Page 13 of Considering Us

“Shoot, I’m covering this huge book event on Nantucket this weekend. But soon. Just let me know when you’ll be back.” I heard some people talking near her. “Okay, Dev, I gotta run. Don’t let this Ashlyn get to you. And Kyle’s cute. Whatever you decide to do, I support you. But if you decide to play pots and pans with him, I’m good with that.”

“What does that even mean, Tam? Pots and pans?”

“I have no idea. It just sounded like something some chef in a rom-com would say.”

...

I only had four students reply that they would come to the focus group, but I messed up the online form, and somehow, it only captured the numbers of “yes” replies and not actual student names. Out of the three hundred students, only four agreed to help me. And who knew if they would even show up?

I set up a space in the corner of the faculty dining room that had some comfortable chairs and a low table for us to meet. I brought my favorite fresh sparkling lemonade and a tray of the cookies that Andrea and Kyle had liked. When I made them in the dining hall kitchen that morning, the staff couldn’t get enough, and I had to set aside some for the focus group. I promised I would make more for dessert that night if I had time.As they enjoyed the cookies, it seemed like Marnie and the rest of the crew were softening a bit to my presence. Maybe it would work with this group of students, too. Or else I could just sit in the room by myself and eat cookies.

I grabbed a chair and scrolled through my phone, too fidgety to do anything else. “Someone told me the cookies were here,” announced a familiar male voice. Kyle came into the room in shorts and an old Counting Crows t-shirt and plunked himself down on the chair across from me, helping himself to a cookie.

“Where’ve you been? Is this, like, a day off?” I asked, gesturing at his attire.

“Class. I just entertained a group of sixteen-year-olds with tales of presidential assassinations. My favorite, of course, is that of James Garfield. A sordid, unfortunate, gangrene-ridden story.” He smacked his lips.Oh, those lips…“This is delicious. Hits the spot.”

“You wear that to teach?” I pondered, thinking of my uptight, old-school teachers back in my Maine public school days.

“Yep,” he said. “Another thing Ryland Dennis complained about last year to the former Head of School was my attire. But she’s gone, and Andrea couldn’t care less. You want me to tell you about James Garfield?”

“Seeing that I’m just sitting here waiting for students to show up to this focus group, sure. But we’re not exactly helping our cause by hanging out here together.”

“Old friends, Dev. We were college classmates. Anyone can look up our bios on the Rockwood staff page and figure that out.”

“True,” I acknowledged. I needed to ease up a bit. There was only so much I could control. “Okay, tell me about James Garfield.”

“His vice-president was Chester Arthur. He was in an off-shoot political group called the Stalwarts. Charles Guiteau wanted a government job and kept getting turned down. He wasalso a Stalwart. So, being a presidential assassin-type, he got the weird idea that killing the president might help him achieve his goals. Not exactly of sound mind and body, right?”

I giggled. I imagined Kyle in front of a class of students, managing to get teenagers to pay some degree of attention, which was impressive in a world where they were used to being entertained with YouTube and TikTok. He continued, “Anyway, Guiteau shoots Garfield at Union Station in DC just before Garfield is taking a train trip. He’s a terrible shot. All these people try to help him, so they lay him down on the floor of the nasty-ass train station.”

“You said nasty-ass in class?” I couldn’t imagine my million-year-old U.S. History teacher in a three-piece suit using such a description. I also had no recollection of ever learning this story in school.

“You bet,” Kyle said, smiling. “It’s an important part of the story. Anyway, they’re digging around in his open wounds for bullets. Bare hands, and we’re talking 1800s. No Purell on the scene in those days. No luck. They bring him to the White House, put him to bed, and continue to try to help him for months in a sweltering Washington summer.”

“I’m guessing they weren’t much help.”

“Nope. They fed him huge meals, but he kept wasting away. They even brought in Alexander Graham Bell with a metal detector at one point, but the bullet had moved, and they only checked one side of his body. Stupid shit like that. He finally died of gangrene.”

“And the guy who shot him? What happened to him? I’m guessing he didn’t get his dream job.”

“Arrested, tried, convicted, and hanged,” said a boy as he walked in the room. He gave Kyle a high-five. “Best teacher on campus. Tells the good stories.” Three other students followed him and sat down. One of the girls looked familiar, but Icouldn’t place where I might have seen her before. Possibly just at mealtimes so far; I had seen so many students that they all blurred together.

“There you go,” said Kyle, grabbing another cookie. “Glad young Sam here remembers everything he learned forty-five minutes ago. All right, you four. Make sure you give Ms. Paige here some good ideas about what you want from your dining experiences. No smartass snarky crap. And definitely eat these cookies. You won’t regret it,” he said as he walked out, waving at me as he left.

I cleared my throat, thankful for the introduction and cookie endorsement, but also all too aware that I was following the great Mr. Holling. “Hi, everyone. Thanks for coming today. As you can see, I didn’t get an awesome response to my email, so I’m very grateful to you four for signing up and coming to talk with me. Please help yourself to cookies.” In true fake-it-’til-you-make-it fashion, I pretended to know what I was doing. “Maybe we can go around and introduce ourselves. Tell me your name, what grade you’re in, and where you’re from. I’ll start,” I began. “I’m Devon Paige. I’m the new Director of Dining, and up until a couple of weeks ago, I lived in Boston. I grew up in Kennebunkport, Maine.”

The students went through the requested motions, and finally, the girl who looked familiar spoke for the first time. Looking directly at me, she said, “My name is Adrienne Preston. I’m a junior, and I just transferred here from a private day school in the Boston area this week.”

...

The rest of the focus group meeting was a blur. I managed to keep it together—to engage in conversation with the other threestudents—while Adrienne sat in silence. I didn’t even try to talk to her, having no clue what to say. I had never seen her in person, as she had typically been at school or playing sports or on some kind of extravagant getaway with her mother or with friends, but I had seen her picture in a million places throughout their house. And when she discovered Bentley and me that fateful afternoon, I had only seen her in the shadows and frantic chaos as I stumbled out the door. But I heard her voice as she asked about her tennis racket, followed by her screaming for her mom. And now she was sitting in front of me, as her schoolmates told me of the lasagnas and chocolate cakes they missed from home.

I thanked them all for joining me and promised to start including their input in our menus. I had distracted myself from Adrienne by taking pages of notes. She was the last to stand up, so I quietly asked, “Would you mind staying for a minute?” and she sat back down. Once the last student had left, I offered the plate of cookies to her again. She took one, and I poured her a glass of lemonade.

“I’ve had these before,” she said, chewing slowly. “But I’ve never had the lemonade. I wish I could say it’s awful, but I can’t. So, you have that advantage over me.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “I thought you were going to that school in Carlisle.”

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