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Her face turns totally pink and…is she fanning herself? Something is twinkling in the corners of her eyes…
“Are you doing that thing people do when they’re trying to fan tears away?”
“No!” she cries, laughing self-consciously as she reaches over to grab a tissue from her desk. She dabs her eyes.
“You OK?” God, please don’t let her cry.
She smiles and her tears fully spill over, and now she’s blowing her nose and swallowing thickly. “Allergies?” Her voice goes up at the end like it’s a question and the hitch in her voice is real.
She’s a mess and I made her that way.
I’m not a hugger, but I definitely want to hug her. Or, better yet, rewind the last three minutes and come up with a super boring lie about Max and my whole miserable life.
5
Jewel
And now it’s his turn to ask me questions.
“Vince, please change the subject.”
“Awesome, love to. I’m curious, where’s the whiteboard? And the Chromebooks?”
I cock my head.
“Greenbridge doesn’t use whiteboards because of the environment.”
He stares back at me.
“The plastic markers, for one. Basic chalkboards…the carbon footprint is smaller.”
“Oh.”
I can’t read his reaction. “And anyway…don’t you love the smell of chalk? And kids love to go outside and bang erasers together. They have to take turns or it’s quite a dust-up! Haha!”
“‘K.” He is expressionless. And now he’s playing with my bronze apple paperweight.
“And, Mr. Cole—”
“Vince.”
“Vince.” God, he totally looks like a jacked, well-fed Vincent Van Gogh, so this will be an ea
sy way to remember his name. Not that I could ever forget a single thing about him. “Greenbridge is screen free at the elementary level. Teachers and staff have laptops, of course, for administrative and lesson planning. But we delay screen time for children until middle school.”
Now he finally has an opinion. “Weird,” he mutters, setting down my apple and sitting back in his seat.
I’m surprised at this. Most parents want their kids enrolled here because of these things. I can’t help but smirk. He really is different from other parents. “Did you not get the handbook when you enrolled Max?”
“Uh, yeah it’s…somewhere.” He looks around and pats down the pockets of his shirt and jeans.
Anyone else, I would have seriously questioned whether they wanted to actually be at this school.
Him? Well, no way am I going to push out a scholarship kid. As far as I’m concerned, we need more of them.
“Let’s take a walk to the cafeteria and see what we can get Max to eat.”
“‘K,” Vince answers. “But I don’t know how much help I’ll be. If the kid won’t eat your basic chicken nuggets, I’m out.”
