Spiraling Deception (22 page)

Nerves swirled like a whirlwind in my
stomach as I walked anxiously toward the door marked
Administration. Whitfield Academy was not the kind of school I had
ever envisioned myself working at, that’s for sure.

“
Good morning, dear. How
may I help you today?” A portly older lady with short curly gray
hair, green friendly eyes, and a warm smile greeted me. Her nametag
introduced her as Mrs. Miller.

I returned her kind smile. “Good morning.
I’m Charlotte Gilmore and I’m here for an interview with Mrs.
Henderson.” I unfolded the letter from Whitfield Academy and held
it up for her to read. “It’s for the teaching position,” I
added.

She glanced at the letter briefly and then
typed something on her computer. “Yes, here you are, my dear: ten
thirty appointment with Mrs. Henderson, our deputy headmistress.”
She came around from the desk and pointed to an open doorway. “If
you would like to go through that way, Mrs. Henderson’s secretary
will show you in.”

“
Thank you.” I folded the
letter back up and slipped it into my purse.

She gave me another warm smile. “Good luck,
my dear.”

After introducing myself to Mrs. Henderson’s
secretary, I was asked to wait in the deputy headmistress’s office.
According to her secretary, Mrs. Henderson was running behind
schedule. Politely declining the offer of refreshments, I sat down
in one of two olive-colored wingback leather chairs that were
positioned in front of a large mahogany desk. As I looked around, I
saw several diplomas lining the walls, along with a series of
framed photos that depicted the school’s building over the course
of a number of years.

As I studied the photos, I couldn’t believe
I was actually here in New York City, interviewing for a full-time
teaching position. More unbelievable was the fact that this
affluent school contacted me in the first place. Now, that was the
real mystery.

Once the initial shock of receiving the
letter wore off, Courtney and I researched Whitfield Academy over
the Internet. We read all about the school’s history, their mission
statement, the curriculum they offered; however, when I saw the
student tuition price for a year, I almost had a heart attack. But
the school itself, including what they had to offer their students,
sounded incredibly amazing and I got excited at the prospect of
possibly being a part of that.

Quickly responding to the letter via email,
I’d received back confirmation of an interview date and time, along
with a return plane ticket to New York City within the hour. In
their email, they also offered to pay for a hotel while I was in
the city. I politely declined the offer of accommodation just in
case I wasn’t successful in actually getting the position. The
entire proposition still felt kind of bizarre and more than a
little mysterious to me, so I ended up booking a cheap hotel in
Times Square.

Courtney was practically beside herself with
excitement for me but hey, that was pure Courtney. Jake was another
story altogether. As I’d expected, he was more than a little
skeptical at the series of events surrounding the job offer, but I
also suspected a small part of his disapproval was due to the fact
that Jake didn’t want me to move away from him and Courtney,
period.

However, the fact of the matter was I needed
a permanent teaching tenure and they were hard to come by. I’d
already been prepared to move just about anywhere in the country
for the right position, so if this interview was successful, then
New York City it was going to be. Besides, as a rule, I was a
realist among the three of us, so when it came to major
life-altering decisions, I knew I would always make the right one.
Typically pragmatic, I was usually the cautious one out of
Courtney, Jake, and myself, and not generally known for being
impulsive—with the exception of my week with Roman. Europe and
Roman Knight were my brief bout with temporary insanity.

Sure, moving to a city
where I didn’t have any family or friends would be difficult, but
it’d also be one heck of an adventure. And I didn’t know a single
soul who lived in New York. Well, almost no one with the exception
of…
him
, but in a
city of over eight million people, the chances of running into
Roman were practically zero anyway.
Thank
God!
Just the thought of seeing him again
was disconcerting.

Thinking of all things disconcerting—I was
still flummoxed as to how a private, exclusive, New York City
elementary school had come by my resume and contact details in the
first place. I’d applied to a lot of schools both in California and
other states over the past several months but not one application
had been for a school in Manhattan. Perhaps one of the other
schools I’d applied to had forwarded my resume to Whitfield
Academy.

The sound of a door closing followed by the
clacking of heels against the wooden floor pulled my attention back
to the room.

“
Miss Gilmore, I presume?”
A mature, slender woman whom I instantly recognized from the
school’s website as being Mrs. Henderson, the deputy headmistress,
rounded the room’s large mahogany desk. She was dressed
conservatively in a gray woolen pants suit with a white
buttoned-down shirt and sensible shiny black pumps but there was no
mistaking the quality of her ensemble as anything less than
designer. Her rich brown hair was peppered with flecks of silver
and swept back in an elegant chignon.

I rose from the seat and offered my hand
across the desk toward her. “Yes, hi. I’m Charlotte Gilmore.”

“
Nice to meet you, Miss
Gilmore.” She smiled; her fawn eyes warmed slightly as she took my
hand and shook it with a firm shake. “I’m Rita Henderson, head of
the lower elementary school. I’m so delighted that you could come
at such short notice.

“
Please have a seat.” She
gestured to my chair, and then sat gracefully down on her
own.

Nervously, I bit my bottom lip as she
shuffled a set of papers on her desk and then scanned the documents
while she tapped the fingers of her right hand on the tabletop. As
the awkward silence stretched, I debated whether I should speak,
but she seemed so engrossed in what she was reading, I was hesitant
to interrupt.

Then finally she cleared her throat, raised
her head and leveled me with her gaze. “I see you graduated from
UCLA with honors and according to your resume, you’ve held several
temporary teaching positions since graduating.”

“
Umm…yes, that’s correct.
With the current economy being the way that it is, I’ve found it
difficult to get a full-time position in the local school districts
where I live, so I’ve decided to expand my search for permanent
teaching positions—”

“
And you have been
coaching underprivileged children gymnastics for the past three
years, I see,” she continued, cutting me off.

Oh man! Was that sweat dripping from my
armpits?

Her intense gaze was
unnerving.
“Yes,” I managed to
squeak.

“
Very commendable.” She
glanced back down at her paperwork.

Another weighted silence descended as she
continued to peruse the documents on her desk and I tried not to
fidget as my stomach churned with apprehension. Even in my limited
experience, I was positive this was not the usual interview
process. Everything about this was a little bizarre and
uncomfortable. The sudden urge to bolt and catch the first plane
home to LA overcame me but then I sternly reminded myself that
attaining a permanent teaching tenure was my dream. Not to mention
that if I was appointed to one of the country’s exclusive private
elementary schools, it would be an amazing coup for my career.

I’d come all this way, initially out of
curiosity, but now that I was here, I’d fallen in love with the
distinguished character and charm of the school itself, and along
with seeing the happy children bustling to and fro from their
classes, I really, really wanted to teach here.

Finally, pushing the papers aside, she
raised her head and unnervingly held my gaze with hers, and then
proceeded to ask me several customary questions regarding my
degree. Thankfully, I answered each one with a level of confidence,
despite her continual silent evaluation. Mrs. Henderson’s face was
a mask of impassivity—the woman had the best poker face I had ever
seen.

At last, she dropped the mask and gifted me
with an approving smile. “Well, you have excellent references, Miss
Gilmore. But—”

My stomach lurched.

“
Are you willing to move
to New York, away from your family and friends indefinitely? The
position would require a commitment period of no less than two
years.”

“
Yes, Mrs. Henderson, I’d
be more than willing to commit to two years, longer even. After
years of studying in college and finally achieving my degree, I can
honestly say, I want nothing more than to be putting that degree to
good use. I’m extremely eager to have a class of children of my
very own to teach—it’s my dream. And if achieving that goal means I
have to move to the other side of the country or to Alaska or
wherever the opportunity arises, I am one hundred percent committed
in doing so.”

“
I like you, Miss Gilmore.
I truly do,” she finally said, and I exhaled a sigh of
relief.

“
And I am an exceptional
judge of character,” she continued. “However, I will also warn you,
we here at Whitfield Academy have exceedingly high expectations of
all our staff but
especially
our teaching staff. As by now I’m sure you
understand, students who attend Whitfield are from some of the most
affluent and prominent families in the state. These parents pay a
small fortune for an exceptional education for their offspring and
we guarantee that happens. That being said, a teaching career at
Whitfield Academy is frequently challenging and often demanding but
I can assure you, it is also extremely rewarding.”

Despite the precarious beginning to the
interview and with every fervent word she continued to speak, my
heart beat faster and faster in anticipation—I just might have been
successful in scoring my first teaching tenure.

“
I understand.” I nodded
to her in agreement. “But I can assure you, Mrs. Henderson, I take
my teaching career very seriously and if given the chance, I
promise you, I will exceed all your expectations. As long as I can
remember, I’ve always wanted to become a teacher. I believe
children are the most precious and greatest gift we have to offer
humanity and to be entrusted to guide and educate a child through
the crucial informative years is a grave responsibility, and a
profound honor that I take very, very seriously.”

She slid a glossy-white folder across the
desk to me and smiled. “This is your employment contract and a copy
of the school’s handbook. I trust you will find the salary both
fair and generous. Please read it through thoroughly, sign the
appropriate forms, and return it to my assistant by close of the
week via email.”

As I opened the front of
the folder, I quickly glanced at the first page, which appeared to
be a standard offer of employment and whoa…
holy moly!
The startling number of
zeros typed at the bottom of the page had my eyes bugging and my
jaw gaping.

Ohmigod!

The figure was almost double the national
average teacher’s salary. This couldn’t be right? Surely it had to
be a typo.

“
The position you will be
filling is one of our first grade classes,” Mrs. Henderson said,
drawing my attention back to her. “You will be replacing Mrs.
Walker, who has unfortunately decided to take early retirement due
to a serious medical condition. So we will need you to start this
coming Monday if that is possible.”

What!

“
T-This coming Monday? You
mean a week from today?” I stuttered. First the staggering salary
figure and now this…it was all happening so fast.

“
Yes, Miss Gilmore, this
coming Monday. Will this pose a problem?”

Her emphasis on the
word
pose
made it
very clear to me that it had better not be a problem. As did the
perfectly raised eyebrow and thinned lips as she stared back at me
in question. I immediately knew this was a test of my commitment.
But how on God’s green earth would I be able to pack up my life in
California, move across to the other side of the country, find an
apartment, settle in and be ready to start a new job in less than
seven days? This was crazy, even by my standards of late, but
somehow I would make it work because I wanted this job enough that
I was prepared to jump through hoops to get it.

My shoulders straightened and I lifted my
chin in a display of confidence. “Ah…no. No, Mrs. Henderson, it
will be no problem. I can be here next Monday.”

Good thing I’d had practice of being
certifiably crazy in the past month.

“
Excellent.” She clapped
her hands together and rose from her chair.

“
Welcome to Whitfield
Academy, Miss Gilmore. I know you will be happy here. Now, before
you go, Mrs. Miller will give you a tour of the school and answer
any questions you may have.”

My head spun as I scrambled to rise from the
chair and follow her hasty steps from the office. Everything was
happening way too fast—I couldn’t process any of it. Franticly, I
tried to think of at least one of the many questions I had meant to
ask Mrs. Henderson during our interview, but my mind drew a
blank.