s that ninth-grade petition going around. No one wants angry, unvindicated freshmen.”

  “First years,” Isobel corrected him. “And what petition?”

  “You don’t know?” Lyle smiled mischievously. “Something like a quarter of the ninth graders have signed a petition demanding your reinstatement.”

  Isobel smiled, gratified.

  “Go,” Lyle said again. “Get your meeting, and then see what you can find out from Jamie over lunch.”

  Isobel made it to the administrative wing as the intercom indicated the start of first period. Wayne wasn’t at his desk when she popped her head in, so Isobel sent him an e-mail from the library asking for a few minutes that afternoon. In the meantime, she’d plan some lessons for American Lit, perhaps discover some new poets for the upcoming unit she desperately hoped she’d be teaching.

  At lunchtime, Isobel still waited. She refreshed her e-mail every three or four minutes, but Wayne’s reply never materialized. She’d stop back in his office later, she decided, but first, she’d get to Jamie.

  Isobel buzzed through the cafeteria line for the Chinese chicken salad, skirting a gaggle of competition cheerleaders in uniform. Back in room 213, she settled into a student desk adjacent to Jamie. She put one paper napkin over the graphite smears on its surface and another on her dress.

  “How are you?” Jamie said, a forkful of lasagna halfway to her mouth.

  “I’m exhausted,” Isobel said, deflated by the principal’s silence.

  “I can only imagine how hard it’s been.” Jamie’s voice sounded far away in Isobel’s head.

  “It’s excruciating, wondering who knows what. And now—you might have heard—there are all these rumors flying around about my past.” Isobel stabbed a piece of cubed chicken with her plastic fork. She glanced up at Jamie, whose cheeks had begun to flush again. “I’m sorry,” Isobel said. “I know it’s a lot to burden you with the details.”

  “I just wish . . .” Jamie paused, her mouth open. “I wish it were all over,” she said finally. “Did Wayne say when they’d be finished with the investigation?”

  “A week?” Isobel shrugged. “Channel Six made things worse for me, obviously. And then that Facebook group. Earlier, it seemed like you knew something about it?” She aimed for casual, but scrutinized Jamie’s agitated response.

  Jamie grabbed her water bottle and took a long swig, her neck craned back unnaturally far. “No,” she said finally, not making eye contact. “What is it?”

  Isobel looked out the window at the flat February sky. “Tracy Abbott told me it’s a gossip group for Liston Heights parents. Isn’t that awful?”

  “Wow.” Jamie’s fork hovered over her Tupperware, and Isobel was sure she could see her hand shaking. “Have you seen it?”

  “No.”

  Isobel gave her voice the hard edge she used when she goaded teenagers into the whole truth. “But is there something you’re not telling me? You seemed flustered this morning when I asked about Facebook and flustered again now.”

  “It’s just—,” Jamie began, tears suddenly filling her brown eyes. She grabbed her napkin and covered her mouth. Stalling, Isobel thought, surprised by her own indictment. She waited. “I just get so nervous about parent attacks,” Jamie continued. “I mean, after Peter.”

  She’s lying. Isobel looked down at her soft lettuce and glistening mandarin oranges. “Well, I searched for the group,” she said, “but I can’t find it. I did some Googling, and apparently that means it’s ‘secret.’” She chuckled weakly, making air quotes around “secret.” “I mean, so to speak.”

  “What happens if they don’t like what they find in the investigation?” Jamie asked, seemingly recovered. “Like, what are they even looking for?”

  “I’m not actually sure.” Garlic and marinara steamed from Jamie’s Tupperware. “What did Mary ask you?”

  Jamie’s nostrils flared with a quick intake of breath. “What do you mean?” she asked, off-balance again.

  “I know Mary had meetings with everyone,” Isobel said. “She told me that herself. What was it like?”
She looked at Jamie as Lyle might, with skepticism.

  Jamie chewed. Finally, she said, “We talked about your mentorship. I told her how much you’ve helped me. It can be really hard.” Jamie’s voice was nearly a whisper. “Teaching here, I mean.”

  “Did you share some of those difficulties with Mary?” Isobel’s voice wasn’t as warm as it would have been eight days ago. Still, Isobel thought, peering at her whimpering colleague, Jamie seemed naive, yes, but hardly calculating.

  Jamie stared into her Tupperware. “I told her how grateful I am for your help,” Jamie said.

  JAMIE PRESTON

  Jamie sniffed her underarm after her American Lit class that afternoon. Despite the frigid temperatures outside, she’d been sweating since lunch. She’d put most of her lasagna—it was hard to eat while Isobel talked about the investigation—back into her backpack. She shouldn’t have been so surprised about news of the Facebook group getting out. One couldn’t really expect discretion from nearly seven hundred people. Still, she’d been shocked by Isobel’s questioning and flubbed the follow-up over lunch.

  When she’d started the group that fall, Jamie had been amazed how quickly parents signed on and invited their friends. As a precaution—to keep the group smaller—she’d approved only those who friended Lisa Lions. She’d verified that they were indeed parents of students at the school.

  But in October, when the group had reached four hundred members, she realized that she was providing a service: Clearly the parents needed a community. What was the harm? The group was secret; Lisa Lions wasn’t friends with any teachers at the school or anyone Jamie knew in her real life. More people friended her, requested access; Jamie approved them, and the discussion became lively. She combed the posts, on the lookout in case—hoping?—a comment would appear about her own teaching. Around Thanksgiving, someone finally asked about her on the #WednesdayWonderings thread: What do we know about that very young English teacher, Ms. Preston? Will this be a problem for letters of rec?

  Lisa Lions had responded right away. No, she’d written, fingers trembling, Ms. Preston agrees to write letters for anyone who asks. She gets it. She graduated from LHHS herself.

  Jamie grabbed from her top desk drawer the stick of Secret, which she surreptitiously applied, spinning her chair away from the closed classroom door. Keeping deodorant at school had been one of Isobel’s first tips. Before the bell on Jamie’s first day with kids, she’d dropped off a bud vase of four daisies, placing it with a flourish on Jamie’s clean desktop. She’d handed over a small gift bag containing the deodorant, as well as smiley-face stickers and a few flair pens in fun colors. A good-luck gift, she’d said, and they’d hugged.

  Smelling once again like baby powder, Jamie thought of logging in to monitor the responses to Julia Abbott’s bombshell post about Isobel’s dad, but as she raised the lid of her laptop, Mary poked her head into the room.

  “Everything okay?” Mary asked.

  Why wouldn’t it be? “Yes?” Jamie said.

  “I peeked into your room over lunch and saw you eating with Isobel,” Mary offered.

  Jamie thought back to her anxious tears. “Will Isobel be all right?” Jamie blurted.

  Mary’s skin looked sallow beneath the fluorescent tube lights. “It’s nice of you to be concerned.” She walked toward a desk. “Of course, Isobel has done a lot for you. Can I sit for a minute? I need to ask you,” said Mary, her long purple skirt skimming the gray carpeting, “have you heard of a Facebook group called Inside Liston?” She looked down at a lime green Post-it stuck to her left thumb. She read from it. “‘Inside Liston: A Behind-the-Scenes Look for Concerned Parents Who Need to Know’?”

  “No?” Jamie reflexively gripped the side of her chair. “What is it?” She fought to keep her face neutral. She’d failed this morning, but the shock of the question had dulled.

  “Apparently, it’s a Facebook group with a bunch of Liston Heights parents on it. A gossip page.” Mary blew a breath out of the corner of her mouth. “Just what we need, right? Someone who calls herself Lisa Lions moderates it. She provides the ‘behind-the-scenes’ information.”

  “What kind of information?” Jamie’s voice echoed in her head. Do I look guilty? Jamie’s mother always joked about her giveaway “hand caught in the cookie jar” expression.

  “Wayne told me that whoever Lisa Lions is knew about Isobel’s suspension the morning after it happened, like, before Judith even got here.” Mary shifted, a crease deepening between her eyebrows.

  “Like, someone who works here?” Jamie managed, an ache beginning behind her eyes. She brought a hand up to the top button on her shirtdress and rubbed it between her thumb and index finger.

  “Maybe?” Mary rounded her shoulders over her Post-it, the bags under her eyes particularly puffy. “Anyway, I’m checking with everyone to see if they’ve heard of it. Wayne would really like to shut it down.” She sighed. “Obviously.”

  “I haven’t heard about it, but I’ll keep my ears open.” Jamie stood. She couldn’t wait for Mary to leave.

  “Thanks anyway,” Mary said, and Jamie sank back into her chair, far more pleased with this performance than with her earlier show for Isobel.

  Seconds later, a student knocked on her doorframe. Jamie bolted up. “Sorry,” the girl said. She held up a black-and-white marbled composition notebook. “You’re Ms. Preston, right?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Sorry. You startled me.”

  “I’m Tracy Abbott.” She stuck a hand out, holding her notebook and pencil against her chest with her free hand. “You were my brother’s teacher last trimester? Andrew?”

  “That’s right.” Jamie felt her eyebrows lift toward her hairline as she remembered Mrs. Abbott’s voice mails. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m on the Liston Lights,” Tracy said, “and we do the Humans of LHHS Instagram? I think you follow it.”

  Despite herself, Jamie smiled. She’d been waiting a year and a half to be featured. She’d even imagined her photo. She’d be sitting at her desk, over her shoulder her bulletin board, the one on which she kept personal photos and a postcard with an inspirational reminder: You can’t start reading the next chapter of your life if you keep rereading the last one.

  “I do follow it,” Jamie said. “I love it.” She hoped she didn’t sound too eager. She’d been unabashedly jealous when Peter Harrington had been on Humans of LHHS just three weeks into their first year. Of course, she realized, it helped that Peter’s scruffy stubble and casual clothes appealed to the female Liston Lights reporters.

  “Awesome. I’m assuming you’re willing to be interviewed? It’s my turn to run the account next week, and I decided my theme would be teachers without tenure. Do you have time for a couple of questions right now?”

  Jamie glanced at the clock. She still had twenty-two minutes until the bell would ring for her next class. “Sure. How did you decide on that theme?” She leaned back in her chair as she hoped to pose in Tracy’s photo. She pointed at the seat next to her, and Tracy opened her notebook on her lap as she sat.

  “I heard there were layoffs coming,” Tracy said. “I know the kids at school would hate to lose the young teachers they’ve loved, right? Maybe the Instagram can spotlight some of the young teachers’ strengths? And my brother said you were really good.”

  Jamie felt buoyed. Kids fighting for her continued employment? That would be fantastic—certainly convincing to Mary Delgado. “I’m flattered,” Jamie said honestly.

  “Okay, first,” Tracy began, “why did you decide to accept a position at LHHS?”

  Jamie thought back to Sue Montague’s phone call. Her hands had been shaking so violently, it had taken two tries to hit the green answer button when she saw the school’s number on caller ID. “I have firsthand experience of this school’s excellence,” Jamie said. “I graduated in twenty fourteen. It was an honor to be invited to w
ork alongside the teachers who shaped my own worldview.”

  Jamie watched Tracy transcribe the answer. The girl bit her bottom lip as she scanned her list of questions. “Okay,” she said. “And what do you think younger teachers bring to the LHHS experience? Do you feel like you connect better with the kids, being closer to their ages?”

  Jamie did feel that way, actually. The teachers over thirty, with their station wagons and minivans—they seemed to lack the empathy that Jamie still felt for the students. But she couldn’t say this to Tracy, obviously. “I do think there’s an advantage to being young,” Jamie said. “Of course, there’s also an advantage to being more experienced.” She laughed lightly, and Tracy leaned toward her bulletin board, squinting at the photos, including one of Jamie and her LHHS soccer teammates with their arms around one another.

  “You played soccer?” Tracy asked. “Did you ever think of coaching?”

  “Maybe someday,” Jamie said, “when I’ve had a few more years to refine my teaching.” Should she admit that the teaching job was hard for her? She tried to imagine the text of the Instagram profile, the tone Tracy would take. Hardworking, Jamie decided, was her angle.

  Tracy stared at her notebook. Without looking up, she asked, “What do you see as the role of social media in high school life?”

  “What do you mean?” Jamie flashed back to Mary’s recent questions about Inside Liston.

  “I mean, do you think the extent to which people post about school online—do you think that benefits or, like, hampers the learning that we do here?”

  “I think Humans of LHHS is a community builder,” Jamie said. “People are busy. It’s a great way to quickly learn about other people at school you might not have met.” That answer fit with her work-ethic theme, right? Jamie started to feel uneasy and glanced at the clock above Tracy’s head. The interview had barely started.

  “What about other online communities?” Tracy asked. “For instance, there’s one my mom is in on Facebook.” Jamie thought she could hear anger on the edges of the question. “I helped her with something there, and I happened to notice it has about seven hundred members. Have you heard of Inside Liston?”