'Excuse me?' said Adele, a little bit puzzled. She now looked at the woman's face and saw she was brunette, with high cheekbones and a sharpish nose. Though she was more tanned than Adele remembered her, and even slimmer, gaunt even, the eyes and the grin were still unmistakably hers. 'Beatrice?' she asked.
'Yes!' answered the other girl.
'What are you doing here?' asked Adele. She had not seen Beatrice much in her final months of school, after the embarrassing incident when she had tried to kiss her in the girls toilets and had never spoken to her at all in fact again; she hadn't even congratulated her during graduation although she now faintly remembered Beatrice had never been a part of the group of girls who had teased her for her affair with Emma – but she had stood there listening to the other girls insults to Adele and never said stop, never said anything, even though Adele had opened herself and her secret feelings to her during that mistaken rendezvous in the toilets. The memory was surprisingly still painful and it took some effort for Adele to realise it was a long time ago, that her age now was almost double what it had been then. She was an adult and should act like it.
They both must have been thinking of the same incident because they both blushed at the same time.
'The same as you', answered Beatrice. 'I work here.'
'What do you teach?' said Adele.
'Oh, I'm not a teacher, ' said Beatrice, 'I'm the school college guidance counseller and psychologist. I was late at morning break because I had a meeting with a student that over ran so didn't get to say hi in the staff room but I recognised your name from the email sent out last week saying a new English teacher was joining us. I actually came here to smoke myself and was happy to see you here.'
They both carried on smoking in silence for a few moments looking at each other but lost in their own thoughts. Adele then broke the silence.
'Listen', she said, 'I'm sorry I never congratulated you when you graduated as was mean of me but, you know, I was still angry at you.'
'Don't worry about it', said Beatrice, 'we were both teenagers and as we now know, teenagers can be dicks! I should apologise too for never standing up for you when you were bullied.'
They both grinned at the same time. 'Adele', continued Beatrice, 'the bell has just gone for the next lesson. It means you have 5 minutes to get to your class. Why don't we go for a drink after work today and catch up properly?'
'Sure', nodded Adele. 'Why not?'
They agreed to meet in the staff room after work.