Page 7 of A Love Most Fatal
In this spirit, I narrow my eyes at the man. “I don’t see how their grade is his fault.”
“No, of course not,” he amends. “Each student is responsible for their own grade, and it’s not Artie’s fault that people listen to him, but his disruption in class is leading to negative pressure from his peers.”
“How?”
“It’s not uncommon that they’ll loudly boo the students who do turn in their assignments. Do you see how this creates a hostile environment for the other kids? The ones who’ve done their work but feel like they’ll be ostracized unless they don’t turn it in?”
I take this new information in, blinking at the discovery that my twelve-year-old nephew has started a literal anti-homework union in his math class. I would be impressed if it wasn’t so aggravating.
“I’ll talk to him, I will,” I promise. “That is unacceptable, you’re right. In the meantime, though, can you put his grade up, just enough so that he can play in next week’s games? It would mean the world to him.”
It’s Nate’s turn to narrow his eyes.
“And it would mean the world tomeif he stopped his tirade on my class. So, it seems we are at an impasse.”
“Even just once?”
He doesn’t dignify this with a response, and I am once again cursing Willa for making me handle this.
“Look, is it money that you want?” I reach for my bag on the seat next to me, fully prepared to give him a hundred dollars. “You want me to tell the insurance company it was my fault? What.”
Nate looks truly gobsmacked now, like he’s trying to sort out what I am joking about and what’s serious. I pull out a hundred-dollar bill and set it on the table, and his expression contorts to disdain.
Unsure of what he’s looking for here, I set another bill on the table. Teachers don’t make that much, so surely this is enough to change a couple of grades. He doesn’t budge, his eyebrows only ducking further over his eyes.
“Not enough?” I ask.
Nate closes the folder in front of him and pushes his chair back from the table. It makes a hideous scraping noise on the linoleum.
“That is more than enough,” he says. For a second, I think it’s all good to go, that he’s not the hardass Willa said he is, but then he continues, “This is entirely inappropriate Mrs. Morelli?—”
“Ms.” I correct, and he doesn’t miss a beat.
“—Ms. Morelli, I don’t know what kind of school you think this is, but I cannot bebought.”
I huff a laugh.
Everyone can be bought.
I put another hundred on the table, which only seems to anger him further. He throws Artie’s file on his desk and starts packing other things into the backpack he came with.
“It’s time for you to go,” he says.
“We’re not done talking.”
“We are. I’d be happy to meet with Mrs. Donovann-Morelli next week, but please let her know that this level of entitled bribery will not be accepted coming from her either.”
For once, I’ve been rendered speechless.
I talk to a lot of men every day, scary men, sensitive baby men who throw tantrums when they don’t get their way, ones with at least one gun on their person at all times, but rarely do they shut me down so concisely and sternly as this middle school math teacher just has. They know what I’ll do to them if they do. This man doesn’t know anything about me though, so he goes on:
“And just what kind of school do you think this is? Like, have you had success with this tactic before? Do you just carry around hundreds of dollars to bribe people with all the time?”
I don’t usually need to resort to bribing, as demands and threats are my first preferred options, but I don’t tell him this. I slide the money back into my purse and settle into my chair for the rest of his rant which he shows no sign of stopping now.
“I like Artie, I really do, and now I like him even more knowing that he’s ended up so normal coming from a family of spoiled socialites who pay off their problems instead of, oh I don’t know, having a normal conversation about them? Truly, what the hell were you thinking?”
I’m silent at the question, and he looks as if he’s just now realizing that while I was out of line, what he’s just said is more so. He squeezes his eyes shut and drags a hand down his face, a gesture I’m all too familiar with in myself.