“Can’t we save those for ourselves and just buy him a Hershey’s bar on the way?”
“No. We need to butter him up. Haven’t you heard of bribery?”
When Principal O’Malley opens his door and ushers us inside, we immediately bestow the gifts and then I start in with our pre-approved compliments.
“Principal O’Malley! We’ve missed you! Have you been working out this summer?”
“Oh, a little here and there, I suppose. Bought one of those fancy watches that counts my steps.”
“I can really tell, and wow, that suit looks custom. Did you get it at Armani?”
“Kohl’s, off the rack,” he boasts.
Here’s where I start to go off script.
“Well the cut is just perfect on you. And navy? That’s definitely your color.”
Noah clears his throat, a clear sign to tone it down a bit.
But Principal O’Malley is eating it up. I’ve never seen him smile so wide.
“Take a seat, take a seat. I can’t say I’m surprised the two of you wanted to have this meeting. Rome must have been difficult, to say the least. So what is it this time? Who thinks who should be fired? Moved to the other side of the school? Docked pay?”
I laugh like he’s being utterly preposterous, when in reality, a few weeks ago I would have loved if Noah’s paycheck shrank to half its usual size. In fact, some dormant sliver of hatred for Noah salivates at the idea of him being relegated to the dingy hallway next to the loading dock where they keep the spare trashcans and cleaning chemicals.
But alas, I love him now.
When I look at Noah, it’s like he knows my brain has swerved wildly off topic. His unimpressed expression says, Really? Can you just get on with it?
Right. We agreed the news would sound better coming from me. I can put a sweet feminine spin on it. Bat my eyelashes if necessary.
“We actually have some very fun news to report,” I tell Principal O’Malley, presenting it as something upbeat and positive. “After careful consideration and thought, Noah and I have entered into a mutually agreed-upon romantic relationship.”
Either time slows to a crawl or Principal O’Malley really just sits there, frozen, for an awkwardly long amount of time. Eventually, he blinks and tilts his head closer, leading with an ear as if he wants to be perfectly clear on what I just said.
“Come again?”
His smile from earlier is nowhere to be found.
Oh god. This isn’t going how I thought it would. Are we really going to have to chain ourselves to our chalkboards? I don’t think I have it in me!
Noah puts his hand on my arm protectively and takes over. “Principal O’Malley, Audrey and I are in a relationship. It’s new, and we obviously wanted to come to you and disclose it with HR right away. We want to do the proper thing.”
Principal O’Malley squeezes his eyes closed like he’s in pain, balls his hand into a tight fist, and bangs it down on his desk. “Dammit!”
What?!
Noah and I lean back and exchange a worried glance.
“I should have listened to Vice Principal Trammell.” He stands and hustles to the door. When he opens it, he leans halfway out. “Liz, get in here, will you? And bring the pot!”
At this point, I have no idea what’s going on.
When he returns to his desk, he looks back and forth between us again, more assessing now than before. “Okay, here’s the thing. I’m about to be out twenty bucks, so are you guys sure sure about this? You don’t want to maybe think it over a little more? Hey, Noah, remember how much Audrey used to annoy you? I mean, woof. Am I right?”
I hold up my hands in defense. “All right, that’s… I didn’t annoy him per se.”
“And Audrey, Noah can be difficult, to put it mildly. Stubborn. Actually, hey!” His eyes light up with an idea. “Have you seen the new basketball coach we hired over the summer? Real handsome guy. I can introduce you.”
Wait…so now Principal O’Malley is trying to pimp me out? Where did this take a wrong turn?
There’s a low thunk behind us and we turn to see Liz, Principal O’Malley’s secretary, struggling to get an oversized plastic cheese ball barrel through the doorway.
“Turn it a little to the right, Liz. No, my right.”
She eventually squeezes her way inside and drops the barrel onto the corner of Principal O’Malley’s desk. The cheese balls have been replaced with wrinkled twenty-dollar bills, and on the side of the plastic, scribbled in Sharpie, are the names of all our colleagues divided into two columns, headed by either Love or Hate.
Without having to scoot closer, I can already tell one side is heavily favored. In fact, it looks like they ran out of room for bettors. Names gradually get smaller and smaller until they’re no longer legible under the Hate column.
“As you can see, you two were the subject of debate here before summer break let out. We all got to talking in the teachers’ lounge, wondering how the trip was going to go for you, and when you really get down to it, there were only two plausible outcomes: you two were either going to duel it out and come home in body bags, or you were going to…” He wags his finger between us. “Do this.”
“Date,” Noah reminds him.
He purses his lips. “Right.” Then he looks over at Liz. “What’d the pot get up to? $700?”
She consults her notes. “$820.”
I frown, but not because I’m disappointed in my colleagues for making me the subject of a bet (that’s hilarious). I’m just confused on why there were so few willing to put their twenty dollars down on the less likely outcome (Love) on the off chance it would pay big. Something isn’t adding up, and when I ask Principal O’Malley, he nods as if this isn’t the first time he’s thought of that.
“We made it a blind wager. Everyone had to pay up and cast their vote in secret. Liz here stuffed the pot. Afterward we tallied up the votes, and well…as you can see, Gil from environmental services is apparently the only one at Lindale Middle School who believes in love.”
Gil is the longest serving employee of Lindale Middle School. He’s been here since the Ford administration. On paper, he’s in his eighties, but he has the energy and the joints of a fifty-year-old. When we find him, he’s sweeping the main hall, listening to “It’s Gonna Be A Lovely Day” on a little speaker attached to his hip holster and swaying back and forth to the beat.
He’s happy to see us even before he notices the barrel full of money in Noah’s hands.
“You’re kiddin’ me!” he says with a howling laugh after we tell him he won the bet. “I can’t even carry that thing!”
Later, we’ll help him put the money in an envelope and get him safely to his car with it, but we thought it was only right to present his winnings in the barrel first, for comedic value.
“What made you cast your bet for us?” I ask, expecting him to shrug and say he’s just an optimist.
He winks. “Oh, I’m a watcher. In my line of work, I see what a lot of people don’t, and you two…” He shakes his head and smiles like he’s delighted. “It was only a matter of time.”