Iris frowned. “Do they say or do mean things?”
“Sometimes Tiff does and if she does Stephanie tells her to stop it, but she still wants to be Tiff’s friend and my ex-friend. It just sucks. I’ll get over it, I guess, but it just sucks.”
“Because it hurts,” Iris said. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why three never works, but it seems to never work. Is that why you aren’t interested in the SAT?”
“Pretty much. My mom says to just get over it, that I deserve better friends, that in five years I won’t even remember it.”
“Well, your mom could be right, but just getting over things isn’t exactly easy. That takes time. I understand completely. You might change your mind about friends and college and SATs, if not this year, maybe next year.”
“I don’t need another place to not fit in,” Misty said. She sniffed and wiped at her eyes. “I have to be honest with myself. I’ll never be cool.”
Iris pushed the tissue box toward her. “That’s not true. You have everything it takes to be well liked. You’re a nice person, you’re smart, you’re considerate.”
“I’m the size of an ugly sixth-grader with no boobs.”
“Be honest with me, Misty—is there any pushing, shoving, pinching, knocking books out of your arms, chasing you down online, sending mean texts or anything like that? Any bullying?”
She shook her head. “No. Steph is just done with me and Tiff hates me, that’s all. If you tell anyone, I will die. Because I am not a baby!”
Oh, Iris wanted to pull those girls into her office and just slap them senseless. It would never help Misty but Iris knew that if Tiffany was mean, she was probably troubled. Probably insecure. Or maybe spoiled. Or she lived in a home where cruelty was an acceptable way of life. Mean girls. There were always mean girls. They lasted a lifetime.
“I wasn’t expecting this at all,” Iris said. “And while you’re trying to work this out, trying to make new friends, better friends, I actually have a totally unrelated question for you.”
“What?”
“Do you have a study hall?”
“Fifth period, right after lunch. Why?”
“Do you need that study hall for schoolwork? Homework?”
“Sometimes I get my homework done in study hall, sometimes I like to read. My classes are all hard—please, I don’t want another class.”
“No, sir! I looked at your transcripts—you’re in accelerated classes, a straight-A student, I might add. I was wondering if you’d like to work in the office during your study hall. Primarily, my office.” She indicated the credenza behind her desk—it was stacked with notebooks, papers, folders. “This is material for the SAT prep courses, college requirements, scholarship information—all stuff I’m trying to get ready and keep up with. It needs to be sorted, stapled together, put into the right folders. I have to make sure every student has all the necessary information. Since you’re not taking the prep class, would you like to transfer your study hall to my office and give me a hand?”
Misty frowned and looked at Iris with suspicion. “Do you think if I do that you’ll convince me to take the test?”
Iris laughed. “I thought if you did that to help me, I might eventually catch up! I need an intern and I don’t have one yet. I need another counselor and I don’t have one of those, either. I work a lot of nights and weekends and I’d rather read. What are you reading right now?”
She looked away a little shyly. “Some romance called The Rosie Project...”
“I loved that book!” Iris said. “Well, if you’re interested I can find space for you, a cubicle at least, and on days you have homework you need to do, just do it. On days you have time to help me, I’ll set you up with a project. No pressure—it’s your call. But hey, if you’re busy ignoring your ex-friend and her new clique, maybe we could help each other out.”
Misty thought about this for a moment and finally smiled. “I could maybe try it for a little while, see if it works.”
“That would be great. I have two other students helping me—one is a junior and she comes in during second period and the other, a senior, is here sixth period. I think maybe I’m going to be able to solve my intern problem!”
“Are you just being nice to me?”
“Just? Oh, please, can’t you see I’m drowning? I have other girls to ask if you need to keep your study hall sacred—that’s up to you. But, Misty, it’s really all right if someone is nice to you. Regardless of how Tiffany and Stephanie have made you feel, you’re a very smart, nice person. If I were fifteen again, I think I’d want you for a friend.”
“That’s nice of you to say, I guess.”
“I’m going to show you something private.” She opened her desk drawer and pulled out a picture of an extremely homely girl—fuzzy, wild brown hair that had a misshapen look to it, bushy brows, the biggest teeth in the world, thick glasses and a few zits sprinkled on her nose and chin. “Me. Eighth grade.”
“Wow,” Misty said. “Your hair isn’t like that anymore.”
“I learned a few things about hair, but that’s mine. And I eventually grew into my teeth. I wasn’t small, I was large. Taller than all the boys in my class. If that wasn’t bad enough, I had two left feet. I’m not what you’d call coordinated. I tried out for cheerleading one year—it was a catastrophe. Right here at Thunder Point High. The mean girls had a good laugh at that.”
“You had mean girls?”
“Misty, mean girls have been around since God was a boy. So have girls like me, who have to grow up, get smarter, make it in a tough world. By the way, there are still mean girls when you’re an adult, but with every year it gets a little easier to say, ‘You’re not a nice enough person for me.’ When I went back to my class reunion a few years ago, the mean girls were still there. They were still pretty, still getting lots of attention, still making snide remarks about people. But I was reacquainted with some classmates I hadn’t paid much attention to in high school, girls who had gone on to have remarkable careers and had either grown very attractive or had finally developed the confidence they needed to appear very attractive. I keep this picture close at hand to remind myself who I was, how far I’ve come and what all the girls in my school go through at one time or another. It keeps me honest.”
“My mom says someday this will be unimportant,” Misty said.
“Maybe so,” Iris said. “But right now, to you, it’s very important. I’m right here anytime you need to talk about it, do a feelings dump, get it off your chest....”
Misty laughed. “I don’t know if I can spare it,” she said, looking down at her chest.
“Yeah, you’ll be all right. So, do you have time to help me? If you don’t think you do, I understand. And if you start and it’s just too much, you can stop.”
“Yeah, I can probably do it. So, Miss McKinley, when your best friend dropped you, what did you do?”
“Oh, I was pretty miserable for a while. Seemed like it took me a long time to get past it and even when I didn’t think about it every day, I still never forgot it. It made me very fussy about friends. I’m cautious—I have no interest in being hurt. It’s worked out all right—I’ve made some wonderful friends.”
“Thanks,” Misty said. “So you want me tomorrow?”
“I can make that work if you can,” she said. “Have you ever been a student assistant before?”
Misty shook her head.
“We have a lot of them in these offices. The school nurse has three. The assistant principal has at least three. There are several in the secretary’s office. We’re a pretty good team. I don’t think we could make it without students.”
“And what if Tiffany decides she wants to work in the offices?” Misty asked.
Clever girl, Iris thought. Already looking for potential conflicts and figuring them out. She smil
ed. “It kind of sounds like Tiffany is too busy to help out.”
* * *
At four forty-five Iris entered Cliffhanger’s and knew that Troy would be there, anxious as he was to be done with work for the day. She ordered a beer and some potato skins. “This might be dinner,” she told Troy.
“Works for me. How’s Misty?”
“What a delightful young lady. Very mature, isn’t she? Not much gets by her. I looked at her grades—no wonder you wanted her to take the SAT. Accelerated classes for years and never gets less than an A.”
“So, did you convince her to take the SAT?” he asked.
“No, she’s not interested in that right now. Don’t worry, she has plenty of time. Not a good idea to pressure a teenager with too many adult responsibilities, especially if they’re showing some resistance.”
“I saw her last period in the hall. She was talking to a couple of kids and appeared to be in a very good mood, so what did you do?”
“I just talked to her, didn’t hear anything I haven’t heard before, reassured her. And then I gave her a job.”
“What job?”
“I asked her if she was interested in working for me during her study hall and helping me get through my paper jungle. She seemed interested—she said she’d try it for a while. I assured her if she had studying to do, all she had to do was say so and she could use the time on schoolwork. We have a couple of extra cubicles in the office used by students who are helping out—they sort, file, stuff envelopes, you name it.” Her beer arrived. “Misty makes three student helpers for me. I really scored, thanks.”
“And that’s it? You talked to her and gave her a job?”
“Uh-huh. I think she was flattered. It’ll help fill her bucket.”
“Huh?”
“You know—the bucket...”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, the elementary school teachers talk about the bucket a lot. Everyone has one. When people say nice things to you, do nice things, make you feel better about yourself, they’re filling your bucket. When people are mean or insulting or hurtful in any way, they’re emptying your bucket and you don’t want to go around with an empty bucket. It makes you sad and cranky. And you don’t want to be emptying other peoples’ buckets—that also makes you unhappy. The best way is to fill all the buckets you can and keep yours nice and full by looking for positive people and experiences.” She smiled.
Troy leaned his elbow on the bar and rested his head in his hand. “What do I have to do to get a job with you?”
“Master’s degree in counseling.” She took a sip. “Easy peasy. You’d be great.”
* * *
The weather turned wet and cold at the end of the month, rain washing the colorful leaves off the trees. Iris stood in the hallway outside her office every morning and listened to the kids cough and sneeze and hack as they passed. The homecoming game was held in the rain a week before Halloween and Iris sat in the stands with a plastic tarp over her head like most of the town. Snuggled up beside her was Troy, who kept saying God bless the rain! On Saturday night everyone dried off and donned their best clothes for the big dance.
Iris was not surprised to see Seth at the dance. She figured he would be there, if not in an official capacity then in a semiofficial capacity. He’d had his stitches removed and was wearing a suit rather than his uniform. In fact, there weren’t any uniformed police officers at the dance but there were some outside in the parking lot, despite the nasty weather. And now that she knew a little more about the new Seth, she knew about that gun on his ankle.
Iris’s job at a school dance was to watch for student problems. She kicked some girls out of the restroom for smoking, confiscated what looked like a flask from a sixteen-year-old boy, stopped an argument between two boys over a girl and did it all without taking a shot to the face. She lifted her chin and gave Seth a very superior smile.
At around ten, a good two hours before these die-hard kids would give up the dance and leave, Seth made his way to her side. “I had my stitches out. Wanna go out for a drink after the dance?”
“Where?” she asked. “Cliff isn’t open this late, I’m not going to Waylan’s, the beach would be insane in this weather... I did confiscate a flask, but even I’m not that daring.”
“How about your place?” he asked, grinning.
“Nice try,” she said. “Actually, I have a headache.”
“Are you just practicing?” he wanted to know.
“I do have a real headache,” she said. “Blame the weather and the class of 2015. You think your work is dangerous?”
“How about if I call you tomorrow?” he asked.
“I might not be answering the phone tomorrow. I might need a day to myself. I really do have a headache. Right here,” she said, giving her temples a brief massage.
“I could take you home, rub your temples....”
“You’re doing it again,” she said. “Coming on to me. I thought I explained, I don’t really need your bullshit.”
“Which is why I’m being careful not to give you any! Sooner or later you’re going to trust me again!”
“Later,” she said.
Iris was at the high school gym until midnight. She was supposed to be part of the cleanup committee, but she talked Troy into taking that on for her. She bundled up, went home and left her clothes on the floor when she got into her flannels and crawled into bed. At four in the morning she started coughing a little. At six she wheezed and sneezed. At eight o’clock she felt like she had swallowed razor blades so she took Advil and gargled. It went downhill from there.
Nine
Seth called Iris in the early afternoon on Sunday. He got the cell phone number from his mother, officially breaking the rule of not allowing her to be in any way involved in his relationship with his childhood friend. It sent Gwen into a whole series of hopeful flutters. And questions about whether they’d finally been talking again. “Stop,” he said. “I just want to ask her something. Not another word about it.”
Seth called from his mother’s home phone. Of course, her name popped up on Iris’s caller ID.
“Iris,” he said.
“I’m sick,” she croaked out. “Go away.” She hung up.
There was no logic to laughing at that, but he did. God, he’d missed her. She was so feisty.
On Monday he called the high school and asked for Ms. McKinley and was told she wasn’t in. He called her cell phone at about three in the afternoon. “Still sick,” she wheezed. “Flu. Get lost.” And she hung up.
Again, he smiled and just shook his head. He went to the pharmacy section of the grocery store, then to Carrie’s deli. He loaded up on supplies and told Carrie that Iris was sick and he needed chicken soup. Gwen would have been honored and probably a little too excited to make soup for Iris, so he refused to ask her. “I can drive to the deli in Bandon but I’d rather have yours,” he told Carrie.
“Don’t you dare feed any of my people Bandon soup!” she nearly roared. She went to the back of the deli and pulled a yellowish brick wrapped in plastic from the freezer. “Just put this in a pan, add a cup of water and put it on a low flame. Here are some biscuits to go with it. How sick is she?”
“I haven’t seen her yet,” he said. “She attempted to answer her phone a couple of times and it doesn’t sound pretty. Maybe you better get some more soup ready—Pritkus called in sick and said two of his three kids are down.”
“Oh, dear,” Carrie said, turning away from Seth and going to the back again. She returned with another frozen yellowish brick. “Drop this off at the Pritkus house, will you, Seth? Steve’s wife is smart and adorable but there is no worse cook on earth. You can’t get well out of a can of soup. This is the real thing. I’ll get started on a new supply. Sounds like they’re dropping like flies
out there.”
“What do I owe you?” he asked.
“Forget about it. Save as many as you can.”
He made a final stop at Pretty Petals and asked for a cheerful bouquet. “For your mother?” Grace asked.
“Not this time,” he said. “Iris has the flu.”
Grace stepped back with a look of fear on her face. He was surprised she didn’t make the sign of the cross. “Tell her I hope she gets better soon and not to come around me until there’s not a germ left in her body. If you’re smart, you’ll leave this on the doorstep.”
“I don’t scare that easily,” he said.
Armed with his supplies, he went to Iris’s house.
Of course she wouldn’t open her door so he called her from his cell phone. “Open up, Iris. I brought you medicine.”
“Go away,” she rasped. She hung up.
Risking prison time, he picked the lock on the back door and let himself in. Even though this was Thunder Point, she definitely needed better locks. Whoa, he thought, looking around. Iris definitely wasn’t sick in a tidy way. The kitchen and dining room were a mess and one peek into the living room exposed a blanket and pillow on the sofa, dirty tissues on the coffee table, floor, side table. There was a small trash can overflowing with tissues and maybe other stuff. And there was a bucket. A bucket? This could be worse than he feared. The TV was on though no one was watching it. The dining room table had dirty bowls, juice glasses, more tissues. And then Iris came out of the bedroom. Make that stormed out of the bedroom with her wild hair and plaid flannel pajamas that were buttoned off-kilter. “What are you doing?” she barked. And then she fell into a coughing fit that really sounded like she might not be long for this world. She had to sit on the couch before she could get under control and tears were running down her cheeks. Her red cheeks.
Part of him felt very bad, putting her through that. Part of him was now convinced he’d done the right thing. She needed him.