The Next Killing. Rebecca Drake
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as Lauren passed.
The hall was dark and empty. Wood was her first impression, dark wood and lots of it. Front and center was a large wooden crucifix with a marble Christ figure hanging above an intricately carved wooden console table. On the center of the table was a foot-tall marble statue of the Virgin Mary; she stood on a wooden base with her arms extended, head bowed submissively, and lips curved in a slight, Mona Lisa smile.
Lauren’s heels clicked loudly on the ivory marble tile floor and she wished she’d thought to check her hair in the bathroom at the station. It had finally gotten long enough to pull back and she’d fastened the unruly mass of gold curls at the base of her neck with a silver clip, hoping it made her look more mature.
The headmistress’s office was marked with a discreet black-lettered sign. A young woman with sleek black hair, wearing a blue twinset and matinee-length pearls sat in the outer office at an old wooden desk, looking for all the world like someone out of the 1940s, except she was typing away on a state-of-the-art desktop that seemed to be giving her trouble. She looked up with a pleasant smile and adjusted the stylish tortoiseshell glasses slipping down her small nose.
“May I help you?”
Lauren introduced herself. “I’ve got an interview with Sister Rose Merton?”
The young woman consulted a spiral-bound black appointment book. “Yes, of course, you’re her nine o’clock.” She gave Lauren a broad smile and adjusted the glasses again. “The headmistress will be with you in just a moment. If you’d like to take a seat?”
She gestured behind Lauren, who suddenly noticed the brown velvet sofa near an arrangement of large potted ferns. The door to the inner sanctum was at the far end of the sofa. It was open a crack.
Lauren took a seat on the couch and placed her slim briefcase carefully beside her. She sat up straight and took several deep breaths, looking at the painting in a gilt frame hanging on the wall. It was a vaguely familiar scene, a cluster of whey-faced, robe-wearing young women with oil lamps. Something from the Bible, Lauren thought, and hoped that there wouldn’t be questions that tested her religious knowledge. Thank God she was being interviewed for a history position, not religion.
She realized she could hear voices through the door. Or one raised voice and the murmuring of another, clearly placating.
“—excuses being made for the way my daughter has been treated!”
Lauren glanced at the secretary but she was engrossed in her typing again, seemingly oblivious. She looked back at the door and jumped as the voice continued. “What I’m asking is that everything not be blamed on Morgan.”
So it was the mother of the smoker. Lauren tried not to listen, but the lower the voices got the greater her urge to hear what they were saying. She caught fragments about rule breaking, about suspension, about other girls.
All at once the door opened and a tall, elegantly dressed woman with the same striking coppery hair and a frown marring her patrician features strode out. She was followed by a shorter, rounder woman wearing a look of resigned patience.
Lauren stood up and the shorter woman smiled at her.
“I’ll be right with you,” she said. She followed Morgan’s mother out of the room. The secretary caught Lauren’s eyes and rolled her own with a slight smile. Who or what that referred to Lauren wasn’t sure, but she smiled back.
A few minutes passed while Lauren waited, flipping through the magazines on the coffee table, a strange combination of religious and secular. She was barely able to focus. The headmistress came back into the room and spoke quietly to the secretary for a moment before turning to Lauren.
“You must be Miss Kavanaugh,” she said, extending one deceptively soft-looking hand for a firm shake. “I’m Sister Rose Merton, the headmistress at St. Ursula’s.”
She ushered Lauren into her office and closed the door. This time, Lauren noticed, it really was closed.
“Please, have a seat,” Sister Rose gestured toward two upholstered chairs that sat in front of a large mahogany desk that dominated the room.
Lauren took a seat in one as Sister Rose moved silently behind the desk, noticing that unlike the headmistress’s own leather office chair, the chairs in front of the desk were rigidly upright as if not to lull any visitors to the office into a false sense of security.
The wall to the left of Sister Rose’s desk was lined, floor to ceiling, with bookshelves. The wall opposite was hung with tasteful, if somewhat bland, landscapes in gilt frames. Directly behind her desk, hung so it appeared to be looking over her shoulder, was a sepia-tinted photo of a grim-faced nun in full habit. Directly above her was a large gold crucifix.
“Sister Augustine Clement,” Sister Rose said, following Lauren’s gaze. “St. Ursula’s founding headmistress. A smart and tenacious woman.”
The two nuns were a study in contrasts. Unlike her predecessor, Sister Rose wore no habit. She was dressed simply in a plain navy blue suit with an unadorned white blouse. She wore earrings, small pearl studs, and a gold circle pin was affixed to her lapel; a crucifix was at its center. The pin and the plain gold band on the ring finger of her left hand were the only official markers of her membership in a celibate community devoted to God. To the casual observer, she could have been just another grandmother.
She had short, dove-gray hair and piercing steel-gray eyes that were at odds with the soft and crepelike quality of her pale skin and her benign smile. She rested her plump arms on the desk and folding her hands, turned her intense focus on Lauren.
“As I mentioned when we spoke, one of our teachers unexpectedly retired and we have an unanticipated, and unwelcome, vacancy for this academic year.”
Lauren nodded. She’d been thrilled to get the call, anticipating another year of substitute teaching. She was in the bind that all new teachers were in, anxious to get a full-time job in a system that only wanted to hire the experienced. She’d never imagined that she’d get the opportunity to teach at a prep school. Submitting her résumé to St. Ursula’s had been pro forma, nothing more. She’d simply canvassed every school in Northern New Jersey and sent them her résumé.
“Usually, we’d only consider a more experienced teacher,” Sister Rose said, as if reading Lauren’s thoughts, “but circumstances dictated that we broaden our search.”
The “circumstances” were just how close it was to the start of the academic year. School was slated to begin in just two weeks. More experienced teachers had their teaching jobs lined up and ready.
Sister Rose opened a file on her desk and pulled out Lauren’s résumé.
“I see that you’ve done a full year of substitute teaching in Hoboken.”
“Yes, it’s been a great experience.” It wasn’t a lie, not exactly. It had given her enough experience to know that caring about your students wasn’t enough to transform their lives. Poverty, burned-out administrators, and limited funding had a lot to do with academic failure. Not that these things would have deterred her from accepting a full-time job there, but teachers in these districts seemed to die in their posts.
“As I mentioned, Sister Agnes was the history teacher for our upper school for over twenty years,” Sister Rose continued. “It will be difficult to fill her shoes, but we must.”
She outlined the teaching responsibilities and Lauren listened, nodding when it was expected, asking intelligent questions when a pause indicated she should, while trying to appear interested but not overeager.
It was going well. They needed her—that was clear. She’d thought she was one of many candidates, but it didn’t sound like it.
“We are a traditional Catholic school, Miss Kavanaugh. Parents send their daughters here to receive the finest education in a setting that prepares them spiritually as well as intellectually for the challenges of adult life. Our girls attend Mass twice a week, on Wednesdays and Sundays, as well as on the holy days, of course.”