Page 5 of Mr. Principal

“Relax,” he said gently, again touching my shoulder, and cutting me off from swearing in front of my kid. “I figured there had to be a good reason you weren’t here to pick her up and Meredith told me you were working and what time you got off, so it was no problem.”

I shook my head. “I feel terrible—”

“Relax. We had fun. And you’re only...” He consulted his watch. “Two hours late. That’s not too bad.”

“Yeah,” Meredith piped in, “Danny Schultz’s mom is always late. Sometimes I think Danny just sleeps here overnight.”

Carter frowned. “Hmm...maybe I should have a talk with Danny’s parents.”

I laughed. “I’m sure she’s exaggerating.”

“Nope. I saw his sleeping bag,” Meredith said with a sure nod.

“Maybe he was going camping...?”

Meredith gave me a dubious look. “At school? He was going camping at school? I don’t think so, Mom.”

She had a stubborn look on her face which clearly meant that I wasn’t going to win this argument, so I decided to not even try.

“Thanks for staying with her, Carter, or should I call you Principal Knight since we’re on school grounds and all?”

He smiled again, and I found myself again thinking of how much I missed that smile.

“Stop thanking me. It was no problem.”

I reached out again to give him a hug and he hugged me back. Gosh, I didn’t know how much I’d missed him until the moment I saw him again.

I pulled away. “It’s great to see you again. Maybe we’ll run into each other again… but you know, not because of a mom failure.”

He laughed. “Yeah, that would be nice.”

“Bye, Principal K,” Meredith said as I took her hand and walked toward the car.

We climbed in and I gave a final wave to Carter who stood there watching us drive away. He waved back and then started toward his car.

I looked back at him and noticed that Meredith was staring at me from the backseat of the car. She still had that silly smile on her face.

“What?” I said. “What’s the big secret?”

“Mom?”

“Yeah?”

“Was Principal Knight your boyfriend?”

“What?” I sputtered. “No. We were just friends. You know buddies. Just like you’re friends with Danny Schultz.”

“I’m not friends with Danny. He just sits next to me at school.”

“Okay… well, a long time ago, Carter, umm, Principal Knight and I were really good friends. We went to school together.”

“Like elementary school?”

I smiled and shook my head. “No. Just college.”

“He’s really nice. Was he really nice in college, too?”

I nodded. “He was always a nice guy. The nicest guy, actually.”