Schooled

by Anisha Lakhani

  That’s when I caught a glimpse of the computer screen on the little table.

  “Isn’t that a summary of the first act in Romeo and Juliet?” I pointed accusingly. A few customers had turned to look up with startled faces. I was making a small scene, but I didn’t care. I might have been new, but I wasn’t stupid. Is this how this sick woman seduced students? Was helping them with homework her version of perverted foreplay?

  “Oh! Anna! Listen, let’s catch up later? I’m just awfully busy right now.” Randi laughed nervously and took a sip of coffee. Her hands were shaking just a little. I decided to ignore her and address Benjamin directly.

  “I just kinda ran into Ms. Abrahams here,” Benjamin replied, still refusing to meet my eyes.

  “Anna, please, can we speak later?” Randi managed to ask while simultaneously smiling and clenching her teeth, her eyes shooting darts through my skull. We both stared at each other, frozen in an awkward silence. I looked at the screen:

  One can ascertain that the animosity between the Capulets and Montagues stems from an ancient and inexplicable grudge.

  There was no way a seventh-grader could have written that. The truth was starting to dawn on me. This wasn’t some illicit love affair. Randi Abrahams was “tutoring” Benjamin for my English class! Was this what happened? Did teachers at Langdon Hall illegally tutor their students? Were my students CHEATERS?

  “Well,” Randi said finally, obviously defeated and more than a little pissed.

  “Well. I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess,” I offered. I glared at Benjamin, whose left foot was now shaking with a nervous twitch. If he dared to hand in that paper, I was going to take it all the way up to Dr. Blumenfeld. Did Randi honestly think that I would believe that seventh-grade Benjamin Kensington would use ascertain correctly in a sentence?

  Monday morning and I couldn’t wait to collect my weekend’s assignment. To Benjamin’s credit, he could barely meet my eyes as he walked into class. The rest of the class was present and unusually quiet. The weekend’s bar and bat mitzvah festivities had taken a toll, and most of them were slumped in their little chairs, looking quite adorable.

  “Why don’t you all take a minute and relax while I collect the papers? No homework tonight, okay?” I announced gently, enjoying the grateful smiles. Class went smoothly, and whether it was their sleepiness or my determination to explain iambic pentameter—perhaps it was a combination of both—at the end of the hour I felt, for the first time, a bona fide teacher.

  And then I scanned Benjamin Kensington’s paper.

  I couldn’t believe it.

  I was FURIOUS, OUTRAGED, and GETTING RANDI FIRED. Unsure of how to proceed, I found myself heading to Damian’s classroom and hoping desperately that he wasn’t teaching a class.

  “Is that Anna? From the far outreaches of the distant middle school? What beckons you here?” I had never been more thrilled to hear Damian’s sarcastic voice. I slammed a copy of Benjamin’s paper in front of him.

  “Read,” I commanded.

  Damian raised one eyebrow, skimmed over the first few lines, and grinned. Then his eyes raised to the heading of the paper to take in Benjamin’s name and he shook his head in understanding. I couldn’t believe it. Where was the look of disbelief? The outrage? The outright indignation?

  “Anna, go teach your class. Leave this alone,” he said almost gently, all sarcasm erased. “Honestly, it’s not worth it. He’s a Kensington.”

  “Okay, Damian, I know what you’re going to say.” I pushed forward. “I know Benjamin’s parents are on the front page of that Langdon Hall Friends book. But I saw him doing this with Randi Abrahams at Starbucks. It’s not like I think he didn’t do this. I have actual proof.” At Randi’s name he looked up and stared at me for a moment and then he shook his head in disgust.

  “So she’s tutoring our kids, now. Amazing. Should have figured.” Still calm, Damian went over to his desk and picked up a stack of papers. “Listen, Anna, I have a class in a few minutes, but I’m telling you that it’s just not worth it. Where do you want to go with this? Get Benjamin in trouble? Randi fired? Look like a hero? Believe me, that’s not going to happen.”

  Feeling betrayed, I stormed out of Damian’s classroom and headed to Harold Warner’s office in the English department lounge.

  “Harold, I have something very serious to discuss with you,” I stated firmly upon entering, and was greeted by his hulking back. He was focused intently on the espresso machine and let me go on with seemingly little interest.

  “I have a paper by a student that was not written by that student. It was written by his tutor, who also happens to be a teacher at this school. I saw Benjamin Kensington and R—”

  “SHHH!” Harold whirled around, espresso forgotten. He was suddenly in a hyperalert, hyperfocused state. “Anna, you are new here, so let me remind you that this is a private school. We do not mention names and drop accusations so carelessly or so publicly. Let me see the paper in question.” I handed the assignment to Harold, and watched him skim the first few lines and take in Benjamin’s name on top.

  “Anna, I’ll handle this from here. Thanks so much,” he said curtly, putting the paper facedown on his desk.

  “Are we going to contact his parents? I’d like to speak with Randi about this.” I pressed on. “And what do I say to Benjamin? Do I return the paper ungraded?” Harold seemed to be lost in thought for a moment, and then responded, “I’ll get back to you. And please, Anna, no names out loud!” He turned around and sat down at his desk. That was it. I had been dismissed. Utterly frustrated, I thought about Damian’s question: Where do you want to go with this?

  Where did I want to go with this? The unavoidable truth was simple: I wanted to hurt Randi Abrahams. And not because she had written one of my students’ papers. It was because I knew with absolute certainty that Randi was obviously on the Kensington payroll, and for all the thankless, payless hours I would spend that year grading Benjamin-Randi’s homework and essays, she would receive extra payment. So there it was—the answer to Damian’s question that I could really only share with myself. Before I could even begin to grapple with this truth, I looked up to see Ms. Rollins, Dr. Blumenfeld’s secretary, approaching me with a panicked urgency.

  “Anna. Dr. Blumenfeld would like to see you in her office right now.” I glanced at the clock at the end of the hall and calculated that no more than two minutes had gone by since my conversation with Harold. Whatever she wanted, it couldn’t be about the paper. There was nothing to do but follow her down the hall.

  Alone again with Dr. Blumenfeld, I felt just as intimidated as I had been the first time. She was seated behind her desk and was staring intently at her computer screen. She did not look up when I walked in.

  “You can close the door,” she ordered.

  I was officially scared out of my mind.

  I took a seat at one of the upholstered chairs opposite her desk and made a mental note that the number one way to intimidate someone is to ignore their presence as Dr. Blumenfeld was doing right now.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked nervously. She ignored me. We just sat there, opposite each other, in her still, icy office.

  “Anna,” Dr. Bumenfeld said finally, prying her eyes away from the computer screen.

  “Yes?”

  “How was your first day? I heard the kids were enthusiastic in the halls after they left your class.” I sighed in relief.

  “It was actually really great. The parents, the kids, the faculty. I love it here!” I gushed effusively. Clearly I was back in interviewing mode.

  “The kids are great, aren’t they?” She smiled warmly.

  “It’s everything I imagined.” I smiled back, beginning to relax. There was no need for me to be so paranoid. This wasn’t the secret service.

  “I understand you may have one concern, though?”

  Fuck. There it was.

  How had Harold gotten to her so fast? E-mail. I was so stupid.

  “Um, ac
tually I did have a small concern that I shared with Harold not too long ago,” I conceded. “I hate to do this, especially to a colleague, but I witnessed Randi Abrahams essentially writing my student’s paper at Starbucks.” I had blown the whistle. She had to react. Something had to be done.

  “Yes, Harold mentioned that,” she responded coolly.

  “Obviously my primary concern is Benjamin’s education,” I lied. “I need him to write his own papers. And I was also led to believe that Langdon Hall teachers cannot tutor their own students.”

  Dr. Blumenfeld opened her mouth to speak and was interrupted by a small sound on her computer that indicated a fresh e-mail. She returned to her screen. Minutes passed uncomfortably.

  “Anna,” she finally said, looking at me dead in the eye, “I thank you for your concern. You have approached the right people about this serious issue, and it will be handled according to our procedures. You have done all you can do, so please just return the papers—even Benjamin’s—and grade it as if it were his work.” Was that it? I opened my mouth to protest.

  “But I’d like to speak with him directly, and possibly Randi as well about—”

  “Anna, we are very thankful that you did nothing rash with this. We will speak to the Kensington family, and of course I will be having a conversation with Randi later. At this juncture there is very little you can do. Thank you so much.” Dr. Blumenfeld gave me a tight smile and returned to her computer. I got up from the chair and walked out of her office. I had a creepy feeling that her eyes were boring into my back as I left, and I had a feeling that neither the Kensington family nor Randi Abrahams would ever be spoken to about this paper. Twenty minutes remained before I taught my next class, and I still had no idea what I was going to teach.

  That’s when I did a horrible thing.

  There was an open computer terminal in the middle school office and I sat down and opened Word. On the blank document I typed: Benjamin Kensington gets tutored illegally by Randi Abrahams. There was a sixth-grade math teacher near me, but she seemed to be engrossed in an e-mail. I surreptitiously pressed Print, pulled the page out of the printer, deleted the page from the computer screen, and walked calmly over to the Langdon Hall files. I opened the K drawer, folded the offending page, and slipped it into the Kensington file. Any thoughts I had once had as to what kind of teacher added the fact that Charlotte Robertson gave blow jobs to bar mitzvah boys was answered. Some pissed-off, frustrated teacher who needed to tell the truth to someone, anyone, before the cover-up began. Guilty and terrified, I returned to the computer terminal to check if I had any e-mails. I had a new message:

  Date: Monday, October 4, 2005 11:14 AM

  From: “Lara Kensington”

  Dear Ms. Taggert,

  Benjamin just raves about you. I would love to have you over for tea. I have found that cultivating relationships with my son’s teachers through the years has been so important in Benjamin’s education. I hope you feel the same.

  Kind regards,

  Lara Kensington

  I glanced at the timing on Benjamin’s mother’s e-mail. 11:14. Was it just a coincidence that she had e-mailed me at the exact time that I was alerting the middle school headmistress about her son’s paper? Was this vaguely disconnected, disorganized place just a front for a system that was more tightly woven and interconnected than the CIA?

  10

  My furniture arrived the same day my cell phone was cut off. Apparently my ever-increasing pile of unopened bills contained a ransom note from Verizon. But what could I do? Between rent and food, I could barely afford a cab, much less pay off my three-hundred-dollar cell phone bill. And now the Crate & Barrel deliveryman looked like he might need a big fat tip to take my furniture upstairs.

  “No elevator?” he asked, eyes widening.

  “Listen, please. I’ll help. I’m pretty strong—I HAVE to get this upstairs,” I pleaded desperately. Fifty paragraph summaries of Act 1, Scene 1 awaited me, and I had no lesson plan for the next day. It was 6:00 P.M.—I was obviously his last delivery—and neither of us had any patience left.

  “Listen, miss, nobody told me about this. We don’t do staircases like those. I don’t even think it’s going to fit.”

  I wanted to sit down on the curb and just bawl. For six weeks I had been sleeping on a blow-up mattress in the middle of my floor.

  Every night around 2:11 A.M. it started to release air. Depending on my mood I would either ignore it or rouse myself to pump it back up. Apart from the desk and throw pillows it was my only piece of “furniture.” Besides sleeping on it, I graded papers on it, ate my meals on it, and typed lesson plans on my ridiculously expensive laptop on it. I needed this couch. Today. This evening. Now.

  “Please,” I begged weakly. “Please try.”

  The deliveryman looked at his partner, who was supremely irritated.

  “All right, miss, we’ll give it a shot…”

  Two hours later, I was almost manic with joy at the sight of the couch in my apartment. The poor deliverymen had averaged almost a half hour on every flight, urged on only by my very genuine tears (yes, I had cried). I had two twenty-dollar bills in my wallet that were to last me till payday, but I gave them each one. It seemed the right thing to do. Still, neither of them looked too impressed, and I began to regret the tip the minute they turned their sweaty backs to me.

  Too tired to take the plastic off my brand new couch, I collapsed on the sticky covering and stared at my ceiling. I would grade my papers a little later, I promised myself as I closed my eyes to take what I sincerely believed would be the tiniest of cat naps….

  I shot up at the horrid sound of my alarm, my skin stuck to plastic. What the hell? The fearful reality dawned on me. I had fallen asleep. For the whole night. No papers graded…NO LESSON PLAN! And I had to be in school in forty-five minutes. What would I say? What would I teach? I was getting fired. I rescued a skirt from the floor and a crumpled-but-passable sweater I had thrown on a corner of my blow-up mattress. There was no time for a shower. I grabbed an elastic band and yanked my hair in a ponytail as I flew down the five stories of my building, carrying my heels in my hands. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

  Hailing a cab was out of the question. I raced up to Park Avenue, and, turning right, pushed myself to average a block a minute. I was sweating and dirty and exhausted and utterly, utterly unprepared as I pushed through Langdon’s glass doors. Usually I liked to be early so that I could have my classroom set up and be waiting for my students when they walked in. Today I entered with the full school rush.

  “MS. TAGGERT!!!!”

  Oh no. Please leave me alone. Please, please, please.

  I looked up to see Benjamin Kensington standing beside a beaming blonde in chic white yoga pants.

  “I’m Lara! Did you get my e-mail yesterday?”

  “Ms. Kensington, of course. I’m so sorry I didn’t respond earlier,” I apologized, willing myself to stand still and not make a mad rush for the staircase. Did she know what it felt like to face fifteen judgmental thirteen-year-olds at 8:00 A.M.?

  “Well, this is so much better! You can give me a date right now!”

  “Excuse me?”

  “For tea! Or better yet, let me take you to Sarabeth’s. For a getting-to-know-you lunch. It will be so lovely—we’ll discuss Benjamin!” She made it sound like discussing Benjamin over lunch was akin to being awarded a Grammy.

  “Mom, you are so embarrassing,” Benjamin muttered before running off to join his friends near the elevator.

  Lara Kensington laughed like a madwoman. I joined her to be polite.

  “Isn’t he just such a kick?”

  “Such a kick,” I agreed obediently. “Ms. Kensington, you’ll have to excuse me. I have a class in—”

  “Ms. Abrahams is a dear friend of the family, and I can tell you will be just as dear to us, Ms. Taggert. I’m so happy that the two of you are Benjamin’s teachers, and I’m sure you’ll both get along famously.
” Lara Kensington’s voice dropped ever so slightly as she became ever so slightly threatening. She was still smiling widely, but her blue eyes had turned to ice.

  “I can’t wait,” I responded faintly, then tore up the now emptied stairwell two stairs at a time all the way to the eighth floor for a class I was not prepared to see or teach.

  I thought it couldn’t get any worse, but I was wrong. Rounding the corner to my class, I was met with shouts and shrieks—screams, really. I opened the door to…pandemonium. Benjamin Kensington (aka most high-maintenance kid ever) was sprawled on the floor heaving, and a circle of scared-looking seventh graders were looking on, appalled.

  “Oh, my God, what is happening?!” I screamed. “Everyone STAY CALM! NOBODY FREAK OUT!” I screamed even louder, freaking out.

  “Benjamin’s having a reaction!”

  “His peanut allergies!”

  “He is going to DIE!”

  Oh God Oh God Oh God. I turned around and fled to the main office. To my horror and relief Dr. Blumenfeld was just coming in.

  “Oh, please!” I gasped. “Benjamin…peanut…help…” the words were hardly out of my mouth and she was already halfway down the hall with me miserably behind her. When I entered the classroom, Randi Abrahams was kneeling beside Benjamin, stroking his head calmly. In her right hand a strange-looking device—a glue stick? Tide to Go?—was rooted between the fingers of her right hand. What the hell was that?

  “Ah, Randi, you have an EpiPen,” Dr. Blumenfeld sighed in relief. “Thank you.”

  “Ms. Abrahams is the COOLEST!” Jacob yelled, while all the girls danced around Randi, gushing on and on about how she had saved Benjamin’s life. Dr. Blumenfeld turned around and eyed me frostily.

  “Ms. Taggert, I assume Dr. Zimmerman told you about Benjamin’s allergies,” she asked.