Doubts and memories

After she leaves Brian looks at you. "You think I'm dumb for talking to her?"

"You're a big boy and can make your own decisions. I just don't want to talk to her."

"It seems harmless, I don't know anything. And the stuff about being hired is no big deal."

You nod, saying nothing but thinking that you might have a story the reporter would have found more to her liking.

You think back to the letter you received, inviting you to a job interview for a position you didn't know about and hadn't applied for. The interview with three members of the Board of Regents that focused on your teaching credentials and made only passing reference to the firings that had resulted from your drinking. As if they wanted you to know they knew, and that they were throwing you a lifeline anyway.

A lifeline you were only to grateful to grasp, you remember, and without asking too many questions about why it was thrown. You hadn't given much thought to it before now, being grateful for the job and the chance to restart your career, but Holly's words have raised the doubts and unease that have been buried inside you since you were first interviewed.

If she's right, and whatever happened last year necessitated a cover up, then perhaps it also caused dissension among the Board of Regents. Perhaps hiring a alcoholic that has been fired multiple times was part of some power play between the powerful people who governed the school and sent their daughters there. And if that was the case, what does that mean for you?

You're mulling these thoughts over as you toss money on the table to cover the bill, unable to reach any conclusion except that you don't know enough to reach a conclusion.