have to figure out a way to get back into Ardina’s good graces, because anyone who had worked in a school environment for any length of time knew that it was the school secretary who ultimately ran the show. They were the glue that held the multitude of parts together.
Gabe stared at her rigid back and considered clearing the air, but he’d tried that several times this past week and had only received the stink-eye in return. Until he came up with a better tactic, he’d steer clear of her.
Instead, he went the opposite way, backing into the office that still had Assistant Principal James’s name etched on the cheap plastic nameplate above the door.
Not for long, Gabe mouthed at the nameplate.
He deposited the stack of file folders on the desk and, after popping open one of the energy drinks he kept in his messenger bag, started on the mountain of paperwork that was an unfortunate part of his new job. Unfortunate but necessary. Every form he filled out was yet another opportunity to bring some much-needed changes to GEMS.
After a half hour of reading through proposals for new playground equipment, Gabe welcomed the knock on his door.
“Come in,” he called.
Tristan Collins’s face peeked through the narrow opening in the door. “You got a minute?”
“Sure. What’s up?” Gabe asked his old college roommate, who was currently the band teacher at both GEMS and Gauthier High School. Tristan also had been the one to encourage Gabe to apply when the teaching position had opened up here just before the start of the current school year.
“I’m on my way to the high school, but I need to talk to you first,” Tristan said. He looked over his shoulder before stepping into the office and closing the door behind him.
Gabe took note of the huge worry line creasing his friend’s forehead. An uncomfortable feeling weaved its way through his gut.
“What’s up?” Gabe asked again.
Tristan blew out an unsteady breath. “I overheard something in the teachers’ lounge a few minutes ago. If it’s true, you’ve got a problem on your hands. A big one.”
* * *
“Something has got to be done about Gabriel Franklin.”
Celeste Mitchell accentuated each word with a thump on the table, her balled fist rattling the collection of mismatched mugs of tea and coffee that had been consumed over the past hour. The treasurer of the GEMS Parent Teacher Organization, Celeste had called this emergency board meeting to discuss “alarming” news she’d just heard regarding the school’s new interim assistant principal.
Simone Parker, the PTO secretary, hooked her thumb toward Celeste. “Look how this one’s tune has changed. Just the other day she was talking about how cute Mr. Franklin’s butt looked in his khaki pants, and now she’s ready to run him out of town.”
“He may be cute and all, but when he starts messing with my Lock-In, he’s gone too far,” Janice Taylor, the vice president, said.
“And there’s nothing wrong with looking,” Celeste argued. “I can be happily married and still look. Hell, sometimes Charles points them out to me.”
“Can we get back to the discussion at hand?” Leslie asked.
She’d come straight from work to The Jazzy Bean, the coffee shop her sister-in-law, Shayla, had opened two years ago on Gauthier’s Main Street. It quickly had become one of the most popular hangouts in town, and the normal meeting place when the PTO’s board needed to discuss important topics outside the regular PTO meeting. Leslie wasn’t sure when Gabriel Franklin’s nice butt had made the important-topics list.
Not that she hadn’t noticed the young teacher’s nice butt. She had noticed it way more than she dared admit.
Leslie figured she was just one in a growing contingent of Gauthier females who had a crush on GEMS’s newest teacher. As far as she was concerned, her little cougar crush was the safest crush in the history of all crushes. Not only was she too old for Gabriel Franklin, but there was also that other fact that could not be overstated. He was her daughter’s teacher. Her. Daughter’s. Teacher.
Safest crush ever.
“The Lock-In is our biggest fund-raiser of the year,” Celeste said. “Do you know how tight our budget would be next year if Mr. Franklin canceled it?”
“And just what makes him think he has the right to cancel it?” Simone asked. “He got here all of two minutes ago and has the nerve to try to change the way we do things? I don’t think so.”
“I liked him better when he was just a teacher,” Janice said. “It’s when they put him in that assistant principal position that he lost his mind. Give a person a little bit of power and they think they run the place.”
“You’re right about that,” Celeste said.
“I see it all the time,” Simone added.
“Ladies, please.” Leslie held up her hands and spoke as calmly as possible in an attempt to stave off the bevy of complaints being hurled at lightening speed. She waited until the other three ladies seated around the table quieted before continuing. “Everyone feels passionately about this subject, but if we all continue to talk over each other, we’ll never get this figured out.”
“What’s there to figure out?” This from Celeste. “We all can see what’s going on here. Mr. Franklin has decided that he knows what’s best for our children. Barely a child himself,” she finished with an aggravated huff.
“That’s what I’m talking about.” Simone pointed her mug at Celeste. “He can’t be more than twenty-five. What makes him think he knows better than the rest of us?”
“I heard that he taught for a few years in New Orleans before coming to Gauthier,” Leslie said. “He has to be older than twenty-five.”
“Fine, twenty-six, then,” Simone retorted after taking a sip of tea.
“I don’t care how old he is or how cute he is,” Janice said. “What I care about is the Lock-In. I’ve personally worked my butt off to make it a success, and I don’t appreciate someone who just moved here thinking he can come in and change the way we’ve been doing things for years. We need to figure out how to handle this problem.”
“First, we need to make sure there actually is a problem,” Leslie reminded them. “It’s all hearsay at this point.”
Although, if the news Celeste had shared turned out to be true, they definitely had a problem on their hands. Actually, GEMS’s interim assistant principal was the one with the problem. Threatening the PTO’s major fund-raiser was the equivalent of swinging a bat at a nest of angry hornets.
“Well, someone needs to approach Mr. Franklin so that we can get to the bottom of this.” Janice pointed to Leslie. “I think you should do it.”
“Me?” Leslie yelped. “Why me?”
“Because you’re the PTO president. It’s your job.”
Great.
