Chapter 02
Then
amy
‘Teenagers and water,’ Kate said. ‘I’m just not sure it’s a good mix.’
Amy glanced at each of the four other prom committee members sitting around the conference table.
Michael Behr, the school bursar, refused to meet her eye, but she knew better than to expect support from that quarter.
He’d been after her job since she’d been promoted to Principal of Stowebury High School over his head four years ago.
Small-town politics.
Small-town minds.
Amy turned back to Kate. She wasn’t just Amy’s administrative assistant at the school: she’d been her best friend since kindergarten. Kate always had Amy’s back. So if she had qualms, Amy needed to listen.
Jesse Spencer, the Mayor of Stowebury and the school’s part-time football coach – and Amy’s brother-in-law, because, yes, this was small-town Vermont – tossed a baseball back and forth between his meaty hands, his trademark tic.
‘Disagree,’ he said dismissively. ‘It’ll be a helluva lot easier to police the kids in a confined space like the Lady.
We can check them for liquor and weed when they board, and they won’t be able to sneak anything past us once we’ve left the marina.
There’ll be plenty of adults to keep an eye on them.
Mac wouldn’t have suggested it if he didn’t think it was safe. ’
‘I realise hiring the Lady would be very lucrative for MacGill’s Marina,’ Mary Lou Renner said, throwing Amy a pointed look: Amy’s husband, MacGill Smith, owned the boatyard.
‘Bookings must be very thin on the ground if he has a Saturday night in June free at this late notice. But Kate’s right: we can’t put personal interests before student safety. ’
‘That’s not what I said at all!’ Kate exclaimed.
Amy chose not to rise to the bait. Mary Lou prided herself on being what she called a straight-talking Vermonter – for which read offensively rude – but the woman was the parent liaison on the committee, which meant Amy had to suck it up if she wanted to achieve anything today.
‘I’d like to know why Chad Givens denied us a permit in the first place,’ Mary Lou added. ‘We’ve held prom in the school gym since 1929 and the fire marshal’s never refused us permission before.’
Amy sighed. They’d been going round in circles for hours now, and she had a thousand other things she needed to be doing.
‘As Kate has explained,’ she said, ‘a number of new fire codes were brought in after the town hall meeting in March. Unfortunately, the previous exemptions were removed, which means the school is no longer grandfathered in. The sprinkler system needs replacing, and that’s not a quick—’
‘Why are we only just hearing about it now?’
Because I’m already doing the jobs of three people, Amy wanted to say.
In addition to her role as principal, she taught a full slate of English classes and was in the middle of a capital campaign to raise funds for their sports facilities.
Yes, she’d dropped the ball on the town fire codes, but Mac was offering them all a way out so that the prom could go ahead, if she could just get the committee to see reason.
‘We are where we are, Mary Lou,’ Kate said. ‘There’s no point going back over old ground. The question is what we do now.’
‘Well, I think it’s too much of a risk to have prom on a boat,’ Mary Lou said. ‘I don’t want my daughter out on the lake in the middle of the night. It’s too dangerous. You know what teenagers are like. And I’m sure I won’t be the only parent who’s unhappy with the idea.’
‘We all have children who’ll be graduating,’ Jesse said testily. ‘My son Finn will be on that boat. So will Amy’s son, Nicky, and Kate’s daughter, Maggie. None of us want to put our kids in danger, for fuck’s sake.’
‘Please don’t cuss,’ Mary Lou said, looking pained.
Jesse thwacked his baseball onto the table and sat forward.
‘Anyone got any better ideas?’ he demanded, his gaze travelling around the conference table.
‘Prom’s in eight days. Fire marshal says the gym’s not up to code, and there’s no way we can get things fixed in time.
Seems to me Mac’s offer is the only option on the table.
’ He leaned back and picked up his ball again.
‘Come on, the kids’ll love it. A sunset cruise on the lake? Are you kidding?’
It was hard to argue with that. The Lady of Champlain was the queen of the marina: eighty-five feet long, forty-six tons, with an upper and lower deck and a full bar, though that’d be off limits for prom, of course.
Mary Lou was right about one thing: it was unusual for the Lady not to be booked on a summer weekend.
‘It’s not an ideal solution,’ Kate said reluctantly. ‘But does anyone have any better suggestions?’
‘What about insurance?’ Michael objected.
‘The Lady is licensed to carry ninety-eight passengers and crew,’ Amy said, squashing the idea before it took root.
‘That’s more than enough capacity. She passed her last inspection with flying colours.
And Jesse’s right: it’ll be much easier to police the students in a confined space.
We won’t have to worry about gatecrashers from other schools or kids disappearing off into the bushes to get drunk or get laid. ’
‘We can email everyone new permission forms for the change of venue,’ Kate added.
Amy threw her a grateful smile, recognising an olive branch when she saw one. If Kate got behind the idea, the others would fall in line.
‘I suppose it’s settled, then,’ Mary Lou said.
‘All those in favour?’ Kate said, raising her hand.
Amy and Jesse followed suit. Mary Lou voted against; true to form, Michael refused to commit to either side and abstained.
‘On your head be it,’ Mary Lou said, pushing back her chair.
Amy turned in surprise as her office manager Susan – never Sue – entered the conference room without knocking. Susan was a reliable, capable woman in her mid-fifties who’d ruled the school halls with a rod of iron for twenty years without ever needing to raise her voice above a genteel murmur.
She would never interrupt a meeting unless it was an emergency.