Which is why the night before the first day of school Lucy was holed up in her office. I brought her a plate of leftover fried rice and tofu lumps. Inside, the room that was going to be her office was a traffic jam of boxes. Surrounded by stacks of paper, Lucy had three elastics in her hair—I think because she kept forgetting she’d put her hair up already. When she’s not working, Lucy wears school sweatshirts from the schools that she’s taught in. She has a lot of sweatshirts with badly drawn school mascots on them. The one she was wearing that night was supposed to be a hawk, but it looked like an angry owl. I think it was from a school in Ohio.

“Oh,” Lucy said. She glanced up from a pile, looking a little owly herself. “Hey! How was your show?”

Lucy calls them s hows.

“My performance. . .was fine,” I said, moving a stack of papers to put the plate on.

“OH!” Lucy lurched forward, reaching for the papers I was holding. “Those are— Sorry, sweetie. I need those. Give them here. Thanks.”

I handed her the stack. “Sorry.”

“Just trying to get everything together.” Lucy surveyed the many other stacks that I imagined also couldn’t be moved. “So much paperwork! I just—” She shoved a few piles over and pointed at a pile of books. “Just put the plate here is fine, sweetie. Thank you.”

I rested the plate of reheated food I was pretty sure she was going to forget to eat on a folder of educational standards she probably was going to read, and leaned against the doorway. “So, are you ready? Do you have your outfit? For school?”

“Oh.” Lucy pulled a hair elastic off her wrist. “Oh yes, that’s right. Ha-ha. Clothes. Yes I’ll find something. Do you? Have your outfit?”

“Obviously,” I said. “I have a few options. I’ll review them tonight. Consider all the angles. Debate possible body modifications. Piercings. You know? To pull the whole thing together.”

“Good good.” Lucy’s eyes darted back to her laptop, which was pinging like an alarm clock. “That’s great.”

She wasn’t listening, of course. Lucy is very anti-piercing for reasons I don’t completely understand.

“You’ll be great.” I sighed. “Tomorrow, I mean. And this year, you’ll be great at this.”

Like I said, Lucy is the person who has given me pretty much everything that means anything in my life, including disco (also her fave) and roller skating. I once asked Lucy to show me how to sew, and she learned so she could teach me. I wasn’t going to give her something else to worry about. Like the fact that my first meet-and-greet with Greenville had gone. . .poorly. I mentally slipped it under the tall stack of things we could talk about later.

“ ’Night!”

“ ’Night, Anne! Oh! Can you take Monty for her walk?”