“Oh.” Millie looked around, catching some of the locals with ice creams who were clearly straining to hear our conversation. “So. How was the performance?”

“Mixed reviews.” I took the bag from her hand.

“Right.” Millie, who has also received her fair share of mixed reviews over the years, including a man who called her a pestilence on the photography community, nodded, waited for me to say more, and when I didn’t, started walking toward the car.

For the drive home, Millie mostly let me percolate, which is what she calls a thinking silence.

A productive silence.

I don’t know if it was all that productive. Mostly I was letting the rolling green slide by the window and thinking about what it would be like to have an audience appreciate your three-act disco opera.

“Some of the best reviews are mixed,” Millie said finally as we closed in on our street. “Like mixed nuts. Right?”

“If you like Brazil nuts.”

“Wait. You don’t like Brazil nuts? Have I raised you right?” Millie gave me an exaggerated look of horror.

“Brazil nuts are disgusting,” I said, “and yes, you did.”

Millie snuck a quick glance in my direction. “Do you know what you can do to make it better next time? Your performance?”

“No,” I said. “Maybe.”

“Well, work on that,” Millie said, spinning the wheel as we rounded the corner. “And don’t forget to wish Lucy good luck,” she added as we pulled into the driveway. “It’s her big day tomorrow.”

Millie calls Lucy the traveling educator, because Lucy has taught pretty much everything you can imagine a person teaching in pretty much everywhere a person could teach in the United States. A lot of us moving around has been my mom trying to get different experiences teaching in different places for different schools. She was a substitute teacher for years. Then she worked for this company that trains teachers in what my mom calls “community skills.” Then she taught English and geography in Petaluma, California. Then she applied to be a vice principal.

And now we’re here. Greenville, where Lucy will be the new vice principal at Greenville High.

In almost every movie where a character is a vice principal, that person is the least cool person in the movie. The vice principal is usually the person who hates their job and takes it out on others.

Lucy is the opposite of that, by the way. And yet, being a vice principal is Lucy’s dream job. Lucy really really likes teaching and teachers and school. She wants to be a vice principal so she can help people have a better time at their school. Like, if Lucy was in charge, and she sometimes is, all our vacations would be learning experiences.

So this whole Greenville thing was a really big deal.