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ELARA

The bottom box in my arms slips just as I shoulder my way through the glass doors of St. Augustine’s Academy.

I catch it against my hip before twelve miniature cheesecakes achieve freedom across the marble floor.

“Jesus,” I mutter.

A woman behind the reception desk looks up.

Not because I almost destroyed several hundred dollars’ worth of dessert, apparently, but because I’ve used the Lord’s name in vain inside a school that has a twelve-foot stone cross mounted above the entrance.

I straighten the boxes. “Sorry,” I say.

Her mouth tightens.

I decide not to clarify what exactly I’m apologizing for.

The administrative building smells faintly of lemon cleaner, expensive flowers, and money. Old money, specifically. The kind that builds schools out of carved limestone and then charges enough tuition to require financing.

Sunlight pours through tall arched windows and falls across marble columns, dark wooden benches, and a reception area containing more fresh flowers than my neighborhood grocery store.

I look down at myself.

Black jeans.

White sneakers that stopped being white sometime last winter.

A blue delivery jacket with the company logo peeling away from the breast pocket.

Fantastic.

I blend right in.

The woman behind the desk rises and walks toward me.“You’re late,” she says.

No hello.

No thank you for physically transporting delicate pastries across half the city.

Straight to disappointment.

This is probably why children at expensive private schools develop anxiety before puberty.

“The service entrance is blocked by a landscaping truck,” I say.

She looks at the boxes. “The reception begins in fifteen minutes,” she says.

I shift the weight against my chest. “I’ll speak to the Department of Transportation personally.”

She looks at me.

I look back.

I can tell immediately that sarcasm has not been featured much in her upbringing.

“This way,” she says.