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“I know this is your first PTC so I totally understand if you’re nervous.”
Oh, how sweet. Charity seemed honestly concerned about her this time. Mairi began, “I’m actually—-”
Again, the other woman cut her off with a pretty smile. “That’s why I thought you should stick to taking care of the girls in Class E and I’ll take care of those in Class A. I’m just concerned you won’t be able to cope with it. Class A parents can be so demanding.”
Velvet was exhaling loudly. Sucker, she mouthed when Mairi looked at her.
Mairi sighed. Drat it, Velvet was right. She had played the sucker. Again.
There she was, thinking Charity had finally discovered her nice streak. But instead all Charity cared about was making herself look good in the parents’ eyes. Class A girls had the highest marks in English while most of the students in Class E, which Mairi had taken over when another teacher quit mid-semester, had some of the lowest grades in their year.
Charity gave Mairi another one of her unique smiles, but this time she wasn’t as dazzled. “You understand, don’t you?”
Mairi squared her shoulders. “Well, I—-”
“As you should know, most Greek parents prefer their children to be taught English by the British. And especially when they come with degrees from schools like Cambridge, where I took my masters—-” With every word that came out of Charity’s mouth, her British accent became more and more obvious. It was really weird, the way the other teacher only sounded like Queen Elizabeth when she mentioned she was from Cambridge or that she needed to-mah-toes in her omelet.
Mandy was frowning hard at the ground. Mairi knew that look. It meant her friend was this close to laughing her head off. Behind Charity, Velvet was already doubled over, having long perfected the art of noiseless laughter.
Charity patted her sleekly styled hair, which curled becomingly against the expansive cleavage her strapless dress exposed. “Don’t take it personally, though. It’s just that they prefer their daughters to learn from those who really speak English.”
Mairi could only blink. What the heck did that even mean? That American English was some kind of fake version of English?
“So...” Charity looked at her expectantly. “We’re all agreed then?”
Before Mairi could answer, Rose twisted around to frown at all of them as she hissed from the bottom of the stairs, “They’re coming!” She made the students’ parents sound like a huge wave of zombies out to get them.
And so they came, indeed walking as slowly as a blushing bride who was about to go down the aisle. Since her Aunt Vilma was Hollywood’s favorite divorce lawyer, Mairi had been exposed early to the rich and famous. But even after all these years, she still couldn’t get over the air of privilege and entitlement these people had. They walked, talked, and acted like the rest of humanity was lucky to breathe the same air they did.
Rose greeted the first batch of parents and guardians with courteous charm, her soft but well-modulated voice setting the tone for the rest of the day.
Don’t look at them in the eye for too long.
Don’t call them by their first names – even if they invite you to.
Don’t let them know their daughter is not the most beautiful, smartest, and kindest person on earth.
Jaw aching with the effort to remain smiling, Mairi greeted every parent and guardian that came her way, relying on Rose’s script to make sure she didn’t inadvertently become anyone’s worst enemy. After all, the Greeks were notoriously good at holding grudges.
But as morning turned to noon her hopes started to fade. And when the lady attendants started to close the school’s doors, the last of Mairi’s hopes crumbled to dust.
She had followed all the rules, darn it. She had gone over every “bedtime story” Aunt Norah and Aunt Vilma had told her when she was a kid and she applied what she could. Against all odds, Mairi had managed to make her way to Greece, obtain employment in one of the finest international schools in the country, and with it Mairi had conquered Step 1.
She had successfully placed herself in a Greek billionaire’s line of sight.
So where was he?
Chapter 2
By the time lunch break came around, Mairi was more than ready to have some time off and get away from all the noise. Who would have thought PTC would be this horrible? Nothing – not even after listening to the older teachers’ countless horror stories about it – had prepared her for the sheer torture of having to tactfully explain red marks to Greece’s crème de la crème.
“I don’t understand how she flunked her English test,” a parent had protested earlier. “I see my baby reading all the time!”
That’s great. I see that too, but text messages don’t count! That was what she wanted to say but couldn’t. Instead, Mairi had summoned one of the canned responses from Rose’s script, murmuring her agreement and telling the mother she believed that her daughter’s turn to shine might come next term.
