of this country, giving me almost no chance of being placed in the same school as Freddie.
For that, I’ll need Malcolm’s help, even if said help comes without him knowing.
First stop is home, but only after texting Malcolm to see if he’s gone into the office yet. A two-word, all-caps message pings back almost immediately: TEACHER TEST. Not the information I wanted, but I’ve learned over the years that I’m never going to get what I want from Malcolm, not even a relevant response to a text message.
Our driveway is empty when I pull in, and my dashboard clock tells me Anne’s silver bus has already come and gone. I don’t bother changing out of my jeans—testing days are casual affairs as far as the dress code is concerned—and head straight for Malcolm’s desk in the upstairs office we share. The room is part workspace, part Office Depot warehouse. Two printers, multiple reams of copy paper stacked next to them, binders waiting to be filled with the latest hole-punched reports are all crammed into every shelf and spare bit of surface area.
I know what I’m looking for, though, and where to find it.
Malcolm’s letterhead from the Department of Education is in the second drawer down, nestled next to envelopes with the same logo. I slide out three of each and rummage around for something—anything—with his signature on it. Then I fire up the copier and print out the three sentences I typed early this morning, using my husband’s best you will do as I say voice, on Mom’s laptop. The memo, now on Malcolm’s own letterhead, looks good. I slip this forged document and an accompanying envelope into a folder.
The clock downstairs chimes half of the Westminster Quarters. Eight thirty. Time to go.
I think of my mother’s last words to me before I left this morning: “Do you really want to do this?”
I wish there were another answer, one that rhymes with “no” instead of the one I gave my mother:
“I have to.”
Five blocks from my school, I take a minute to look over Malcolm’s letter, signing his name with sharp, pointed strokes, and finishing the signature off with a bold double underline. Nice and aggressive looking.
The park where I’ve stopped my car is notable for two contrasting visitor types. The first is a dwindling batch of older men who cocoon themselves in blankets and crumpled newspaper, adept at a quick disappearing act should a police cruiser roll by. The second group couldn’t be more different: wiry twenty-somethings with stripped-down racing bikes between their legs and messenger bags slung slantwise over their backs. These are the ones I want.
With a single twenty-dollar bill from my wallet in one hand and the envelope addressed to the principal of the Davenport Silver School in the other, I walk to the friendliest-looking bike courier in the group. He’s only friendly by bike courier standards—these kids are sharp and swift and take no prisoners, running red lights and dodging frightened pedestrians around the labyrinthine streets and avenues of Washington, DC. If the twenty doesn’t convince him, I’ll pay forty.
But the twenty turns out to be enough. He listens to my instructions, taps a note and location into his phone, and rides off with his messenger bag on his back. If all goes as planned, I’ll see him again this afternoon in the school’s central offices.
Not that he’ll show any sign of recognizing me.
The life sciences department of the Davenport Silver School is tucked between two of the ten streets that form the spokes of Dupont Circle, housed in a Beaux-Arts mansion that was once a club for Washington’s wealthiest women. They donated the building and its grounds to the Fitter Family Campaign ten years ago, and the FFC turned the old club into a school when they grew out of it. I park in the underground lot next door, sign in at the front desk, and walk up the wide staircase to the ballroom-turned-auditorium, where a few dozen of my colleagues sit in nervous silence.
Dr. Chen, the first-year chemistry teacher, clicks her pen to the beat of an inaudible metronome set to allegro. Drs. Stone and Stone, the married couple who handle advanced placement Spanish and