Minor Dramas & Other Catastrophes
Page 31
When they got to the office, the three administrators were already seated at the conference table, looking toward the door. Amanda appeared sheepish, and Isobel realized she was furious, her cheeks flushing. They should have gotten to the bottom of the Inside Liston page as soon as they’d heard about it, but instead, it took her own head injury to make any progress on the investigation.
None of them said anything as she entered. Wayne finally cleared his throat and muttered, “Good morning.”
Serves you right, Isobel thought, emboldened by their obvious discomfort. They weren’t used to being the last to know about community sentiment.
Mary flipped open her laptop. “I’ll take some notes,” she said.
Isobel and Lyle sat across from them. “As you know,” Isobel began, grabbing her computer, “I examined the Inside Liston Facebook group this weekend.”
“I’ve been thinking since your call,” Wayne interrupted. “How did you accomplish that?”
“I approached an amenable parent,” Isobel said, confidently delivering the line she’d devised with Mark. She didn’t want to explain the accident now; she wanted to focus on the site, on Jamie’s involvement. She could incriminate Julia Abbott later, as Lyle had encouraged her to do, explain that she had admitted to leaving the voice mail and then unearthing the story about Isobel’s father. “A pattern of harassment,” Lyle had said.
Isobel smiled tightly. “Can I show you what I found?” Without waiting for a reply, she flipped the top of her MacBook. She’d made sure the slideshow was loaded on her screen, ready. She and Mark had enlarged each of her screenshots and put them in order, according to category. “Can you see okay?” Amanda scooted her chair closer to Wayne’s so they were all more or less opposite Isobel. She’d decided to begin with the post about the teachers’ union.
“This is one type of item,” Isobel said as the three leaned forward. “Anti-union posts, presuming or wondering whether the teachers’ federation makes students’ experiences here worse.” She paused, letting them read. Each of their faces appeared grim, eyes squinting. She’d started easy—these three might have the same covert wonderings about the teachers’ union.
When they’d sat back, she clicked ahead. “I’ve included a few more posts with the same theme, some directly targeting Lyle Greenwood.” She tipped her head toward him. “You’ll notice that some of the posts are made by the group’s administrator, the so-called Lisa Lions, and some are made by members of the group. Parents,” she clarified, “all using their real names.” Except Kate Awakened, she thought. But she planned to leave Tracy out of this meeting.
Wayne drew in a breath and let it out again. “What’s the ratio of how many posts are initiated by Lisa Lions versus how many by parents?”
Isobel had anticipated the query. “I think about a third of the posts are by ‘Lisa.’” She put air quotes around the name and clicked again. “Here’s a second type of post. These complain about a school policy or decision, sometimes referencing a specific teacher.” Tracy had captured a gripe about Wayne’s handpicked leadership team, and Isobel included some of the caustic comment thread in the slide.
Wayne leaned closer. “They’re attacking each other.”
“Yep.” Isobel nodded. She clicked ahead again. “And here’s one about Sadie Eslinger’s most recent AP European History exam.”
Wayne reached up and massaged his hairline with two fingers. “Did Sadie consult the testing calendar?” he wondered.
The others looked at him blankly. As if that mattered. After a beat, Mary spoke. “Isn’t that sort of beside the point here?” she asked. “A forum for antagonistic complaints hardly lifts the community.” Isobel smiled at her, surprised. Speaking up for teachers in a meeting? It was a big step for Mary.
Isobel hesitated as she arrived at the slide with Julia’s post about Robert Miller. “After I was suspended,” she said—she’d rehearsed this part, too—“parents began questioning my qualifications. Some looked up my license, and others called my university to verify my degrees.” Amanda’s mouth dropped open. “Then Julia Abbott dug up a story from my past that I’m not proud of.”
“To be clear,” Lyle said, his voice soft, “it’s a story from her father’s past.”
“Your father?” Wayne asked.
“He was a financial adviser, and he stole money from many of his clients.” Isobel felt her skin dampen with sweat beneath her sweater. Get this over with, she thought. “This was in the nineties.”
She paused, faltering, and Lyle delivered her next line. “Her father’s imprisonment motivated Isobel to become a teacher in the first place, to highlight for teenagers that without empathy, people make terrible and dangerous choices.”
Isobel half smiled at Lyle, silently thanking him for speaking up. “So,” she said, once she was able to, “the comments on that report about my dad”—she clicked to an enlargement, skipping Kate Awakened’s and Vivian Song’s defenses of her—“were brutal.”
Isobel gave them time to read words like “hypocrite” and “fraud,” and then she advanced to the next slide. “Here’s the last type of post,” she said, relieved to have moved beyond her secret. “This subset is always made by Lisa Lions herself—or himself,” she allowed, although she felt certain she knew who the culprit was. “It’s insider information. Bits from e-mails like this one.” She pointed at the screen, which showed a comment about the younger teachers updating their résumés due to declining enrollment. “Or this one”—she clicked—“announcing the deadline for determining my future at the school.” She locked eyes with Wayne.
Amanda leaned in then. “But who could know?” she asked.
“That’s what I wondered,” said Isobel. She waited.
Mary squinted, obviously thinking. “Who knew about the conclusion of the suspension?” the department chair asked.
“The three of you. Lyle.” Isobel paused. “I’m assuming someone told Judith Youngstead since she’d need to plan her time here. Mary, did you tell Eleanor Woodsley?”
Mary’s eyebrows shot up. “I did tell her last week,” she admitted, speaking quickly.
Isobel had figured as much. “And,” Isobel said with an air of finality, “I told Jamie Preston.” She looked at each of them—Wayne, Amanda, and Mary—deliberately, wanting them to understand the conclusion she was asking them to draw. When she’d revealed her suspicions about Jamie to Lyle, he’d snapped his fingers and said, “I’ve never liked her!” Isobel allowed him an “I told you so,” especially since it wasn’t about her own pedagogy.
“This one,” Isobel said now, clicking, “made it hard to ignore Jamie’s potential involvement.” She showed the post about requests by seniors to be placed in Eleanor’s classes. The bosses studied it.
Wayne looked at her, perplexed. “Why that one?” he asked.
“This was posted on the evening of the parent communication faculty meeting,” Isobel said. “Jamie and I were partnered with Eleanor.” Wayne nodded, remembering. “During that conversation,” Isobel continued, “Eleanor reported that she had a high percentage of teacher requests for senior English, due to her excellent communication regarding college essays.” She couldn’t resist a sidelong glance at Mary here. Was Eleanor’s assertion accurate? Isobel doubted she got quite as many requests as she’d indicated. Mary looked at the ceiling, considering. “Then three hours later,” Isobel continued, “this post appears in the secret Facebook group. Seems like it’s at least worth investigating.” Wayne and Amanda exchanged a glance.
Isobel felt a swell of confidence, the attention off her and onto Jamie. Perhaps she could put this all behind her. She could restore her reputation in this community, in which reputation was arguably the most important thing. “Certainly this Facebook group will have to be shut down. In order to do that, we have to identify Lisa Lions. It seems we’re well on our way there.” She stared at Wayne. “Teachers
aren’t going to want to stay here if their lives are fodder for gossip sites.”
Wayne sat back in his chair and rubbed his belly, the pink broadcloth stretched at the buttons. “Amanda and I,” he said slowly, “and I guess you, too, Mary—we’ll begin an investigation today. Did any of you see the Humans of LHHS post this morning featuring Jamie?”
“That’s on Instagram?” Isobel asked.
“It’s the Liston Lights’ project. They switch off weeks. This week, Tracy Abbott is in charge. Her theme is teachers without tenure, and her profile is on Jamie Preston.” Wayne pulled his phone out of his pocket, clicked a few times, and then handed it to Isobel. Jamie filled the screen, her brown hair framing her pale face, freckles distinct against her skin. Jamie’s brown eyes were wide and worried, her hand raised halfway off her desk as if she was asking Tracy to wait to take the photo.
Doing whatever it takes to be rehired, read the caption below the less-than-flattering photograph. It wasn’t long ago that Jamie Preston walked these halls as a student. In fact, mementos from her glory days adorn the bulletin board behind Ms. Preston’s desk along with a reminder to move on to the next chapters of our lives, rather than reveling in the past. Ironic, then, that Ms. Preston is back where she started, and without any assurance that she’ll survive the layoffs that have been reported on the Inside Liston Facebook page, a “secret” group to which many of our parents belong.
“Like she says, the group isn’t public,” Isobel said, not wanting to mention that Tracy had been the one to help her with the screenshots. Her student must have come to the same conclusions about Lisa Lions as she had. Clever girl, she thought. “But it’s getting bigger. There are seven hundred fifty members. If that’s one parent per family—and I did notice it’s mostly, but not all, mothers—then almost half of our families are represented. Teachers can’t be targeted in that kind of forum and also effectively do their jobs.”
Lyle broke in. “I’d imagine, Amanda, that you’ll start to see several complaints about a hostile work environment if parents publish mean-spirited exposés on teachers, like the one Julia Abbott published about Isobel. Not that the Humans of LHHS account is necessarily any better this morning. Don’t you vet those, Wayne?”
“I do,” Wayne said, “and I’ll delete this one.” His wide thumb moved over his screen, and he pocketed his phone.
Isobel closed her computer. “Wayne,” she said, “I think you know that I take my work here incredibly seriously. I’m not sure you’ll find a replacement for me with more passion.” She stood, suddenly teary. “And I need this job. I have two children.”
“Our investigation found that most students and families do value you.” Wayne turned toward his desk and grabbed a thick file from its edge. Isobel looked wonderingly at Lyle, who shrugged. “In fact,” Wayne said, “this is a petition—well, the paper version of the petition. In total there are more than four hundred signatures of kids asking us to reinstate you.”
“Really?” Isobel asked. “Four hundred?” She felt more tears threatening. Even if their parents didn’t, the kids understood her value. Four hundred was more than two years’ worth of students.
“Can we end the investigation?” Lyle said, interrupting. “Based on what you just said, it seems that Isobel’s likability is actually pretty high, perhaps above average.” He gestured at the laptop, where they’d seen plenty of evidence of dissatisfaction directed at several of their colleagues. “And she’s never had a negative performance review.”
Amanda turned to Wayne as if Isobel weren’t there. “There’s the judgment issue on the Facebook comment about Julia Abbott.”
Isobel’s shoulders sank. “That was thoughtless, and I’m sorry. It never occurred to me that a post on my own private profile could make its way public. I’m not friends with any teachers or students on Facebook. But you’re right. . . .” She wiped at her eyelids, determined not to cry in this meeting. “I should have been more careful. I regret the comment.”
“Then again,” Lyle said, “it’s not as if Julia Abbott didn’t retaliate in a pretty big way. She asserted that Isobel’s qualifications are void because of a mistake her father made almost twenty-five years ago.”
“I’d like to get back to work,” Isobel said. “Immediately, if that’s possible.”
JAMIE PRESTON
Jamie had obsessively refreshed the Humans of LHHS feed that morning and been horrified by the photo Tracy Abbott had posted. The girl hadn’t responded to her e-mail reminder that she’d like to review the post, and she’d been livid. But before she could go to Mary Delgado to complain, it had been deleted. Maybe Wayne Wallace actually supervised his Liston Lights.
Jamie had just taught John Proctor’s gallows speech in act four of The Crucible for two class periods in a row when Isobel walked in at lunchtime.
“Did you want to eat together?” Jamie grabbed her wallet from her top desk drawer as she stood. “Did you get my text? How are you feeling?”
Isobel narrowed her eyes at the quotation Jamie had tacked to the bulletin board behind her desk. You can’t start reading the next chapter of your life if you keep rereading the last one. Jamie had seen Tracy’s mean-spirited interpretation of that on Instagram, of course, but hadn’t yet taken it down.
“What is the next chapter of your life?” Isobel asked suddenly, tilting her head as she studied the words.
“What?” Jamie asked.
“Really,” Isobel said, an edge in her voice that Jamie hadn’t heard before, “what are you planning to do next?”
Jamie couldn’t quite read her expression, but it wasn’t friendly. She put her wallet back on the desk and sat down. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m okay,” Isobel said. “Are you?” Kids streamed past the open door on their way to the cafeteria or their next classes.
“What’s going on?” Jamie asked.
Isobel squeezed her knuckles together. “When you saw me this weekend in Julia Abbott’s car, I was looking at Inside Liston. Remember?” She peered at Jamie. “I’d asked you before if you’d heard about it.”
Though it was difficult, Jamie lifted her head and met Isobel’s gaze. “What did you find?”
Isobel raised her eyebrows. “You sure you don’t know?”
“I don’t.” Jamie’s voice sounded plaintive, and she blinked. Don’t admit anything, she told herself.
“It’s a horrible group for overly involved Liston Heights parents, and it’s run by someone on the inside.” A slightly antiseptic smell wafted from the desktop in front of Jamie, the remnants of a Clorox wipe she’d just used. Isobel’s lip curled. “There are gossipy items about the union, the testing calendar, declining enrollment.” She articulated the “t.” “Julia Abbott and others challenged my credentials, and then Julia published that piece about my father, to whom I haven’t spoken in fifteen years.”
Jamie closed her mouth again and stared at Isobel. Speak, she told herself. “You think this has something to do with me?”
Isobel squinted, her face hard. The expression was so different from the encouraging, admiring glances her mentor had bestowed over the last year and a half. For some reason, Isobel had taken her under her wing, nurtured her “spark,” which Jamie had always known was an illusion. “There were posts about my suspension,” Isobel said. “Assignments from my class. Little nuggets”—she smiled sardonically and raised her thumb and forefinger, showing a small chunk—“from conversations you and I were part of.”
“Wait,” Jamie said. She straightened and raised a palm. “Are you saying you think I post on this group?”
“I think you’re the administrator and creator,” Isobel said. Jamie flashed back to the previous week, the many chances she’d had to delete the whole thing. How she wished she’d done it. It would have been easy, and then Isobel would never have seen. “Delete it,” Isobel said as she walked toward the door.
/> “Wait, Isobel—”
“No,” Isobel said. “We’re done here. You nearly ruined my career.”
JULIA ABBOTT
By dinnertime on Monday evening, the Abbotts hadn’t heard from Isobel or Mark Johnson. “Was Ms. Johnson at school today?” Julia asked. She’d made Andrew’s favorite, mac and cheese, again, desperate to get at least one of the children back on her side.
“I saw her in the hallway,” Andrew said, his mouth full.
“Really?” Tracy asked, speaking her first word of the meal. “Because I’m getting really sick of Mrs. Youngstead.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Henry asked. Julia was grateful he tried to keep things going.
“Nothing.” Tracy shrugged. “She’s just obsessed with, like, pronouns, and I think she’s in love with John Steinbeck.”
“I’m pretty sure that guy’s dead,” Henry joked.
Tracy rolled her eyes, but Julia could see a smile flitting across her scowl.
They hadn’t really talked again after Julia confessed the accident and Henry had told her, not for the first time, that she needed to change.
A drowsy sadness had overtaken her after he’d said that. She had retreated to their bed, alternately sleeping and reading snippets of books from her nightstand. She’d picked up The Everything Guide for High School Set Design, but put it down when she realized she’d probably never again be allowed to help on a build. She went back to sleep.
On Monday morning, she hadn’t bothered to get up with the kids, as neither of them wanted to see her. Andrew remained mortified, she was sure, about her impromptu meeting with Wayne about his role. Tracy—well, Tracy preferred Isobel Johnson and had spent her free time organizing to save the woman’s career while Julia had tried to torpedo it. She pulled the covers up to her neck and ignored the noises from the kitchen while she waited for them to leave.