Talk about the way to a librarian’s heart. “I agree.”

We flipped through the pages for a long time, with Clay narrating a tour through the book. It was clear he’d absorbed most of the information in it, and so all he needed was a picture to prompt conversation. He told me that the earth’s largest mountain range is underwater, that coral can produce its own sunscreen, that the Atlantic Ocean is wider than the moon, and that his favorite creature in the Gulf of Mexico was the vampire squid.

I shivered. “Is that a real thing?”

“It’s real. Its lower body looks like bat wings—and it can turn itself inside out and hide in them.” Then he added, “But it’s not really a squid. It’s a cephalopod. ‘Squid’ is a misnomer.’”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “did you just say ‘misnomer’?”

He blinked and looked at me. “It means ‘wrong name.’ From the Latin.”

I blinked back at him.

“Clay,” I asked. “Are you a pretty big reader?”

“Yep,” Clay said, turning his attention back toward the book.

“I don’t think I’ve ever met a third-grader who knew the word ‘misnomer,’ much less anything about its Latin origins.”

Clay shrugged. “I just really like words.”

“I’ll say.”

“Plus my dad does flash cards with me.”

“He does?”

“Yeah. My dad loves flash cards.”

Honestly, I’d never worked very hard to get to know Clay. He was in the library a ton—almost whenever he could be—but he knew his way around, and he didn’t need my help, and, well … he was reading. I didn’t want to bother him.

Plus, yes, also: I was afraid of his mother.

It’s true in a school that even the kids who need help don’t always get it—so a kid who doesn’t need help? He’s gonna be on his own.

At least, until now. Clay was going to need some love this year, and it would be right here waiting for him in the library, if he needed it.

I don’t know how long we’d been gone—an hour, maybe—when Alice came running into the library, breathless, her face worried. She had on a black skirt and a black blouse—one of the only times I’d seen her not in jeans—and she almost didn’t look like herself.

“Oh, my God,” she said, when she found us, bending over to breathe for a second before grabbing Clay by the shoulders and steering him out. “They’re looking for him everywhere! Tina Buckley is freaking out.”

Oh. Oops. Guess we’d lost track of time.

“Found him!” Alice shouted as we strode back into the courtyard, shaking Clay’s shoulders for proof. “Got him! He’s right here!”

Tina plowed through the crowd to seize him in her arms.

“I’m sorry,” I said, catching Babette’s eye as I arrived behind them. “We went to the library.”

Babette waved me off, but that’s when Tina stood up and glared at me. “Really?” she said, all bitter.

I lifted my shoulders. “We were just looking through Clay’s favorite book.”

“You couldn’t—I don’t know—mention that to anyone?”

“Everybody seemed pretty busy.”

“Clay’s father was watching him.”

Um. Sorry, lady. His father was not watching him. His father was taking business calls on his cell phone. At a funeral. “I’m sorry,” I said again.

“You bet you are.”

“I just wanted … to help.”

“Well, you can’t help. But here’s one thing you can do. You can leave my family alone.”

Leave them alone?

What did that even mean? I lived with Babette. Clay was about to be in my third-grade library class. “How would that even work, Tina? I live on your mother’s property.”

“Maybe you should find somewhere else to live.”

But whatever this weirdness was with Tina, it had gone on too long. “No,” I said.

She frowned. “No?”

“No. That’s ridiculous. I’m not doing that. I love my carriage house—”

“Garage apartment,” she corrected.

“And I’m not leaving. Why would you even want me to? Would you really rather your mom be all alone in that big house than have me nearby?”

We both looked over at Babette, who was back in her greeting line, now with her arm around Clay, who was watching us with his big eyes.

“She wouldn’t be all alone,” Tina said.

“Who would be with her?” I demanded. “You?”

Across the courtyard, Kent Buckley was back on another call.

I saw Tina’s eyes flick from Babette to Kent. I saw her take in what he was doing. I saw her nostrils flare—just the tiniest bit, enough to ripple across her composure for a second. I knew she was suppressing some rage. Her husband was talking on his cell phone during her father’s funeral reception. It wasn’t just inappropriate, it bordered on pathological.

In a different context, I could have felt very sorry for Tina Buckley.

But not today.

She’d married that dude, after all—and no matter if it was a mistake, she chose to stay with him. Yes, I should have been more compassionate. But what can I say? I was grieving, too—and she’d done nothing all day but make it worse.

When her eyes came back to mine, I jutted my chin in Kent Buckley’s direction, and then I said, “You think he’s going to let you look after your mom? He didn’t even let you out of the house when Max was alive.”

Too much.

Too soon.

Tina went rigid. I saw her angry eyes turn to ice. And if I’d thought her voice had ever sounded vicious before, I now realized I hadn’t known the meaning of the word. All that rage about her husband she was suppressing? She found a place to release it.

“Get out,” she said, like a snake. “Get out of here.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond.

She stepped closer and her voice was all hiss. “Get out—or I will absolutely fucking lose it right now.”

Now the ice in Tina’s eyes had turned to fire. Crazy fire. Did I doubt that she would lose it? Did I think she was bluffing?

I did not.

I looked over at Babette—lovely, wise Babette, who was using every micron of strength she had left to hold it together. In the past decade, I knew, she’d lost her parents, a son, and now her husband. Did I want Tina Buckley to make things worse? Did I want to reduce the funeral of Max Kempner—the final punctuation mark on his long and extraordinary life—to a single image of his daughter screaming like a banshee in the courtyard?

No. On all counts.

And so I left.

And that’s the story of how I got kicked out of the funeral of my beloved landlord, best-ever boss, and closest thing I’d had in years to a father.

two

Just over a week after the service, Kent Buckley called an all-faculty meeting to “detail our school-wide plan for moving forward.”

I guess I should mention that, in addition to being Tina’s husband, he was also the chairman of the board of directors at the school. Honestly, I’d almost forgotten, myself—until he called us all in for a meeting by announcing that he was going to name Max’s replacement.

Max’s replacement?

Um. That would be Babette.

When the king dies, power transfers to the queen, right?

I didn’t see why the meeting was necessary.

We gathered in the cafeteria at the appointed time. Babette, normally a front-row lady, took the very last seat in the back row, and sat slumped in a chair, her eyes looking dull, like it was all she could do just to be there.

Alice came up front and plopped into the seat I’d been saving for Babette. She was wearing a shirt that said, I’VE GOT 99 PROBLEMS. JEALOUS?

We waited for the meeting to start in an eerie, deflated, heartbroken silence.

Kent Buckley wound up striding in fifteen minutes late, still talking on that damned Bluetooth, and even though he said, “Gotta go—gotta go—I’m taking the stage,” and hung up as he turned to stand in front of us, he left the Bluetooth in place on his ear.

I swear: he left it there the whole time.

Then he began. “We’ve all had a shock. Max’s sudden passing was a tragedy. This community is grieving,” Kent Buckley said, sounding like he’d just looked all those words up in a thesaurus. He’d contorted his face into such a bad facsimile of sympathy, I couldn’t look at him.

He paused dramatically, so we could all feel moved.

“But,” he said then, “life has to go on.”

I looked around to meet eyes with Babette, but her eyes were trained on Kent Buckley.

“We have an opportunity here to make the most of this…”

I could see him mentally searching for a synonym for “tragedy.”

“Tragedy,” he finished.

Oh, well.

“But we’re going to need someone to take us into our next phase. We need someone to step into Max’s shoes and lead us forward. And I’m proud to report that I have found that person.”

Why all this buildup for Babette? Kent Buckley didn’t even like her.

“He’s been quite the rising star the past two years in Baltimore.”

Wait—what? He? Baltimore? I turned to look at Babette. She snapped her eyes to mine, face totally stoic, and gave me a tiny, barely there head shake, like Don’t freak out.