She wondered about waiting like this. Did authority figures believe that making others wait aggrandized their influence? For her, it lessened it. If such a person was not readily available to cater to her high ideals she assumed that he or she was a derelict in a back office playing solitaire or a lascivious Neanderthal playing footsie with one of the office staff. "Mr. Quest? Aren't I supposed to see Mrs. Simmons?" asked Gabriele.
"No," said the secretary.
"Who is this Mr. Quest?"
"Mr. Quest is the vice principal," said the secretary.
"Of course," she told the secretary. "Who else better to handle vice" Now she knew for sure that being invited here as this less than honorary guest would involve disciplinary matters. Quest's guest: there would probably be the abrading of both the son and the caregiver. She wondered whether this was about her son at all. Perhaps it was an inquest probing into her personal life to which she alone would be excoriated. It was a rather enticing thought to be under the spotlight as the pillory of ignorant people. It would give her the chance to refute their ideas to make these authorities realize that they were the ones strumpeting themselves as loud as trumpets. It was she who did it softly in her own little massage parlor in a trailer and only when in need of money and for as brief a time as she could manage. How many wives and husbands (wives most saliently) became such all of their lives to better their own fortunes: this was the idea that she wanted to haunt the corridors of their minds. If it would not besmirch her son and had no bearing on him, she would air her dirty laundry. She would submit a slutty biographical profile that would leave them irrevocably in a state of shock and awe but this would not be the case. She knew that this misbehavior (misbehavior being defined as action that was not sensitive to the feelings of others) would be detrimental to her son and so she did not want to go into the school to be scrutinized by these creatures.
"No," she thought again, "even if they have found out what I do for a living they wouldn't have arranged a meeting to confront me directly about it. The matter would go through social services." She foolishly released some of her desultory thoughts to the secretary as she stared at the Jack and Jill magazine. "How strange," she said, "that someone should wind up with such a grandiose name, but I guess it wasn't his choice to be named Quest. Good god, the images in Jack and Jill are so violent. What with little children waiting all morning for the inevitable paddling and picking up magazines which have cartoons catered to Charles Manson it is a wonder that there aren't more school shootings. Wouldn't you say so, Mrs….I'm sorry, I didn't get your name."
The vice-principal opened the door. If it hadn't been for the obscurity of her eyes behind her glasses it would have seemed that he was penetrating her eyes with intimate familiarity.
"Mrs. Sangfroid?"
"Yes, something like that," she said.
"That's not right?"