"With all due respect, which is none." – Principle Lessa
She saw him as soon as he came in the office. Saw him wave away Helen, her severely underpaid front desk receptionist, as she tried to stop him before he barged into her office holding up his phone like it was exhibit A in a criminal trial.
Honestly, she should have seen this coming since seven o’clock this morning when she stopped Willie and Flynn from “decorating” the lunchroom bulletin board with Willie’s latest artwork depicting what they thought of standardized testing.
Or at eight o’clock when she caught Julie and Luke NOT practicing in one of the music rooms.
Or at eight thirty when she checked behind the school to shoo in the smokers and found not only the usuals, Bobby and Alex, but also Reggie, Kayla and this asshole’s daughter. None of the last three actually smoking, but still, late for class again.
“What is the meaning of this?!” Trevor Wilson exclaimed heatedly as he let her door slam shut behind him.
One one thousand, two one thousand. “What seems to be the problem Mr. Wilson?”
“Why isn’t my daughter, or her band, listed as preforming in the spring talent show!? There are always college scouts in attendance, and she needs to be featured!”
“Well, Mr. Wilson, that was your daughter’s decision.” She calmly replied.
“What!?” He gaped at her. “My Carrie would never miss out on this kind of opportunity! This is just some bias against me for being who I am.” He put his hands on her desk and leaned toward her aggressively. “I can assure you I don’t have any sway with UCLA or Berkeley and to cut her out of the performance because you think I do is cruel!”
How dare this entitled prick accuse her or the school of doing anything but supporting these children, including children with ignorant fathers.
“Mr. Wilson.” She stood and leaned on her hands toward him. “With all do respect, which is none.” He flinched at her tone standing back up, away from her. “If you had bothered to talk to Miss Wilson before you came in here to yell at me you would know that one of her band members broke her foot last month and rather than preform without her, she and Miss Taylor have been working with their student advisor Mrs. Harrison organizing and planning the talent show. It’s a huge responsibility and quite frankly I have been extremely proud of her hard work these last few weeks and told her just yesterday I would personally write a letter of recommendation to any university she wanted explaining her part in the showcase.”
“Oh.” He dropped his eyes, taking another step back. “Um, ok then.” She watched as he seemed to pull his bravo back on like a jacket. “A letter of recommendation from you will be fine, under the circumstances.”
It took everything in her not to roll her eyes and reply with, ‘you think?’. She nodded and sat back down, “If that was all Mr. Wilson.” She dropped her eyes to her desk and gathered some random papers in front of her refraining from actually telling him to get out. “I have a school to run.”
“Yes, yes, well.” He stuttered. She could have sworn she heard him open his mouth again to say something but when she glanced up all she saw was the door closing behind him.
She waited till he was all the way out of the office before picking up the phone. “Harrison, we’re gonna need a full pitcher of margaritas tonight at the planning meeting.”
“What’s happened now?” She sighed.
“Trevor Wilson.”
“Say no more.” She snickered. “I’ll have the drinks chilled and the chips and dip ready when you get there.”
“Don’t tell the others.” She whispered. “But you’re my favorite.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She could almost see Harrison shaking her head. “Get back to principling. It’s not even lunch time yet.”
“Don’t remind me.” She sighed. “Good luck with the seniors this afternoon.”
“We may need two pitchers tonight.”
She laughed as they both hung up without saying goodbye. They rarely did. On days like today, with the Trevor Wilson’s of the world trying to make her feel like she wasn’t enough for these kids one phone call to her best friend was all she needed to get her head back on straight.
The sound of a banjo echoing through the halls pulled her out of her thoughts and she shook her head and sighed pressing the intercom on her desk. “Helen, would you step out in the hall and tell Mr. Peters he needs to take that to a music room please.”
She laughed. “Sure you don’t want him to just come in here and play?”
Principle Lessa laughed. Helen knew she had a soft spot for country music and Reggie. “Wish I could but I actually do have some work to do.”
It wasn’t an easy job, being the Principle of a Arts focused High School, but she couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
Question: has anyone wrote a fic about Principal Lessa and how she could have been a Sunset Curve fan back in the day? During Bright she looks really confused when the boys poof on stage which could be because of the poofing but also what if she knew them?!………. Like what if she was one of the girls who got a shirt from Reggie outside the Orpheum? I can’t write but I would love to read about it lol
