Game Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 3) (19 page)

“How am I going to tell Jenny about this?”

“We don’t even know what’s going on yet.”

“I’m fired, Nina! They’ve fired me!”

“Maybe not.”

“My God, those policemen! And right in front of everybody!”

“I know.”

“We’re not going to have enough money to live on! Jenny’s shop brings in a little, but that’s mostly in summer. We don’t have that much savings!”

The door at the top of the stairs swung open, and Jackson appeared in it, his form outlined in yellow, glowing background light.

“Come on up. Come up here. Let’s get the two of you inside.”

They climbed the narrow stairwell, which was just wide enough for the two of them to pass side by side, Nina’s arm still tight around Meg’s waist.

She kept it there for fear Meg would turn around, peer down the ten steps they’d already climbed, decide to end it all, and jump.

‘Despairing lesbian coach kills self with plunge down stairwell of prominent attorney.’

Not good publicity.

They reached the top of the stairs.

“Come in! Come on in, Meg. Nina, you sit over there. Can I get coffee for the two of you?”

Meg shook her head:

“I can’t drink anything!”

“Jackson,” Nina said, “why don’t you get a cup for each of us?”

It was, she had found, a universal truth that a little coffee never made things any worse.

And these things were about to get a lot worse.

“Sure! Sure, both of you have a seat. Little cream?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Sugar?”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Splenda?”

“NO!”

“NO!”

Things were already getting better.

Nina, seated now in one of the imposing green leather chairs (She could remember when Frank had bought the chair from a downtown furniture store. She had doubted the possibility of getting it up the stairwell.)

But miracles of all kinds happened in those days; new clients showing up, victories in court, chairs fitting into impossible places and turning absurd angles…

….a long time ago.

“Here. Here’s a cup for both of you.”

“Thanks.”

“Thanks.”

So, finally, they were all seated, coffeed, deep breathed, and miserable.

“Jackson,” Nina said, “do you know anything about this?”

He nodded:

“Yes, I do. I’ve been on the phone with the capital for the last fifteen minutes, ever since I got your call.”

“And?”

He shook his head, then said quietly:

“Meg, I’m afraid you’ve been terminated.”

“Oh, God! Oh God, no.!”

“Why, Jackson?” asked Nina.

“Because of me.”

“You?”

“Yes, Nina, because of me. Because I behaved like an idiot. I followed those girls home in the bus, and I bought them dinner. I’m a professional attorney. I’m a school board member. If anybody should have known that such things are against the rules, it’s me.”

Meg looked at him.

“I knew you were going to follow them home in the bus. But I thought that would be okay. And as for the meal…I thought the players were going to pay for their own food.”

“They should have. But I…I just wanted to do something special for them. I must have been out of my senses.”

“But…”

Meg was stammering.

“…but that seems like such a small thing. Okay, we broke the rules. Couldn’t they just give me a slap on the wrist? I’d be happy to write an apology and promise never to do it again!”

Silence in the room.

A huge gorilla—probably a male silverback, weighing at least eight hundred pounds—wandered in, leapt upon the littered mahogany desk, and simply sat there, staring at each of the three of them in turn, saying in gorilla-speak:

‘You can’t ignore me, can you? I’m the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room, and sooner or later you’ve got to acknowledge me.

Meg did.

“This woman. This new ‘coordinator’ or whatever.”

“April van Osdale,” whispered Nina.

“Did she know about this?”

“Yes,” Nina continued to whisper. “I told her.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m stupid.”

“You told her about the meal?”

“Yes.”

“But did you tell her…”

“About New Mexico? Yes. I told her you’d gone to New Mexico after the game.”

“To get married.?”

“Yes.”

“To Jenney?”

“I didn’t go quite that far; but I’m sure she found out quickly enough.”

The gorilla jumped off the desk, said ‘Thank you!’—again in gorilla—and walked out of the room.

“So,” said Meg, ‘that’s the real reason, isn’t it?”

“Two of your best friends,” Jackson said, quietly, “have just gotten you fired.”

The room was silent.

It was better, Nina decided, with a gorilla in it.

           
“But I can try it. I can try to do it.”
                       
––
William Faulkner
,
Light in August

Between the hours of three thirty and eight PM, too many things happened in Bay St. Lucy to be described.

So no attempt will be made.

It is possible to report, though, that a secondary conference room in the city hall was reserved for a small group of people, and that Edie Towler, the mayor, Jackson Bennett, the attorney, and Nina Bannister, the principal, all found themselves in it, when April van Osdale entered and threw a leather briefcase on the table before them.

“I have been,” she said, “in Jackson. All afternoon.”

No reply.

“Do any of you know,” she continued, “how close we came to incurring sanctions?”

“Dr. van Osdale…”

“Mr. Bennett, you are an attorney. You are a school board member. How could you have been a party to this?”

“I made a terrible mistake.”

April van Osdale shook her head.

“No, Mr. Bennett. You made several terrible mistakes. You gave what amounts to a cash reward to student athletes. You might as well have slipped each of them a fifty dollar bill and said ‘Good job!’ Then you took charge of them, herded them into a bus, and pretended to be their official escort during a fifty mile bus trip. If anything had happened during that trip, the school—as I’m certain you must know—would have been liable for millions of dollars in lawsuits.”

“I understand all of that, Dr. van Osdale.
 
But, as I’ve already said, it’s my fault.”

Again, a shake of the head.

“No. It’s Ms. Brennan’s fault. Those student athletes were her responsibility. Now, as for what she did after the game, where she went, and whom she married, those are her concerns, not mine. And I don’t worry about them.”

You’re lying you’re lying you’re lying You’re lying you’re lying you’re lying You’re lying you’re lying you’re lying You’re lying you’re lying you’re lying You’re lying you’re lying you’re lying You’re lying you’re lying you’re lying You’re lying you’re lying you’re lying You’re lying you’re lying you’re lying…

…thought Nina.

But she did not say anything.

“But when she left those kiddoes to, in effect, find their way home, and allowed monies to be doled out to them—she put our entire athletic department at risk.”

Edie Towler, always the voice of reason, said quietly:

“We all have just been wondering, Dr. van Osdale: is there no way she could be let off with a reprimand?”

A shake of the head.

“Apparently the three of you do not understand—and perhaps no one else in the town understands—just how passionately I have had to plead this entire afternoon, and with the heads of how many disciplinary committees, just to make this thing go away. A number of people came close to losing their positions this afternoon. Now I’m sorry that this happened the way it did. I know it seemed rather sudden. The presence of the patrolmen was—well, unfortunate. But Ms. Brennan had to be taken from the school immediately. And she was.”

“There is no way,” Jackson asked, “for her to keep her job?”

“Absolutely none. No one is going to thank me for keeping every one of our teams: football, track, baseball, boys’ basketball, all of them—from having been put on probation for at least one year. But I did so. And the cost of one coach’s job was, if regrettable, still the best possible alternative.”

More silence.

It was Edie’s turn to talk.

“So. The girls should not have to suffer for this. Who will be their new coach?”

“As far as I can tell,” answered April van Osdale, “no one.”

“What?” asked Nina, Jackson and Edie, in complete simultaneity.

“We have no one to spare at the school to take over those duties. Not at this point.”

“But…” stammered Jackson. “One of the assistant boys’ coaches?”

“Those coaches already have a full slate of duties, both in the gym and in the classroom. To ask them to take on an entire new coaching responsibility would be unfair to them. Also, I’m very uncomfortable with men coaching a women’s team.”

“But that’s done all the time!”

“And it might be done here, in the future. I don’t know. I’m sure the search for our new coach will be a careful one. We’ll interview a great many candidates.”

“But,” asked Jackson, “what will happen to the team now?”

“Nothing.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“We have no team. Our basketball season is over. For this year, anyway.”

Jackson’s mouth fell open.

He could only stammer.

Edie was stammering, too, but more intelligibly.

“Can’t we bring in someone from outside simply for the interim?”