“I thought you could get here in ten minutes.”
“I could. But there were usually only five until the bell.”
As we reached the front entrance and he pulled the glass door open for me, I was aware not of the stale mix of mildew and disinfectant Jackson was famous for but a clean, fresh-paint smell. It was actually very similar to Cora’s house, which was a little unsettling.
“Mr. Hunter!” A man in a suit was standing just inside. As soon as he saw us, he strode right over, extending his hand. “The prodigal student returns home. How’s life in the big leagues?”
“Big,” Jamie said, smiling. They shook hands. “Mr. Thackray, this is my sister-in-law, Ruby Cooper. Ruby, this is Principal Thackray.”
“Nice to meet you,” Mr. Thackray said. His hand was large and cool, totally enveloping mine. “Welcome to Perkins Day.”
I nodded, noting that my mouth had gone bone-dry. My experience with principals—and teachers and landlords and policemen—being as it was, this wasn’t surprising. Even without a transgression, that same fight-or-flight instinct set in.
“Let’s go ahead and get you settled in, shall we?” Mr. Thackray said, leading the way down the hallway and around the corner to a large office. Inside, he took a seat behind a big wooden desk, while Jamie and I sat in the two chairs opposite. Through the window behind him, I could see a huge expanse of soccer fields lined with bleachers. There was a guy on a riding mower driving slowly down one side, his breath visible in the cold air.
Mr. Thackray turned around, looking out the window, as well. “Looks good, doesn’t it? All we’re missing is a plaque honoring our generous benefactor.”
“No need for that,” Jamie said, running a hand through his hair. He sat back, crossing one leg over the other. In his sneakers, jeans, and zip-up hoodie, he didn’t look ten years out of high school. Two or three, sure. But not ten.
“Can you believe this guy?” Mr. Thackray said to me, shaking his head. “Donates an entirely new soccer complex and won’t even let us give him credit.”
I looked at Jamie. “You did that?”
“It’s not that big a deal,” he said, looking embarrassed.
“Yes, it is,” Mr. Thackray said. “Which is why I wish you’d reconsider and let us make your involvement public. Plus, it’s a great story. Our students waste more time on UMe.com than any other site, and its owner donates some of the proceeds from that procrastination back into education. It’s priceless!”
“Soccer,” Jamie said, “isn’t exactly education.”
“Sports are crucial to student development,” Mr. Thackray said. “It counts.”
I turned my head, looking at my brother-in-law, suddenly remembering all those pings in his UMe inbox. You could say that, he’d said, when I’d asked if he had a page. Clearly, this was an understatement.
“. . . grab a few forms, and we’ll get a schedule set up for you,” Mr. Thackray was saying. “Sound good?”
I realized, a beat too late, he’d been talking to me. “Yeah,” I said. Then I swallowed. “I mean, yes.”
He nodded, pushing back his chair and getting to his feet. As he left the room, Jamie sat back, examining the tread of one sneaker. Outside, the guy on the mower had finished one side of the field and was now moving slowly up the other.
“Do you . . . ?” I said to Jamie. He glanced up at me. "You own UMe?”
He let his foot drop. “Well . . . not exactly. It’s me and a few other guys.”
“But he said you were the owner,” I pointed out.
Jamie sighed. “I started it up originally,” he said. “When I was just out of college. But now I’m in more of an overseeing position.”
I just looked at him.
“CEO,” he admitted. “Which is really just a big word, or a really small acronym, actually, for overseer.”
“I can’t believe Cora didn’t tell me,” I said.
“Ah, you know Cora.” He smiled. “Unless you work eighty hours a week saving the world like she does, she’s tough to impress.”
I looked out at the guy on the mower again, watching as he puttered past. “Cora saves the world?”
“She tries to,” he said. “Hasn’t she told you about her work? Down at the public defender’s office?”
I shook my head. In fact, I hadn’t even known Cora had gone to law school until the day before, when the social worker at Poplar House had asked her what she did for a living. The last I knew, she’d been about to graduate from college, and that was five years ago. And we only knew that because, somehow, an announcement of the ceremony had made its way to us. It was on thick paper, a card with her name on it tucked inside. I remembered studying the envelope, wondering why it had turned up after all this time with no contact. When I’d asked my mom, she’d just shrugged, saying the school sent them out automatically. Which made sense, since by then, Cora had made it clear she wanted no part of us in her new life, and we’d been more than happy to oblige.
“Well,” Jamie said as a palpable awkwardness settled over us, and I wondered what exactly he knew about our family, if perhaps my very existence had come as a surprise. Talk about baggage. “I guess you two have a lot of catching up to do, huh?”
I looked down at my hands, not saying anything. A moment later, Mr. Thackray walked back in, a sheaf of papers in his hand, and started talking about transcripts and credit hours, and this exchange was quickly forgotten. Later, though, I wished I had spoken up, or at least tried to explain that once I knew Cora better than anyone. But that was a long time ago, back when she wasn’t trying to save the whole world. Only me.