A Heart of Gold

Chapter 11

The hard wooden seat forces my spine to straighten into perfect posture, my hands folded in my lap.

I have sat in this chair a hundred times but I have never felt nervous before, and it is all Harry's fault. I have come to Jane's office to listen and to discuss, to debate and to argue, to cry and to celebrate. And now I am here to ask.

Harry Styles, born performer and international rock star, is sitting next to me sweating like a fountain. He was not exaggerating when describing the power Jane has over his nerves and the apparently terrible school flashbacks she brings to him. Just sitting in front of her now puts him into a panic. Wow, how much trouble did he get into at school?

Nervous energy radiates from his body and I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. I look at him sideways with squiggled eyebrows and silently mouth to him, "Relax."

We are here after school and have just presented our case to her, and she is considering it like a wise judge on the high bench.

The crow's feet framing her eyes deepen when she crinkles her eyes. There is no smile to accompany this expression. Her thin red lips are tightly pursed.

I know this look well. The feeling seeping into my gut is familiar, too. The same jitters I felt awaiting my parent's final decision on my request, my heart hanging in the air. My mother's dreaded response of, "Hmm... let me think about it." or my father's non-committal "Maybe," which almost always meant "No."

Harry's sweaty hands grip the seat of his chair and he stares at Jane with a completely unnatural grin plastered on his face. His comical, too-big smile is the kind you get from a 4 year old when you ask him to smile for the camera, and he is starting to making me feel jumpy.

He pries the fingers of his left hand from his seat and shakily reaches across the small space between us to hold my hand. My mouth drops open and I slap his hand away. "Are you crazy?!" I hiss at him under my breath. His eyes go wide as he shrugs helplessly and mouths back, "I don't know?! Help me!"

Jane is considering our request to have Harry volunteer with me at the afterschool program. She is wary and thoughtful, of course, because she is Jane.

My opening argument was that we desperately need the help. I supported this claim with the fact that we have had a difficult time finding and keeping good volunteers, and I went on to cite the many strange and unreliable examples. She cringed remembering these people, and I cheerfully made a mental tally mark on our side.

I countered her concerns about Harry's fame with evidence that there's hardly been a peep of publicity since he's been coming to our school. The kids and parents either don't know or care who his is as they have bigger fish to fry in their lives or they have been touched by the kindness he has already spread to all of us. The combination of all of these factors made another tally mark in our column.

And I closed with the fact that the kids already know and love him.

I know that she respects me, my ideas and decisions. We have worked together through many difficult situations over my time here.

But this is my biggest ask of her yet.

"Yes, actually, I have noticed that he's been to your classroom quite a bit lately, Lynn." She raises an eyebrow at me, then looks skeptically to Harry. His grin gets impossibly wider now. He shows all his teeth and nods like a bobblehead doll. Jane slowly shifts her gaze back to me and blinks. I roll my eyes and silently will him to hold it together.

"Well, Harry, apparently you do pass the kid test. Lynn has told me as much. And you've made it past Barb, our watchdog at the front desk, so I suppose you're in," she makes a rare joke.