Margot Dalton - Consequences

This morning Lucia didn’t have the energy for a conflict with Leslie Karlsen. Not when a much more serious confrontation was possibly waiting for her out in the front office.

Gloria Wall appeared in the doorway, looking pleasantly cheerful. The head of the school board was a plump woman with a soft, matronly appearance, an impression she liked to intensify by dressing in pastel colors and soft, flowered prints like the one she wore today.

But Lucia knew from experience that Gloria’s personality was far from warm and cuddly. In fact, the woman was hard as nails, and could be a shrewd, merciless opponent.

“Good mornin’, Lucia.” Her visitor sank onto one of the upholstered chairs, fanning herself with a pink vinyl handbag. “My, my,” she said. “Isn’t it awful hot for October? You’d think we might have some relief from the heat by now. This place is just stiflin’. I don’t know how those poor little mites can concentrate on their school-work, I truly don’t.”

“I can’t afford to run the air conditioners this late into the fall,” Lucia said evenly. “With all those budget cuts, it’s just too much of a luxury.”

Gloria’s eyes hardened, and Lucia realized with a sinking heart that she shouldn’t have opened their discussion on such a controversial note. The school’s budget cuts had been at the center of a bitter conflict since spring, and were still not resolved.

It was important to stay calm, she reminded herself, looking down at her desktop. Regardless of provocation, she had to stay polite and neutral, and let the woman have her say.

But in spite of herself, Lucia kept seeing those two red lines in the little plastic wand. Her thoughts clouded into a mist of panic, and she struggled to concentrate on what Gloria was telling her.

“We had an emergency meeting of the school board on Sunday afternoon,” Gloria said.

The woman’s plump face was defiantly flushed. A pair of eyeglasses on a gold chain heaved up and down on her flowered bosom.

Lucia tensed and gripped a pen in her hands. “That’s odd, I didn’t hear a thing about it. Isn’t it customary to invite the school principal to board meetings?”

“We called, but you weren’t home.” Gloria’s blue eyes glittered behind lashes heavy with mascara. “We even checked with June at the club. She said you’d gone to Austin for the day.”

Again Lucia saw those two red lines in the white plastic.

“Yes, I had to run some errands.” She took a deep breath and looked directly at her visitor, folding her hands on the desktop with deliberate composure. “So what happened at your secret board meeting, Gloria?”

“It wasn’t a secret. An’ I sure don’t like your implication that we—”

“All right,” Lucia said wearily. “Just go ahead with whatever you’ve come to tell me, all right?”

“We voted to amalgamate with the middle school in Holly Grove, and bus all the students over there.”

Lucia’s jaw dropped. “You’re planning to close our school?”

“Now, there’s no need to get all hot and bothered.” Gloria shifted in the chair and squinted at her eyeglasses, then blew on the lenses and rubbed them with the skirt of her dress. “We plan to hold a plebiscite in March, after we’ve had time to let everyone know the details. We won’t amalgamate until next fall, so you’ve got a whole year to get this place shut down and tend to the paperwork.”

“Tend to the paperwork,” Lucia echoed blankly. “You’ve got to be kidding.” Her anger began to rise. “Look, if you’re all doing this just to spite me, it’s certainly an unkind way to treat the children of this town. They deserve better from their school board.”

“Just to spite you?” Malevolence flashed briefly in the other woman’s eyes. “My, my, but you do take a lot on yourself, don’t you? Why does everything have to be about you?”

“Because I honestly think that’s your motivation in this, Gloria. What’s more, it always has been, ever since I came to Crystal Creek.”

Don’t do this, Lucia told herself. Don’t let her get to you.

But Gloria was staring at her angrily. Two red spots flared in her cheeks. “You think you’re so important,” she said. “Walking around with your head in the air like some kind of fashion model, looking down on everybody as if we’re a bunch of peasants. Butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth, would it?”

“I really don’t think we should bring this to the level of personal conflict.” Lucia struggled to retain her composure. “Not when the welfare of the student body is at stake.”

“The kids in this town got along fine before you ever came here.” Gloria heaved herself from her chair and marched toward the door. “And they’ll get along just fine after you’re gone.”

“The townspeople will never agree to give up their middle school,” Lucia said, with more confidence than she felt.

Gloria paused in the doorway, “When the people hear the school board’s side, they’re going to agree it’s the only way to cut costs. They’ll vote with us, just you wait and see.”

Then she was gone in a swirl of flowered cotton, leaving Lucia staring at the closed door.

THE REST OF THE MORNING passed in a blur of pain and confusion. Lucia went about her duties mechanically, avoiding Leslie’s speculative glances and the sympathetic gaze of Jean Mulder, the other secretary, who had always been kind to Lucia.

She spent her noon hour supervising in the cafeteria, a task she’d taken upon herself to give the teachers some much-needed preparation time, since their weekly spare periods had been swallowed up in the new round of budget cuts.

However, Lucia didn’t detest cafeteria supervision nearly as much as most of her teachers, probably because the students were a little frightened of her and tended to behave well in her presence. They sat quietly over their lunches, glancing at her surreptitiously as she worked at a table near the door. As soon as possible they collected their trash, dumped it and escaped outside to the playground.

After the lunch hour, Lucia returned to her office, closed the door and opened a brown paper sack on her desk, taking out an egg-salad sandwich and a banana. She ate without tasting the food, lost in her tumult of thoughts.

Uppermost in her mind was sorrow over the possible loss of the school, and guilt about her own part in the matter. Regardless of the chairwoman’s protestations, Lucia knew this action by the school board had its beginnings in personal animosity.

And those hard feelings, she thought gloomily, were mostly her own fault.

Somehow she’d offended Gloria Wall, simply by being what she was. Everything about Lucia seemed to anger the woman.

Of course she couldn’t change her physical self, but maybe if Lucia had been warmer and more willing to mingle with the community, perhaps the students of Crystal Creek wouldn’t be losing a school that had served the community for almost ninety years.

Lucia put the sandwich down on its waxed-paper wrapping and buried her face in her hands, trying to think calmly.

Somehow she had to launch a campaign to convince the townspeople that their middle school was vital, and that budget restraints were not a good enough reason to tear the heart out of a community. Furthermore, she had to do it before March, when Gloria said they were intending to hold their civic plebiscite.

But that brought another thought into her mind, and made her groan aloud in despair.

Because when March rolled around, she was going to be…

Lucia took a notepad from the desk and jotted some dates and numbers, then stared at them bleakly.

In March she would be five months pregnant.

“Oh, God,” she whispered aloud, staring at the dusty lilac bushes beyond the window. “What in the world am I going to do?”