SHANE POKES THEIR head into my office, grinning. “I just got the cutest email,” they say, walking to my desk with their iPad.
“You walked over here to show me? Why not just forward it to me?” I raise a brow and lean toward their screen.
“Because,” they say, clicking open the window. “I want to watch your face while you watch it.”
A video starts to play and I recognize the teens from Franklin Middle School who had come here for their field trip. Warmth spreads through my chest as I watch the shaky video panning the room of smiling, waving youngsters. “Yooooo, Ms. Vine! Our teachers said we should show you this stuff!” An unseen teen walks around a classroom, pausing at each desk where students are pecking away at their devices. “Since we all got these, Mr. T is letting us use your program to, like, write up our lab reports from this dissection.” The screen zooms in on a girl whose face I remember, but whose name escapes me. The girl clicks her tweezers at me, beaming. The narrator flips his camera around and grins, braces glinting in the overhead light of the classroom. “This is actually pretty cool. So, yeah. Thank you!” He flips the camera again and he must count down from three, because all the students in the room yell, “Thank you!” And the video fades to black.
“Wasn’t that delightful?” Shane bounces on their toes. “I wish we could use it for something.”
I furrow my brow. “Why can’t we?”
They roll their eyes at me. “They’re minors, Sam. For all I know, the school didn’t even authorize them sending us this video. It came from an email handle that included the word banging.”
I laugh at that. “Sounds about right to me. Could you forward it to me, anyway? I promise to only use it for personal joy.”
I pull up my phone to send a message to AJ about the video and I see that I never finished texting him about the science dinner. Ugh, he must think I was being weird. Fully expecting his voicemail, I call his number and gasp a little bit when he answers. “Why are you answering the phone?”
His voice is deep and unamused. “Did you call to test me or something? Isn’t it normal for people to answer when the phone rings?”
“Well you never have before this!”
“I’ve never been available to talk when you called.” He pauses. “Today I’m available.”
“It’s the middle of the day. Why are you talking on the phone while your students are sending me emails?” I have no idea why I’m getting snippy with him when I really do want to talk to him. Something just compels me to bicker whenever he opens his mouth.
AJ is silent for a moment and I hear him inhale before he says, “I’d like to pause and ask for clarification about the email. My students emailed you?”
I smile, unable to help myself. “They sent me the cutest thank you message. Well, they sent it to Shane, but they showed it to me. They’re using Vinea to document their lab reports! And you’re still dissecting frogs?”
He coughs. “We’ve moved on to sheep hearts. I hadn’t realized they sent you something.”
I frown. “You’re not there with them? I guess that’s why I don’t hear anything in the background?”
“If you must know, I’m home sick today.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I thought teachers never get sick? I remember some of my teachers telling me that they build these impenetrable immune systems. It inspired my science fair project one year in fact—“
“It’s pinkeye,” he blurts.
“It’s what?”
“Pinkeye. Conjunctivitis. It’s extremely contagious but I’m about to do my third treatment. Plus my Bubbie made me matzo ball soup, so I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Wow, AJ. I haven’t even thought about pinkeye for at least a decade.”
He sighs again. “One minute I’m getting an all-faculty memo about it and the next, my eyes are crusty and itchy. I’ve learned my lesson about giving the students high fives.”
“Aww,” I squeal. “You give high fives! They love you. Seriously, I can tell.” I hear him clear his throat uncomfortably. “Well, anyway, I just wanted to let you know I love the video and we obviously won’t share it since we don’t have releases from their parents or anything like that.”
“I’d appreciate you sending it to me so I can see what they said.”
“You’d have to give me your email address, Mr. Trachtenberg.” Apparently I’m flirting with him now. Which, yes. I want to flirt with him. He’s sexy, damnit. In a hairy, grouchy, untouchable sort of way.
“Surely you can get that information from Shane?” I can’t read his tone, so I decide he’s flirting right back.
“Or you could just tell me and I could send the video without interrupting Shane’s work.” He reads off his address. “Adriel? That’s your first name?”
“It is, yes.”
“But you go by AJ?”
“She says, as she goes by Sam.” Okay that was definitely a flirty response.
“Fair. Okay, Adriel, I’ll send you the super cute video your amazing students sent me. And I’ll tell you it made my day. Things are rough over here.”
Thank you, Samantha,” he parrots. A pause, and then, “The kids make my day brighter, too.”
I smile and we’re both silent for a few beats. “Okay, well, I guess I’ll see you at the dinner thing.”
“I’ll be the one with the bloodshot eyes.”
I must be sitting with a moony expression, because Audrey and Logan enter my office, take one look at me, and burst out laughing. “What in the world has you making that face?” Logan peers over my shoulder, but my phone screen has gone to sleep so she just takes a seat across from my desk and plunks her things on her lap.
I wave a hand. “Shane shared the thank you video the students sent after the field trip.” I shrug. “It made me feel good.”
Audrey bites her lip. “Well! I’m definitely glad you got some serotonin. Are you ready to review financials and then finalize your speech for the science educators dinner?”
I cringe. “Finalize?”
She blinks at me. “It’s tomorrow, Sam. Let me see what you’ve got.” Logan nods, encouragingly.
“I got a whole lot of nothing,” I admit. “I was going to write it tonight.” I cringe again. I was also going to sign off on the finance reports tonight. There’s just not enough tonight to go around.
Audrey places her palms on my desk. “I know you know this, but you cannot continue to do everything personally.” I slump a little lower in my seat, knowing she’s right but also not sure how to rebound. Audrey rolls her eyes. “I’m going to send an emergency message to the agency we used for our last annual report. Maybe they have someone who can whip up some keynote bullet points for rush pay.”
Audrey starts clicking away furiously on her laptop. Logan pops her lips a few times and decides to capitalize on the silence. “Moving right along to financials,” she says. And for the next hour I listen intently as she and Audrey walk me through some of the basics I need to know before I speak with our board next week. It’s going to be a long night.