Pushing Perfect(74)

She gave us an appraising look; I could see a hint of surprise when her eyes settled on me. How was she going to play this?

“You guys taking advantage of the nice weather?” she asked.

I wondered if she was hoping there was a chance this was some sort of coincidence. We just stared at her, waiting. Trying to look calm.

“I suppose you’re expecting me,” she said, and sat down. The three of us were all sitting on one side of the table, so it was almost like an interview. “Clever move, using a blocked number to get me here,” Ms. Davenport said. “And in public, no less.”

“We learned from the best,” Alex said.

“How did you find me?”

“We don’t need to explain ourselves to you,” Alex said. “That’s your job.”

“Well, first perhaps you can tell me whether I should be expecting anyone else. Your compatriots? The police, perhaps?”

“That depends on how this conversation goes,” Alex said.

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

“That’s a tall order,” Ms. Davenport said. She was starting to look a little smug; I wondered if she thought we didn’t know all that much ourselves, yet.

“Tell us about the drugs,” Alex said.

“It sounds like you think you already know. What more do you need from me?”

“Why are you doing this to us?” I blurted out. I knew I wasn’t supposed to talk, but I couldn’t help myself.

Alex glared at me.

“I’m not doing anything to you,” Ms. Davenport said. “Nothing that you haven’t done to yourselves. This isn’t a big deal, and it’s not personal, you know.”

“It feels like a big deal to me,” I said. “And pretty personal, too.”

“I can understand why you’d say that,” she said, and then her tone shifted. She leaned in toward us, nearly hissing. “You’re all too naive to realize it, but Marbella High is filled with rich kids who just want to have fun and would find a way to do it with or without me. This school used to have to cover up drug arrests and overdoses; now no one gets arrested, the supply is clean. Things are under control now, and it’s all because of me. This school needs me.”

She was delusional. I could hear in her voice that she’d actually convinced herself she was doing a good thing. “Why get us involved, then? If you had everything under control,” I said.

“Everyone needs a little help sometimes,” she said. She sounded less angry, as if she thought she’d convinced us. “And I only asked for help from those who’d already shown they were willing to bend or break the rules. Alex here, with her online gambling and offshore accounts; Raj, who’d been stupid enough to buy fake exam answers just so he wouldn’t have to study, and then was dumb enough to tell his friend about it. And you, Kara—I have to say I never expected it. I had such high hopes for you. I thought you were different. I’d lost faith in everyone else, but you—you were so sincere, so dedicated. You were the one student who made me think it wasn’t all pointless. To find out that you were just like the rest of them . . . I couldn’t help myself. You had to be part of everything too, if only to teach you a lesson.”

“Oh, you were trying to be a good teacher? And this was your strategy? You’re a regular Good Samaritan,” Alex said.

I appreciated her sticking up for me, but it didn’t change the fact that Ms. Davenport’s description of how things had played out made it sound like this was my fault, like I’d let her down. As if I didn’t already feel bad enough about everything, now I was a disappointment to Ms. Davenport too? Ms. Davenport, who it turned out was responsible for making my life hell? This was all so confusing.

“You wanted to know everything. Did you want me to edit out the parts you don’t like?”

“That’s not what we meant,” Alex said.

We’d started the conversation feeling like we had control, but we’d quickly lost it. I wondered whether we’d ever had it in the first place. We had to try again, and Alex was losing confidence. I turned to Raj to see if he would jump in, but he didn’t seem to know what to do either.

It was all on me, then.

“Let’s get back on track here,” I said. “We would like you to stop doing what you’re doing. What we’d really like is for you to move away from Marbella and never come back, but we get that doing that might look worse than you just finishing out the year and then getting a new job somewhere else. So that’s what you’re going to do, and you’re going to wrap up all your little operations and never contact any of us again.”

“That’s what I’m going to do?” Ms. Davenport asked, amused. “You want me to shut the whole thing down, not just the parts that involve you guys.”

“How much more is there?” Raj asked.

“Does it matter?”

“No,” I said. “And yes, you’re going to shut it all down. And after the school year is over you’re going to stop working at Marbella High. If teaching has made you this awful, then maybe you should find something else to do. Go ask your rich ex-husband for money.”

She frowned at this. Good—I’d finally said something that rattled her, even a little bit. “What do you know about that?” she asked.