Cressida could see it. His initial reaction and then his attempt to recover from it just as quickly. She'd pushed a button. She knew she had, and he would find she had many more buttons she was going to push. Van liked to push buttons too. She knew as much. He would find himself at a disadvantage though. He might be able to stomp all over Elias, but Cressida was still a lot of what she'd been in her school days. She'd grown stronger and sharper. She knew how to apologise when it merited one.
Now would begin a battle of wills. She knew that Van would fight tooth and nail. She was counting on it. It was easy for someone to simply shut down and 'not care'. His post had demanded the staff acknowledge an imaginary inequality. He kept digging himself deeper and deeper. He still had a bit more to go, and she was going to let him get there. He would soon find that he dug himself so deep that he forgot to leave himself a way out.
The clock ticked away. Cressida continued with her work, letting the silence provide Van with what he needed to complete his homework. Cressida made no attempts to distract him from his task. Occasionally she got up to prepare a new batch of tea, interrupting Van only to inform him he could serve himself some more if he so wished.
Minutes passed into an hour. Cressida moved on from the proposal, sending it to Micah via email to review. She had concocted the idea but since he was the Home Ec teacher and would benefit from the herb garden too, she included him in the proposal. Next came the school work. She took a folder out and began looking through lab reports.