“Can you order up some lunch, please?” After all the usual hustle and bustle of the day of welcoming new and old students and getting everything set for the first day of term, Ms. Polluck had almost forgotten what time it was.
“Not a problem,” Candace said back, seeming to have already forgotten the accidents of earlier.
She grabbed the phone on her desk to dial the extension for the cafeteria, when she found that the line seemed dead. Oh that’s right! The IT department was supposed to be coming in today to install their new digital phone system. She had almost forgotten. Well, that would mean she would have to go down to the cafeteria herself.
Debating the idea for a moment, Candace decided she would take the long route. It was worth it. Her work had allowed her to know almost everything about the school, including the usual routines that all the staff and faculty followed. Taking this scenic route would allow her to “just happen” to run into someone special. In her eagerness, as she stood, she almost toppled over her desk, but she caught it in the nick of time. Ms. Polluck hadn’t seemed to notice the disruption and Candace slid out the door without another word.
It was so quiet right now in the hours just before classes began. Just about every member of the faculty and staff were around busying themselves with getting all the final touches in order before tomorrow. A few teachers were pleasant and asked her about her summer, while others were so immersed in their work they hardly heard her less-than-silent footsteps coming down the halls. She had been on her way out of one classroom after a little conversation, when someone ran straight into her. Candace, clearly being the bigger one in the collision, was hardly effected, and merely tried to quiet what felt like aftershocks in her wobbling middle. Coach Knight, who was of a much slighter build, was sprawled out on the floor. “Watch where you’re going, you...oh, Ms. Scott,” she said, recovering before she could get the last part of that sentence out.
If Candace had been a student, she knew Coach Knight would not have held back on her statement and probably would have called her an overweight whale or something nastier perhaps. Candace blushed a little, feeling bad for having caused all the trouble, and a little embarrassed knowing what Coach Knight would’ve said. “Oh, I’m sorry Ms. Knight,” she began, trying to help her up as the coach scrambled to gather the papers that had fallen from her clipboard.
“No, it’s fine,” Ashley huffed. “I guess while I have you, can you tell Ms. Polluck I have a few questions about some of her policies? She’s far too soft on these girls. I’m a physical educator, for God’s sake.”
“I suppose,” Candace said, meekly, “but I’m pretty sure Ms. Polluck isn’t going to be changing her mind anytime soon.”
“Figures,” she said, now trying to find a way to continue her path around Candace. “Kinda hard when you take up most of the hallway, you know? Just making a health-conscious suggestion. Think about it, Scott,” she said, punctuating that last sentence with a poke Candace’s middle.
Candace turned a little red again, and tried turning herself enough for the coach to get around her, not daring to meet her eyes, and tottered off.
“Well, there you are,” Eri said, handing over two large containers holding the day’s lunch, “two tagliolini ai porcini’s with caprese salad, garlic bread, and tiramisu.”
Candace could hardly pronounce all that, let alone understand it buried under that Texan accent of Eri’s, but it did sound delicious. “This sounds wonderful, but isn’t it a little…well expensive?”
The queen of the cafeteria merely waved her off. “That’s nothing. You haven’t seen what Ms. Polluck wants cooked up for tonight’s orientation dinner.”
Candace had often wondered how much of the school’s budget was being literally eaten up in the fantastic catering services they had. Eri was a wonder in the kitchen, and the good food was Buttercombe’s most winning quality as a school, but was it a little too much? “Oh, and Candace, honey, I have something for you.” Eri returned in a moment with a large box. “It’s one of my mint-chocolate cakes. I know how much you love them.”
She was really flattered. “Oh, well that’s so sweet of you. Did you make treats for all the teachers over the summer?”
“No, no, this is just for you. You’re always such a help around here. Don’t know what Ms. Polluck would do without you. Now, you’d better scoot before she really does find out how long she can go without you.”
Candace only shook her head, laughing as she left the cafeteria, watching all the rest of the staff putting out the nice tablecloths and getting the buffet ready for tonight.
Still taking her time on the long way back, she only poked her head into a few other classrooms, making sure to say hello to the newest teachers. She wanted to make sure she had faces to go with the names as she would be in contact with them throughout the year. Though she had already made a point to meet her, Candace already made yet another stop at the art room. “Hello, Megan, you almost set up for tomorrow?”.
The new, young art teacher turned and pleasantly smiled back. She was really sweet, if not a tad naïve. “Oh, I had almost forgotten about all that,” she said. “I was inspired this morning and I’ve been working on this.”
She motioned for her to come over and Candace got a first glimpse at the new painting. It was a little risqué to say the least. It was a medieval banquet table loaded with a feast with a series of corpulent, nude women around it engaging in acts from mild to something that could only elicit a nervous squeak from Candace. “I call it ‘Sins of the Flesh,’” Megan continued. “What do you think?”
Was it getting hot in here, Candace wondered? “It’s beautiful,” she said, choking on her words a little. “Wonderful detail. It’s uh…well…”
“It’s too much, isn’t it?” Megan said, feeling a little disheartened. “I don’t know, something about this new job just made this feel so right, but now, I’m a little critical of it. I really want this new job to work out. I want the students to be interested.”
“Oh, don’t be silly,” Candace said, cheering her up. “It really is wonderful. And those girls are going to love hearing about art from one so experienced as you.”
Megan brushed her curly blonde hair behind her ear, blushing. “Really?”
“Of course, just look at all you’ve…oops.”
As she was turning to look at more of Megan’s work, she almost knocked over two paintings. The art teacher caught them in time. She was protective of her art, like a mother. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Candace babbled, “I didn’t mean to…I should really go.”
She hustled out the door just as Megan called out, “Wait, Candace, it’s fine really. You don’t need to…” She sighed.
Candace was almost back to the office. She couldn’t help but peek in at the odd sight in one of the offices. To this day, Candace could never figure out how one as big as Mia Underwood could still manage to get into the lotus position as she sat on her desk writing down notes. She almost looked like the rotund god, Ganesh, minus the elephant head, of course. “Good afternoon, Mia!” she called, suddenly feeling stupid for probably having disturbed her.
That was one thing Candace was always jealous of with Mia; her body never moved, just flowed. She raised her head in a swift and purposeful motion. “Sister Candace, I haven’t seen you since the last day of term. How are you?”
“Just fine,” she said, trying to sound calm herself. “Just grabbing lunch. How are you….oh?”
Seeming to trip over her own feet, Candace almost dropped both lunches and the cake. Mia seemed to come out of nowhere and caught her in time. “I’m fantastic, sister, but I think your lying about your aura. You seem tense.”
Candace was still trying to play it cool. “Tense, me, of course not. I can’t with my job.” She laughed nervously.
Mia, who was a physical person by nature, said nothing, but pressed a hand into Candace’s soft belly. “I think you are,” she said, her voice sounding like a lazy river. She pressed and massaged more. “Right here, you bunch up all your stress. You should come by my office after class sometime. I know some techniques that might help.”
“I’ll uh…have to think about it,” Candace said, trying to keep Mia from seeing how red her face had become. “Bye.”
She scooted into the office, gave Ms. Polluck her lunch without a word, and sat down, all the while trying not to seem as flustered as she really was. Had her hair been alright or did she look like a mess. “You shouldn’t have said that, Candace,” she thought. “Stupid, stupid, stupid idea. And did you have to go and nearly cause another accident while you were at it?”
She sighed, knowing her feelings were getting the better of her. She would have to tell them how she felt soon before she just burst, or worse yet, made an even bigger idiot out of herself.
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