needed to grow up and stop being fun? Or maybe it was becoming a parent. Or maybe some mentor had given him the very bad—and very wrong—advice that he had to change his entire personality to be successful.
Or maybe he was just having an off day. It was possible.
But an off day that was that off?
I couldn’t fathom it. And I didn’t want to.
* * *
When I reached Mrs. Kline’s desk, her little reception area was stacked to the ceiling with boxes. She was dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.
“It’s all Max’s stuff,” she said, as I took in the sight. “I spent the weekend boxing it up.”
“Oh, Mrs. Kline,” I said, getting a little teary myself. “I bet that was hard.”
“Better me than Babette,” she said, and I had to agree.
I nodded. “I guess he really had a lot of stuff.”
“Thirty years’ll do that.”
“Yes,” I agreed.
“I’m just going to have maintenance take it to storage.”
I nodded. Good plan.
Then Mrs. Kline took a slow breath and shifted gears. “Are you here for”—she checked her appointment book—“your ten-thirty meeting?”
I glanced at the wall clock above her head. It was nine forty-seven. “Yes,” I said.
“Would you care to wait?”
“Not really,” I said.
She tilted her head toward Max’s closed office door. “Principal Carpenter said he didn’t want to be disturbed.”
“Okay,” I said.
I didn’t want to be disturbed, either. None of us wanted to be disturbed.
I looked at the closed door, hesitated for one second total, and then I marched over and knocked on it.
Loudly.
No answer.
I knocked again. Nothing.
But I knew he was in there.
Finally, I just started knocking and didn’t stop. Short, insistent raps: tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. Like a woodpecker. A loud, you-better-come-open-this-door kind of woodpecker.
Mrs. Kline just watched, her eyes wide with disbelief.
Finally, Duncan yanked the door open, growling: “Mrs. Kline, I said I’m—”
When he saw me, he stopped.
Then he finished with, “Not here.”
He looked a little breathless. Almost a little sweaty—like he’d been … exercising, maybe? His jacket was off, and so was the vest. His tie was off, too, and his collar was open. What was he up to?
“But you clearly are here,” I said, determined not to be fazed.
Mrs. Kline stood up. “Principal Carpenter, this is our librarian, Samantha Casey. Most people call her Sam.”
And then I couldn’t help it. “Unless we’ve all had a few margaritas,” I said to Mrs. Kline, like amiright? “Then it’s more like Saaaam, or Samster, or Sammie.”
What was I doing? I didn’t even drink. I didn’t have any nickname but Sam. But Duncan didn’t know that. Because, as I may have mentioned, he had no idea who I was.
He wasn’t wrong. But there was no possible way I could wait for forty-one minutes.
“It really can’t wait,” I said, walking right past him into his office. A very ballsy move that, for a minute at least, made me feel quite I-am-woman-hear-me-roar.
That is, until Duncan—less impressed than I’d have liked—watched me situate myself opposite him in his office, ready to face off. Then he seemed to give a kind of mental oh, well shrug, and then he kneeled down to the floor, leaned forward onto his hands … and started doing push-ups.
For a second, I just watched him. It was so unexpected. And he was kind of mesmerizing, too—straight as a board from his heels to his head, pumping up and down with absolute vigor, like it was easy. Great form.
“What are you doing?” I finally asked.
“I told you I was busy.”
“Isn’t this the kind of thing people usually do at the gym?”
“Some people, I guess. I like to space them out through the day.”
It was so off-putting. It threw me off. “Should I … wait for you to finish?”
“I thought you said it couldn’t wait.”
Fair enough.
Looking back, the fact that I thought I was about to quit really impacted how that moment played out. I wasn’t thinking of myself as Duncan’s employee, or trying to keep my behavior professional, or even worried about my job. I had one foot out the door, anyway.
Besides, this guy had just pulled out a gun at a school. A fake one, but still.
All bets were kind of off.
When this office had been Max’s, it was full of keepsakes. Plants, kid art, and photos had covered every shelf, wall, and surface—including his desk, at least the parts of it that weren’t covered with