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“Mr Powell, this is Sa Tina Jackson, one of your students I understand you’re her guidance counselor”

“I am What can I do for you, Ms McRae?”

“Well, for starters, you can callto get soround information about her acade other things I want to confirs she told me” And, maybe, find out what she didn’t

“All right, Sam I’ll need to run by admin to pick up the disciplinary records, but that’s not a problened release from one of her parents?”

“Yes, I do” Shanae had signed the release the last tieoned to death “Would it be convenient for us to meet sometime today, Frank?”

“I have so, but my afternoon’s open, if you want to drop by” His deejay voice made the invitation sound like an ad for a tire sale

“I’ll be there around 1:30 or so”

I stopped ho to the school in Suitland, an inside-the-Beltway DC suburb that had seen better days—long before my time Near the District line, PG County is mostly black, mostly poor, andran to old brick structures squeezed onto tiny lots with scrubby lawns and s—brick boxes whose s provided joyless views of cracked macadam lots filled with hoopties of every description, from beat-up compacts to classic pimpmobiles

I parked in the school lot My purple ’67 Mustang, out of place withBeemers and Porsches, blended ith the staff’s econo civil servants, I sauntered into the building

A security guard escorted ot a visitor’s pass We wove through throngs of uniforhter echoed off the metal lockers

At once, I felt conspicuous—a strange white woman in a suit, the lone white face in the crowd I flashed back to my childhood in Bed-Stuy At six years old on my first day at school, I was the only white kid in round for years of not fitting in

I shook off the deja vu, keepingwith purpose and confidence, like I belonged there The way I’d learned in Brooklyn

The guidance depart area, where two kids sat: one engrossed in a co into a coma

The door bearing Powell’s name was ajar I rapped twice

“Come in,” the smooth jazz voice said I did as instructed A chair squealed and a slim man with milk chocolate skin, warreet me He looked to be in his mid-thirties