She's Got a Way by Maggie McGinnis Page A

“Exactly.”
    â€œI know.” She nodded. “I actually hate my title.”
    â€œYou can’t change it?”
    â€œHave you met Priscilla Pritchard? Titles are power, and she likes to make sure all of her staff members know exactly where they sit in the pecking order … which is ten to twenty pecks below her.”
    â€œShe sounds like a peach.”
    â€œRotten peach, maybe.” Gabi pressed her lips together. “Sorry. Given the events of the past week, I have some rather strong feelings on the subject of Priscilla Pritchard.”
    â€œHard to blame you.” He shrugged. “Seems to me, unless Briarwood is pandering to an audience of parents that long for the Dark Ages, Priscilla should want to show she’s got academic deans and counselors and the like—all of which are titles that seem like they’d be a better match for what you’re doing.”
    â€œYou’d think.” Gabi looked back out at the lake. “But Priscilla’s first priority is Priscilla. She loves her own title, she loves the fact that super-rich families from all over the country kiss her proverbial boots in order to get their girls into Briarwood, and she loves that she gets to be the face of one of the best prep schools in America. What she doesn’t want is any of her staff members getting ideas about moving up any invisible ladders and taking her job.”
    â€œ Do you want her job?”
    Gabi paused, thoughts spinning through her head. “No. And yes. No, because omigod, I’d absolutely die having to deal with the parents she handles. But yes.” She nodded. “I’d love the chance to make Briarwood into a different kind of school.”
    â€œReally.” He turned toward her, full attention on her, and it was both unnerving and zingy. “What would you do to it?”
    Oh, that question was easy. “Set aside a huge chunk of endowment money to fund scholarships for kids like Sam and Eve.”
    â€œKids like…” He tipped his head, eyebrows scrunching together. “What do you mean?”
    Oops. Oh, hell.
    â€œAre the two of them on scholarship?”
    She nodded slowly. “Yes, but I never should have said that. The other girls don’t know. Please, please don’t … say anything.”
    Even as she asked, somehow she knew he’d never dream of it.
    He turned away, sitting back in his chair, hands folded behind his head again. “I’ll try not to be insulted that you felt you had to ask that.”
    â€œI know. I’m sorry. I know you wouldn’t say—never mind. Sorry.”
    â€œHow many scholarship kids do you have in a normal year?”
    She swallowed. Before this year? Zero. “We have … two.”
    He turned back toward her. “With an endowment like that? Two kids? Two? ”
    â€œI know.” She put up her hands. “It’s sickening. And I had to fight for three years to get the board to even do a trial run of two students this year. And now look. Both of them got themselves in enough trouble that we’ve been sent to camp for the summer. Priscilla would have expelled them, if it had been up to her. Luckily, she has to answer to the board, and this time, I think that board actually saved the girls.”
    Gabi pictured the board members sitting in their seats at the huge oak table in the main conference room. To a person, she could predict exactly what their responses to the girls’ little escapade probably were. She imagined the expulsion votes divided evenly down the center of the table, and then she pictured Laura Beringer sitting in her spot at the end, nodding carefully. At eighty-something years old, she’d been the board chair for ten years now, and she showed no signs of leaving, much to one side of the table’s dismay.
    Gabi adored her, and she had a strong feeling that the only reason Sam and Eve weren’t packing for Boston right