Page 100 of Isn't It Obvious?
Most of all, when she listens to it, she can tell she finally sounds like she’s doing okay.
During the last period of the day, Principal Harrison stops by the library, and Yael has to fight the instinct to exit out of every window on her computer screen, even though she’s doing work. Four years in this job, and she’s still like this.
“Hi, Lauren,” she says.
“Happy Monday, Yael!” Principal Harrison replies, faux-cheery. “Could you stop by my office after school?”
“Um,” Yael says, her cheeks heating. She wishes, for thezillionth time, that a comparable job at a high school shehadn’tattended as a student had opened within months of her finishing graduate school. “Yeah, of course.”
“Great! See you then!” Lauren says, and she leaves, giving Yael fifty-four excruciating minutes to wonder what the hell that was about.
Once the last of her students trickle out after the final bell tolls, Yael makes her way over to Lauren’s office and finds the door shut. Sherine peers at her over her reading glasses. “Ms. Harrison is with a prior appointment.”
“Ah, okay,” Yael says, leaning herself awkwardly against the counter. Sherine gives her a curt nod and returns her focus to her filing.
She waits long enough to consider pulling out her phone, but just as she’s reaching for it, the door opens.
Gina walks out, eyes wide in warning. She stops at Yael, close enough to whisper.
“I didn’t tell her shit, I promise. It’s your call what to do,” she says, and slips away before Lauren can poke her head out of the door.
“Yael!” Lauren says, and the ever-present school principal cheer grates against Yael’s strung-taut nerves. “Come on in!”
Lauren sits at her desk, and Yael is forced to sit opposite her, in the same seat where every kid caught vaping in the bathroom gets threatened with a suspension. “What did you want to speak to me about?” she asks, clasping her hands together in her lap. It’s best to curb nervous fidgeting in front of Lauren; she always makes sure you know that she notices, but she never says anything, and that’s somehow worse.
“I came across an interesting podcast recommendation this weekend,” Lauren says, still smiling.
This is how she’s decided to go about it?Indignancerapidly supplants Yael’s anxiety, and she shifts in her seat, smiling right back.
“It was calledThe Sophomore English Agenda, and when I listened to the episode aboutLord of the Flies, some of what the host was saying felt very familiar. It reminded me of a complaint you made at a faculty meeting last year.”
“Hmm,” Yael says, refusing to let her smile falter.
“It was recommended to me by an online magazine calledRenegade. Imagine my surprise when I looked at the website’s page for the podcast, and it said that the host worked with books in the Pacific Northwest.”
Imagine my surprise that you frequentRenegade, Yael thinks. She sighs, leaning back in her chair. “Do you have a question, Lauren?”
“I was interested,” she continues, “so I went and listened to a recent episode extended cut. And the host mentioned that she had requested to order a horror novel for an extracurricular program with students but was denied because the author also wrote erotica.”
Yael presses her lips into a flat line. Principal Harrison signed up for a five-dollar-per-month payment just to catch her? She’s tempted to ask whether she remembered to cancel it afterward.
Lauren keeps staring. Yael says nothing.
“It would not be a good look,” Lauren says, “for one of our faculty members to be disparaging our curriculum and administrative decisions.”
“Then it’s a good thing I use a stage name,” Yael says.
Lauren’s face stills, her lips parted, for a half second. Even this tiny moment before she regains her composure is something to relish. “So, you’re confirming that you’re Elle Rex?”
“Yes, I run the podcast. I checked my contract, and this is in no way a violation.”
The smile Lauren gives her is close-lipped. “It could raise concerns with parents.”
Yael’s patience wears thin. “I don’t have my face or name associated with the podcast.”
“I figured it out,” Lauren says.
“From a faculty meeting and a request I submitted directly to you. Neither of which parents are privy to.”
