Page 15 of The Other Side
I’d known that Serena had slept with a fair amount of the male staff. Even if she hadn’t regaled me with the stories herself, the suggestive glances they’d throw her way, especially at an event like this, when they were a few drinks deep, made it pretty clear they were considering requesting her company again. I tried not to focus on the fact that all of them were married, Serena included.
But Serena was right. For someone like her, who knew how to play the game, she would never be punished for any impropriety, as long as she kept things under wraps. Me, on the other hand, I constantly felt I was walking on the razor’s edge. I was lucky that Winston was too lazy to try and find a more reputable history teacher to replace me over the summer. But I had no doubt that if he’d gotten a whiff of someone more well-esteemed who might be interested, I would have been quickly ousted.
So I did what I’d always done: I kept my head down, did the work, and gave them no reason to look my way.
“Serena, darling!” Winston called to her from across the room. “Come introduce yourself to Doctor Bryant, one of our new donors.”
“Duty calls,” she preened, giving a dainty wave of her fingers to the well-appointed older gentleman next to the headmaster. “Havefun.”
I rolled my eyes.
I continued to watch the various groups ebb and flow from the comfort of my solitary corner. I was a bit jealous of the Deputy Headmistress, Marilyn Jones, as she commanded the authority Winston could only hope to achieve, but was relegated to dutifully occupying donor’s wives.
Her short silver hair was neatly coiffed, as usual. She opted for impeccably tailored dark-hued pantsuits, with patterned silk blouses, and always wore heels. I didn’t know how she managed to walk around in them for the entire school day, but I aspired to be her.
She had been indifferent toward me since I’d joined Montgomery, but it was a pleasant indifference, and the same attitude with which she graced the rest of the faculty, so I didn’t mind. Jones was much stricter than Winston, always taking on the difficult tasks that he didn’t want to handle. The faculty thatwasn’t afraid of her resented her, but I only saw her as doing her job.
Idly, I wondered if I could find some sort of angle to weasel my way into her charms. I would have loved to be mentored by someone like her. She was no-nonsense, and saw the school for what it was, but still found a way to tolerate the limitations of the institution. However, Marilyn Jones didn’t strike me as someone who had the time or the desire to take on a mentorship.
“Nice to see you, Miss Price. Still skulking around by yourself, as usual.”
I looked up to regard the bespectacled English teacher and newspaper advisor, Kenneth Banks. He had always been slightly awkward around me, but I noticed more and more that he was awkward around many of the staff. At some point during the evening, he had lost his sport coat, revealing his signature striped suspenders.
“Did you have a nice summer, Kenneth?” I ignored the jab. I had been open to being friendly with my colleagues when I had first started at Montgomery, but they had quickly shunned me. I wasn’t a glutton for punishment and had decided early on to keep to myself instead of trying over and over again to get in their good graces.
They could sense I was different from them, and didn’t want me. And I refused to change myself to bend to their petty whims. Besides, the things they would have wanted me to change (my age, my gender, my income level, I could go on), were things I could do nothing about.
“Oh, you know, summers at the Cape can be terribly dull, but I suppose it beats being here.” He took a sip of the amber liquid in his lowball glass.
I bit my cheek, trying not to scowl at the thought of how someone like Kenneth Banks had no idea how privileged of a life he led. As I mentally scrolled through the appropriate topics Icould divert to in order to change the subject, a thought occurred to me.
“Do you remember Daniel Graham?” I dared not make eye contact, afraid I would give away the depth of my interest.
Still, I could feel Banks raising an eyebrow next to me. “Yes, I remember Daniel,” he replied in a low tone, not wanting to chance being overheard.
“Do you know what articles he was working on before the school year ended?”
“I told the police everything I knew. I have nothing to hide.” He was immediately defensive.
I couldn’t have that.
Peering up at Banks, I waited for him to look down and make eye contact with me. “I’m not implying anything,” I stated sincerely.
His shoulders noticeably relaxed at the confession.
“I’ve been bothered by his disappearance. I don’t think he’s a runaway like the police have decided.” I probably shouldn’t have been so open with Banks, but he may have known Daniel the best of anyone on the faculty.
Banks sighed. “I don’t believe so either. Daniel was a true journalist. He kept his investigative work very secret. He probably knew that if I found out ahead of time, I would have discouraged him, but when a student comes to you with a well-written exposé, it’s much more difficult to ignore.”
“How much shit did you get in for publishing the article he wrote last year on the rising use of amphetamines amongst the student body?”
“Enough.” Banks snorted.
That was an understatement. Jolene had confided in me that the headmaster had almost fired him, and it was only Banks apologizing to a couple of donors who took particular offense that had turned the tides. I wondered if Banks held anyresentment toward Daniel for having to grovel as a result of the article. Then again, he had likely known it would get him into hot water, and he let it go to press anyway.
Realizing that I had already pressed my luck with getting any information out of Banks about Daniel, I decided to move on to another area of interest. “Have you met your new counterpart? I haven’t seen him here yet.”
Banks nodded. “He said he’d be late. He’s young. You’ll like him.”
“What? Just because he’s young?” I snorted at the implication.
“No, because he’s almost as curious as you.” Banks chuckled. “I still don’t know why Jenkins decided to retire so suddenly. He joked about being interred in his office.”
“Why do you think he left?”
Banks glared at me. “I couldn’t fathom a guess. And he stopped joining me for golf, so I suppose I’ll never know.”
That was odd. The two English teachers had always been very tight, from what I could observe. But it sounded like Jenkins had dropped off the face of the earth.
“Speak of the devil…” Banks nodded toward the man striding toward us, a determined look set upon his handsome face and a glint of mischief in his piercing blue-grey eyes.
