When he finished eating, Darian stood up from the table, tray in hand. Nodding Stacy’s way, he said, “I gotta get ready for class. See you in a few?”
“Sure.” Stacy watched Darian carry his tray across the lunch room to where the trash cans sat out in front of the cafeteria doors. He didn’t look like any of the other teachers—no tie like Mr. Harding wore, no dress shirt, no pressed pants with a crease ironed right down the front of each leg. Darian was dressed much as he’d been on Saturday, in jeans and sneakers, a khaki shirt he wore untucked so that the bottom of it hid the back pockets of his jeans. The shirt sleeves were rolled up out of his way, and he had a baseball cap on. Stacy’s own cap was in his locker, where he’d left it after Ms. Gillespie told him to take it off during Englis
