“What did she say?”
Chloe looked uncomfortable.
Mallory answered for her.
“She said you take everything seriously.”
Zoe stared.
“That’s not what she said.”
“How would you know?”
“Because I heard something after management.”
Mallory sighed dramatically.
“You’re always looking for a problem.”
Zoe walked away.
That sentence bothered her more than the missing words.
Always looking.
It would come back repeatedly.
December introduced the fair sponsorship dispute.
A local restaurant offered five hundred dollars if it could place a large advertising banner beside the student cultural organizations.
Zoe suggested moving the banner.
Not rejecting the sponsor.
Moving it to the vendor corridor.
Mallory objected.
“It’s five hundred dollars.”
“I know.”
“They want traffic.”
“They’ll get traffic by food vendors.”
“The student groups are closer to the entrance.”
“That section is supposed to be student-run.”
Mallory stared.
“Why do you care?”
“Because that’s the layout we gave clubs.”
Mallory laughed.
“You turn everything into fairness.”
Zoe frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“You know exactly what it means.”
“Apparently not.”
Mallory leaned back.
“Everything has to be equitable. Everything has to represent everybody. Nobody can just do what works.”
Zoe looked at the map.
“We are talking about where to put a restaurant banner.”
“Exactly.”
“Then why are you talking about representation?”
Mallory paused.
Evan looked up.
Gillian looked between them.
Mallory shrugged.
“Because that’s your whole thing.”
Zoe felt the room change.
“My whole thing?”
“You’re the one always bringing it up.”
Zoe turned toward Gillian.
“Have I brought up race once in this conversation?”
“No.”
Gillian answered immediately.
Mallory crossed her arms.
“I didn’t say race.”
Neither had Zoe.
That silence lasted long enough to become embarrassing.
Gillian ended the meeting.
Afterward, she asked Mallory to stay.
Zoe never heard the conversation.
Mallory received an informal warning.
Nothing written.
Gillian believed a quiet correction would work better.
That choice mattered later.
Winter break cooled everything.
January returned with college applications, basketball games, cold mornings, and the strange exhaustion seniors experienced when graduation was close enough to imagine but too far away to reach.
Zoe continued fair planning.
Mallory remained professional.
For almost three weeks, they barely argued.
Then somebody altered the volunteer spreadsheet.
The first change was small.
Three students disappeared from Saturday morning setup.
Zoe assumed she made a mistake.
She restored them.
Two days later, booth numbers changed.
The gardening club was moved into a space already assigned to a bakery.
Again, Zoe fixed it.
The revision log showed Gillian’s account.
Gillian said she had probably left the file open.
No crisis.
Then another mistake.
And another.
Each made Zoe look disorganized.
A volunteer complained.
A parent emailed.
Mallory offered to “help clean up the scheduling mess.”
Zoe refused.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t need help.”
Mallory smiled.
“Obviously.”
Zoe stared.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
The word had become part of their language.
Nothing.
Something.
You know.
I didn’t say that.
By February, Zoe started saving versions of the spreadsheet manually.
Not because she suspected Mallory.
Because she no longer trusted the system.
That turned out to be useful.
The first formal racial complaint came during a planning meeting for Senior Night.
A student suggested setting up giant outdoor games.
Cornhole.
Connect Four.
Giant Jenga.