Only Twenty-Five

by Jennifer McCoy Blaske

  As I got to the end of an aisle I heard some noise across the room. I turned around. Jim Cavalier and David Carney were goofing around, not even trying to pretend they were working. I was about to say something. Then I took a deep breath and thought better. I slowly walked over and stood in front of their desks. They both looked up at me.

  Jim laughed sheepishly. “I, uh . . . guess you want us to get to work.”

  I gave him a little smile and nodded. The boys slid their knees under their desks and started writing.

  Man, I was good today. I glanced over in Mrs. Kirk’s direction. I saw her nod ever so slightly before writing something down. This was going to be my best evaluation ever.

  I gave the kids a few more minutes before I announced, “Okay, if you don’t have all ten questions, that’s fine. Go ahead and pass what you have to the front of the row. Now I need a volunteer to be scorekeeper . . .”

  Tyler’s arm shot up as he yelled “Oh!” and leaped out of his seat.

  “Okay Tyler, come on up and have a seat by the board.” I collected the papers and gave the stack a quick shuffle. “Do I have all the papers?”

  There was a chorus of yeses and uh-huhs from the kids as I quickly looked through some questions. Lindsay had written in perfect purple letters: Mozart was born in a) Italy b) Germany c) Austria d) Australia. Bobby Atkins had scribbled: True or False: Beethoven was a drug smuggler from Guatemala.

  “Okay, let’s get started.” I gestured to the front row. “Amanda, you’re up first for Team A. Emma, you’re up for team B. Ready?”

  Both girls stood up behind their desks and nodded.

  “What basic skill did Beethoven never learn?” I asked.

  “Oh . . .” Amanda said, bouncing on her toes, “multiply and divide!”

  “Very good,” I said. “Give her a point Tyler.”

  Tyler made a mark for team A on the chart he’d drawn.

  Mrs. Kirk had an almost imperceptible smile on her lips. Hurray! My classroom activity had gotten Mrs. Kirk to smile! That wasn’t an easy thing to do. She must be loving my class. And why wouldn’t she? The kids were engaged, there were no discipline problems, we were having fun, and learning interesting stuff. Plus, the teacher was wearing a cool green hat that matched her pretty eyes.

  The next kid on each team stood up.

  “All right, next question,” I said as I started thumbing through the papers. “Let’s see, let me find a good one . . .”

  Mrs. Kirk stood up and walked toward the door in her regal way. I’d made it! The observation was officially over and everything had gone perfectly. She put her hand on the doorknob before turning back toward me.

  “Miss Caldwell, could I please speak to you for a moment?”

  “Certainly,” I said, gesturing for the kids to wait. I walked over and leaned in to hear what she had to say.

  “I’m sure you know that we have a No Hats Policy for our students,” she said quietly. “That policy applies to teachers as well. I expect you will not have to be reminded again.” She opened the door and strode out into the hallway.

  I gulped and felt the color drain from my face. Walking over to my desk, I carefully took off my hat and set it down. I stepped over to my little mirror on the wall. My hair looked worse than ever—thanks to being flattened by the hat. I ran my fingers through it a couple times. All that did was reinforce how scraggly it was. I didn’t even have a ponytail holder with me. Maybe I could I brush it and try to fluff it up a little during lunch. Yeah, I thought bitterly. Good luck with that.

  I looked up at the room. The kids were mostly chatting amongst themselves.

  “All right everyone!” I clapped my hands and tried to sound chipper through my forced smile. “Thanks for waiting. Now, where were we?”

  “Why’d you take your hat off Miss Caldwell?” Brooke asked. “It looked so cute.”

  I looked over to my poor hat sadly tossed aside on my desk. “I, um . . . it was starting to get uncomfortable.”

  “Oh,” said Brooke, looking disappointed. “That’s too bad.”

  “Yes.” My eyes started to sting a little. “Yes, it is.”

  TEN

  Meg

  Yesterday on my way home from work I’d finally thought to buy some human hair from a beauty supply store. The idea was to make my own extensions.

  When I got home I cut the hair into strips. Then I sewed each strip onto a little clip. After that, I had to figure out where to stick the clips to camouflage my thinning hair. The trick was to find a spot on my head with enough hair for the clip to get a grip—while still hiding the clip. The final arrangement included one strip of hair on each side of my head and two thicker strips at the crown. Then I put on a leather headband to hide the hardware.

  Of course, it wasn’t until I figured out the placement of the clips that I realized my completely straight hair extensions were practically screaming: hello, I’m a store-bought hair extension! I had to either straighten my hair or curl the extensions. I opted for curling the extensions.

  Once I clipped the curled extensions back in I stood in front of the mirror studying my head from all angles. Then I walked and jogged in place. I wanted to see how the extensions fared when I moved. The whole process was quite a challenge. It took two and a half hours and I was up until almost midnight, but the extensions actually seemed to do the job.

  Today I’d felt comfortable without a hat. When I checked my extensions in the bathroom after lunch I couldn’t detect any tell-tale signs of fakery. Everything seemed to be holding. Whew!

  Now I was sitting in the back of the library, waiting for our monthly after-school faculty meeting to start. In order to keep from dozing off I began penciling notes in my copy of a three-part arrangement of Brahms’ Gute Nacht. I stifled a yawn and hoped we’d get started soon.

  “Hey, where’s your hat?” said a voice.

  I glanced up sleepily. I did a double take when I saw the Cute Guy From the Mall standing to my right. What in the world was going on? Was he? . . . Did he? . . . What the heck? Was I so tired that I actually fell asleep and was dreaming?

  “Don’t look so frightened,” he said with a laugh as he stepped past me and sat down in the empty chair on my left. “I’m not that scary.”

  “I . . . I’m sorry,” I stammered, “but I don’t . . . I mean . . . do you? . . .”

  A big grin spread across his face. It looked like he was getting a kick out of my confusion.

  He held out his right hand. “You really need to get to know your co-workers. Josh Hartter. I teach English.”

  I said a silent prayer of thanks that I was wearing my hair extensions. Then I nodded and shook his hand.

  “I’m Meg Caldwell. I teach chorus and general music.” I smiled and quickly added, “And I love that green hat. Unfortunately, it’s against school policy for me to wear it at work.” My mind began to race. Wow, he’s actually a real person. Does he think I’m a total moron? I certainly feel like one. Am I really that out of touch with my work environment?

  “Ah.” He nodded gravely. “That’s right. I forgot that a wearing a piece of fabric on top of one’s head can lead to total anarchy.”

  I made a sound that I think was meant to be a giggle. Seriously? How old was I?

  “All right teachers, let’s go ahead and get started,” Mrs. Kirk’s voice boomed. “There are several items on the agenda today, so we don’t want to waste any time.”

  I turned my attention to Mrs. Kirk, but I was only half-listening. I was trying to get a good look at this Josh person without actually moving my head. He was wearing khaki pants and a burgundy shirt with a button-down collar. He looked like he was in his late-twenties and he reminded me a little of a young Tom Hanks. I had no doubt that a handful of female students secretly—or maybe not so secretly—had crushes on him. Keeping my head perfectly still, I eyeballed Josh’s left hand. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

  “There have been complaints about some teachers offering extra credit to s
tudents for bringing in classroom supplies like tissues and paper towels.” Mrs. Kirk slowly and dramatically gazed at all of us—no doubt to drive home the seriousness of the offense. “Teachers,” Mrs. Kirk said sternly, “giving a grade unrelated to a student’s performance is against school policy. You can request those supplies from your students, but you cannot bribe them with extra credit or promises of inflated grades.”

  What can I say to him after the meeting? Good grief. I felt like I was in high school again. I remembered timing my exits from senior trig to coincide with Bryan Harrison so I could try to strike up a witty conversation as we left class. I was never very good at it. And it was a little depressing to realize that I hadn’t really improved over the last seven years.

  “I also want to remind faculty that everybody needs to be reading during Drop Everything and Read time on Thursday afternoons,” said Mrs. Kirk. “We want to be setting a good example for our students and showing them that reading is an important part of our own lives as well. This is not the time for you to be grading papers or writing lesson plans. Even the custodial and lunchroom staff have been instructed to read during this time.”

  Madison Middle was a big school and I didn’t want to wait another month for a chance to talk to Josh. I tried to think of a good question to ask him. So, what’d you think of the meeting? Meg, who are you kidding? That’s the best you can do? It was a faculty meeting, not a symphony for heaven’s sake. Try again, please. Okay, how about, how long have you been at Madison Middle? Hmm. That sounds a little too much like, so, do you come here often? . . .

  “And finally,” said Mrs. Kirk, “I need to remind everybody that security at Madison Middle is of the utmost importance. The outside doors are all locked by six p.m. and should not, under any circumstances, be propped open. Are there any questions?”

  We were almost done. Get ready Meg. I looked around the room.

  “All right then, you’re dismissed,” said Mrs. Kirk with a grand, sweeping gesture of her hand.

  I took a long breath. I didn’t want to look like I was attacking Josh the second the meeting was over. By the time I turned toward him and opened my mouth it was too late.

  A young female teacher sitting a few seats over in front of us had turned around. She was leaning over the back of her chair, talking to Josh. I couldn’t hear what she was saying. But from the bubbly look on her face it seemed like she was talking about something a little more lively than, say, grades.

  Just as I had done with Bryan Harrison back in high school, I took extra time gathering my things. Maybe they’d be finished talking in a minute and I would get a second chance to say something to Josh as we walked out.

  Unfortunately, she was cute and she looked like she had no intention of shutting up any time soon. She had blond curly hair and was wearing a red scarf that perfectly matched her shoes. And I highly doubted that her hair included clip-on extensions to hide bald spots.

  Okay, this was getting silly. Josh practically had his back to me and I could only stall for so long. I couldn’t just sit there and stare at them.

  I sighed and stood up. Then I walked to the door—alone.

  ELEVEN

  Meg

  “It’s drumming day,” I announced to my sixth grade general music class. “BJ and Tyler, could you both get the . . .”

  The boys leaped out of their seats and rushed to the corner closet. They each emerged carrying four hand drums.

  “Thanks guys. Go ahead and set them up like we usually do.”

  Tyler and BJ arranged all eight drums in a line on the long rectangular table. Then they started furiously pounding on the drums.

  “Okay guys!” I yelled over their tribal beat. “That’s enough. That’s enough! . . . Enough!”

  Tyler gave a drum a few final whacks. Both boys were obviously quite pleased with themselves by the time they finally returned to their desks.

  “Thank you, guys.” I rolled my eyes and shook my head with a wry grin. “Okay, now when I call your name please stand in front of a drum. But what are we not supposed to do yet?”

  “Touch them!” the class called out.

  “You got it.” I pointed at students in the front row as I counted. “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Come on up and be my first group of drummers.” I gestured to the board where I’d already noted the rhythms—two measures in four-four time with a repeat. “I’ll give you a beat, then you play the rhythm. One, two, ready, and . . .”

  Tap, tap, tap-tap tap, rest, tap, rest, tap . . .

  “Very nice,” I said. “How about this?” I pointed at the next rhythm.

  Tap-a-tay-tee-tap, tap-tap tap . . .

  “Okay, you guys go ahead and have a seat. The next eight come on up.”

  “Okay, drummers . . .”

  I was about to give them a beat but stopped. To my horror, I noticed in my peripheral vision that a section of hair on the left side of my head was a lot longer than the rest of my hair. In other words, one of my extensions had slipped out of place. I stood there frozen, hand still in the air, trying to figure out what to do. Part of me wanted to reach up and fix it. But I couldn’t very well unclip a chunk of hair from my head and move it over while no less than half the class was staring at me. Would they stare more if they noticed the long strands of hair dangling out of place? Why did I have a job that put me on display in front of thirty pairs of eyes for several hours? Before I did anything, the unusually long chunk of hair said goodbye to the rest of my hair and drifted down to the floor.

  Blair Pendergast clapped her fingers over her mouth. “Aaah!” she shrieked.

  Well, that was just lovely. What was I supposed to do? Tell the class to ignore pieces of my body that appeared to be falling off before their very eyes?

  “Miss Caldwell, what just happened to your hair?” asked Missy Phillips, her eyes huge.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not really falling apart,” I said, forcing a grin.

  A couple kids laughed which relaxed me a little.

  I’d learned that my reaction to anything in the classroom was crucial. If I stayed calm and collected the students would too. I scooped the wayward extension off the floor and did my best to quickly clip it back into its correct position.

  “I tried putting some hair extensions in today . . . you know, like the movie stars do.” I was hoping to sound hip and cool instead of balding and desperate. “I guess I didn’t clip that one in well enough.”

  “Oh, my older sister put those in her hair when she went to homecoming,” Kirby Coe said. “It made her hair look really pretty. She said they took forever to put in though.”

  “Yes, well, obviously I didn’t take the time to put them in properly,” I said, pointing to my head and giving a sort of ditzy laugh. “Okay, let’s get back to the drums. One, two, ready, and . . .”

  Fortunately, drums were more interesting to eleven-year-olds than a teacher discussing her hair. Nobody asked any more questions or seemed to care in the least after all—except me. I knew something wasn’t right.

  ***

  As soon as I got home that afternoon I rushed to the bathroom mirror. I didn’t even greet the cats.

  Why did that extension fall out? It’d been weeks since I started wearing hair extensions and I’d never had a problem with any of them coming loose before. I thought I’d perfected the art of exactly where and how to clip them. What was going on?

  I quickly removed all the extensions and ran my hands through my hair a couple times. When I looked at my fingers they were covered in hair. This was not good. Panicked, I peered at my head in the mirror and moved around segments of hair so I could study my scalp. It didn’t look any worse. Or did it? I ran my fingers through my hair again, more out of nervousness than anything. My chest tightened when I saw even more hair in my hands.

  I picked the hairs off my fingers and threw them in the toilet. Then I bent down and fished around in the shower drain, afraid of what I was going to find. Sure enough, I unearthed a bi
g blob of wet hair. I frantically tried to remember when I last cleaned out the drain. I was so freaked out that I couldn’t remember. Think Meg! Was it a week’s worth of hair or was it all from this morning? If all that hair was just from this morning. . . . I glared at the wet blob before peeling it off my fingers and throwing it in the toilet.

  My hands were shaking as I studied myself in the mirror. I wanted to figure out if my hair was getting even thinner, or not. I’d gotten used to how I looked with the extensions. I’d almost forgotten how limp and scraggly my hair was without any extra help. I scrunched and fluffed it but it didn’t do any good. In desperation, I bent over at the waist and repeatedly ran my fingers from my neck to the top of my head. All that did was emphasize my scalp showing between the few weak curls I had left.

  I squeezed my eyes shut for several seconds. Then I popped them both open and pretended I was seeing myself for the first time. I was horrified that the first word that came to my mind was “sick.” That’s how bad it was. I actually looked like I was malnourished . . . or recovering from some severe illness. Or maybe—just maybe—like I’d even had a mild dose of chemo.

  “No,” I murmured at my sick-looking reflection. “No, no, no, no, no. No!” I pounded the bathroom counter with my right fist. It hurt more than I expected.

  I yanked open the drawer under the sink and grabbed my hand mirror. This was the moment of truth. I trembled as I turned around, leaned my head back, and held up the mirror. When I saw the back of my head I sucked in my breath and clapped my left hand against my mouth. It was bad. I most certainly did not look like a young, stylish, single woman. I looked like an old balding woman. Like, old, old! Senior citizen old! Nursing home old!