The Chalk Artist

by Allegra Goodman

  He sat down. “You’re strict.”

  “Well, I want them to learn.”

  “Yeah, but I mean, do you want them to learn a lot?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then obviously they hate you. But that’s not bad,” he hastened to add. “I mean, sometimes it’s good to be feared.”

  “Nobody fears me. There’s always some boy goofing off or fighting or falling out of his chair…”

  “You’re making me feel guilty,” Collin said. “Is Mrs. West still there?”

  “You had Mrs. West?” She lit up. “Tell me what you did to Mrs. West.”

  “I loved her. Mrs. West was great.”

  “Oh.”

  She looked so disappointed, he wanted to wrap his arms around her. “She’s been teaching for like a hundred years. She has all that experience.”

  “I hate hearing how you need experience.”

  “Me too.”

  Her left hand rested on the table, waiting for him. What else could her hand be doing there? He covered it with his. “Real teachers are like fifty years old, and they have a wrinkle right between their eyes. Have you seen Miss Dorfman? Studio art?”

  Distracted, she spoke slowly. “Well, I haven’t gone around looking at her eyes.”

  “You should.”

  “I’m trying to figure out…” She wanted his hand back, as soon as he released hers.

  “Kids can tell when teachers are trying,” Collin said. “It’s like how dogs smell fear.”

  “I have five weeks of training. I’m totally unqualified.”

  He spoke with confidence. “Real teachers don’t worry about that.”

  “Yeah. Because they know what they’re doing.”

  “No, because they leave all the actual learning to the kids. Like—here’s the French Revolution. Just putting it out there. Here’s physics. What you do with it is up to you.”

  “No, I don’t think that would work.”

  “What are you actually trying to do?”

  “I want to teach my students to read—not just superficially, but from the inside.”

  “Kiss of death!”

  “I want them to make poetry their own.”

  “Never ever tell them that!”

  “I know.”

  “You told them.”

  “My students think I’m…”

  Gorgeous, Collin thought.

  “Hopeless.”

  “They barely know you,” Collin said. “They’re still watching you.”

  The restaurant was closing. It didn’t feel late, but the whole city was shutting down. There wasn’t anywhere to go.

  He said he’d walk her home. She said no need, she lived really close. In the end he walked her halfway in the snow-lit night.

  “You need a hood,” Nina told him, as she pulled up hers.

  “I like the snow.” He ran his fingers through his curly hair until it looked wilder than ever. Then he shook his head like a dog so that the snow flew off.

  “You’re silly.”

  He nodded.

  With a hint of regret, she confessed, “I’m not.”

  He took her arm. “I can help you with that.”

  Fresh snow buried Collin’s small basement window. His bedroom was dark to begin with, and he’d painted the walls with blackboard paint. Now his room looked like an ice cave. In the stillness and the half-light he lay in bed remembering the night before. He wanted to hold on to every second as long as possible. And then, suddenly, he sprang out of bed and threw on his clothes.

  He stepped into a living room full of salvaged furniture—scarred old tables, mushy upholstered chairs. It was just seven. Darius and Emma were fast asleep, but Collin pulled on coat and boots, swiped a piece of leftover pizza from the fridge, and ran outside. Plunging knee-deep into the snow, he tripped on one of his landlady’s scrap-metal sculptures, a sharp-eared cat. He swore and laughed, dusting himself off.

  The house was narrow and Victorian, ocher-trimmed with cadmium red. Collin and Darius had painted it over the summer in exchange for rent, while the owner, Dawn, was visiting her daughter in Northampton. Dawn wasn’t just a landlady, of course. She was one of the women Collin had always known, drinking coffee in his mother’s kitchen, talking about the universe.

  Perfect powder, and still falling. Central Square was ghostly white. All but the coffee shops were closed and dark. Teddy Shoes, where you could buy patent-leather pumps with a kitten heel in men’s thirteen. Classic Graphx, where you could print one hundred programs cheap for your stealth underground production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Collin passed the Seven Stars bookstore, then 1369 Coffee House, its steamy windows already filled with poets, students, therapists. On second thought, he turned back to 1369 and bought chocolate croissants and a gingerbread latte. Then, holding the warm paper cup, he tramped to Antrim Street to find a sled and ask his mother for the car.

  —

  “You’ll have to shovel out Sage and Lois too,” Maia told him, after he gave her the latte. During citywide snow emergencies, the women parked in the one driveway, herding together Maia’s ancient Volvo wagon, Lois’s Toyota bristling with bike racks, Sage’s Subaru. Collin could see three humps of snow through the kitchen window.

  “Just give me the keys so I can move them.”

  Maia shook out the calabash by the front door and tossed each set of keys. He caught them in the air.

  “I like you this way.”

  “Which way?”

  “Motivated.”

  Collin flashed her a smile and headed to the cellar door.

  “Hold the railing,” she called out as he started down the creaky stairs.

  By the light of a naked bulb, he could make out his mother’s gardening tools, her leaf bags, damp gloves, and metal rakes, her extra cans of paint and varnish. He squeezed between the rolling blackboards she kept for him. Containers of broken chalk; string bags of sand toys; Cheyenne, the plastic rocking horse galloping on rusty springs and tossing its plastic mane. Lois kept her mountain bikes down here, and Sage had a dresser she was planning to refinish. He had to search behind a collapsed wading pool, a stack of cartons labeled CHRISTMAS, and a pair of ratty wicker chairs before he found the sleds. Two blue singles and a black plastic double. He dusted off the double and texted Nina, Found it.

  —

  She looked chilly waiting in the Square. He opened the car door for her and apologized for being late. “I had to shovel out three cars to get here.”

  “The heat feels good,” she said, basking in the car’s hot air. She was wearing a white coat, dark velvety jeans, and black suede boots.

  “Are you going to be warm enough?” He kept looking at her as he drove, because he had never seen her in daylight. Her eyes were not dark as he’d thought, but clear gray, like water over river stones.

  The streets were barely plowed, so they had to inch to Danehy Park. “I’m sorry this is taking so long,” he said, although he wasn’t really. There she was, close enough to kiss—but he would wait. He could be patient sometimes.

  As he eased into the parking lot, she saw kids tramping up the big hill. “I wonder if I’ll see my students here.”

  “We’ll mow ’em down.” Collin took her gloved hand and led the way, breaking a path. Her kidskin gloves felt like nothing inside his, which were puffy, cheap, but insulated. Her clothes were way too delicate for real weather.

  A stand of dwarf pines covered the hill. Little trees bent down with drifts. Collin held the sled while Nina climbed on, bracing her feet in front of her. She looked out at red coats and purple mittens, a black Lab barking, a little girl crying that her sister never let her steer. All along the snowy slope, she could see children and their parents, every bright detail. “My father took me here once, and we went down together.”

  Collin sat behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. “Like this?”

  Her heart jumped, but she had no time to answer. He pushed off with his feet and the sled flew.
r />   The hill was faster than either of them remembered. Nina nearly slipped out of his arms, and he had to hold her tight against his chest.

  They skimmed the slope, accelerating into a swoop of snow. Breathless at the bottom, they didn’t speak. Her legs felt wobbly, and Collin helped her up, offering his hand.

  Again and again they sped down, and trudged back up the hill, which seemed to grow taller as they climbed. She stepped into his footsteps as he led the way, pulling the sled. At the top he looked at her and saw her glowing cheeks, her trailing scarf, her thin gloves soaked through. “Take mine,” he said. “They’re better.”

  His bare hands stung with cold, but he didn’t care.

  Sledding down, wind scoured her nose. Her hood fell back; her hair whipped into his face. He closed his eyes, concentrating on her and not the hill. When they hit a bump they both went flying.

  They lay together where they fell, and it was sweet and it was surprising, like waking up together in bed. She turned toward him, drawn by his dark eyes, his laughter, his question, “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You sure?”

  He brushed her hair from her face with his raw hands. “No broken bones?”

  “No.”

  “No sprains?”

  She shook her head, even as sleds swerved all around them.

  “Not even a scratch?” His lips brushed hers so lightly that she wasn’t sure he’d kissed her. Before she could decide, he kissed her for real.

  Trembling, she sat up. She wanted more, but he helped her to her feet instead.

  Slowly they began walking to his car. She was shivering, but she hardly noticed. He was hungry, but he forgot the croissants flattened in his coat pocket. Already it was afternoon, the sun no longer bright but softer, pale gold. Were the days so short now? Or had they been out so long?

  Collin drove with his left hand and took Nina’s in his right. He said, “I used to wait and wait for you.”

  She said, “I know.”

  They drove to the Brattle Theatre, the classic-movie house, and bought tickets for The Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn, the early show. They had the place to themselves, and they spread their wet coats over empty seats. The Brattle’s clock glowed lavender, and they leaned back and ate all their buttered popcorn while they waited for the movie to begin.

  “It’s warm in here,” Nina said drowsily.

  “It’s quiet.”

  “I’m starting to feel my toes again.”

  “Uh-oh.” He reached down and slipped off her boots, feeling for her feet. “You’re soaked!” He began pulling off her wet socks.

  She was startled, and then she let him. “I didn’t know the snow would be so deep.”

  The cartoon was starting, a brief Bugs Bunny called Rabbit Hood.

  “Didn’t your mom teach you to wear good boots for sledding?” He rubbed her bare feet with his hands.

  “I lived with my father.” She kept her eyes on the screen.

  “Divorce?”

  “No, they never married.”

  “So your dad…”

  “He doesn’t really think about boots.” Onscreen, with heroic music playing, Bugs Bunny stole a carrot from the King’s Carrot Patch, despite warnings posted on stone walls: NO POACHING. NOT EVEN AN EGG.

  “What does he do?”

  “What’s up, Doc?” Bugs Bunny asked the King’s skinny sheriff.

  “What’s up, forsooth!” the sheriff retorted, longbow poised to shoot, arrow pointed at Bugs Bunny’s heart.

  “Whatever he wants.”

  “Cool. Where does he work?”

  She hesitated, even as he rubbed her instep with his thumb.

  “Around here?” Collin asked.

  “Arkadia.”

  “Seriously?” As kids, Collin and Darius had haunted Arkadia’s message boards for any hint of the next EverWhen expansion. Once they took the commuter rail out to Waltham and walked three miles from the station just to stand in the company parking lot. The two of them streaked with dirt and sweat, two pilgrims at the shrine. “What does he work on?”

  Now Nina tucked her bare feet under her. “You’re a gamer.”

  “I used to play EverWhen.”

  “What level were you?”

  “Well…”

  “Come on.”

  “Sixty.”

  “Sixty!” He could hedge, but Nina had played that labyrinthine game. She had wandered the Trackless Wood of EverWhen and qwested in the caves of EverSea. She knew what level sixty meant. He’d claimed five kingdoms, and hunted all twelve dragons to their dens. He had raced from green to golden fields, and lived a thousand years in Arkadian worlds, before he’d met her. He was just getting to know Nina, but he’d already journeyed deep into her father’s realm.

  Other parents practiced law or medicine; they traded stock, or ran for office, built houses or sold real estate. Nina’s father ran a company that produced MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games). Millions lived and dreamed inside his virtual worlds. His work was nowhere and everywhere, ephemeral and everlasting.

  “I used to play all the time,” Collin admitted. “I can close my eyes and see the Keep.”

  “His Most Royal Majesty cometh! Sound the welcomes and blow the crumpets!” cried Bugs Bunny.

  Collin didn’t even glance at the cartoon. “Is your dad a developer? Or is he like…I mean is he specialized, or more…” He interrupted himself. “Is he working on UnderWorld?”

  “He works on everything.”

  In flickering light, Nina watched Collin put the facts together. Her students called her Laser Lips. Her last name was Lazare. Her father was at Arkadia. He worked on everything, including the long-awaited UnderWorld, unreleased, but trending everywhere with its hash tag, #seeyouinhell.

  “Is your father…?”

  “Viktor Lazare,” she said.

  “Nina!” Playfully, reproachfully, Collin said, “Your father doesn’t work at Arkadia.”

  “No,” she conceded.

  Softly Collin said, “He owns it.”

  “Having once this juice,” Nina read to her sophomores, “I’ll watch Titania when she is asleep, / And drop the liquor of it in her eyes.” She looked up from her book and studied her best-behaved class. “What’s happening here?”

  “Oberon’s going to drug Titania,” Noemi said.

  “With what kind of juice?”

  “Liquor.”

  “Right. Liquor—which is the nectar of a magic flower. Sean, could you read the rest?”

  “The next thing then she waking looks upon, / Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull, / On meddling monkey, or on busy ape, / She shall pursue it with the soul of love.”

  “So what’s going to happen?”

  “You’re asking me?” Sean looked up with an easy smile.

  “Yes.”

  “She’s going to fall in love.”

  For a second the answer startled her. Then she said, “Who or what will Titania love? Sasha?”

  “The first thing she sees.”

  “Yes!” Silently, for just a moment, Nina celebrated. Her kids got it! Then she thought—three kids got it. She looked at the other thirteen arrayed before her, some whispering, some passing notes. Isaiah sat in back, staring out the window. Anton was drawing Titania—or was it Sasha?—topless. He was smart and tough, green-eyed, Russian. Athletic, but he’d been kicked off the basketball team.

  “Anton, why is Oberon going to play this trick on Titania?”

  Anton kept drawing.

  “Put the notebook away,” Nina said.

  He did not put the notebook away.

  She repeated, “Please put the notebook away so you can concentrate.”

  At this moment, Jeff, her TeacherCorps mentor, slipped into the room. He found an empty chair and took out his computer. Nina tensed as she stood her ground, confronting Anton.

  The class rustled, as trees rustle when the breeze picks up. Jeff watched h
er, and the kids watched Jeff watching her. For the third time she repeated, “Put the notebook away and tell me about these fairies—Oberon and Titania.”

  Slowly, Anton closed his notebook, and she could breathe again.

  Meanwhile, Jeff was typing rapidly. He had cropped blond hair, a runner’s build, eyes Eagle Scout blue. He thought data was the answer. That was why he recorded every bent head in Nina’s class.

  —

  “I noticed,” he would tell Nina later, “that two kids had their heads down on their desks when I came in, and three were missing books. Five minutes after that, we’ve got three kids with heads down on their desks. Everyone is sitting, which is great, but between the missing books and body language, you had six disengaged when you began your line of questioning.” She couldn’t stand him. He distracted the class with his tapping on the keyboard, and then he aggravated her afterward. He always said, “Look, it’s your call,” before he told her what to do.

  “What are the fairies like?” she asked her class now. “Are they kind and good-natured?” No one answered. “Are they mischievous? Chandra?” She appealed to her smallest, quietest student.

  “Mischievous,” Chandra answered in a tiny voice.

  “Why is that?”

  “Because they’re powerful.”

  “Yes!”

  Her response amused the class. Miss Lazare was so intense. She jumped if you guessed what she was thinking—like she was playing Bingo in her mind.

  Nina walked to the board. “Does power make you mischievous? Is that true? Who thinks it’s true?” She found a broken piece of chalk. “Isaiah, where does power come from in this play?”

  “Magic,” Isaiah said.

  “Good. Where else? Let’s list some places power comes from.”

  “In the play,” Isaiah asked, “or in the real world?”

  “Both!”

  “Money,” said Brittani.

  Nina wrote that on the board.

  “Etienne?”

  “Wealth.”

  “Okay.” Nina wrote wealth next to money.

  “Politics,” said Sasha, who had been nibbling a cookie when she thought Nina wasn’t looking.

  “Jonee?” Nina tried to call on Jonee every once in a while, but usually Jonee shook her head. Jonee had written permission to keep quiet in class because of a psychosomatic condition that caused her to faint when agitated. Nina found this confusing. She had assumed psychosomatic conditions weren’t real. Apparently they were real enough. “Where else does power come from?” she asked.