“Listen, Merlin.” Cass threaded his fingers together and rested them on his belly. “I really liked you. You did me a solid by taking on the yearbook. So many students seem captivated by you, and if you know a damn thing about teenagers, it’s that they’re too cool for school.”
My heart beat uncomfortably hard. “Sir? If I could just tell you what happened,” I tried again.
“The fact is, I can’t keep unprofessional instructors in my classrooms.”
What the fuck?
“Mr. Cass!” I exclaimed. “There was a fire! And it was still raging. I was so preoccupied, it didn’t even register to call until hours later.”
Was he going to dismiss me for this? Was heinsane?
“I don’t know anything about a fire,” Cass replied sternly. “I’m talking about your conduct around our students.”
“My… conduct?” The sweat was making me go cold now.
“I’ve got here several emailed complaints from students saying you’ve been acting… inappropriately during after-school rehearsal,” Cass said as he reached to pat a pile of papers.
“That I’ve beenwhat?” I protested.
“I don’t know how they teach down in New York City, but up here we’ve got a thing called integrity.”
“Mr. Cass, with all due respect, I have no idea what—”
“We had to let Mrs. Waterson go for her sexual misconduct,” Cass continued.
“Are you saying that I’ve done somethingillegal?” I asked, practically shouting at this point.
“You may think that because your ‘romantic affairs’ aren’t with an underage person, that they’re all well and fine to be shoving in everyone’s faces,” Cass said as he rose to his feet.
“Now stop right there,” I said, standing as well. “I’ve done no such thing!”
“These emails say you did! Bringing your—your—manfriendonto school property!” Cass continued, waving the email printouts in my face.
“He’s a parent!”
“Of one of our students!” Cass argued.
“It’s not against any rule in this school district to be dating a parent—I checked first.”
“Sex on school property is incredibly against the rules, Merlin!” Cass shouted at me.
I was stunned.
Sex at school?
Had my predecessor set such a poor example that the high school was ready to shit-can any teacher who so much as breathed wrong?
“Th-that’s not true,” I said. “Felix—Mr. Hansen—has been at school the last few days because he’s brought those free snacks for the band. It’s because of his son. It has nothing to do with me, and we sure as hell weren’t screwing around here!”
“And speaking of Alan Hansen,” Cass said, holding up another form, this time for me to see. “This is a written request to drop both of your music classes that he filed this afternoon with Mr. McCabe.”
My heart plummeted to my gut. I was shaking so hard, I thought I was going to vomit. “Th-this is a mistake,” I said.
“It’s certainly not,” Cass replied.
“N-no. Someone is trying to get me fired. I’ve been trying to tell you since I walked in, Mr. Hansen’s orchard—the fire chief said it was arson! There was some graffiti he found that hadn’t been burned. It was—a slur for gay men.”
I was terrified at how desperate I sounded and how mean and unmoving Cass had become. It was like he was judge, jury, and executioner—ready to end my teaching career with the snap of his fingers. No one would hire me with a rumor like this attached to my name. Not even out of state. I’d spent everything I had moving to New Hampshire. I had a mortgage now—how the hell was I supposed to paythatwithout a job?
