Blue Cotton Work Shirts Stitched Together for a Spring Dance
I folded the papers back into the dusty envelope, the corners catching on the rough paper as I slid them inside.
The hallway of the high school was empty when I walked in at two o’clock, the quiet hum of the building different without the noise of the students. Principal Bradley was sitting behind his wide oak desk, his wire-rimmed spectacles sitting near his leather blotting pad.
“Come in, Nicole,” he said, gesturing to the leather chair opposite him. “I was just looking over the graduation seating chart.”
I set the carbon receipt on the desk between us, the paper blue and thin under the bright fluorescent lights. “My aunt found this in my father’s tool chest this morning.”
Principal Bradley picked up his spectacles, sliding them onto his nose before he looked down at the paper. He adjusted them twice, his fingers lingering on the silver frame before he let out a slow breath.
“Albert asked me to keep this between us until the semester was over,” Bradley said. “He was very particular about that.”
“He worked every weekend when he was supposed to be resting,” I said.
