Joe Birmingham hated—hated—the new woman that worked in the school office. He was tired and didn't feel like looking at her as she returned to her desk after being away for about an hour. That was the problem—when he was in the office (which was about always) he couldn't escape her scrutiny; she was always there, too. He wished she would just die. Then she'd be far, far away from him and everything else.

In truth, Joe was not unkind. He did not hate women or people or anything else . . . except for that particular woman, and he hated her because he knew she disliked him. It was something in her lack of concern, the way she avoided eye contact with him, pretending to ignore him as if he was subhuman—she was just sitting there the whole time, oozing disdain, thinking she was better than everyone else, considering him disgusting. She was very different from someone like, say, the woman that had been at his house so many mornings ago, when he'd helped that drugged-up guy. She had been kind, he could tell. Not all self-righteous or anything. She'd come to help the guy Simon had brought him, because Simon had known (as it seemed everyone else did) that when it came to firsthand experience with an overdose, he was the person to go to. That was why the office kept him out of class. Joe had been suspended so many times that as a last resort, they'd decided to keep them where they could watch him: locked in an everlasting independent study. Joe was not a serious drug abuser; he was smarter than that. He did, however, always seem to get himself involved in trades and sales and rumors that circled the school like vultures, never quite landing with certainty on him. Insinuations . . . those were really what everyone accused him with. It wasn't always his fault if something drug-related happened, but they had come to assume that it was.

His permanent office classroom had been nearly unbearable at first, but that was only because of the boredom (he refused to do work of any kind; school meant little to him). Once he'd begun paying attention to what went on around him, though, life had gotten a little better. Joe had become attuned to the workings of the office—who came and went and at what times, how certain calls or problem students were dealt with, and all sorts of gossip about teachers that nobody noticed he'd been listening to. No doubt the office staff was under the false impression that his brain had been fried, but Joe let them keep their delusions. It would be pointless to attempt to disabuse them of their beliefs, and it would probably cause them to guard their words more carefully, thereby causing his boredom to return. He knew as well as they that all of them were just waiting with bated breath for the day he could drop out and get lost, another blemish on the school's graduation record disappearing through the cracks of the system.

The office had been quite intriguing lately, perhaps because the end of the year was approaching. There had been lots of good gossip about seniors and graduation stuff, who was scrambling to graduate and who would be repeating next year. He had been enormously entertained when a parent showed up and proceeded to lambaste the principle in front of everyone; it had been all the man could do to convince the woman to step into his private office for a more settled conference. The only black spot on the intrigue of the last few days was that awful woman, who never seemed to revel in the gossip or chaos that he was sure she was nevertheless recording and judging discreetly in her brain.

A woman came into the office as he was thinking, just then, and it took Joe a moment to realize that it was the same person that had crossed his mind only moments earlier: the woman with the short, dark hair that had picked up her boyfriend from his house a few weeks back. She didn't see him; she went straight to the front desk without looking to her left or right. Seeing her made him feel suddenly embarrassed, but he couldn't quite explain why. He didn't care what she or anyone else thought about him, and yet he must have cared to some degree. At his house, he'd been an authority figure of sorts; he always was. His mother was never around, and he was left to deal with all sorts of junkies and family friends and whoever wandered in off the streets. He knew more about street life than he knew about math or writing, but that made him all the more important where he was from. Here, at school, stuck in the office, he was like a pathetic trapped rat; he was entirely controlled by the very same adults whose siblings and friends and children were brought to his door for unsolicited advice. They were in charge, here, as much as he hated to admit it. The contrast between his two worlds felt all the more severe with this woman's arrival. His pride stung.

The woman waited patiently for a secretary to approach her and, when one at last did, she retrieved something from her purse which Joe did not get a good look at and spoke too quietly for him to know what she was saying. The secretary said something, the woman looked flustered, and the secretary made a phone call.

Suddenly, while the secretary was on the phone, the woman turned as if agitated and spotted him. At first, her gaze moved over Joe distractedly, but then it returned and settled on his face. The short moment in which she recognized him was strange and seemed eternal, though it lasted under a second. In that short time, Joe found her expression startled, but there was something else in it at the same time—a sort of appreciation . . . was she happy to see him? This possibility caused him to feel even more awkward, and he turned away.

"Nice to see you again," the woman said to him.

He looked back at her wide-eyed but couldn't think of what to say. This was embarrassing.

"Oh," said the secretary—a short, unattractive woman with too much eye-shadow and a face that looked like a ball of dough—as she hung up the phone. "So you know our Joe, do you?"

He hated the superciliousness in her voice. He wanted to light her hair on fire. He wondered at himself; harming the secretary had never crossed his mind before; she'd been worthless to him. Why now?

The woman—what was her name? Had she ever told him? If so, had he just forgotten it?—smiled a little nervously, like she wasn't sure she should even be talking to him or showing people that she knew who he was. It was clear she didn't know what to say when she merely responded, "Oh, well . . . I know a lot of people."

With a somewhat disappointed look on her face, the secretary began shuffling some papers, saying as she stared at something minutely concerning her, "He'll be down in just a minute ma'am. I apologize, but I just don't have a runner to go get him."

Joe stared at the woman. Should he say something? He didn't think he should. God only knew what the school officials would think of him if they knew he'd been involved with someone who'd overdosed, if they knew he knew how to deal with such an overdose! That guy would have been in the hospital—maybe even dead—had Simon not brought him over. That was obvious. Joe's environment had taught him to deal with such emergencies (his father was in prison for drug dealing, and his step-dad and mom and pretty much all of his relatives had been and still were users), but nobody needed to know that. He hoped she wouldn't say anything about it. Only an idiot would. In fact, the woman probably felt stupid even seeing him; he probably reminded her of that night. She hadn't seemed too pleased with the ordeal; no doubt remembrance of it bothered her more than it did him.

She looked about to say something else, was obviously feeling strange and uncertain as to how to react in the situation, but before she could do anything, Joe's friend Simon strode into the office like a giant stick figure. From his seated position, Joe felt about six feet shorter than his tall friend. Simon practically stopped mid-stride when he spotted the woman there. Joe noticed it right away—as perceptive as he'd become from his keen observations in the office—and watched with interest; something was obviously perplexing here.

"Hi—I . . ." began the woman, clearly feeling out of place and inept. "I didn't really mean to make you come down here."

Simon's blithe visage stirred Joe's suspicions. "It's all right," Simon replied quietly, almost inaudibly. "Did you bring tea?"

The woman softly laughed. Had that been a joke, Joe wondered? "No tea," she said. "But I did bring your wallet." She held out the folded black billfold. "I found it at the restaurant. I'm sure you would've come back, but I was in the, the area, you know . . . and I just decided to drop it off. You probably need it."

"Simon, you know her?" Joe interrupted, suddenly.

The two turned to look at him; their countenances implied that he'd broken some secret meeting they'd been sharing, or something.

Simon stared at Joe, confused. "Yes, sort of. I . . . do you know Eve, too?"

"No," the woman answered for him. She shook her head at Joe out of Simon's vision.

He understood. "No . . . I—I don't know her. Just curious." More than anyone, Joe perceived that people's secrets should be kept private.

Puzzled, Simon slowly turned to look at the woman again and forgot Joe's comment. "Thank you," he said, indicating the wallet. "I didn't know where I'd left it."

"Don't worry about it," the woman said. She made to walk around him and head out. At the door, she paused, turned, and added, "Now that you've got your money back, I hope you'll come spend it at Toast again soon."

"I'm sure I will," Simon assured her.

Then she left.

Joe had watched this whole scene with curiosity. He looked at the way Simon stood contemplating the doorframe long after the woman had left through it. As short as it had all been, he knew what was going on, here. "Simon," he said, calling his friend's brain down from the clouds.

"Yeah? Oh, hi Joe. I'm sorry I didn't say hello when I first came in. I didn't notice you."

"I can tell. Don't mention it."

Simon furrowed his brow, straightened his glasses, pushed some longish hair out of his eyes. "I'll see you around. I'd better get back to class."

"Sure, class," Joe replied. His tone held more than simple conversational emphasis. "Maybe I'll be seeing you this weekend."

"I'd like that." Simon smiled. "See you later, Joe."

"Bye."

Joe watched his friend leave the office. Simon Hobbs was friends with everyone, Joe knew, and he honestly really liked the guy. He was just someone no one could dislike. Everything about Simon conveyed sincerity. The guy had no ulterior motives—ever! In fact, he probably didn't even know what those were. Joe had known Simon for several years. They didn't do too much together, just hung out now and then. Sat around and talked (Joe usually smoked; Simon never did). Usually they'd hang out on someone's stoop or outside a convenience shop. Simon wasn't the sort to get into trouble, though, and out of respect Joe tried his best to avoid getting the guy into any of it. He'd been in total shock, actually, when Simon had brought that guy to his house in the early, early morning hours. That guy who'd been that woman's boyfriend. That woman Simon was obviously infatuated with.

One saw the most interesting things in the office. Joe quite enjoyed his independent study.