A Turn of the Screwed (13 page)

She really did want Scott to be happy. If Keith could make Scott happy, she’d do her damnedest to get along with the guy. It was the right thing to do, and while it left her feeling left out and empty in some ways, she knew she could still look at herself in the mirror every morning and know she wasn’t acting out of petty jealousy.

It was Wednesday on the last week of school before summer break started. Noel and the other teachers would still be working a few days after that, finalizing their paperwork in preparation for summer break. Noel was a little surprised when she got called into the principal’s office that afternoon once the students had left for the day.

As soon as Noel walked through the Mary Scarthers’ door, her senses tingled. Whether it was the look on the woman’s face, or just a gut instinct, Noel knew this wouldn’t be good.

“Close the door, please,” she told Noel.

Noel did, dreading the short walk to one of the chairs in front of her desk.

“I need to talk with you about one of your students, Stacy Moog.”

Noel nearly groaned. “What now?”

“Her mother, Barbara, has brought a troubling complaint to my attention.”

“That woman has been trouble since last year. Ask Kennedy Charles. She taught Stacy. The kid has a learning disability that needs to be properly diagnosed.”

“This isn’t about that.”

“Then what?”

Mary opened a file on her desk, removed a few printouts, and slid them across the desk toward Noel.

Noel didn’t want to look at them, much less touch them. She finally took a deep breath and looked down.

They were printouts of Scott’s Facebook page. Not the one where she was connected to him, but his other one, a second one he had used to connect with kinky friends. It wasn’t linked to her or his vanilla Facebook account.

“What’s this?” Noel asked, feeling numb.

“That’s what I’d like to know.”

On it were a few exchanges between Keith and Scott, ones that weren’t explicit, but definitely weren’t innocent under any circumstances.

There were also printouts of Keith’s profile page, and of the likes pages of both men, where they had liked various kinky and BDSM-related things. Including Venture, the BDSM club.

And showing the fact that Keith had listed he was in a relationship with Scott, and that Scott had listed he was in a relationship with Keith.

“Is this your husband’s profile?”

“What difference does it make?” Mentally, Noel was cursing that both men hadn’t taken more precautions with their privacy. Then again, come to think of it, maybe she needed to go through and lock down her page.

“It makes a difference when one of our parents comes in complaining about a teacher who apparently has a husband engaged in immoral acts.”

Protective rage filled Noel. “For starters, my husband is
not
an immoral man, and what he does or doesn’t do isn’t anyone’s business but his and mine. It’s certainly
not
the business of some nosy parents who can’t stand the fact that their less-than-stellar homeschooling skills allowed their child to get behind and not get the help she needed sooner. Talk about deflecting blame.”

“That may be the case, but I did some digging. I know that what your husband does in his personal time isn’t a problem for him with his job at the county. Unfortunately, you work with children.”

“What are you saying, exactly?”

“Your contract is up for renewal this year. If you walk away, this incident will never appear on your record. You will have an unblemished personnel record, and you will receive nothing but the highest references from myself and the school board. If you force me to take this to human resources to look into it, unfortunately, I will have to. The mother has threatened to file a complaint and said if her daughter passes and you are no longer teaching, she’ll drop it.”

White-hot rage filled Noel. “I’m being blackmailed, is what you’re saying?”

“You’ve been here ten years. You’re a good teacher. You could get a better job at a private or charter school. You know you could. Please, I don’t want to have to do this. Yes, you will likely be cleared, but do you really want that cloud hanging over you in the future? Who knows what kind of press coverage the woman will drum up in her attempt to ruin you.”

The rage turned into tremors, of hatred, fear, and most of all, disgust.

No, her husband wasn’t perfect. But he—and Keith—were good men. It wasn’t the ideal situation, but they weren’t hurting anyone.

“What do I have to do?” Noel quietly asked.

“Just give me a letter of resignation. State family circumstances, if you wish.”

Noel nodded toward the papers. “And those?”

Mary stood, picked them up, turned, and ran them through a shredder behind her desk.

“How do I know she won’t try this again?” Noel asked.

“Because I told her if this wasn’t the end of it, if I got word of her coming after you, I would make sure I made
her
life a living hell. She works for the same bank where my husband is a vice president. There’s a little quid pro quo going on.”

Noel took a deep breath and slowly let it out, not even sure if she was steady enough to stand yet. “How soon do you need my resignation?”

“By the end of the week, please. You can finish out as normal, of course. Give the child a passing grade, and next year, she’s another school’s problem.”

“And the child suffers as a result, because she’s not getting the help she really needs.”

“I hate to sound so cynical, but it’s not going to be my problem. I don’t want her mother to ruin your life. In fact, I will call around to some friends of mine locally to see what openings might be available and get that information to you. I will also, of course, be writing you a glowing recommendation should you choose to apply.”

That didn’t exactly take the sting out of the situation, or even make it more bearable. “Thank you,” Noel said more out of habit than true gratitude.

“You’re welcome. I’m sorry this had to happen.”

“Yeah,” Noel said. “So am I.”

* * * *

It took every ounce of strength Noel could muster not to break down crying as she left the office. She stopped by the teacher’s lounge and locked herself in the bathroom there to take a few minutes to pull herself together.

Finally, after she returned to her classroom, she stared around and realized it wasn’t just the start of summer break—it was the end of her career.

And, in some small ways, it was a blessing.

Honestly, she’d started reaching a burnout phase. No, this wasn’t how she wanted to leave teaching, obviously.

Where before it had been a slowly growing future desire, a flimsy daydream, it was now a harsh reality forcibly thrust upon her. A metaphorical burning of her ships to start the next phase of her life.

First Scott meeting Keith, and now this.

Maybe someone is trying to tell me something.

How many times had she idly wondered about what else she could do for a career? She actually enjoyed accounting. She could always get certified for that. She’d thought about going into it originally, but settled on teaching both because she’d idealistically wanted to make a difference, and as a thinly veiled metaphorical fuck-you to her family.

Now…

Maybe accounting wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

Yes, she’d finish out the last few days of the year, but now packing up her room and belongings there would be different. Maybe Mary had meant it when she said she’d gather a list of leads for Noel.

In the end it wouldn’t matter, because Noel wouldn’t follow up on the leads, most likely.

With Keith living there, their bills were easily being paid. She could go back to school.

She made it home first and shoved a banker’s box of stuff against the wall in the dining room. The first of several boxes of stuff she’d be bringing home. Eventually she’d bury them somewhere in the garage, out of sight, out of mind.

Likely never to use again, and to one day be thrown away, but at least she’d still have it if she did make a turnaround and get another teaching job after all.

Going over to the fridge, she pulled out a beer, popped the cap, and drained half of it while standing right there.

Fuck it.

* * * *

Keith knew the second he walked in the door there was a problem. He wasn’t a woo-woo psychic kind of guy, but the air in the house felt wrong.

Noel was seated on the couch, TV on, a dark expression clouding her face.

“You okay?” he finally asked after waffling in his mind about a thousand times at light speed on whether or not to ask.

“No.” She didn’t bother looking at him. “Some bitch threatened to get me fired, so I quit. Sorry, not fired. My contract was up for renewal and I was told it would be better for me to walk away from it.”

“What?” He walked around the couch to sit at the end. “Talk to me.”

She finally swiveled her head to glare at him. “She had copies of Scott’s Facebook page, the other one, and yours. And where it lists that you two are in a relationship. Oh, and your likes pages, where you have a bunch of kinky shit checked.” She took a swallow of beer.

He winced. “Son of a bitch. I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, well, so am I. Now I need to find another job.” She let out an angry-sounding snort. “Just one more crappy thing to happen. If my life was a novel, it’d be called
A Turn of the Screwed
, because that’s what it feels like. I’m screwed no matter where I turn. And not in the good way.”

He let her snark pass without fazing him, knowing she was in a lot of emotional pain. “Why did the woman do that?”

“Because she’s a fucking cuntnugget. That’s why. The principal told me if I resigned without a fight, I’d get a ‘glowing recommendation’.” She took a long, hard swallow from the bottle of beer in her hand.

Noel wasn’t a heavy drinker, but Keith knew that adding alcohol to an emotionally volatile situation wasn’t a good combination.

Especially not right now.

“Can you get another job teaching?”

“Oh, sure. Probably. Mary Scarthers, the principal, she said she’s going to call around to people she knows.” Another long swallow. “But what difference does it make? Ten years in, my marriage is over, and my career is over. It’s like the universe isn’t happy with knocking me down, it wants to keep kicking me while I’m on the ground, just for shits and giggles.”

She turned to stare at him again. “Or are you here to deliver even more bad news to top off this craptastic day?”

“No. I was going to ask if you wanted me to make dinner tonight.”

She let out a snort. “No thanks.” She stood, looking a little wobbly on her feet. He wondered how many of those beers she’d had. “I’m going to my room. Or do I even still have a room?”

He didn’t have an answer that wouldn’t get him inextricably pulled into her whirlwind. She was hurting, probably drunk, and looking for a fight he didn’t want to give her.

She turned and headed down the hallway, slamming her bedroom door behind her.

As he sat there, feeling like shit over what had happened—yet another bad thing that had occurred in her life because of his presence in Scott’s life—an idea hit him.

He went back outside and called the marina’s owner. Their receptionist, who also managed the front office, had given her two weeks’ notice the day before. She was getting married and moving up to the Panhandle with her new husband, who was in the military.

Five minutes later, he returned to the house with at least a little good news. He stopped in front of Noel’s door, hesitating before finally knocking when he heard her softly crying inside.

“What?” she yelled through the door.

“May I please talk with you for a minute?”

He waited for at least two minutes, before she finally yanked the door open, pulling up short with a startled look on her face when she realized he was still standing there and hadn’t walked off.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I’ve got a job lined up for you, if you’d like to take it.”

Her expression changed to one of disbelief. “What?”

He explained the situation. “You’ll be done at the school by then, right? It’s Monday through Friday, or you can work a half day during the week and work part of Saturday, if you want. Or take a week day off and work Saturdays. Your choice. It’s basic bookkeeping, tracking rental slips and payments, answering phones, things like that. The owner said he’d pay you what he’s paying Maria now, which no, isn’t what you’re making as a teacher, and no health benefits, but it’ll keep you working until you decide what you want to do. Even if you get a teaching job that starts again in the fall, at least for the summer you’ll have a job. Or you can go back to school, and Scott and I will pay the bills while you use the money for your tuition.”

* * * *

Noel stared at him, still processing. “What’s the catch?”

“There is no catch. Hell, you can even ride to work with me, if you want, and save the gas money.”

It sounded too good to be true. “How do I even know I’m qualified to do this?”

He laughed. “Maria is, no offense to her, a nitwit. She doesn’t even have a GED. She dropped out of high school in tenth grade when she got pregnant. She does, however, have fake triple-D boobs, leftover from her stint as an exotic dancer. You can guess what assets got her the job at the marina.”

Noel finally laughed. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. After a week working there, they’ll probably beg you to stay on permanently.”

Hell, it was a job. At least she had health insurance through Scott’s job…for now. So, that was something.

“All right,” she finally said. “Thank you.”

“Good. I’ll tell them.”

“Don’t they want to talk to me first? Interview me?”

“Nope. They haven’t even advertised it yet. I talked to the owner, and if you could come in this Saturday and the next to work with Maria, let her show you what’s what, that’d be perfect. He’ll pay you for those days, too.”

She refused to burst into tears in front of him. She wouldn’t do it. Not that she thought he’d derive satisfaction from it, because that wasn’t it.