Chapter 19

Disclaimer: This chapter has very dark themes and should not be read by viewers who are going through trauma and/or easily disturbed. Viewer discretion is strongly advised.

The air at the next Council meeting was already tense before anyone even knew what was going on. From the moment the members could see a slightly nervous Mr. Scott and no Nicole, they figured something was up. Plus, I had to imagine the way I looked didn’t help matters at all.

“Good afternoon, Student Council,” Mr. Scott began. “I’m afraid I have some very unfortunate news. Your President, Nicole Baker, has sustained a pretty serious injury of a private nature. It’s up to her if she wishes to disclose the details of this with you at a later date. For now, she has made the very difficult decision to step down as Student Council President.” Immediately, the Council fell into a series of hushed whispers amongst themselves.

I sat behind him, arms folded, staring bitterly at the floor. I get that he needed to lie about a few things – I had to admit, an injury was a pretty good coverup that wasn’t entirely a lie, and it explained her absence well. But at the same time, it was Nicole’s “decision” to step down as President? Fuck no it wasn’t, and anyone with half a brain in the room knew that.

I couldn’t help but glare at Sydney and Rick as Mr. Scott droned on. The thought trickled into my mind – was this even done out of concern? Was this a power grab? Were they just sick of her shit and wanted her out of the way? Or were they so stupid that they actually thought this was going to help Nicole? Neither of them met my glare, nor anyone’s gaze but their own. Selfish pricks.

Mr. Scott continued, clearly becoming more and more nervous himself. “So, with this being the case, we will follow school protocol and continue along with Council business. This means that as of now, Adam Watson will be the acting Presi-”

“A tenth grade??” Dave spoke up.

Megan whipped her head around to face him. “The school-elected Council VP,” she corrected him.

Dave gestured to her. “Yeah, no offense, I get you two are sticking together, but no. All of us here have more experience in school affairs than the sophomores.”

Jarrod looked at him, then at me, then back at him. “Aren’t Adam and Megan the only two people here that were on the Council last year?”

Eugene cleared his throat. “I think how we feel about this is kind of not the point,” he argued.

“Thank you, Mr. Whiteley,” Scott agreed. “While Adam’s situation is already a unique one, this is Council policy. If he doesn’t lead the Council well or becomes the subject of a scandal, that’s one thing, but dismissing him due to his youth is another. We are here to follow the rules, and that is what we are going to do. Not to mention, we have a month or so of school left, and now is not the time for a snap election. Today, as is customary, I will be leading the Council meeting in Nicole’s place, and Adam will be taking notes on how I run the meeting and guiding this Council from the moment the Council finishes meeting. I have already met with Adam beforehand, and he told me he will be accepting this responsibility. None of you are to sabotage or intently work against him due to this circumstance.”

Daniela raised her hand, clearly having wanted to speak for a while. “Yes, Ms. Filipovic,” Mr. Scott called on her.

She lowered her hand and smiled politely, before losing the smile entirely with her thought. “So, this injury ... Does this mean that Nicole won’t be returning to the Council at all this year? We still have, like, a month and a bit of meetings.”

Mr. Scott nodded. “That is correct, yes.”

“So...” Daniela continued. “ ... Does that mean she’s ... at the school at all? Will she be graduating this year, or...?”

Mr. Scott was silent for a bit. All of the eyes in the room landed on him. “I’m not here to discuss Nicole’s personal decisions,” he finally told us. “You will need to ask her yourse-”

“That’s not an answer,” Dave pointed out.

“You’re correct that it isn’t,” Mr. Scott replied diplomatically. “But if you wanted me to give you answers about that today, then all I will be able to give you is disappointment. I will not be discussing the private life of my students today, is that clear?”

“So...” Dave began. “Nicole has resigned, without telling us, due to ‘an injury’...” He made finger-quotes as he said those last two words. “ ... after an entire year of clearly making this job her life. All of us know she would never quit. Apparently she’s not even in school right now.”

This was the most I’d ever heard Dave talk. Mr. Scott was patiently staring him down. “Is there a question there?” he asked Dave.

“Yeah. Is she dead?”

A palpable tension coursed through the air. Everyone but myself and the two snitches looked eagerly at Mr. Scott for an answer. He put on his best politician’s face and laughed. “Oh, goodness, no!” he replied in a jolly way. “No, no. I’m sorry if I made this sound more serious than it was. No, she’s in good health right now.”

“Good health,” Dave repeated, then looked around the meeting. “I want the higher-ups here to have a meeting after Council ends. No staff, and no sophomores or freshmen.”

“Dave, please, let’s not be exclusionary,” Mr. Scott said disapprovingly.

Dave shrugged. “Just a couple of friends meeting after school stuff to gossip,” he told Mr. Scott. I looked at Dave. He asked if Nicole was dead, and while everyone seemed to eagerly wait on the answer to that question ... no one was shocked. It was terrible. The whole situation was just terrible.

After Dave’s objection, the rest of the meeting went normally, or at least, as normally as things could have gone under the circumstances. Mr. Scott led the Council exactly as expected – by the book, with a few lighthearted comments made for levity. The guy tried, and he, refreshingly, never tried to make himself look cool and down with the kids like bad high school movies portrayed principals, but ... it wasn’t the same as Nicole. Nothing could be.

Eventually, the meeting ended, and Mr. Scott ushered us all out of the room, except for myself. I stayed behind, watching all of the other students quietly file out of the room.

“If you could close the door, please,” he told Megan, the last to leave the room.

Megan nodded, but still hesitated. “Will you be around afterwards?” she asked me.

“Totally, don’t worry,” I told her. She nodded again and closed the door, leaving me with Mr. Scott.

Scott sighed, looking down at the floor in discomfort and thought. “I appreciate you being so understanding in this trying time,” he opened. “I understand I haven’t been fully open with you-”

I held up my hand. “I know a lot. Anything I don’t know, I can guess. We don’t have to talk about it. Saying it was an injury was probably the best way you could frame it.”

Mr. Scott looked at me for a moment, and folded his arms, nodding sadly. “Well, I suppose she tells you everything, doesn’t she?” he asked rhetorically.

“Damn near,” I confirmed, nodding back. We both paused. “Suppose she magically gets better-”

“I’m sorry, no,” Mr. Scott replied. “It’s not up to me at this point. I’m not even going to talk about the possibility, because the possibility doesn’t exist.”

I shook my head and began to emit a low chuckle. “I really don’t know if I’m cut out to take this position right now, Mr. Scott,” I admitted. “I’ll do my best, but...”

“I can’t imagine Nicole would want the Council to break apart in her absence, Adam,” he told me warmly. “And I can’t imagine she chose anyone to be her VP but the person she thought to be the most capable in exactly this kind of situation.” He put a hand on my shoulder encouragingly. “I believe in you, and so does she.”

“The Council doesn’t,” I joked.

“People in high school think age means everything,” Mr. Scott replied. “And to an extent it is important, but the older you get, the more you realize how much more valuable experience is than age. We’ve had our ups and downs, Adam, but I wouldn’t tell anyone they could do it unless I believed in them. And here we are.” He removed his hand from my shoulder, smiling at me. “Do you have any questions for me?”

“No, I think I know the jist of it. Nicole’s been calling me too, I’m set.” I folded my arms too, mirroring him. He looked at me meaningfully and I repeated, “I’m set.”

“Okay,” he conceded, unfolding his arms. “But if you need anything, and I mean anything, feel free to just knock on my door. If I’m not in a meeting or anything, I’ll be glad to help. I understand that this is all very sudden.” He started walking towards the door, then stopped, turning practically in place. “And how are things with you, are you handling this alright?”

“Uh, no,” I said factually. Coldly, detachedly. “No, not at all. But, like, who’s shocked about that?”

“Have you set anything up with the school counselor?” he asked.

“Meeting her next week,” I replied, nodding.

“Okay, good,” he replied. “I understand times are tough, but this is the beginning of them getting better.”

“I sure hope so, Mr. Scott,” I replied with a clearly unsure tone.

“I know so,” he replied, clearly more sure, or at least wanting to sound more sure. “Also, here, this is for you.” He walked back towards me and took something out of his pocket.

The key. The fucking key. The irony was not lost on me. I closed my eyes and kept them closed for a bit, trying not to tear up in this stupid little moment. “You okay?” he asked me, breaking me out of my trance.

“I’m fine, it’s just ... a lot,” I admitted, taking the key from him. He gave me a sad smile and patted my arm supportively, then turned around and left. I watched him leave, then found a chair and just ... sat down. This was all way too much, and like hell was I going to pretend I was processing any of this okay. Nicole was this school. There were no two ways about it. What’s more, she was not okay, and her own Council was snitching on her and having meetings about how okay they thought she was, with not a damn drop of actual care or empathy being shown from any one of them.

I didn’t notice Megan walk in, but she had the good grace to knock softly on the door to get my attention. When I heard the knock, I whipped my head around to see her, standing in the doorway.

“Oh, hey,” I said as casually as I could. “How’s it going?”

“It’s...” Megan managed, then shrugged. “Y’know. More importantly, how are you doing?”

I scratched the back of my head. “I think it’s safe to say we’re all hurting a little right now,” I told her. “I’m going to visit her soon. Whether she likes it or not.” I chuckled at the last part, but Megan didn’t share the humor.

“I can’t believe the last thing I said to her during her time as President was a cuss,” she said bitterly. “A darn cuss, Adam. What’s happening to me?”

“You were upset, a lot of shit was happening,” I defended her. “The rest of us cuss so much more than you. Everyone does.”

“Yeah, but everyone isn’t me, I am,” she rebutted, sitting down next to me. “I don’t cuss, and one of the few times I do, it was just to lash out at her, for no reason. No darn reason. And I know it affected her. It cut her, deep.” She was talking faster and faster, with less and less breath.

I started stroking her back delicately. “And I can only guess it’s eating away at you too,” I inferred.

She nodded. “The very first thing I’m going to say when I see her is ‘I’m sorry.’ I need to say it to her as soon as possible. I need to.”

I paused and thought to myself. “Y’know, I could tell her myself, when I see her...”

She shook her head. “I need to say it myself. I was so ... argh, I was so not me. It’s only right that I am the one to apologize, not you on my behalf.” She paused. “But we know Nicole. She won’t be snide about it. She’ll accept it with grace. As soon as I tell her I’m sorry, I know that’ll be a huge load off my back. But ... this isn’t about me, is it?”

I continued stroking her back. “It’s okay if a part of it is. You’re hurting too, and it’s okay to acknowledge that.”

“Nicole’s a good person,” she replied, almost ignoring me. “She was only trying to help. Yeah, she can be condescending, but it’s always because she wants to help, just by ... by her rules. And then I go and open my mouth. I told her ... what I said. Remember when I said a new Megan is coming? I don’t like her, Adam.”

“Hey, hey,” I coaxed her, shuffling my seat to get closer to her. “This was you at your worst. No one, especially not Nicole, is going to judge you when you’re at your worst. She knows what it’s like to say things you regret, believe me. She doesn’t dislike you, I promise. Megan, I promise.”

She sniffled. “I think I know that,” she admitted, then looked away. “But still, this is going to eat away at me until I tell her, myself, that I’m sorry.”

“Then when that happens, you will, and that’ll all be better,” I replied supportively, then paused. “I take it ... no word from Carson?”

She looked at me sadly in response, then collapsed her head on the table. I sighed. “And ... if I can bring up Zelda...”

“We’re not talking about that,” Megan mumbled. “Ever again. Please, if you have any respect for me, don’t even mention her name. Can you do that?”

“I ... can...” I replied clumsily. “Megan, she’s hurting right now too. She’s my friend as well, and she’s making a lot of assumptions, and maybe if your other two situations are causing you to hurt, communicating with her-”

“No. Please stop asking,” she emphatically replied.

I looked at her back for a bit, and nodded, stroking her back. We sat like that, not speaking for the next five minutes.

The day Nicole was back home was the first day of the year that I could go outside without wearing a sweatshirt. I liked to believe it was a sign. If I was overly religious, it would have given me hope, like God was telling me that now was a time of growing and healing, and that Nicole was going to be okay.

When I knocked on the Bakers’ door, a pit formed in my stomach nonetheless. Ever since that conversation she shared with Mr. Scott, I’d only gotten to talk to her over the phone. She’d spent two weeks in some sort of institution, and if her calls were any indication, all of her communication with the outside world was monitored. This was going to be the first time I’d get to ask her how she was doing and expect a real answer. And, for whatever reason, that made me nervous.

Instead of Nicole, her mother answered the door. Immediately, I gave her a sad smile. “Hello, Mrs. Baker.”

“Hello, Adam,” she greeted me flatly. “You really are persistent, you know that?”

“Your daughter taught me well,” I quipped, not losing my sad smile.

She gave me a small chuckle without opening her mouth. “You want to see her, huh?”

“If I can,” I replied politely.

“I’ll need to ask her first. She’s ... a little shaky today,” she replied. “But if she says yes, I have no problem with it.”

I knew that Nicole’s mother not giving me permission wasn’t going to stop me from seeing her, and yet, I couldn’t help but feel a small pang of gratitude. “Thank you, I appreciate that.”

“Just make sure you use your common sense today,” she warned me, before closing the door. I waited outside, trying not to let my thoughts get the better of me. I didn’t want to even imagine Nicole saying no, because any angle of that probably would have meant disaster. Apart from ... well, apart from Nicole’s more extreme moments recently, I hadn’t had any panic attacks so far this year, and I wanted to keep it that way.

Against my wishes, a thought wiggled into the free space in my mind. Apart from Nicole, nothing has given me a panic attack this year. I’d gotten my attacks pretty under control, but ... I wouldn’t be lying if I said that every single panic attack I could remember from this year had been because of Nicole one way or another. Of course, I would never not stand by her side, but ... there was a pattern there. Nicole would be extreme, there would be fallout, I’d have a panic attack. Those were always the events leading up to my panic attacks.

Was it ... a two-way street? Was ... was what I did ... were my actions ... causing this? Would Nicole have been fine without me? Was I ... was I the reason she...

The door opened, almost causing me to yelp. Mrs. Baker’s face emerged from the doorway. “She’s okay to see you,” she told me seriously. “But she’s very much on edge. Don’t be too much, and don’t tell her anything that could startle her. Do you understand me?”

My mouth was dry. I coughed into my hand, and nodded. “Yes, I do,” I told her. I followed her into the house, took off my shoes, and walked past the kitchen, not even bothering to make eye contact with Mr. Baker as I did. Alone, I walked up the stairs, and approached Nicole’s door. I took in a deep breath, and knocked on the door.

“It’s open,” Nicole’s voice flatly said from the other side. I opened the door to see Nicole, standing in front of her open window, looking outside wistfully. “So sets the sun on yet another empire,” she remarked as if she were a million miles away. “Charles the First, Louis the Sixteenth, Marie Antoinette...” She turned slowly to face me. “ ... Queen Nicole.” She looked at me for a few seconds, with me saying nothing, before a shy smile slowly broke out on her face. “Hi, squirt. How ya been?”

“Worried,” I replied seriously. We didn’t say anything to each other for a bit, so I decided to inject some humor. “Richard Nixon?” I added, trying to playfully add to her list.

“Ew,” she replied, scrunching up her face in disgust, even with her smile now becoming genuine. “First of all, never compare my reign to Nixon’s. Secondly, last time I checked, the dude was never executed.”

“Oh, okay,” I laughed, even though her list now seemed more macabre.

“So, Charles the First was the only monarch that the English ever executed for treason,” Nicole began, sitting down on her bed. “At the beginning of his reign, he-” She stopped herself when she saw me raise my hand. She chuckled in confusion. “This isn’t class, dummy. You can talk.”

“I’d ... rather talk about you and how you’ve been than Charles the fucking First,” I told her seriously. “I’m sure he won’t mind me saying that.”

She laughed quietly. “Yeah, I suppose,” she admitted, clearly in reference to my last sentence. She looked out the window again. “There’s not much to say,” she added, still looking out the window. “Once again, hospitals fucking suck. Quel supris.”

“Are you feeling any better though?” I asked, trying to hide my desperate tone.

Still looking out the window, she blew a raspberry. “Fuck no,” she spat. “I’m only out this early because I put on a good front. I don’t even know if I’ll graduate this year, at this point. I went from ‘super genius’ to ‘having to take thirteenth grade.’ How fucking embarrassing.” She turned back to look at me. “And plus, I got ripped away from my damn family in the process.” She glanced down at the floor, down to where the kitchen would be. “My actual family.”

“Yeah,” I murmured, not knowing what to say.

“But hey, in typical me fashion, I made history,” she added. “Not only am I the first president to ‘resign’ instead of be ousted, thanks to Scott’s agreement with me, I also managed to install the first ever tenth grader Student Council President in history.” She ruffled my hair, smiling at me. “And I know you’re doing great. I’m proud of ya, hotshot.” She looked straight ahead at the wall, still smiling. “Fuck. I resigned. I am Nixon.”

I didn’t share her smile. If anything, my eyes welled up. “I don’t want to be the President,” I told her. “I want things to be like how they were.”

Her smile faded. “Okay, not to be selfish Adam, but that is not helping me right now.”

I cleared my throat and nodded. I was hurting, but time and place. “You’re right, I’m sorry,” I immediately replied, then forced a smile. “Yeah, you made history.”

Her face soured further. “Jesus, can you make it any more obvious that you don’t mean anything you say?” she asked angrily.

“I’m not happy right now, I’m scared. I don’t know what you want from me,” I told her seriously.

She rolled her eyes and turned around, looking out the window again. I thought she was going to say something, anything, but she didn’t. He just hunched in her legs and continued to stare out the window, for around a minute.

“May I stroke your back?” I asked her.

“Yeah, go ahead,” she told me flatly.

I started supportively rubbing her back, but she didn’t react in any way. In some ways, it was kind of like the moments before our breakup – cold, detached, and like it was nothing. Eventually, I felt like opening up my mouth again. “Have you talked to Sydney or Rick at all?”

I thought I was playing with fire by asking her that. Against all odds, that was the thing that gave her her energy back. She whipped her head around to look at me again, and against all odds, she was smiling. “Yeah, could you believe that shit?” she asked. “What a fuckin’ twist that was. Fuck no I haven’t talked to them. Maybe after graduation they can come to me and ask what the fuck was up with that.”

I paused, still stroking her back. “Why after graduation?” I asked. “You have your phone back, right? Can’t they just text-”

“Blocked ‘em. Blocked ‘em both,” she replied simply. “They wanna say something, they gotta say it to my face. This face.” She pointed to her face. “Cute face, right?”

I finally gave her a genuine smile. “The cutest,” I told her.

“Damn right,” she replied, smiling. “On some level I get it, but ... hoo boy, they messed up bad. Besides, if someone screws up, texting ain’t enough. They should feel like telling me to my face. You made the trip out here, even if it’s just two houses away for you. If they’re actually sorry, they’ll do the same.”

I felt a little secondhand ray of sunshine for Megan, knowing her decision to tell Nicole herself and in person was the right decision to make. “I’m sure from their perspectives they did the right thing,” I found myself saying, even if I didn’t believe it. “They wanted to help you.”

Against my expectations, Nicole nodded. “Objectively – or at least, as close as you can get to being ‘objective’ in this situation – they did the right thing,” she agreed. “I’m not stupid. I said the biggest red-flag things to them and now I’m paying the price. I get it. But ... you know, the school system isn’t exactly caught up on the whole mental health thing. I’d heard horror stories about it. A friend of mine was in the school play last year. Complications happen. He gets sad. He realizes he has depression, he goes to the school and says it. Wanna know the first thing they did?”

“What?” I asked nervously.

She leaned in. “They yoinked him out of the school play. Didn’t allow him to even come back for one rehearsal to say goodbye.” She leaned back and gave a patient smile. “They don’t care about students. They never did. They care about getting the students through the school system with as few complications and liabilities as possible. And a leading man that might kill himself ... well, that’s a liability. Yoink. No more school play for you.”

“That’s awful,” I mumbled. “But surely the play ... like, what if that was the thing stopping him from killing himself?”

She gestured to me with her hand. “Exactly,” she told me. “Again, I’m not stupid. I’m not saying that if someone is showing they’re serious, you shouldn’t go to the authorities. It shows you care. Just ... you gotta know the authority actually cares about you first.” She paused, and looked out the window yet again, this time laughing with her tongue between her teeth cheekily. “I don’t blame you, ya know.”

“Huh?” I was caught off guard. “For what?”

“For letting the shrink know last year,” she said calmly, then turned back, smiling at me. “Oh, come on, dude. When have I not been psychic with you?”

I was shocked, but she was right, she was Nicole. When did she not know? I smiled sheepishly. “I thought it was the one time I fooled you,” I admitted with a smile. “Wait, not fooled, but-”

“Don’t worry, I get ya,” she told me calmly. “And lemme guess, you didn’t go directly to the counselor, you went to ol’ Sally, right?”

“Salvador? Yeah,” I admitted. “How’d you guess?”

“Well, number one, I knew you were meeting with him a lot last year. Two, he treated me a lot differently in drama class this year. He was ... he’ll never admit it, but he was a little more understanding.”

I couldn’t help but smile to myself. So, telling Salvador did help matters after all. His words from a few weeks ago still stuck with me, and I needed to pick and choose my battles better, but ... he wasn’t always right. I did the right thing by telling him that day.

“Three, use the little gray cells, Poirot. The counselor knew, but...”

I didn’t know what she was getting at. With a confused expression, I just shrugged.

“But Scott didn’t,” she finished the thought.

“Oh wow,” I mumbled. “I didn’t even think about that.”

“Salvador has his bad moments, but he’s pretty tasteful,” she admitted. “I think he knows the system is flawed. Et voila, he actually wanted to help, so he activated the good parts without involving the bad.”

“So the counselor helped you?” I asked, hope surging from within me.

She shrugged. “I’ll admit it, yeah, a bit,” she replied hesitantly. “But like, not much. I mean, shit, where the fuck have I been these last few weeks?”

“In prison thanks to two rats,” I said grumpily.

“Yeah, well,” Nicole replied uneasily, trailing off. “They had good intentions, and that’s nice. Didn’t do me a whole lot of good, but hey, that’s kind of a running theme of my fuckin’ life. Speaking of, how’s Prezzy life?”

“Busy,” I admitted. “How the fuck did you manage it?”

“By being the best? Obvi,” she scoffed, and the two of us shared a laugh. “So, what now? We gonna keep talking about my feelings all night? Because that’s getting old.”

I glanced around her room, finally landing on her TV. “GTA?” I offered.

“Finally, you fuckin’ say it. Right answer. Ding ding ding. Let’s play some fuckin’ GTA,” Nicole replied triumphantly, getting off the bed, ruffling my hair again as she did. I watched her set up the console with a smile on my face.

I was really expecting Zelda to eventually stop showing up at lunch after her big breakup with Megan, especially since Megan really seemed adamant about never talking about Zelda that way again. Instead, life threw an equal curveball – Megan stopped showing up.

It didn’t change too much in terms of dynamics at the table. Zelda had, against my expectations, become one of my closest friends this year, and thanks to my recommendations, she started talking to Athena more. Of Zelda and Megan, Zelda was the one that seemed to get along more with her anyway, and it was kind of nice to see any two people at my lunch table actually getting along. Of course, the lunch table was looking really small these days.

I sighed, looking at the normally occupied empty chairs. Jason ... Sabrina ... Carson, for God’s sake ... now Megan. The first time she didn’t show up, I texted her, then the second, but only around the third time she actually answered, telling me she was fine but to stop asking. She and I had plans to hang out this weekend, so everything would be fine, but I missed her energy at the lunch table.

“You okay?” Athena asked gently. Zelda looked from her to me as whatever conversation they had clearly shifted. “Any way I can help?”

I smiled at Athena. “You’re sweet,” I told her. “I’m just ... I mean...” I gestured to the empty chairs, one by one. “Shit seemed so much simpler in September.”

Athena nodded sympathetically, but Zelda cocked her head in thought. “Well, your relationship was clearly bad for you,” she told Athena, then turned back to me. “And clearly Carson has some shit to work out. And if he and Sabrina are sweethearts, she’s going to go with him, of course. It seems to be the best thing right now.”

“Yeah, but it was nice to have Carson and Sabrina around when we all, you know, liked each other. I’m not saying they need to stay forever, but I just miss when he treated me like a ... human being.” I turned to Athena. “And there must have been good times with Jason, right? I think it’s normal to miss the past.”

Athena giggled. “Adam, you’re the one who was telling me to break up with him,” she reminded me. “You were so sir of it. And you’re right, I think I’m happier now.”

Zelda turned to her. “‘Sure’ of it,” she corrected her.

Athena smirked at her. “I failed a grade, leave me alone.”

Zelda smirked back. “English isn’t even my second language, what’s your excuse?”

Wow, I was glad I pushed Zelda to talk to her more. Their personalities seemed to get along well. “Either way,” I began, “it was nice when we were all just getting along.”

“In September, right?” Zelda asked. I nodded. Smiling teasingly, she added, “Before I had even joined the lunch table?”