enough to get gray and lose all my teeth.”
That, like so many things here, seemed profoundly unfair. During an episode of particular brutality at the hands of an abusive boyfriend, Dara Lee had shot and killed the man who had fathered her two children. The abuse had been chronic. Ten years later she still wasn’t sorry for anything—except not getting away before the police had arrived.
“You’ll be out before then,” Cristy said. “Just don’t get into fights. Don’t hang out with the wrong people. Do your job, and say please and thank you to the officers.”
Dara Lee hoisted herself off the bed. “You write me, you get a chance.”
Cristy watched Dara Lee glide away. As hard as it was to believe, Dara Lee, who was the only friend Cristy had made in prison, had never caught on to the obvious. Cristy wouldn’t be writing her. Cristy didn’t write anybody. That was just part of who Cristy was.
* * *
The first thing Georgia Ferguson did when she arrived at the Buncombe County Alternative School campus was to back her car into her parking space. Rank came with privileges, and as principal, her space was close enough to the front door that she could easily haul in the never-ending boxes of books and other supplies that were destined for shelves and file cabinets.
Six months into the school year she was still finding things to bring in. Today she had boxed up information about similar schools all over the country. She had done the research at home. BCAS was a new addition to the Asheville school system, but there was no point in reinvention. She wasn’t above using other people’s ideas. She even hoped one day somebody might use hers.
BCAS, pronounced “because” by everyone connected to the school, was a low-slung redbrick building that sat on a three-acre campus off the Leicester Highway west of Asheville. The facility wasn’t new; in fact it was considerably older than Georgia’s forty-eight years. Before a long, sad vacation, the school had housed elementary, then middle school, students. Then last year, when it seemed doomed for demolition, the school board had voted to turn the building into an alternative school for middle and high school students. Renovations had brought it up to code, but little else. Money was tight, and a new school was a brave venture.
At the front door she set down the box to find and insert her master key in the lock, but their youngest custodian, Tony, who was doing a dance step down the hallway, saw her through the window and came to help. He was wraith-thin, with blond dreadlocks and a red soul patch that looked like a strawberry sprouting from his chin.
Once she was inside, Tony lifted the box out of her arms and followed her as she headed halfway down the corridor to her office. “You’re here early, Mrs. F.”
“So are you.” That was the real surprise. Tony was rarely where Georgia thought he ought to be. Tony had framed their first months together as a test of her leadership abilities. The next phase had been an attempt to “educate” her about the real meaning of his job description. Most recently he seemed bent on ingratiating himself.
Tony had finally realized that not only was his new boss not a pushover, she was also perfectly capable of having him fired if necessary.
“I unlocked it already.” Tony stopped outside the school office, and Georgia pushed open the door.
The first thing that greeted visitors was a banner strung over the reception counter printed with the school’s motto. Because You Can. Because You Will. The second greeting was the smell—part mildew, part decay. The offices weren’t yet ready to give up old habits.
She preceded Tony and wound her way behind the counter toward the far wall.
“I wanted to get the kitchen floor mopped before the lunch ladies get here and mess it all up again,” he said, glancing at her to calculate her reaction.
Tony sucking up was an improvement over earlier behavior, but at least partly dishonest. The cafeteria staff were as tidy as surgical nurses, and Georgia suspected that sometime in the past twenty-four hours they had cornered the young man and insisted he do a thorough mopping or his head would roll. They were the only staff members in the school that Georgia was afraid of, too.
“You’re in charge of cleaning my office, aren’t you?” she asked.
“I’m the lucky guy.”
Of the four full-time custodians, she’d picked the winner. “A good vacuuming after school this afternoon, please. And I don’t think my trash has been emptied this week.”
“I been meaning to get to that.” He shook his head and blond dreadlocks flopped in emphasis. “It’s on my list.”
“High on your list, because it’s going to happen today, while I’m at the faculty meeting.”
“It sure is.”
Georgia unlocked her office door, gesturing for him to go first.
“Where’d you want me to put this?”
Because it had been one of those weeks, Georgia’s desk was piled high. She yearned to have an hour without anything more pressing, so she could file and toss papers. With luck she would have an hour like that sometime in the late twenty-first century.
Georgia pointed to an empty space, one of the few. “Stick it on the bookshelf over there, thanks.”
He obliged her. “Unless you need something else, I’d better go finish the floor.”
“You’d better,” she agreed. “The lunch ladies get here early.”
He boogied out the doorway, and the sound of his whistling grew fainter until eventually she couldn’t hear it at all.
Georgia unsealed the cardboard flaps and began to remove files. She liked the silence of an empty school building. Sometimes she even thought she heard laughter from former students echoing through the hallways.
And sometimes...
She stopped and listened. Something besides laughter seemed to be rattling along this particular hallway. She wondered if Tony was dragging the wheeled mop bucket from the storage room to the lunchroom. But the sound was louder, and seemed to pass quickly, growing quieter, then louder again a few moments later.
She tried to remember whether Tony had locked the front door behind them and couldn’t.
Her cell phone rang, and once she’d rummaged through her purse a glance told her the call was from her daughter.
She put the phone to her ear. “Hey, Sam.”
“Mom, just checking to make sure we’re still on the same page today?”
The rattling in the corridor began again. She forced herself to concentrate.
“Taylor’s going to drop off Edna this afternoon, and hopefully my faculty meeting will be over when she gets here. If not, Marianne will let her wait in my office, and she can do her homework.” Marianne was the office manager, who always stayed late. Edna was Georgia’s twelve-year-old granddaughter.
“Great, we’re all set then.”
“Are you already on your way to Raleigh?”
“About
