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“So you keep telling me. In fact, you’ve told me so almost my entire life. I have yet to see it come to pass.”
“Cocky. I watched you grow up, so don’t you sass me. Changed your diapers too. Nursed your skinned knees when you ran away to climb up those cliffs. Never listened to me back then either. Always came back with more scrapes. Listen to me now, little one. Magdalene Nox is not someone to trifle with.”
Something in Joanne’s voice made Sam seek out her kind brown eyes.
“How do you know her, Joanne? You sound like you do.”
Joanne just waved her free hand quickly, too quickly, in dismissal.
“Live long enough, work long enough in New England boarding schools for girls, and you’ll eventually know everyone, Sammy. She is renowned, and she is ruthless. You don’t rise like she did, from nothing, make a name for yourself in this business and not be absolutely deadly. ‘Demon’ may be a little harsh, but I doubt it is very much off the mark these days.”
‘These days’ had to mean that there had been other days, when the harsh moniker had been less applicable. Sam made a mental note to try and pry more out of the normally very discreet Joanne. But these were quickly becoming desperate times, and all thenormalwould have to be foregone for a while.
“You don’t think she’ll rehire you?” Sam’s heart plummeted into her stomach at the very idea. She knew Joanne had an estranged family somewhere out West. Sam doubted very much that her mentor would have a place to go if she was forced out of Dragons. Hell, if you were completely honest, Joanne’s entire life was here, at this school. She was one of the very few teachers who’d been born and bred on this island, and as a true islander, she had never left. An alumna of Dragons, she had remained at the school after she graduated, first as a teaching assistant and then as a teacher, after she’d received her diploma remotely from Boston College.
Sam had precious few people in her life whom she loved and trusted implicitly. Joanne, who had indeed helped raise the little foundling, was one of them.
“Would you rehire me, Sammy? My bouts of vertigo are not becoming less frequent with age, and I’m not young or spry anymore by anyone’s measure. There are hundreds of art and photography professors who would bring so many new things to the job. You know, I believe that all things considered, Magdalene will have just done this school some good.”
Again, with the inflection Joanne placed on the name, Sam sensed that there was a bit more familiarity in it than a total stranger warranted.
“What do you mean?”
“How many of us are relics here, Sammy? Too many. You and David? You are young, and you bring so much to your positions. Neither I, nor Rovington—regardless of those damn pants of hers, because they do make her ass look really good—nor Ruth have been challenged or stimulated or threatened enough in our positions for years to bring something new to the girls. To up our game, as you youngsters call it.” She threw a long look at Rovington’s aforementioned backside, as the PE teacher was still squaring off with David.
“First of all, eww. Quit it. This is like seeing my mother drool over someone’s butt, and I do not want any of those images in my head. Plus, seriously you have to lust after hers? It’s not even that great of a behind.”
“Ah, youth… Haven’t you heard it said that beggars can’t be choosers? I had it going on, Sammy. The stories I could tell you—”
“Oh, pfft, you may have looked, but you’ve never touched. Not at this school. And secondly,” Sam interrupted before Joanne’s favorite way of teasing her got under her skin as usual, “I can probably accept that you are right about Ruth and Rovington and maybe a few others, but you, my gross diaper changer, are still the best damn photographer I’ve ever seen. Talent is talent, technique is technique, and some things are not determined by your knowledge of the newest apps and gizmos. Though I have a distinct suspicion that you’ve kept up. The girls adore you.”
Joanne discretely wiped her face, and Sam felt her own eyes water.
“You are a good girl, Sammy. Sweet, and stubborn as a mule. You’re fearless, always have been. But don’t go causing a ruckus for lost causes, I know you love to take those up. Think of the bigger picture here. There is so much at Dragons that is worth fighting for. And your temper and stubbornness will be needed there. Think of the students, think of the school, think of Lily and Amanda and Suzie and the rest. They will all need a champion. Don’t go wasting your ammunition on me.”
As valiantly as Sam was fighting tears, she felt one escape at the mention of the scholarship girls and all the things that were in danger now, all the things she’d have to fight for. Joanne’s remarkably steady fingers wiped the tear and then, just as Sam was about to look away, gripped her chin and gently turned her back to meet the deep brown eyes of her mentor.
“Remember that the things that matter outweigh our attachments and our grievances. Too much is at stake here, Sam. Now, go follow them. Orla will surely need all the help she can get dealing with Magdalene Nox, with that hangover she is nursing. And as her unofficial deputy, it’s up to you anyway.”
And just like that, the world on her shoulders got heavier, the petals turning into rocks, falling on the already agitated surface of her mind, sending ripples everywhere.
4
Of Eavesdropping & Sunspots
“Iam claustrophobic. Ah, not much, but enough, I guess. I’m sorry. I, ah…”
Sam knew she was rambling. Her interlocutor had called it adorable when they’d exchanged quips and verbally sparred downstairs at the bar. She even said that she found it cute, how she could fluster Sam so easily with a wink or a compliment. Which was the truth, because even in the dimness of the bar, Sam could sense her own ears turning crimson. She did not feel cute or endearing. She felt clumsy. Gauche. This woman was clearly a cosmopolite, worldly, maybe a touch otherworldly even. Too good to be true. What was she doing wasting her time on someone like Sam, who was currently hyperventilating because of the enclosed space?
And yet here this woman was, on her way to Sam’s room, and they were stuck in the elevator. Some luck Sam had. After her total disaster performance at the bar, Sam thought she had started to claw some points back when she’d pressed the other woman into the doors merely a second after they’d slid shut. The sound the woman made—something between a moan and growl—when their tongues touched… Sam had to admit it was one of the hottest things she’d ever experienced. But then the lights had gone out, the elevator jerked to a stop, and they were stranded between floors.
Sam could sense the impending terror and panic behind the senseless string of her own words, confessing her phobia. It seemed tonight was just the night for all her flaws to be exposed in front of one of the sexiest women she had ever met. Not that she’d met many. In fact, she had only ever had one girlfriend, and that was in post-grad… And it all went up in smoke because Sam returned to Dragons and because Dragons meant a deep closet… And why was she thinking about all of this now anyway?
First her absolute ineptness at flirting, then her panic at being in close quarters, now the babbling... She stopped talking and sat down on the elevator’s carpeted floor. If she was to pass out, the least she could do was shorten her fall from her five feet ten inches. Unbidden images of her classmates calling her a beanpole came to mind, and she bit her lip to stop the insults from being brought back to the forefront. She looked around for anything, any distraction from her present predicament, only to find the woman sitting next to her, but not too close to crowd her, and in the semi-dark, illuminated only by the emergency lights, laying her hand palm up on the floor of the elevator just within reach of Sam’s own.
Slowly, perhaps a little disbelieving of her own good fortune and the generosity of this stranger, Sam placed her hand into the other woman's outstretched one. Slim fingers slid gently and loosely between hers, tethering, without restricting her. The touch centered her much more than the taste of copper on her tongue from biting her own lip.
“Star Trek or Star Wars? And believe me, there is only one correct answer to this question.”
