He hadn’t rehearsed. He’d pretty much decided not to speak at all, suspecting that, since Meredith’s most recent intuition involved his daughter and he knew she was wrong, he’d hurt her more than he’d help her. Still, he opened his mouth and the words came.
“I delivered to each of you a folder containing confidential information regarding this employee’s accomplishments. It would also have included any warnings and disciplinary actions had there been any. The fact that there aren’t any is significant. If you were to inspect the files of most of my employees, you would see at least one suggestion for improvement in their work. I believe in managing with an eye to greater accomplishments, which means to me that no matter how good someone is, there is always room for improvement. It is my job to find that room and to help my employees see it in themselves.
“I tried to do so with Ms. Foster. But how do you improve on scores like hers? Every avenue I have for review, parental dissatisfaction, barring this one episode, student test scores, disciplinary problems in the classroom, tardiness, lesson-plan schedules—she receives top scores over and over and over again. What she believes, how she perceives, what instincts she uses or doesn’t use, all seem irrelevant to me in this discussion. Her spiritual life is not an issue. Her intelligence is not in question. To us, she is a teacher and in four years’ time, she has fulfilled the requirements of her job above expectation and beyond reproach. Ladies and gentlemen, what you see before you is as close to a perfect teacher as I’ve ever met.”
Making eye contact with no one, Mark spun around and returned to his seat.
Half an hour later, Superintendent Daniels stepped up to the microphone.
“Ladies and gentlemen.” He looked across the front of the room, and then turned and included the people on both sides. “I think we all know that this is a very delicate, very difficult decision to make. One that has been deliberated over a period of many weeks, and with heavy hearts. There is much to consider, much information to process and I can assure you, firsthand, that the members of this board before you have suffered a great deal as they’ve considered all of the information presented tonight and previously.”
Cut the crap and get to the point, Mark thought. He could feel Meredith behind him. Was impressed as hell that she’d remained in the room. He didn’t think he could have done so.
And more than that, he was made uncomfortable by the conviction that kept her strong. She didn’t waver. Ever. He’d never met anyone like her.
He didn’t know how the board was going to vote—he suspected that it would not be in Meredith’s favor. What he did know was that they’d all put her through enough. The woman deserved resolution. She deserved peace.
“I think the one thing that no one has mentioned here, the one thing we must all consider is the elephant on the table before us, the big ugly thing that we are not acknowledging, but that is as real as all of us sitting in this room. Fear.”
He turned again and it seemed to Mark that he looked him right in the eye before he realized that Daniels was making eye contact with as many people as he could.
“Let’s face it,” Daniels said, sounding like a good old boy. “We all fear the idea of someone knowing our innermost secrets. We fear the idea of anyone having the ability to know them without our telling them.”
From what Mark could tell, every eye in the room was trained on the man.
“Even if Meredith Foster does not have this ability, even if she cannot know what we feel, the fact that she believes she does gives life to the possibility, and to living in constant fear when we’re around her.”
Mark could relate. He hated it. But he could relate.
“We are all here, without fail, to serve the children of this community. Our children have been made aware of Ms. Foster’s beliefs. They know that she goes to parents when she suspects something wrong with a child. And if we, as adults with full faculties of rationalization fear her, can you imagine how the children in her care must feel? Or could grow to feel?”
The room was silent. Mark was suffocating. And burning with a need to grab Meredith and run.
“This is our bottom line, ladies and gentlemen. We are not God, or spiritual advisors, or scientists, or doctors. We are educators and our goal is to provide our children with the best education possible. The question is, will they be able to continue to open their hearts and minds and trust this woman whom they may also fear?”
Mark remembered Kelsey’s reaction when she’d first heard about Meredith’s trouble with Larry Barnett. She’d been outraged. Ready to do battle for Meredith Foster. Until her friends had gotten to her and filled her
head with confusion, based on the opinions of their parents who didn’t know Meredith. Or what they were talking about. And still, while Kelsey had played the social games and appeared to go with the crowd so she’d be accepted, the second she’d thought Meredith needed a friend, she’d insisted on being that friend.
His daughter was a very smart little girl. And this time, it wasn’t a trait she got from him.
A member of the board called for a vote. Roll was called. Mark sat straight and tall, when all around him he felt the tension. He wished he could see Meredith—that he’d had the courage to sit beside her.
The board did not call for dismissal—a token gift. They voted instead for non-reemployment, which for all intents and purposes, was the same thing.
He didn’t wait for the official words to conclude. He stood, needing to get to Meredith immediately.
But he was too late. The bench where she’d been sitting was empty. Meredith was gone.
“HOW SURE ARE YOU?”
Meredith peered frantically between her mother and Susan, dread weighing so heavily within her that she could barely stand in the hallway outside the board room.
“Ninety-five percent,” she said, finding it so hard to breathe that the words were only a whisper. “I wasn’t even thinking about her. I was sitting there listening to the trial and suddenly it didn’t even matter. It’s like she was calling out to me. Me, specifically. That’s never happened before.”
She could feel her mother and Susan exchange glances.
“I’m not crazy,” she whispered. “Nor am I buckling under stress.”