Tom sat in his office, first cup of coffee still steaming untouched on his desk. Sat staring at his monitor and gaping and trying not to lose control of his bladder. He flipped forward and back between the two emails. He shook his head. He cursed, a whispered litany of damnations to software, to typos, to hurried communications. To collosal fuckups born of tiny errors.

His phone rang. He flinched, let it ring a couple more times, and then, picked it up. “This is Tom.” He winced, rubbed his face with his free hand. “Yeah, Peg, I’ll be right in.” He dropped the phone in the cradle, took a sip from his coffee, still too hot, and cursed his email again. Stupid. Stupid.

Peggy’s door — PEGGY FRANCIS, PRINCIPAL in a shining brass plate in the center — was cracked open, and Tom knocked gently and poked his head in. She nodded at the empty chair facing her desk; he settled into it and swung the door shut behind him. Peggy looked at him for a moment, like a dog at a rabbit.

“Are you fishing for a lawsuit?”

Tom blinked. “I–”

“Do the words ’sexual harassment’ mean anything to you?”

“Peg, what are you talking about?”

She slid a piece of paper to him, a printout of the email that had gone to Ron Mailer. “He could sue you. He could sue the whole goddam school if he were so inclined.”

Tom stared at her, surprised by the direction of the conversation. “You have got to be kidding me! It was a typo, Peg.”

She read off the paper. “‘We need to talk about me getting laid’ is a typo? ‘Cock’ was a typo?”

“I’m not that stupid. That Ron got it was a typo. I was writing to my brother. I must have typed ‘Ronm’ instead of ‘Robm’ and the email client filled in the rest without my realizing it. I mean, Why the christ would I send that to Ron Mailer?”

She shook her head. Water off a duck’s back. “Tom, why would you send that to anyone?”

“I talk to my brother all the time. We shoot the shit. Come on, it’s an honest mistake, and a stupid one, but this should not be a big deal. I’ll apologize to Ron for the confusion this morning.”

She still sat ice-cold in her blue blazer. Tom started to wonder if she would even blink. He fidgeted in his seat.

“I don’t care how much you like to chat with your brother. Mistake or no, you did send this to Ron Mailer, and you absolutely will apologize, in writing, this morning. And you will not use school, hell, district resources for anything potentially sexually offensive or embarrassing ever again. Not even a note to your brother. Am I understood?”

“Christ, Peggy–”

“You realize this could be your job? If, if this,” and she shook the email at him, “if this caught on unfriendly eyes, there is no question that you could be out of here so fast your head would spin. And it’d embarrass the hell out of the school, the district–”

“And you.”

“You are damn right, and me. I am proud of this school. I am proud of the environment we have created for these young adults and their families, and the last thing we need is–”

“Alright, alright, I get the picture, Peg–”

“You’ll apologize.”

“Yes.”

“Written. I want a copy.”

“How about I just go talk to him and you come along.”

“I’m not negotiating, Tom. You are on thin ice as it is.”

He shook his head, raised an eyebrow. “Why would you want it in writing, Peg? Couldn’t that be an embarrassment if it got out, too?”

“Tom, I’m not going to argue with you. I want it this morning. That is all.”