The Marriage Intervention by Hilary Dartt

missing the rest of the movie, but in truth, she was upset because they had to cut their time together short.  
    Just last month, one of Paul’s partners, Michael, confessed to the guys that he was having an affair. He said that ever since the birth of his first child, his wife, Jennifer, ignored him, gave him the cold shoulder. When Paul told Josie the story, she found herself enraged on Jennifer’s behalf, and even more enraged when Paul defended Michael, explaining that he was just really lonely. They hadn’t spoken for the entire week following that fight, but she couldn’t be sure whether it’s because they were fighting or because he was gone. Working.  
    Josie dragged herself back to the present moment and looked at Scott, whose worst fault was that he wanted something he couldn’t have.  
    “Well, I’m not saying no,” she said.  
    The words dangled in the air between them, stretching the moment taut.  
    They both jumped when they heard the building’s front door open. Purposeful clicks echoed off the polished wood floor, and Josie held her breath.  
    “Blair Upton,” Scott said as the steps approached his office. “What a pleasure so early in the morning.”  
    Ah, my arch rival.  
    Blair arched a penciled-on eyebrow at Josie, and in that glance, Josie saw so many things. She saw Blair questioning what she was doing here, in Scott’s office. She saw her remembering the one mistake Scott and Josie made: the time they shared a kiss just outside the auditorium and Blair came around the corner and caught them touching only at the lips but so tangled up. Josie saw Blair wishing Josie hadn’t landed the principal position and taking note of the distance (the very short distance) between Scott Smith’s hand and Josie’s on the desk at this very moment. Finally, she saw Blair calculating exactly what this moment meant, for the two of them.  
    It meant nothing for Scott. He was moving on, to a new position at the school district, one where the school-level politics wouldn’t touch him.  
    But it means everything for Blair and me . If Blair could prove Scott and Josie had a relationship, she could bring Josie down. The lights would be out on my own role as principal of Juniper Elementary before the curtain even went up.  
    “It’s nice to see you, as always,” Josie said to Blair.  
    She stood up, thanked Scott for the coffee and walked out, leaving Blair and her eyebrows in the doorway, Scott and her veiled acceptance of his invitation behind the desk.  
     
    ***
    Josie ascended the stairs to the third floor, turning the lights on as she went.  
    Blair Upton wanted Scott’s principal position. She wanted it badly. During the application process, she even started rumors about Josie sleeping with some greasy-haired pimple-faced teenager. Fortunately, those rumors had never taken root. They sprouted like tiny weeds and then blew away in the silence when their other colleagues refused to feed them.  
    But still. It was obvious that if Blair saw an opportunity to move in and snatch Josie’s career out of the air, she would seize it in one of her taloned claws. Josie had to be careful.  
    She turned on the lights in her classroom, and just as she did every morning, she took a deep breath and surveyed her surroundings. Everything neat and organized, just as she liked it.  
    The desks were grouped into tidy tables, each with a colored bin atop it. The students’ art, drawings of the life cycle of trees, hung on one wall in perfect rows. Vocabulary words—absorb, average, brilliant, clever—lined another wall. In one corner, fluffy pillows sat on the floor in front of book cases packed so full the kids had to pry books out of them.  
    Josie nodded. She was good. She had built her career from scratch to become the lead third grade teacher in just eleven years. Other teachers sought her out for advice on curriculum, discipline and wardrobe. She was indispensable. She’d be perfect as the