I have no choice but to invalidate your results from the fall.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Not at all.” Anne smiled sweetly. “Your spring evaluation will count double on your record.”
“But I’m not—you can’t—that’s—”
Completely unfair, is what it was. I was a good teacher. Not perfect, but good. One bad evaluation wouldn’t have killed me. But two?
“Naturally, I’ll have to bring this matter to the attention of the superintendent,” Anne said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if a formal review is required.”
I stared at her in shock. “Do you really hate me that much?”
“Hate you? Julian, how can you think that? None of this is personal.”
“Everything about this is personal. You’ve wanted me gone for over a year now. All because of a book.”
“That’s just not true.”
“I could understand your position,” I told her. “I didn’t agree with it, but I could understand that you had a different opinion from me. What I can’t understand is how you can claim to have the moral high ground—to be protecting students from values you think will harm them somehow—when you’re willing to lie and cheat just to get me fired.”
Anne drew herself up to her full height. Even seated, she was still shorter than I was, but she did her best to make it look like she was looking down her nose at me.
“Those are baseless assertions, and I will not dignify them with a response. If you insist on making those claims, I’ll have to mention your complete disconnect from reality to the superintendent the next time that we speak. So you just think about that before you say anything else.”
“Anne, you’re putting my job on the line here.”
“Perhaps you should have thought of that before you chose such radical reading material.” Her smile was positively saccharine now. “Actions have consequences, Julian. Have a good afternoon.”
I did not have a good afternoon.
I had a terrible one. I walked home, my head furious and my heart fearful, my arms loaded down with my students’ latest science journals and short story drafts. It was a gorgeous late spring day, the sun sinking low and kissing everything a honeyed gold, but I could barely see the sidewalk two feet in front of me.
I dropped the piles of papers on my kitchen table when I got home, then kicked off my shoes and hung up my messenger bag before turning back to regard them. I usually loved reading my kids’ work. But when I thought of doing anything related to school right now, shame and anger filled my body, hot and heavy.
I felt like an idiot. For reacting this badly, when I’d known for weeks that the results weren’t likely to be good. For not having a plan for how to handle it, when I’d had tons of time to come up with one. For hoping, even though I knew I shouldn’t, that maybe I’d be wrong about things this time. That maybe, just once, the universe would decide to be fair.
I had no idea what to do now. Did I fight the results? Who did I go to? Had Anne meant what she’d said about talking to the superintendent? Would I even have a chance to present my side of the story, or would everyone just go along with Anne’s version of things?
I needed this job. Teaching was all I was qualified to do, but if Anne fired me, there was no chance of me getting a teaching job somewhere else on Summersea. I felt sick at the thought of taking a job on the mainland and having to move off-island—a thought that landed even harder since Katie said she still wasn’t allowed to come over this week. I wouldn’t give up having her in my life.
I had to stop. I could feel myself teetering at the edge of an anxiety spiral, a whirlpool ready to suck me in. I wasn’t in any shape to come up with a plan right now. Everything was too raw. But if I gave into full on paranoia, I wasn’t going to be able to sleep tonight.
Not that I’d be able to get much sleep anyway.
So I made myself dinner. Forced myself to eat. Put away the dishes, swept the kitchen floor, changed Gretchen’s litter mechanically. I stared at a book for two hours without turning a page, a glass of wine sitting next to me, untouched. I tried turning on the TV, but that held my interest even less.
At some point, I looked up and saw that it was midnight.