39. Jamie
39
JAMIE
T wo weeks.
We’ve had two weeks and there have been no calls, no notes, no flowers, and no unwelcome visitors anywhere.
It’s tentative and fragile, but the hope that this is over for good continues to creep through my body like crabgrass slowly taking over a yard.
Kyle crawling back into the hole from whence he came isn’t the only ending looming on the horizon.
This week is the last week of instruction for this session. Avery took her pastry chef certification exam last week in front of a review board and this week are the final exams for the entire academy.
She’s been fluttering around like a nervous hen all week, but the rest of us know she’s going to pass with flying colors. She always does.
Next week, Wesley, Jamie, and I are going to be grading our way out from under the final exam mountain. We won’t get to see Avery much, so we decided to send her to the beach with Mia for a week to take her mind off things.
She hasn’t even left yet but somehow, I miss her already.
The sound of my phone ringing quickly puts an end to my moping.
This might be the call I’ve been waiting for.
I look at the screen, hoping to see the number for my acquisition team lead pop up on the screen. A sense of foreboding brews in my gut when I see the Age Gap Academy’s president’s name instead.
“Hello. This is Jamie speaking. What can I do for you, Tom?”
“It’s President Newbury from now on, Mr. Murphy.”
Oh, yeah, I’m in trouble.
“Alright. What can I do for you, Mr. President?”
“I need you in my office.”
“Of course. Do you have a specific time you want me there or should I schedule something with Kay?”
“Now.”
Big trouble, apparently.
“I’m going to need someone to proctor the exams I’m administering.”
“Someone is already on the way,” he says brusquely.
Before I even have a chance to ask what’s going on, he hangs up.
When I run into Wesley and Phillip in the main hallway, all the pieces click into place.
“He knows,” I say.
“How could he possibly know? We’ve been extremely cautious.”
“Well, we did have some” —Phillip glances around— “slipups here on campus. Someone might have seen.”
“No way,” Wesley argues. “If anyone saw that, they would have interrupted us right away or called campus security to haul us down to the president’s office.”
“You’ve got a point there.” I nod. “Still, I just don’t see how it could be about anything else, especially since all three of us got an immediate summons.”
“He did sound rather angry.”
“No matter what happens in there, we’re a team.”
Things must be bad if Wesley’s the one sounding serious.
“One hundred percent.”
“Agreed,” Phillip adds.
We walk into the president’s office with a false calm that I desperately hope reads as real.
Apparently, it works because he seems taken aback by our lack of anxiety—well, visible anxiety, anyway. Internally, my stomach would put a butter churn to shame.
“Have a seat, Gentlemen.”
His tone is frosty enough to drop the temperature in the office by ten degrees.
“To what do we owe the pleasure of this summons?” asks Phillip.
If the situation weren’t so serious, I would have hoisted him on my shoulders and paraded him through the halls. Since it is, I just silently thank every god I can think of that this man had been forced into debutante training as a teenager.
I can’t imagine the Southern ladies having a confrontation with your boss in mind when designing that curriculum, but I’m grateful, nonetheless. Wesley and I wouldn’t have been able to reach anywhere near that level of polish if we’d responded.
“Do you care to explain this?” he asks, laying a series of photos face up on his desk.
Every single photo shows one or all of us with Avery. The locations are all different—none of them at the Academy, thank goodness—but the uniting factor is that each photo depicts something far more intimate than friendship.
Damn that rat bastard. Kyle just had to fire a parting shot so he could feel superior.
What on earth had Avery ever seen in him?
Wesley has a white-knuckle grip on the arms of his chair and I’m biting my tongue to keep the vitriol from spewing out of my mouth.
Phillip clears his throat. “It looks to me like these photos are depicting four consenting adults engaging in a private relationship well outside the confines of the Academy.
“It appears that these photos were taken by a third party—likely a private investigator, given that these appear to have been taken with a long lens. If it were just an amateur or a secretary or intern sent out by some other organization, they would have been caught spying on these adults. So would you care to explain how you got these photos? Were you given these photos by someone who has been relentlessly stalking one of your students? Did you have an investigator following your instructors for another reason? Or were academy personnel misused in what I can only assume is an attempt at character assassination?”
I can see him biting back a smirk as the president turns a sickening shade of mauve. If I’m not mistaken, his eye might also be twitching.
“That is not the nature of this meeting,” he snaps.
“It should be. I, for one, would like to know if one of my employers has been following me around,” I say.
“Don’t forget, Jamie, they could also be benefitting from the stalker on campus whom they did absolutely nothing to stop. Now, I’m not saying it’s collusion or punishing the stalking victim for coming forward and reporting it, but I could see how it could look that way to some people. Either way, it would be one hell of a story for my friend in the press.” Phillip smiles coldly. “You remember Jeanette Myers, don’t you?”
“I might. Is that the same Jeanette who’s the news anchor?”
“No, that's Juanita. Jeanette is the gossip columnist in the Society Bugle . Both are pretty big in the elite circles around here, and their names both start with a J. I can absolutely see how you’d get them confused.”
The president slams his hand on the table. “Enough!”
Apparently, our attempts at trying to put him off his game were highly effective.
Good. I can’t stand the whole “I’m not going to tell you what’s going on until you get here” tactic. It’s nothing more than an artless power trip.
“It seems we’ve ruffled your feathers, President Newbury. Do you need a moment alone?”
This time, Phillip doesn’t even bother to keep the smile off his face.
“No, I need you to tell me if you’re dating this girl,” he demands.
“Is there a reason you’re asking for this private information, Mr. President?”
“It’s against the rules.”
“Would you mind showing us exactly where that’s listed in the handbook, Sir ?”
Until now, I never knew that the word sir could sound so much like the word jackass.
The president turns to his computer and after a few clicks, he starts scrolling. His mouth moves soundlessly as he skims through it.
His eyebrows knit closer and closer the further into the document he gets. Then comes a bunch of clacking as he (undoubtedly) uses the search command to look for it.
Eventually, he sighs in defeat.
“There’s nothing here that explicitly prohibits it.”
Then a cruel gleam starts to twinkle in his eye.
He clears his throat and sits up straighter. “There's also nothing that says I can’t flag her file so the review board can closely scrutinize every single piece of her portfolio to check for signs of bias. I swear to you, if they find even one whiff of impropriety, her graduation application will be denied and the four of you will be banned from this academy.”
Wesley and I exchange worried looks. Losing her chance to get these certifications from AGA would devastate her.
Did we push him too far?
I glance over at Phillip and he’s eerily calm. There’s even a smile on his face.
“Every last item in her portfolio has been meticulously documented and is free of any impropriety. Please flag that file. We absolutely welcome the scrutiny.”
Has he lost his mind?
“Excuse me? You what?” the president sputters.
Apparently, I’m not the only one in the room who thinks Phillip’s gone off the rails.
Then Phillip straightens in his chair. The look on his face is the same one he has when he’s about to hand me my ass on the chessboard.
Apparently, the president has also played chess with Phillip because his face loses all its color.
“I said that we welcome any additional scrutiny to our teaching methods as reflected in the contents of her portfolio. However, I don’t think the academic review board will be sufficient. According to the handbook, any grievance that has the potential to result in the rejection of a graduation application can be escalated to the academic tribunal for review by any party said grievance is brought against.
“So if you do decide to thoroughly investigate her file, I will most definitely be exercising that right on behalf of my student. As you’re well aware, Mr. President, the tribunal considers all exigent factors in the case, and I will not hesitate to include the many instances of harassment this student incurred on the academy premises. So I am more than confident that the tribunal will find that highly troubling. Please consider this my official notice of intent to file this grievance. I’ll also need copies of all the photos and any other files that you received from your source to add to my evidence binder, and there’s no time like the present. Isn’t that right, sir?”
I think the president might be broken. He’s just sitting there with his mouth half open and staring blankly at the three of us.
Note to self. never, ever get on Phillip’s bad side.
After several moments of silence, Phillip asks, “Sir, do you plan on flagging Miss Ross’s file for additional review?”
“I no longer find it necessary for that student’s portfolio to be subjected to anything more than the standard evaluation that all our students receive,” he says tonelessly.
“There’s one more thing I need to address before the window closes, sir.”
“Yes?”
“Please send my regrets to the students who have already registered with me for the next session. I’m afraid I no longer wish to return.”
“Please send my regrets as well,” I say.
“And mine,” Wesley adds.
“Now, sir, if that’s everything, we have exams we should be proctoring.”
“It is,” he says, sagging back into his chair.
I swear, it takes every ounce of control I have not to dance the entire way back to my exam room.