Schooled

by Anisha Lakhani

  “Okay, Katie, let’s start with cleaning out your bag. Let’s chuck all the crap and then go through your binders and make them look all cool, ’k?” I was trying my best to sound like the girls in my class, and apparently it worked. Katie studied my face for a second and nodded. She sat happily engaged for the next few minutes while I threw her notes away, went through her binders, hole-punched loose papers, and filed and organized until her binders were neat little masterpieces. They looked terrific—organized and neat.

  “There! Doesn’t that look better?” I felt triumphant. Katie was clearly pleased, and as a reward she opened her desk drawer, took out a pink sticker with a skull on it, and stuck it in the middle of the binder.

  “Katie, this is a skull.” Of all the stickers I had ever seen in my life, this was definitely the most weird. A skull???

  “Ohmigod, skulls are like the new hearts,” she dismissed and then looked as if she was about to go back to her computer when both of us heard the front door open. Katie’s head cocked to one side like a little dog and she listened intently to the heavy footsteps before bolting out of the room yelling, “Daddeeeeeee!”

  I was alone in the room. Helpless. Abandoned. I needed Katie. Because without Katie, what was I doing there?

  Daddy Carleton appeared in the room a minute later with his arms around his daughter. The man was, in a word, stunning. He was basketball player tall and dressed in a suit with a crisp white shirt. He shared Katie’s sandy brown hair and sparkling blue eyes. He looked like a member of the Kennedy family.

  “Hello, err…?” He looked at me blankly. It suddenly dawned on me that fathers who pay private-school bills, tutoring bills, voice training bills, cell phone bills, therapist bills, and all the other extracurricular activities that their children partake in probably had very little understanding of these activities apart from how much they cost. I stood up and extended my hand.

  “I’m Anna Taggert, Katie’s new tutor.”

  He shook my hand warmly and then turned back to his daughter.

  “So Katie Pie, what have you accomplished so far?” His voice seemed friendly, but I was nervous, certain that if Katie responded truthfully he would fire me on the spot. But Katie was a master of deception.

  “Daddy, look at how organized my binders are!” Daddy’s little girl exclaimed proudly. Mr. Carleton walked over to Katie’s desk and thumbed through the binder I had just organized. My heart was pounding so hard I felt as if I was going to pass out right there. My palms were sweating. I dreaded the obvious follow-up question: “What else did you do, considering I’m paying your tutor two hundred dollars an hour for her services?” Any half-intelligent man would have asked it. All sorts of excuses were rushing through my head.

  “Wow, Katie, I’m SO PROUD OF YOU!” he exclaimed, giving me a grateful look. He was?

  As I tried to comprehend what had just transpired, he kept talking:

  “Listen, err…, I rarely come home early, so if you’re finished here I’d love to spend some time with my daughter. Please charge us for the time you had planned on staying, of course, and we’ll just see you next time.”

  Daddy Carleton put his arm around Katie Pie again, and both of them turned on their heels and walked happily out of the bedroom as if I had simply disappeared the minute I was told I could leave. I was flabbergasted. I had just made two hundred dollars doing pretty much nothing. And I had a Dior elastic band. What’s more, Katie appeared to really like me. At least enough to lie for me. If the money had fallen out of the sky onto my lap I couldn’t have been more astonished. Was this tutoring business really this ridiculously, wondrously simple? Had I really just made more money than I did in my entire day at Langdon Hall? As I walked down Park Avenue, I imagined Katie sitting in the kitchen with her father, laughing and joking and watching Papita make their dinner. An hour later Mrs. Carleton would come home from her yogilates class and the three of them would eat a healthy, carb-conscious meal. I didn’t care. I might be going home to Lean Cuisine and the latest episode of The Hills, but I could sleep easy knowing that my bills were no longer a problem.

  It turned out that the Dior band was as big a success as Katie had promised. The minute I walked into my classroom Blair and Charlotte came running up to me and grabbed my ponytail.

  “Ooh, Ms. Taggert, this is SO cool!” Blair gushed.

  “Yeah, when did you get it? There’s, like, a waiting list for those!” Charlotte announced indignantly.

  “I have my ways,” I smirked, enjoying the jealous expression on the girls’ faces. Oh God. What was happening to me? It was inexplicable, but post Juicy Couture, Dior, and tutoring, my students at Langdon were starting to really respond to…me. They were more focused than ever during my classes, and actually rushed to talk to me afterward. I was…popular. But I wasn’t sure if I was a popular teacher or a popular student masquerading as a teacher. I went to the board to write down the day’s schedule, but not before eyeing Blair’s Cartier watch…just like Randi’s. It didn’t bother me for some reason that a thirteen-year-old girl was wearing a Cartier watch. What bothered me was that I really, really wanted it.

  17

  Once I started tutoring it was like they could smell it on me. I knew that “they” were the Upper East Side, but I wasn’t sure what “it” was. Still, I had this sensation of being subtly tracked and hunted. Since tutoring Katie Carleton, I was no longer in debt and had even bought a flat screen TV. Henri Bendel had replaced Ann Taylor, and my Nine West pumps went out with last week’s trash. While sitting on my couch trying to get through the ever-growing stack of papers to grade, I absentmindedly reached for the ringing phone without even checking the caller ID.

  “Hello. This is Laura Brandeis from Ivy League Tutoring. I may have a client for you.” I was mystified.

  “May I ask how you got my number?” It was the only logical question I could muster.

  “You were referred, and come highly recommended,” Laura assured briskly, “and I have a job for you.” I shut up. It didn’t matter that I had no idea who Laura was, nor that it was absolutely creepy that she knew how to reach me. Or that I tutored. Bottom line: Laura has a job for me.

  “Okay, I’m interested.”

  “The family lives on the Upper East Side, which I know you prefer because it’s in your neighborhood.” I was convinced Laura was across the street with binoculars.

  “The boy is in ninth grade, and the mother says she wants only the best for him. Both the parents went to Princeton and they insist that his tutor has an Ivy League education,” Laura continued.

  “How do you work…?” I was in completely new territory. What was in it for Laura?

  “I started Ivy League Tutoring four years ago. Manhattan private school parents prefer Ivy League–educated tutors, so I organize and manage a group of tutors who fit this criteria. I refer the tutors and take twenty percent off the top,” Laura explained.

  “So you don’t actually do anything besides make the connection?” I asked incredulously. Laura paused. Awkward. A part of me wished I had never asked the question. It was rude, but it had just slipped out.

  “Well, actually I do a lot,” Laura sniffed, clearly offended. “I take care of the business side, which is actually quite time consuming for you. Once a month, I will mail you a check for the hours you tutor. You won’t ever have to hound the parents for money. You just show up and tutor. Period.” Wait a minute. This woman was a con artist! What a setup! She sat on her ass at home while her Ivy League “tutors” ran all over Manhattan tutoring children and gave her 20 percent?!

  “I’d want to make a minimum of two hundred dollars an hour, so you would have to make sure this family is willing to cover that extra twenty percent to pay you,” I stated firmly, sure that Laura would slam the phone down.

  “Of course. That will not be an issue. The family is willing to pay anything for your combination of skills.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You are Ivy League, and you teach at on
e of the most exclusive private schools in Manhattan. I have more than enough eager Ivy graduates trying to pay off their college debts by working for me. Teachers are a bit harder to come by. So you will get the sum you wish for, Ms. Taggert,” Laura responded professionally.

  “Laura, I really must ask how you got this phone number,” I declared firmly.

  “I really am not at liberty to say. I just want to know if you are interested in this potential opportunity.” All that was missing was a dark alley and a trench coat.

  “I am.”

  “Terrific. You’ll be hearing from me.” The line went dead.

  Turned out I didn’t need a lesson plan for that day. Or the next. When I walked into my classroom at 9:00 A.M., most of my students were slumped listlessly around the conference table. Glassy-eyed and silent, they didn’t even acknowledge me when I walked in. For one crazy minute I wished I could just take a seat around the table as well and just disappear. It was so unfair that we teachers were expected to perform every single day. Be bright. Be cheerful. Provide entertaining lesson plans.

  “Hey, guys,” I offered, pulling up a chair at the head of the table. “I’m exhausted.” It was the most successful opening to any class I had ever taught. Instantly, heads perked up and students started to smile.

  “Ohmigod, me too!” Jessica sighed dramatically.

  “Yeah, Jacob’s bar mitzvah party didn’t end till, like, one last night,” Max Briggman explained, and all of us looked over at Jacob’s vacant chair. I had learned that it was utter foolishness on any teacher’s part to expect even a glimpse of the bar mitzvah child in their classroom a week before or the Monday after the big event.

  “Yeah, it was at Capitale. The motivational dancers were so hot,” Jeff Zuckerman said loudly.

  “And so was that one camp friend he had over—that Allison girl,” another voice chimed in.

  “What was the theme?” I asked, immediately interested. I had a wild impulse to just chat with my students for the rest of class.

  “He’s obsessed with Entourage,” Charlotte explained. “So the whole thing was like very Hollywood, and they even had Adrian Grenier and Kevin Connolly make an appearance. Adrian is soooooo hot.”

  “I think so, too,” I admitted, hating Jacob Stein for not inviting me. And then, because I couldn’t help it, I asked, “Was Ms. Abrahams there?” The class looked at the table uncomfortably, and a few heads nodded. I hated that I was a little jealous.

  “Don’t feel bad, Ms. T,” Amy soothed. “It’s just cause Ms. Abrahams is family friends with the Steins.” Family friends. How the hell did she get to be family friends with the Steins? She probably tutored the little shit. Come to think of it, his last paper had been exceptionally well written.

  “I’m not in the mood to teach today,” I confided.

  “I have Zoolander in my locker,” Jessica offered cautiously. All eyes were on me.

  “We can’t just see another movie…can we?” I asked hopefully. They could smell me weakening.

  “It’s about social pressure. We could discuss that afterward,” Jessica chimed intelligently, already equipped with a Ph.D. in Langdon Hall’s progressive education standards.

  “Ms. Abrahams lets us see movies all the time,” Benjamin offered.

  “I love that movie.” I was weakening. “And yes, we can have an important conversation afterward.” Bullshit.

  In under three minutes, my kids and I were blissfully watching a movie we had all seen four hundred times. For a moment I was nervous that someone would walk in and catch me, but then nobody had come to observe my classroom yet. I turned the air conditioner on high, followed my students’ example and put my feet up on the conference table, and watched the movie. When class came to an end, they groaned sadly.

  “We love you, Ms. Taggert. You are the coolest!” Benjamin cried, and I could have hugged him. It wasn’t his fault that Randi manipulated him, and I wished that I could be the one to tutor him. Forty-five minutes of Zoolander and I was in a better place.

  “Thanks, Benjamin, this was fun for me, too,” I admitted.

  “We’re finishing the movie tomorrow, right?” Jessica asked suddenly, and the students all froze and looked up at my face. That’s when I realized that I was not only going to get out of teaching today, but tomorrow, too! I couldn’t just show half the movie. And this was only one of my classes! Two more classes would expect to see the movie, and then it would happen all over again tomorrow.

  “Only if I can keep your DVD for the next two classes!” I exclaimed sweetly, and everyone cheered. I was a hero. The best teacher ever. I would grade the rest of my papers while the next two classes watched Zoolander. Maybe I would take a quick field trip to Blooming Nails during my next break and treat myself to a mani pedi. Suddenly I didn’t care about Benjamin’s paper or Randi Abrahams or finding a moral high ground at Langdon Hall. I was going to Blooming Nails. All I was focused on was whether I should go with Ballet Slipper or Angel Food Cake Polish.

  Laura Brandeis’s call came between my second and third viewing of the first half of Zoolander, a movie I could now recite perfectly, much to my students’ delight: I’m really really good looking.

  I even launched into a full-blown “modeling” competition with Chase, Max, and Benjamin while the girls giggled uncontrollably.

  “Ms. Taggert does the best Blue Steel!” Madeline cried.

  “I love your nails. Is that Angel Food?”

  “Ballet Slipper,” I corrected sweetly, then snapped my neck dramatically and puckered my lips. “I’m a male model!”

  The class howled.

  Since I had my phone on VIBRATE, I missed Laura Brandeis’s message. Apparently I was scheduled to be interviewed that afternoon by Elizabeth Herring, Princeton graduate and hyperinvolved mother of Jake Herring. Jake attended Collegiate on the Upper West Side, and was in the ninth grade. They lived on 87th Street and Park Avenue, and I was expected at 4:00. I was to call Laura Brandeis after this initial meeting and discuss specifics. That’s all she gave me in the rather curt and businesslike message.

  The prospect of securing another tutoring job filled me with joy, but I must have had some misgivings because I hadn’t told my parents about this tutoring-on-the-side part of my job yet. In fact, I hadn’t told anybody about my job with the Carletons because, well, it just seemed so obnoxious to tell a fellow teacher, “Hey, I got a job that pays twice in one hour what we make in a day.” What were they supposed to say? Congratulations? If someone told me that, I would tell them to go fuck themselves. Or give them a fake smile and then talk about them behind their backs like Damian and Sarah talked about Randi Abrahams. But then who was to say that Damian and Sarah didn’t tutor themselves? Maybe their scorn for Randi was a mere cover for their own lucrative side business? Or maybe they were just burning with jealousy that they had to live off their miserable teacher salaries while Randi enjoyed all the luxuries tutoring afforded? Langdon Hall’s private world was unfolding like a poisonous flower and the heady scent was intoxicating.

  Getting to the Herring residence on time proved more challenging than I had ever imagined. Gone were the days that I could enter and exit the school with relative anonymity. As I walked past the heavy French doors and into the afternoon sunlight, the Langdon Hall mothers descended on me.

  “Ms. Taggert!”

  “We’re so excited to meet you!”

  “I’ve been hearing your name in my house all semester!” I looked around at the golden-haired beauties and didn’t know who to speak to first. The tallest one stepped forward.

  “I’m Dana Robertson. I called you a few weeks ago?”

  “I’m so sorry, I have meant to call you for ages,” I stammered. I noticed two of the other mothers glancing at each other with a look of irritation that Dana and I already had been in contact, but the glance was fleeting and replaced almost immediately with broad Cheshire cat grins.

  “Don’t be silly, sweetie. Would you care to do it now? We can hop over to
Sarabeth’s for a late lunch—it would be fabou!”

  Fabou or not, I had to get to the Herring residence in under fifteen minutes.

  “Can we take a rain check? I’m actually running to a…a doctor’s appointment,” I said quickly, once again aware of the fact that I was absolutely incapable of admitting to anyone that I tutored.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Pregnant?”

  “My husband has a practice! He’ll take wonderful care of you!”

  I took a step toward Park Avenue and smiled politely. The mothers stepped with me. Oh God. “No, really, just a checkup, but it’s been booked for ages. Why don’t I give you my cell phone number? We can speak later?” In my desperation to make the interview, I had unknowingly walked into the lion’s den of the private school circus. BlackBerrys and cell phones came out in blinding speed and heavily bejeweled fingers stood poised and ready for action. I quickly rattled off my number, flashed Dana Robertson an apologetic smile, and tore up to Park Avenue. I was completely annoyed that I had to take a cab once again, but one look back assured me that unless I made a quick getaway, the mothers would be upon me again. But not before they had each saved my cell phone number for all of posterity.

  Jake’s building was one of those grand Park Avenue landmarks with a lobby that seemed to stretch endlessly. A white-gloved doorman hustled to open my cab door as it pulled up to the building, but then looked incredibly disappointed to see me step out. Could he smell tutors? Did he know that no tip would be involved and that it was entirely possible for him to abuse me? He turned around and went back into the building, forcing me to open the door myself.

  “Excuse me?” I asked meekly, irritated by the Manhattan hierarchy. Doormen over tutors in the lobby. I was catching on to this insane world. He raised one gloved finger and gestured that I should wait. When he finally deigned to look over, I said even more meekly, “Herring residence, please.”