Meeting the Red Heads

“Pleased to meet you,” you tell the two newcomers. You offer your hand to them, and they shake it. “Are you sisters?”

Faye, the elder laughs at that, while the younger, Brianna, shuffles uncomfortably.

“No, no, Brianna’s my niece, my brother’s daughter. He currently lives and works in Abu Dhabi, making a lot of money in the oil business. Isn’t that so?”

Brianna nods. Her brown eyes have not left you ever since she walked into the room. Her gaze is intense. She’s now watching you through her fringe. Brianna is taller than her aunt and only a few centimetres shorter than you, but the way she’s standing makes her appear shorter and a lot younger.

“So, you’re Mrs Smith’s son,” Faye continues. “She talked a lot about you. I thought you were some big shot at some distant university. What are you doing back here?”

Typical of your mother, inflating your achievements.

“I’ve got a new job, teaching, at St Perpetua’s, history.”

Faye laughs again. She has an infectious, penetrating laugh. She glances over to her niece who’s starting to blush. “Then you’ll get to know Brianna very well, because she’s one of your students.”

You turn to study Brianna. She nods. Then speaks in a much more subdued voice than her aunt, “Upper Sixth, B Stream.”

“B Stream?” you respond. The school has sent you a load of bumf about it, but you’ve only just started reading it. You were more interested in what you had to teach than the mechanics of the school.

“Yes, her father’s disappointed in that,” Faye talks over her niece. Faye’s voice is almost as penetrating as her laugh. She’s clearly someone who’s used to dominating a busy room. “To be perfectly honest with you, despite earning a ridiculous fortune out in Abu Dhabi he’s a cheapskate. He chose St Perpetua’s because he knows he can bunk his daughter at my house for minimal costs. And part of being a cheapskate is he expects the highest quality for the price he pays. He’s paying for her schooling, he expects his daughter to top the class. So the fact she can’t get into the top stream annoys him. Thinks she’s not working hard enough.”

“I’m sure you are,” you tell Brianna, who blushes deeper.

“I know she is. You’ll find Brianna one of your best students. You should see how hard she works. I never worked that hard at school. Her father never worked that hard. Yet because she’s not got the results, her father’s convinced she’s lazy. All he’s interested in is results.”

“Understanding what you’re doing is more important than the results,” you tell them.

“My point exactly,” Faye agrees. “I think you and I are on the same wavelength.”

“And what do you do for a living, Faye?”

“Corporate hospitality. I organise corporate trips, you know, team building exercises, or company parties. Special events like that.”

“There much demand around here for that?”

“Oh, most of the companies I work for aren’t local. I can do virtually all of it from home. It just requires weekends away overseeing the actual event.”

“And there’s a lot of demand for such things?”

“It’s picking up since the pandemic. I gather it was better before, but I have a name and a reputation now, and some of the big banks and such are starting to seek me out. I might not be earning as much as my brother, but I tease him that he’s only earning that much because in his case it’s all tax free. He doesn’t like that.”

She laughs again, and you can’t help but notice as she laughs, she leans a bit so you can get a better look at her wobbling cleavage.

“Your taking Miss Wandering’s place?” Brianna asks you. It’s clear she’s been wanting to ask you that while her aunt has flirted with you.

“Yes, I do believe that’s the person I’m replacing.”

“Good.” She blushes as she says this. It’s very cute.

“You didn’t like her?”

“She was… I don’t know whether I should say this about a teacher. It’s just, she was… weird.”

“Weird?”

“Yere, she didn’t fit in with the school. She… I don’t know. The way she dressed.”

“Revealing?”

“No, to be honest she didn’t have much to reveal, but all flowing and big sleeves. And the way she smelt. Very herbal.”

“There’s nothing wrong with a few herbal cigarettes,” Faye interjects, giving you a wink as she does so.

“No, not like the way you smell occasionally Aunt Faye. It was… I don’t know… more acrid. It could be quite nauseating, especially if you had her first thing in the morning. And the way she looked at me. I didn’t like it. She had her favourites, and… well, she was always calling them into her office for post-lesson meetings. Especially in the old Upper Sixth. I’m glad she’s gone. I’m just surprised how sudden it was.”

“You had no idea?”

“No. I sent an email asking Miss Wandering about the summer homework. One week I get a reply with information and a promise she’d send more. A week later I ask for clarification and I get another email from the school telling me Miss Wandering has left. I don’t think she knew. I don’t think the school knew.”

That sounds more than sudden. That sounds precipitous.

“And when I sent a question to my friends, none of them had heard. Nothing. The first we heard was the announcement that you’d been appointed. No mention of what happened to her. Or why. Do you know why?”

“No, they haven’t told me anything. Only that she had to go.”

It all sounds very suspicious.