I stiffened.
I’d dressed carefully for this meeting in a tailored navy suit and white blouse. Sensible nude heels. A leather briefcase with my notebook and monogrammed pen.
I’d felt professional–serious–as I checked my appearance in the mirror.
I am still Sam Scott, I’d reminded myself.
Last night was only a momentary lapse of judgment, I’d rationalized as I got in the cab that would bring me to the Upper East Side and my alma mater.
I really have changed so much since I attended school here,I’d thought as Superintendent Lawson let me through the doors and led me through the building to the library. It felt smaller, but it smelled the same: sweat and floor polish and paper.
And then he’d shown up. Charlie was dressed down in an Oxford cloth shirt with his sleeves rolled up, khakis, and a pair of sneakers, and somehow, he managed to make me feel both overdone in my suitandgrungy in–oh,god–last night’s hair. I’d showered, obviously, but I hadn’t had time to washandblow out my hair before the meeting, and decided I’d just run a boar-bristle brush through it and twist it into a tight knot in the back of my head.
And suddenly, I hadn’t changed at all since I was here as a student. Forget Sam Scott, professional literary agent; suddenly, I was in my high school library, and Charlie Martin had sat down beside me, rumpled and handsome and smelling fresh and clean like aftershave and I was wrenched back into the past and Sami, the high school freshman with a crush on her senior brother’s friend.
How perfectly humiliating.
“Thisis yourvolunteering?” I asked quietly, looking determinedly at my notebook.
“I thought I told you,” he muttered under his breath, plopping his own briefcase between our chairs and pulling out a top-of-the-line laptop. “I did myvolunteeringlast night.”
It took all my willpower to unclench my jaw, but somehow, I managed. My dentist would besoproud.
He opened his laptop before smiling over at Superintendent Lawson.
“So,Elena,” he said. My blood boiled. “Shall we get to work?”
* * *
We were, Charlie and I, mainly figureheads. I was a literary agent, not a phonics teacher, and Charlie was a tech CEO, not an elementary school computer instructor, but we knew the right kind of people, we had the right connections, that Superintendent Lawson and her grant writer and the rest of the administration needed. I cringed internally as the superintendent laid out her thoughts on the kick-off gala. The high neck of my silk blouse was stifling. This was exactly the type of work I generally put every effort toward avoiding. Volunteering. Party planning.Smiling. The type of work my mother had always done. After the gala, I’d be performing some minor duties meant to keep the press interested. Dropping in on some classrooms to read picture books to sticky kindergarteners. A career Q&A at the high school. It was safe to assume Charlie had a similar schedule. I didn’t know what exactly he’d be doing; I didn’t care.
After the meeting drew to a close, the superintendent hung behind with the two of us.
“Whew,” Charlie whistled appreciatively, and Superintendent Lawson laughed, picking up her to-go coffee, then putting it back down with a look of disappointment. It made a light, empty sound as it landed on the table again. “You’ve been busy. This is going to be good.”
“We have,” she said. “And it will. Thanks to you, Charlie–this was practically your idea.”
He chuckled. “Hardly. If it were my idea, you think I’d want to share the spotlight with Ms. Scott?” The superintendent beamed at him like it was the funniest joke she’d heard all year, and only a decade of professionalism kept me from rolling my eyes.
“How generous of you,” I said to him, with a fake smile that I knew he would see right through.
“Itisone of my hallmarks, Samantha,” he said, his eyes dropping from my eyes to my body for a split second, so fast I could have missed it were my eyes not glued to his. “Generosity.”
Ha.
I crossed my arms over my chest.
“Of course, we’re thrilled that you’re here, too, Ms. Scott,” the superintendent added, like an afterthought. “We’re so honored to have such accomplished alumni.”
“The school taught us well,” I said, and she smiled, but professionally, not the broad smile she apparently reserved for her best friend Charlie.
“I’ll show you out,” she said, and took us back through the school and across the lobby, ushering us back through the padlocked front doors and into the small courtyard in front of the building.
“See you next week,” Charlie said, and the woman nodded and headed down the sidewalk. I watched her as she disappeared around the corner. I’d always been dropped off and picked up by my father’s driver while at school, but I remembered the feeling of watching the other students rush toward the subway station, off to do… I was never sure what, but certainly something more interesting than whatever I had in store at home.
As soon as she was gone, I turned to him.
“We need to talk.”
