Professional Development (Benchmarks)

by Kate Canterbary

  Professional Development

  The Benchmarks Series

  Kate Canterbary

  Vesper Press

  Contents

  About Professional Development

  Before you dive in…

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Will Max Love Again?

  An Excerpt from Underneath It All

  Also By Kate Canterbary

  About Kate

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Kate Canterbary

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any forms, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the author.

  Trademarked names appear throughout this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, names are used in an editorial fashion, with no intention of infringement of the respective owner's trademark(s).

  Editing provided by Julia Ganis of Julia Edits.

  Proofreading provided by Erica Russikoff of Erica Edits.

  Additional proofreading provided by Jodi Duggan.

  Created with Vellum

  About Professional Development

  Tara Treloff and Drew Larsen hate each other.

  They really hate each other.

  This would be fine except for the issue of them sharing a job title

  …and an office

  …and now a five-hour-long drive to a conference their boss has made mandatory to resolve their issues.

  And they would’ve been able to muddle through all of those matters but a major snowstorm is heading their way

  …and there’s only one bed.

  Before you dive in…

  If you need some tunes to set the vibe, check out Kate’s book playlists on Spotify.

  Join Kate Canterbary’s Office Memos mailing list for occasional news and updates, as well as new release alerts, exclusive extended epilogues and bonus scenes, and cake. There’s always cake.

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  Chapter One

  Tara

  "Bananas," Drew snapped, glaring across the conference table at me while he did it.

  Of course he'd safe-word out of this conversation.

  "Give me three minutes." I matched his glare. "You won't be begging "bananas" when I'm done."

  And of course I thought of our back-on-track trigger as a safe word. That was how it worked. Someone said "bananas" during a meeting only when the conversation had strayed out of bounds and into off-topic territory. "Bananas" kept our school leadership team meetings structured, specific, and constructive.

  Not so different from safe, sane, and consensual.

  Yep, that was my train of thought. There was no shutting down my dirty mind and I couldn't see a reason why shutting it down was necessary. This wasn't the olden days when teachers were fired for getting married and—gasp!—having sex. Headmasters didn't take bullshit vows of celibacy and the good ones didn't hang with that icky, antiquated title either.

  I was allowed my dirty mind as long as I didn't cross the line from professional into pervy by actually calling it a safe word during a school day.

  "I'm not giving you three minutes," Drew gritted out. "I said bananas. This is over. Your calibration of oral reading fluency probes is irrelevant to our agenda and I'm not wasting three minutes on that when we have campus-wide priorities to address." With a dismissive flick of his wrist, he brushed me and my argument aside. "Keep your early elementary issues where they belong, Miss Treloff."

  That obnoxious fucker. As if he got a pass on his obnoxious fuckery because he capped it off with Miss Treloff.

  "As I'm sure you're well aware, Mr. Larsen," I said, my words sharpened to a point, "plenty of your upper elementary students struggle with oral reading fluency."

  "They wouldn't if you'd done your job effectively," he said, as matter-of-fact as today's fucking weather.

  Yeah, I had a dirty mind and I used fuck like it was a comma. It was a damn good thing I knew how to keep that shit in my head rather than blasting it at the obnoxious fucker sitting across from me. I'd wanted to unload the fires of hell upon this douche canoe every day for the past two years.

  That I could sit here and take his shit was all the proof I needed to know I was better than his Ivy League, bearded-up, buttoned-down, condescending bullshit.

  And I had to be better. I poured actual sweat and tears into my work as co-dean of Bayside School. I did that because I loved my job and I believed in this work, but there was no way in hell I'd let my counterpart Drew Larsen win.

  "Unnecessary, Drew." Lauren Halsted-Walsh, the school's founder and principal, didn't look up from her notebook to shut down my nemesis. "We can probably save the ORF conversation for our literacy data meeting tomorrow, Tara."

  Drew gave me his favorite I was right and you were wrong face, a smarmy smirk that made him look more like a rotting jack-o'-lantern than a thirty-four-year-old man.

  I preferred the rotting jack-o'-lantern. It suited my co-dean far more than the unfortunately beautiful package in which he existed. Honestly, he was undeserving of the entire high cheeked, chiseled jaw, broad shouldered, pouty lipped situation—not to mention the very tall, very dark, very handsome side of the equation.

  More importantly, it was unfair to the human population which was often drawn to his arrestingly hot appearance and led to believe he was someone worth knowing.

  He was not. He was a pompous dickhead who happened to be good enough at his job to make up for his burnt toast personality.

  "That works," I said to her, smiling. "I'm sure Drew won't mind us making decisions about the assessment methods that impact all students receiving literacy intervention next quarter."

  I crossed my arms, shot him a smug smile. Another battle in my win column.

  He muttered under his breath as he glanced away and tossed an irritated glare toward the window. "If that's the case," he started, slowly shifting his attention back toward me, "you should've included it in the agenda beforehand. Ad hoc additions violate the norms of our meeting protocol and as I stated earlier"—he leaned forward, sneering at the sunflower doodles on my copy of the meeting's agenda—"are bananas."

  That fucker and his safe word. That fucking fucker.

  "As I'm sure you're capable of noticing, the agenda has—"

  Lauren shook her head, stopping my argument, and jumped in with, "We've now dedicated more time to procedural discussion than actual content and we cannot extend our time this morning. I have a hard stop at ten thirty." She closed her notebook, laced her fingers together on top of it. "I couldn't help but notice you two are still struggling to establish a working relationship that isn't smothered by your shared resentment of each other."

  "Our working relationship is fine when we don't have to interact," I said. "Drew keeps to his half of the building, I keep to mine, and everything is great."

  "Except my half of the building inherits the students from your half of the building," Drew argued. "It would help if they rolled
into fourth grade having mastered third grade standards."

  "You know damn well the vast majority of last year's third graders were at or above grade level at the end of the year," I said.

  He shrugged. "But not all, Tara."

  "No, not all, Drew," I replied. Was this how it felt for blood to boil? Was this it, the overwhelming sense I was going to turn cherry red and blast out of my seat in rage? "It will never be one hundred percent and the fact you believe it's attainable is the root of our problem."

  Nodding, he said, "Allow me to acknowledge that, for once, you're right. It is the root of our problem. I expect more and so should you."

  "Porcupines," Lauren said, using the one trigger more powerful than bananas. It was a time-out, red card, and veto all in one, and she'd only used it once before. She held up her hands, breaking apart this argument. "It's clear you both have strong opinions about effective school leadership and it's one of the things I admire about each of you. That these opinions differ only makes them more meaningful. The challenge I've wanted you to tackle since it became clear we needed to cleave the dean role into two—"

  "I still disagree with that," Drew muttered.

  She leveled him with a glare and I took immense joy in watching the arrogant glint in his eyes cool. "Porcupines," she repeated.

  "Excuse me," he replied, staring at the table. "My bad."

  It was absurdly unfair how good he looked while brooding over that verbal smackdown. Like a modern-day Dracula, turning up his coat collar to protect himself from the discomforts of this world.

  Not unlike Dracula, Drew sucked the life out of everything around him.

  "Since this role was split and Tara was selected to lead the early elementary side, I've hoped you two would shift on those differences," Lauren continued. "Not abandoning them but coming together in service to those differences."

  "That was my hope for this work too," I said, not at all above sucking up to my boss. Dirty mind aside, I was nothing if not a teacher's pet. "Though I'm not sure we're able to do that"—I spared a glance at my moody, chastened nemesis—"when these differences are fundamental."

  They were also elitist horseshit. My counterpart seemed to think his Ivy League education—Dartmouth, and he wouldn't let you forget it—meant he was the most intelligent person in any room.

  But Drew's degree wasn't in education or child development. Not even math, the subject he'd taught for five years before helping Lauren open this school. Nope, Drew had studied philosophy and—allegedly—stumbled into the classroom.

  Because that made any sense at all.

  I, on the other hand, had degrees in both child development and early childhood education. I was fully qualified for my work, even if I'd studied at low-ranking state schools.

  "I hear what you're saying and I know you believe it and feel it," Lauren replied. "But I know you two. I chose you two. And I know you're more aligned than you think." She pulled a file folder out from under her laptop, handed papers from it to us. "That's why I want you to attend this training session. Registration closed six months ago and the wait list was a nightmare, but I made some calls and swapped with a few other school leaders to secure seats for you."

  "This…this is in upstate New York," Drew murmured, frowning at the paper.

  "And it's next week. It's right before holiday break," I added.

  "We'll be off campus the last two days of the term," Drew said.

  "Correct," Lauren replied. "You'll have plenty of time on the drive to and from Albany to make sense of those differences."

  Drew dropped the paper as if it was poison. "You want us to—what?"

  "There's no reason for you to drive separately," she said, her words slapping in their finality. "Look, I know it's short notice but it's not as though we had anything critical taking place those days. You know, I am capable of keeping things under control by myself for a bit. The last two days before winter holiday break are a fine time to step away and then come back strong in the new year. Strong together."

  I put the paper down, flattened my palms over it. "I am looking forward to this," I managed. "I'm excited—I am—but I'm also concerned that we won't be able to accomplish all this in two days, Lauren." I met Drew's gaze, silently willing him to agree with me. Instead, he arched an eyebrow and left me to hoe this row alone. Dammit, I was always hoeing alone. "These goals seem ambitious for the timeline."

  "You should give it a try," Drew quipped. "See what you're made of."

  That fucker.

  With an impatient sigh, Lauren glanced at the clock above her door and then back at us. "It is ambitious and I expect you'll make a concerted effort," she said. "If you're not able to make meaningful progress, I'll have no choice but to reevaluate this staffing model. I believe in you both but this holy war has to end. It's not productive and it's not the best use of your skills and talents. And honestly, mediating isn't the best use of my skills and talents. We have better things to do and it's time we do them."

  My stomach sank to my toes. Drew wasn't going anywhere. He wasn't going to be reevaluated out of a job. Despite the obvious fact he was an egotistical jerk with unforgiving standards and a burgeoning god complex, the teaching staff adored him. His tentacles were wrapped around this school and they had been since the very first day. If anyone was leaving, it was me.

  The smirk he shot me confirmed it. He'd wanted me gone and now it seemed his wish was coming true. He'd never see my perspective and there was no way in hell I was bending to his.

  "Ten thirty." Lauren pointed at the clock. "Unless you want to talk while I pump, this is where we adjourn." She stood, fetched her breast milk pumping kit from under her desk. Her baby daughter was about six months old and an adorable little meatball. "Tell your teams you'll be unavailable those days. I'll forward digital copies of the training and hotel information to you. I'll leave it up to you to figure out your travel plans." She unzipped the bag and set an empty bottle on the table. "Together."

  Drew pushed to his feet, his gaze cast toward the ceiling, as if scandalized by the sight of the bottle. "Understood," he said, heading toward the door without a backward glance.

  "Yeah," I murmured, still reeling from Lauren's gently issued ultimatum.

  This was an independent lab school, an incubator for new educational innovation. We got to test out history textbooks that didn't limit the world to western Europe, and new apps for learning foreign languages, and we welcomed researchers into our classrooms every day. But my contract provided no layers of bureaucracy between me and unemployment.

  "We'll, uh, we'll get it together," I added.

  She gave me a crisp grin. "Yes. You will."

  "Thank you for making this happen. Getting us into the training," I added.

  "You can thank me when you get back." There was warmth in her words, but it was severe.

  I gathered my things and shuffled out, Lauren hot on my heels as she locked the door and pulled the blinds behind me. My laptop clutched to my chest, I wandered into the teachers' workroom, knowing I'd find Drew there.

  There was no reason to seek him out. In fact, this was a waste of my time. I had classrooms to visit and coaching meetings to prepare for, and probably a new job to find. Leaning against the communal lunch table while he slid papers into mailboxes and ignored me completely was not a smart choice.

  But I stayed and said, "About this training thing—"

  "I'll drive," he interrupted, still busy delivering mail.

  "Oh, so, you've just decided that?" I asked.

  Goddammit, I should not have picked another fight with him. I should've agreed and skipped this argument altogether. I didn't even like driving but I did enjoy being included in the decision-making when those decisions involved me.

  "I have evaluated the facts and reached a conclusion." He was slotting papers into mailboxes like they were darts. "You travel by public transit wherever possible. When you do drive, it's with that charming little girlmobile."

  Even if I wa
nted to, I couldn't fight him on this point. I drove the same poppy red Volkswagen Beetle I'd had for almost thirteen years, all the way back to high school. Red duct tape held the passenger side mirror in place and I had to work my ass off to avoid potholes unless I wanted to crack another rim.

  Drew drove a black SUV with tinted windows and all manner of grills and guards and extraneous metal. It screamed, "I'm compensating for something in a big way!"

  I pursed my lips in disapproval. I didn't care that his back was to me. "And your souped-up manmobile is the answer?"

  "In case you're not familiar with the route from Boston to Albany, it's through the Berkshire Mountains. And in case you've forgotten, it's December in the Northeast." He lifted his shoulders, which had the impolite effect of tightening his blue checkered dress shirt across the lean muscles of his back. I glared at those muscles. Did all his clothes have to fit him like…that? And his hair, did it have to be dark and wavy? Really? Didn't he have enough? "Higher elevation, winding roads, frequent fog and inclement weather. In this instance, yes, my souped-up manmobile with four-wheel drive and snow tires is the answer."

  He finished distributing his papers but didn't turn around. Instead, he tapped his finger against one of the slots and turned his head to the side, just enough to catch sight of me over his shoulder.