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Mrs. Steen didn’t look happy. Her jaw tensed and he saw her grinding her molars. Ron remembered her doing that in his youth when she was thinking up the perfect punishment for a naughty student.
“If I remember correctly, you and the Romano girl’s mother were quite close in your youth.”
“Kylee. Kylee Bauer. We were friends through our entire school years.”
“Princess Kylee,” Mrs. Steen sneered.
Ron had heard that Mrs. Steen’s distant ancestors had held a dukedom. But none of the wealth or status had trickled down the bloodline to her.
Ron had never thought much about Kylee being royal. She’d been noble in her actions. That’s what had always counted for him.
“She’s divorced now, I understand?”
Ron didn’t nod. He wasn’t sure where this was going, but he felt that he was back in Mrs. Steen’s class and she was setting him up.
“Of course, you know it’s against school policy to date any of the parents.”
Ron only raised an eyebrow, but it was clear Mrs. Steen knew she’d gotten under his skin. He did know that policy. He’d used that line a few times on some of the single moms of the PTA, and once with an unhappily married one. But he hadn’t considered it when Kylee had stepped into his office and back into his life. He wasn’t sure he wanted to consider the ramifications now.
Chapter Seven
Kylee was great at tests. She got a perfect score on the SATs four times. She’d never needed to truly study. Once she was told information, she cataloged it in her head, and it stayed in its compartment. When she needed it, she was able to open that cabinet and pull out the details again.
She didn’t have a photographic memory. The visuals of her past were often hazy. But she could remember large swaths of information for long periods of time. And she had excellent organizational skills.
That, along with a true passion for knowledge, enabled her to ace every test she met. Tests were just a system. A system that had made sense to her since her first spelling bee.
She got a thrill when she looked down at the bubbles of a multiple-choice test. She was excited to fill in a blank. The sound of a timer ticking away on a teacher’s desk had never made her sweat. It had always presented a challenge.
Kylee was well-versed in all forms of testing. But these new standardized tests to measure the effectiveness of the education system was a tricky beast. These tests didn’t so much measure the individual kid’s skill as it measured the effectiveness of the test and the teachers of the tests. The standards didn’t measure the uniqueness of the test taker so much as they measured the similarity of them.
Crafting lessons and assessments to prepare kids for these standardized tests was a true challenge. A challenge she’d been shaky on her first few days at Thrive Learning Systems. But now that she’d cracked the code to get into the computer system, it was a challenge she was up for. And like all problems presented to her, Kylee was prepared to ace this one.
“Ms. Romano?”
“Bauer.” Kylee looked up to see the president of the company standing over her desk.
Syd Rowen was in his late forties. But his hair was already graying. Still, there was something about him that cast a youthful air. Or perhaps it was all the twenty-somethings he employed in his company. Mr. Rowen and Kylee were easily the two oldest people in the entire building.
In the two weeks she’d been here, she’d only met him once. That was on her first day. He’d been behind closed doors ever since.
There could only be one reason he was coming to her now. She’d messed up somehow, and he was going to fire her. Great. What would she do now?
Kylee only had a small amount of money left to her by her parents. And the house. Which needed repairs. She could go to her extended family and throw herself at their mercy. Things had changed in the upper echelons of the royal kingdom since her father had been shunned.
Kylee pressed her palms to her office chair preparing to rise and head into Mr. Rowen’s office for a private word that could be a reprimand or a termination. But instead of waving her to his office, Mr. Rowen pulled up a spare chair and sat down beside her.
“I was looking through your file and saw that you’re from the city of Adalia.”
“Yes. I was born and raised here.”
“Do you know much about Clara Barton Elementary School?”
“I… uh... Yes. I went there as a child.”
Mr. Rowen frowned, scratching at the hair on his chin. “So, a few decades ago. You won’t likely have kept in touch with anyone there.”
A few decades? She hadn’t even been alive for a few decades. He was wrong about her age, but he was right about her not keeping in touch. “I just moved back there. My daughter is enrolled at Barton Elementary.”
