Schooled

by Anisha Lakhani

  By the time we left the store, it was already dark. I could barely walk.

  “Shall we share a cab? Which way are you heading?” Randi asked, then dropped her handbag on the sidewalk. “Oops,” she giggled, “I’m drunk like a skunk!”

  “I’m on 84th between Third and Lex,” I offered, trying to focus on her fallen handbag. The sidewalk was tilted at an obscure angle.

  “Perfect, I’m on 76th between Madison and Park—just drop me off!” she exclaimed, bending down to pick up her bag.

  We collapsed into the cab and I allowed Randi to tell the driver the two stops he was to make. As I watched the Madison Avenue stores whiz by, I looked over to the beautiful, leggy girl beside me who was now someone I could call my friend.

  “I had the besssst ti…meee,” she slurred, her eyes half shut.

  “Me, too,” I responded truthfully, watching her exit the cab at 76th Street. As I leaned back in the taxi and waited for my stop, I made a formal decision to find a new apartment. And not throw up in the back of the cab.

  21

  I dragged myself to school Monday morning more hungover than I had ever been in my life. After getting home from Barneys the night before, I had collapsed on my bed and passed out cold. No papers. No lesson. But before I started to panic in earnest, I saw Randi turn the corner of Park Avenue looking equally lethargic. Enormous sunglasses covered half her face. Her body looked frail, barely able to hold the gigantic Marc Jacobs bag that caused her to tilt to one side.

  “Anna…oh my God…,” she called out dramatically.

  “Ms. Lavery!” I cried back, delirious with joy that we already had an inside joke. I noticed several of the mothers look our way curiously, and for once I was thrilled to have someone on my team. For some reason they were more reluctant to intrude when two teachers were talking. Maybe because they couldn’t smell the fear.

  “Randi, what did you do to me?” I moaned dramatically, enjoying the curious looks my Chanel bag was receiving. As soon as she approached me, Randi linked her arm through mine and whispered, “We’re sending them to the library.”

  I sighed with relief. Not only did I have Randi backing me, untouchable Randi who even Dr. Blumenfeld was afraid to chastise, but I would have a friend to gossip with the whole day. We remained with our arms linked as we walked through the lobby past Dr. Blumenfeld’s raised eyebrows and Damian Oren’s disgusted smirk.

  Randi’s expert dismissal of our students made Machiavelli seem innocent. She collected both of our classes in her room and stood by the board with a glint in her eyes.

  “Ms. Taggert and I have something very special planned for you today,” she gushed. “But we’re not going to announce it until each and every one one of you is very, very quiet.”

  The entire room was silenced in an instant. Even I couldn’t wait to hear what this surprise treat we were apparently giving the children would be. Randi looked over at me and winked.

  “Shall I tell them, or will you, Ms. Taggert?”

  “By all means, you tell!” I was admittedly as caught up as the kids.

  “Well,” Randi said slowly, starting to pace from one end of the board to the next, “Ms. Taggert and I were discussing how stressed so many of you are after your weekends. And we’ve gotten so many calls from your parents requesting that we not give any homework as so many of you can barely keep up after your exhausting bar mitzvah partying.”

  The seventh-graders were wide-eyed and waiting with bated breath.

  “And we also know that some of your other teachers are not as understanding…so we have decided to allow you to spend the entire history and English class times today in the library catching up with your homework for your other subjects!” Randi finished triumphantly.

  The room broke into applause and our kids started making a mad dash for the door. I started to panic at the thought of fifty students tearing into the library.

  “Excuse me!” Randi exclaimed, expertly blocking the door. “But Ms. Taggert and I have one more thing to say. We are treating you like adults. Like college students. If you run down the halls and burst into the library like banshees, then you’re never going to be invited up there again. If either of us get a single complaint about your behavior today, we will not only never allow you this opportunity again, we will make it a point to share with you the names of your peers who acted out and kept you from ever doing this again.”

  Randi was a genius. The kids immediately started hushing each other.

  “Yeah, Benjamin, you better not be all hyper,” Charlotte ordered.

  “Shut up, ho,” Benjamin shot back.

  “Be good!” Randi ordered, beaming as the last student left the classroom. Immediately she shut the door, turned, and faced me.

  “Starbucks?”

  “It’s like they don’t want their kids to get an education,” I said in wonderment, sipping my peppermint mocha.

  It was a week before we got let out for winter break, and Randi and I were at the local Starbucks having our midday mochas, which had become a daily ritual. As usual, Randi looked impossibly chic in her gray J. Mendel chinchilla vest and black cashmere sweater dress. Soft knee-length boots in black suede completed her look.

  “It’s all about entrances. They just care about entrances,” Randi replied, stirring her coffee. “Entering the right nursery school. The right private school. The right college. They don’t give a hoot what actually goes on post entry. Honestly, what do you think Lara Kensington would rather do, hire a tutor to deal with Benjamin’s failing English grade or simply hear that he’s doing ‘just great’ and that his teacher even gives him time to work on other subjects in school?”

  “But Randi, they’re not all like that, are they? I mean, are you saying that every single Langdon parent just doesn’t want to be bothered by their child’s education?” I found Randi’s sweeping statements very difficult to believe. Yes, I was enjoying this new lifestyle she had introduced me to. My afternoons were spent tutoring and shopping, and I had even started to look for a new apartment. But every now and then I felt a twinge of guilt about the fact that I had taught my students absolutely nothing in the last few weeks. Even the great Ms. Lavery had apparently taught some incredible lessons.

  “Let’s just say that my experience has been that all these parents just like hearing how brilliant their kids are. Look at it the other way. If you actually told any one of them the truth, what do you get out of it? They either hate you, or even worse, they believe you. If that’s the case they want to have five hundred meetings that involve you, their child, their child’s therapist, learning specialist, or worst of all, tutor. And honestly, Anna, after that three o’clock buzzer goes off, you can either go tutor and make some serious cash, or you can sit like a chump and have after-school meetings. Remember, you’re not paid extra for caring.”

  It was hard not to wince at Randi’s brashness.

  “The parents have been a lot nicer to me after I backed off on the homework and heavy workload in class,” I agreed slowly, still cringing a little at her last statement.

  “Trust me, Anna. Just go on and on about how you’ve never quite come across a kid like their child, and everyone goes home happy. You worry too much. They’re not paying you enough to worry.”

  “I guess,” I responded, not entirely convinced that caring and worrying came with price tags. Randi didn’t hear me because she was now immersed in her BlackBerry, furiously texting. There seemed to be a never-ending stream of people who needed to get in touch with her all day.

  Living in Randi’s Langdon was life altering. We sent our students to the library at least three times a week, which allowed me ample time to plan and grade papers for the actual two days I did teach. On those days, I continued to strive to make my lesson plans interesting and action-packed out of sheer guilt, but I no longer felt the stress of performing on a daily basis. Most surprising were the phone calls and e-mails from grateful Langdon mothers who thanked me for being “one of the few understandi
ng teachers” and “so in tune with the needs of our overworked seventh-graders.” I had to admit that without this extra time, I would never have made it out of report writing alive.

  While I had been told about Langdon report writing during orientation, nothing prepared me for its brutal reality. We were meant to write in-depth little essays about each of our fifty students by the second week of January. These essays were to be submitted to the parents, who we then faced in one-to-one conferences in March. Harold reminded me in a curt e-mail that these essays were to be informative, descriptive, and under no circumstances to mention a grade. Randi and I were both sitting in my empty classroom working on them while our students were blissfully in the library.

  “I refuse to write these fuckers on my own time,” Randi had stated matter-of-factly. “Find a way to write all your reports in school.”

  “Maybe I’ll just write mine during winter break when I have more time,” I mused.

  “Slog your ass off while your students fly down the slopes of Aspen or tan on their parents’ boats in Anguilla? And get nothing out of it?” Randi countered in disgust. “No, thank you. My winter break is my busiest tutoring season! These reports need to be done well before. You’ll see. Yours will be, too.”

  “I thought they all went away,” I said, confused. “Besides, no Manhattan private school encourages homework over winter break. Who are you tutoring?”

  “You’ll see,” Randi replied mysteriously. “You can make up to ten grand if you’re good and work full days.”

  I had no idea what she was talking about, and absolutely no winter break tutoring lined up. Plus, my parents would kill me if I wasn’t home for the holidays. I was also getting a little tired of Randi’s “they’re not paying you enough” line, which I was quickly learning was her reasoning for every private-school corner she cut. Lately I had been spending less time with the kids and more and more time with Randi at Starbucks, Sarabeth’s, and Fred’s. Finding ways to get around teaching and discovering tutoring clients who would pay the most were her favorite and only topics of discussion.

  I couldn’t argue that she had a point. There seemed to be no repercussions at Langdon for being a lax teacher. Contrary to Dr. Blumenfeld’s intital interview during which I had truly felt as if she would keep a very close eye on me, no one had ever entered my classroom. In fact, the only time I had been chastised at Langdon was when I had been teaching. Just last week I had passed Harold Warner in the halls and he had given me a beaming grin.

  “Saw your kids hard at work in the library, Anna!” he had congratulated me.

  “That’s right!” I had grinned back, inwardly cringing at his transparency. As long as my classes weren’t being taught well, I was not a threat to him. I did not upset the Langdon balance. The few teachers who apparently were giving work were constantly ragged upon by the students.

  “I hate Ms. Steephill,” Max moaned on another day I allowed my students to have a “work period.” He was referring to the math teacher, Dorothy.

  “Yeah, my parents think she’s such a bitch,” Jacob growled, furiously punching numbers in his calendar.

  “Jacob, don’t call teachers a bitch!” I had ordered, but quickly followed up with, “Why?” I was curious.

  “She gives like hours of math homework every night, and even my tutor doesn’t understand how to do like half of it,” Madeline whined. “Plus she’s weird and keeps closing her eyes and saying ‘um’ which totally freaks us all out.”

  “I know, my mom said that she’s spending a fortune on my math tutor,” Max groaned, erasing the equation he had just written on his graph paper. “But they love you, Ms. Taggert. You get us.”

  Since I seemed to be doing everything lately with Randi, it was no surprise that she wanted to start writing reports together. The first report I tried to tackle was Benjamin Kensington.

  Benjamin is a wonderful young man. He is very enthusiastic and loves coming to school. He really liked the Shakespeare unit, and found Romeo and Juliet to be very interesting. It was clear he understood the text and he made some wonderful contributions in class.

  Benjamin’s writing is coming along very nicely. He clearly likes to write.

  I stared at the blinking cursor on the screen. Randi was across the table writing feverishly.

  “How can you write that fast?” I sighed. “I haven’t even finished one report.”

  “I’m on my twentieth,” she replied proudly. Her eyes looked oddly bright.

  “Let’s take a Starbucks break?” I asked, desperate for any procrastination.

  “No coffee today, love. We are finishing these babies! I told you, winter break is going to be busy, and with the kids at the library and then at gym for the rest of the afternoon, we have to get the bulk of them done. Trust me. It’s easy, Anna. First paragraph commendations, second paragraph recommendations.” She returned to the screen and began typing again, her fingers flying across the keyboard at a manic speed.

  On a wild impulse, I decided to write from the heart and see what I came out with.

  Benjamin Kensington is fabulous at being a pampered pain in the ass. He flawlessly disrupts class constantly and often makes perfectly obnoxious comments. He seems to have made it to the seventh grade, but I’m not even sure if he can read at a fourth-grade level. This is truly an admirable feat.

  I recommend that Benjamin be put back at least two grades. I recommend that he start doing his homework by himself. I also recommend that he be grounded for a good two weeks.

  Grinning, I pressed PRINT and slapped my “report” in front of Randi with a flourish. She didn’t look up.

  “Randi!” I cried. “Check this out.”

  “Mmm?” Her typing was now blindingly furious.

  “Look at my Benjamin report,” I said, laughing.

  She finally looked up at me with the same expression she had given me the first time I entered her room. I took a step back, alarmed. What had happened to my new friend? Grimacing, she reached into her purse and pulled out a bottle of Tylenol.

  “Do you have a headache?” I asked, now utterly confused by her erratic actions. Wordlessly, she snapped open the bottle and shoved it in my face. Inside the bottle were tiny little cream-colored pills.

  These were not Tylenol.

  “Ritalin. Take one,” she ordered.

  “Randi!” I exclaimed. “I don’t have ADD!”

  “Obviously you don’t,” she said impatiently. “I stole these from a kid I tutor. They work even better if you don’t have ADD. Pop one in and your reports will literally write themselves.”

  “What if…I have a reaction?” I asked weakly.

  “Anna, don’t be a baby. God! Just pop one and please shut up.”

  I had never done a drug in my life. I was now doing drugs. But her “pop one and your reports will literally write themselves” line was just too tempting. Guiltily I put the tiny pill in my mouth and swallowed. I waited.

  “Nothing is happening,” I said with certainty. I felt no compulsion to return to report writing.

  “Tell me that in an hour,” Randi retorted, rolling her eyes. “Now, no talking.”

  Before I could open my mouth to protest, I felt the oddest sensation. I was in a long, black tunnel and the only thing I could see was the computer in front of me. I wanted to write those reports more than I had wanted anything else in my life. After I finished them I would write a novel and maybe a few poems. Why wasn’t everyone addicted to this beautiful life-solving pill?

  By the end of the school day half of my reports were written. I had used words like charming and promising at least six hundred times, and even though most of the reports were utter bullshit, I was proud of myself. The Ritalin had to be wearing off, though, because once again I had reached the point that I could not possibly write another word.

  “You got another one?” I asked, embarrassed.

  “I have plenty, but I’m not giving you any for the evening. Reports are to be written in school. Now go and
tutor—you’re on your own time!”

  I nodded obediently. I had Katie and Jake to tutor, one right after each other, and I wasn’t in the mood to handle reports anyway. I believe that if Randi had asked me to go jump into the Hudson River, I would have seriously contemplated it. As long as she gave me another report-writing pill tomorrow.

  22

  Conchita looked nervous.

  “Missus Herring no here,” she explained, staring at her feet.

  “That’s okay. Is Jake in?” I asked brightly.

  “Jake here…he in room. With…friend,” Conchita replied, now blushing.

  “Okay, Conchita, I’ll go find him,” I said, walking down the long corridor that led to Jake’s room. She trailed behind me, making little clucking sounds.

  “You knock, okay?” she called, finally halting near the kitchen. Clearly Conchita was not going any further.

  “Of course!” Whatever. If “Mimsy” wasn’t home, I wasn’t going to knock! I wasn’t Jake’s Conchita. I was his tutor, and I had spent a good eight and a half hours reading The Age of Innocence so that I could “explain” it to him. I opened his door confidently.

  Ooops.

  There was Jake, half-naked (of course) with a half-naked girl (this was a bit of a surprise) straddled on top of him. They were making out furiously. I stood there dumbly, rooted to the spot.

  “Oh, hey, Anna,” he said in a raspy voice. “Just a sec, okay?”

  “Um, okay,” I responded awkwardly, then quickly shut the door. Poor Conchita…she had tried to warn me! I looked down the hall and saw her standing there, wide-eyed.

  Instead of embarrassed shuffling in an attempt to get dressed and look decent, I was shocked to hear loud moaning coming from the room. Moaning? It seemed the make-out session had entered an even heavier dimension, spurred on by my entry. Angrily, I knocked loudly on the door.

  “Jake! I have someone after you! I can’t stay longer!” I shouted.