Chapter 5: Point of Order

The middle-school cafeteria still smelled like tater tots at seven o'clock at night.

There were eighty-some parents on the plastic benches.

More were standing along the back wall under the paper banner for the spring book fair.

The league board sat at a folding table up front, five of them, with name cards and bottled water.

Stacy had the first row.

She'd brought poster boards on easels.

One was a screenshot of my white face. One was the petition with its signatures. One just said OUR KIDS DESERVE PEACE in pink bubble letters.

Cory sat beside her in a navy quarter-zip, nodding at the board.

His mother sat behind him, holding her purse in her lap with both hands.

I sat in the last row with Jen.

Jen had worn her salon smock on purpose. She said it made her look like she might cut someone.

Mike came in last, with a laptop under his arm and a long gray cable coiled over his shoulder.

He didn't look at me.

He sat on the end of our bench and set the laptop on his knees.

The league president read the petition out loud and asked Stacy to speak.

She stood up and smoothed her dress.

"I'm just a mom," she said. "That's all I've ever been."

Then she cried.

Real tears, right on cue, little shining tracks down her makeup.

She said I'd been "in on it" and "fine with it" until the video went viral, and then I'd turned on her for attention.

She said I'd told her son lies about his own mother.

She said Callen had run away from home to the stepmother's sister's apartment over a hair salon, and the police had to come.

"I'm scared for him," she said. "I'm scared of what she'll do next."

Cory put a hand on her back.

The room murmured. A couple of moms nodded.

The president turned to me. "Mrs. Ritter? Would you like to respond?"

"Gillespie," I said, standing up. "It's going to be Gillespie."

Every head turned around.

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