“That they’re both rich?” Jennie wondered.
“Yes, absolutely. You can infer that. But the word dignity that follows it suggests social status as well.”
“Well, you can’t have, like, that great of a social status if you’re not rich,” Jennie argued.
“Maybe,” I relented. “Shakespeare is most likely referencing two very wealthy families. But then he could have just said they were both alike in wealth. But the word dignity does one thing wealth doesn’t….” I lingered, watching Jennie as she returned to the same line and read it silently to herself.
“What? Tell me!” she begged.
“Dignity has three syllables,” I explained. “Remember when you first learned about syllables? You were taught to put your hand under your chin and say the word?”
“Oh, yeah!” Jennie cried, smiling. “And the amount of times your hand moved down was the amount of syllables there were in a word!”
“Exactly. So what’s the difference between a word like wealth and dignity?” I pressed.
“Wealth has one syllable, and dignity has three, duh! Who cares?”
“Shakespeare did. He cared a lot.” I launched into a mini-lecture on iambic pentameter and watched Jennie’s eyes widen as I told her to test any of the fourteen lines of the prologue.
“They all have ten syllables,” I announced confidently.
“No freaking way!” She was counting on her left hand while placing her right palm under her chin. With each line she tested, her smile became broader.
“Wow…,” she breathed. “He’s, like, a genius.”
“It is pretty cool,” I agreed.
“It’s so crazy how we just spent so long on just one line,” Jennie remarked, but she wasn’t complaining. Her eyes were shining, and she was looking at the prologue with the same intensity I had seen her give her US Weekly when I had first walked in the room.
“That’s what I love the most about Shakespeare,” I confided. “You can really lose yourself in just one or two lines and somehow every time you revisit you can find a new meaning or angle. He tells a story, but he sometimes gives it to us in riddles.”
“Like a puzzle…,” Jennie said softly.
“Exactly!” I suddenly sat up straight. “That’s why some students don’t enjoy Shakespeare. They complain it’s too much work to figure out each line’s meaning. But they don’t understand that’s okay. It’s fun to linger on lines and read them slowly. It’s probably why Mr. Richards only gave you such a small amount to read.”
As Jennie moved on to the next line, which was far more straightforward, I found myself unable to move past the last sentence I had just uttered.
It was so simple. And so very, very brilliant.
This “detested” and “terrible” teacher Mr. Richards gave small chunks of manageable reading to his students each night. They had no choice but to read and understand the material in depth because what most teachers gave as homework, Mr. Richards waited until the next day to present as schoolwork. In class. No tutors. No Internet. No sharing of homework or side discussions. The work he received from his students was simply that. The real work of his students.
Oh my God.
“What does piteous overthrows mean?” Jennie asked, interrupting my epiphany.
“What do you think it means?” I challenged. “If I just tell you, then there’s a chance you may not remember. It’ll mean so much more if you first look up the words in the dictionary and then give it a shot.”
“Can I at least use dictionary.com?” Jennie asked, rolling her eyes.
“Dictionary.com is fine. I’m not a Nazi!”
By the end of the session, I was confident Jennie could have given a lecture on the prologue to a high school class.
“You’re going to blow Mr. Richards away tomorrow,” I promised. And I meant it. After bullshitting for so long, it was an utter relief to be able to leave a tutoring session feeling as if I had actually taught something. And because there was no physical writing assignment to turn in, there was no confusion as to my contribution. When it came time to show how well she knew the prologue tomorrow, Jennie would be on her own.
This Mr. Richards had made sure of that.
27
I had to get to the Braxtons in under fifteen minutes, and there were no cabs on Madison. The remainder of the afternoon stretched endlessly. Four more clients. I would be tutoring till at least midnight because Whitney had a paper on The Great Gatsby due the next day and I knew she didn’t even have a thesis for it yet. It was outrageous that she expected me to show up at her house at 10:00 P.M. and complete an entire paper with her. More outrageous was the fact that I would do it. I could just see her now, sitting hopelessly on her bed with the computer screen turned on to a blank Word document. Like half of my clients, Whitney preferred to dictate from the confines of her canopy bed: “Okay, for the next paragraph, say how, like, Gatsby thought Daisy was hot but that her husband Tom was really snotty and all. I sensed that from the movie.” As I watched her flip the pages of Vogue, I imagined myself responding, “Okay, for the next paper, you little brat, how about you, like, read the book and actually sit at your desk to write it yourself? I sense that would be good for you.”
But if Jake Herring’s endless succession of tutors had taught me one thing, it was this: Manhattan tutors were replaceable. If I wasn’t willing to write the paper, some other underpaid and frustrated teacher was.
Damn! There really were no cabs.
Walking over to Park, I found myself wishing that all my tutoring experiences were like the one I had just had with Jennie. True, she might have an unfair advantage in class tomorrow compared to any of her peers who didn’t have a tutor. Working with a teacher would definitely give her an edge; but still, Jennie had worked, and I had actually taught. When I left her room, I had a feeling that Jennie might grow to appreciate Shakespeare, that she might actually enjoy figuring out what other lines meant. I couldn’t help but compare my session with her with how I had handled the same prologue in my class earlier in the year. Unlike Mr. Richards, I had asked my students to write a fourteen-line translation for homework. The next day I had a stack of flawless translations on my desk, but no sense of who actually got it or who did the work. For all I knew, that one assignment could have financed the lease for some lucky tutor’s BMW! All so I could read what they wrote the next day.
Finally spotting an off-duty cab down the block, I began running wildly and flaying my hands.
“Please,” I begged, “I’ll give you a five-dollar tip. Just fifteen blocks, please!”
“Off duty,” the driver growled, beginning to roll up his window.
“Ten!” I begged.
It worked. Gratefully sinking into the back seat, I eyed his registration sticker and couldn’t help but think that Omar Ahmed and I weren’t very different. We were both suckers for bribes.
“It’s so hot,” Madeline grumbled as she slumped into class the next day.
The air conditioning wasn’t working and it was unreasonably warm for May. May! I couldn’t believe that there were only two months left of the school year.
“Ms. Abrahams is taking her class to the Guggenheim so they can buy Popsicles from the vendors. Can we go too?” Amy asked hopefully.
“Guys, we still haven’t finished Lord of the Flies,” I argued, a little nervous that with all the library visits, the school year would end and we still wouldn’t have finished the book we had started in…oh God, in January! Strangely, none of the parents seemed to mind. If anything, I had been repeatedly complimented for my understanding pace and reasonable workload.
“Just give us a reading hall in class tomorrow and we’ll finish it. There are only, like, four chapters left to go,” Benjamin suggested.
I found myself weakening, but then I thought about Mr. Richards. He would do just the opposite. His students would read at night and would actually work tomorrow. Was it too late in the year to try something new? A lightbulb went off in m
y head.
“Okay, guys, we can go with Ms. Abrahams’s class,” I said brightly. They all started cheering and rushing for the door.
“BUT…,” I rushed to the front of the room and blocked the entrance, “first you will all sit down and take out your homework planners. I have an assignment. If I’m going to compromise, you’re going to compromise.”
I heard a few exaggerated sighs and moans—they were, after all, seventh-graders—but the promise of Popsicles caused them all to quiet down.
“I don’t have a homework planner,” Max whined.
“It’s May.” I rolled my eyes. “When were you thinking of getting one?”
“Like, never,” he mumbled. I ignored him.
“I want you all to read the chapter entitled ‘A Gift for the Darkness’ tonight,” I ordered. After five minutes of shuffling and requests to borrow pens and pencils, I watched most of them dutifully writing in their planners.
“And what’s the assignment?” Charlotte asked.
“That’s it,” I replied flatly.
“Just read?” Jacob asked, his eyes shining. “Awesome!”
“Yes, I just want you to read. You are going to do the writing assignment in class tomorrow. And it’s going to count as a quiz grade.”
Silence. Deadly, pin drop silence.
Unsurprisingly, Benjamin broke it, but I was amazed to hear how polite his tone of voice was.
“Um, Ms. Taggert? We don’t mind doing the assignment at home. Just tell us what it is?”
“Quizzes give me panic attacks,” Madeline added.
“This is a lot of work,” David agreed.
“No, it’s not,” I answered simply. “The chapter won’t take you more than twenty minutes to read. So I don’t want any of your parents calling me tonight and complaining that I’m giving you too much work. If I get a single call, I’m announcing whose parent it was in class tomorrow,” I warned, looking around the room. I focused in on Madeline. “And the only way you will get a panic attack is if you don’t read very, very carefully. Because the quiz will be easy. Ridiculously easy, actually. You should all get an A+ if you read. Of course, if you don’t, it will be quite impossible.”
Silence once again.
“Now let’s get some Popsicles!” I said sweetly, walking out of the room.
Half of Langdon seemed to be at the Guggenheim. Harold Warner’s and Randi’s classes had gotten there a little earlier and I could see Sarah Waters’s class walking ahead with a trail of high-school students who looked as delighted as my seventh-graders. Across the street I saw some other Langdon kids, but I couldn’t make out their teacher as a bus was blocking my view.
“Is your school having a field trip to the museum?” an elderly woman asked me curiously as we approached. “How wonderful!”
“Sort of,” I replied evasively, then walked over to join Randi. What was I supposed to say? No, we only come here for the ice cream?
Randi was, as always, a vision. She was wearing a buttercup yellow sundress tied daintily at the shoulders. Large white Oliver Peoples sunglasses covered half her face, and she carried the new Anya Hindmarch Perry bag. Lately I had managed to keep up with her in designer wardrobes, but I hadn’t made it out of Whitney’s apartment last night till 2:00 A.M. I had earned almost $2,000 writing that Gatsby paper, but once again I found myself paying for it in the morning. I knew Randi was eyeing my dark undereye circles and slightly crumpled shirtdress.
“Sweetie, what happened to you?” She looked genuinely concerned.
“Horace Mann is hard,” I responded, deadpan. She knew all about how I was writing Whitney’s paper. We both chuckled, loving the fact that no further explanation was necessary. “And it may be crumpled, but the dress is Marni,” I added.
“Then you’re excused!” She grinned, taking a lick of her Popsicle. Harold Warner walked over, holding a large salted pretzel in one hand and a Snickers ice-cream bar in the other.
“Look at them,” he sighed happily, eating with his mouth open. “They’re so happy. I love the community we have at Langdon. We work hard and we play hard.” At that moment, the three of us were greeted with the most curious sight. As the other group of Langdon students I had seen across the street approached the museum, we all stared at the man they were following. Or was he a model? His dark hair was slicked back with gel, and he was wearing a pair of gold-rimmed Cavalli aviators. An expensive-looking white linen shirt was tucked into low-riding jeans. As he turned to make sure all his students had crossed the street, I saw the gold-studded snake on the back pocket. More Roberto Cavalli. His shoes were a light crème ostrich leather, and he was strutting like John Travolta in the opening scene of Saturday Night Fever.
“Mr. Mehta!” The kids started screaming, and suddenly he was surrounded by a pack of students. I noticed Benjamin giving him a high five. Randi and I stared, open-mouthed.
“Good gracious,” Harold muttered, his eyes still wide. “Who is that man? Is he a Langdon teacher?”
“That,” Sarah Waters informed as she walked over to us, “is the new math teacher. Ashok Mehta. Remember? He’s from India? Wow, does he look fabulous or what?” She stood there beaming for no reason. It had to be the Prozac.
I caught Randi’s eye. We both knew the reason behind Ashok’s alarming transformation. Randi pulled me away from Harold and Sarah and nodded in Ashok’s direction.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she fumed. “I bet he’s easily raking in over $400 an hour.”
“Why would Ashok make more money than either of us?” Randi could be so dramatic sometimes.
“Because he’s Asian,” she seethed, taking off her glasses and now openly staring at him. “All the Asians make that much. Parents immediately assume they’re smarter. Haven’t you ever heard of the Indian S.A.T. tutor who makes $750 an hour? He can teach math and physics too. Some people have all the luck.”
At that moment, Ashok Mehta strutted over with a posse of students who were following him like he was the pied piper.
“Hello, ladies,” he drawled. “Looks like great minds think alike!” He gave us both a knowing wink.
“Excuse me, I have to check on my students,” Randi muttered rudely and rejoined Harold and Sarah. Alone with Ashok, I found myself suddenly at a loss for words.
“What a year,” he remarked gamely. “What a great year. Who would have thought that this teaching job would change my life?”
I smiled weakly and nodded. His days of smuggling the Langdon lunches were clearly history.
“We should go out sometime,” he continued suavely, taking off his glasses and winking at me again. “Have you ever been to Bungalow 8? It is most great.”
28
What a day. I don’t know whether it was the burning May sun or Ashok Mehta’s big reveal, but I had a splitting headache. I slipped out of Langdon after my two o’clock class and headed home for a nap. There was no way I could tutor for the rest of the evening without one. As I walked into the apartment, my cell phone began buzzing. Bridgette. I would call her back. Slipping my heels off, I climbed under my covers and closed my eyes. The phone was vibrating. This time she was texting me.
Pick up ur phone. Imp. V. urgent!!!!!
I knew I was going to have to call her if I was to get any sleep.
“Your answering machine is full,” she accused, picking up on the first ring.
“Whatever, probably tutoring or parents,” I mumbled sleepily. “This is the emergency you wanted to tell me about?”
“Well, I got a little weirded out,” she admitted. “Plus I haven’t seen you since you moved in. But that’s not why. The emergency is…actually, guess! Guess what!”
“Bridge, I’m exhausted. Just tell me,” I sighed. I was too tired to even walk across the room to my answering machine. Why the hell was it full anyway?
“Why the fuck are you tired? It’s two in the afternoon. You’re at home while the rest of the human race is still at work? Okay, whatever, it doesn’t matter. Get your beaut
y sleep now because I want to fix you up tonight! There’s this amazing guy at work—oh, Anna, he’s really amazing. Well, I’ve been sort of seeing him, and well, we want you to meet his best friend. He’s a lawyer and he went to Harvard. Don’t worry…it’s not technically a blind date because I met him last week and Anna, he’s freaking gorgeous. Are you free for dinner tonight?”
Admittedly, my love life was nonexistent. Between teaching and tutoring, I was rarely going out. I had to admit, this guy sounded pretty fantastic.
“Sure,” I said, brightening. Even my headache was fading. “When?”
“We have dinner reservations at Mr. Chow’s at 9:00,” Bridgette gushed. “Anna, you are going to die when you meet Brian!”
Wait a minute. I couldn’t have dinner. I was tutoring till eleven tonight!
“Bridge, hold on,” I ordered, now sitting up. “Can we do Saturday night?”
“Saturday is fucking bridge and tunnel night. Nobody in Manhattan goes out on Saturday. Why can’t you do tonight? What are you possibly doing that is more important than going on the most perfect date in the world?”
I tried to think quickly. Could I cancel my tutoring? Maybe my 5:30 with Jake, but Katie had a project due tomorrow, and Keith’s term paper for his history class was due as well. Plus I had overspent a bit last weekend and indulged in the same Maurice Villency couch I had admired at Bridgette’s last summer. I needed that afternoon’s cash.
“I’m tutoring,” I said lamely.
“What?” Bridgette cried. “Easy. Cancel. You’re so weird sometimes, Anna. It’s a side job. What’s the big deal?”
“My rent’s due in a couple weeks,” I admitted, feeling my headache come on again. “I really can’t cancel. Let’s please do Saturday? Or even Friday night? Remember, I’m from New Jersey so technically I’m ex–bridge and tunnel.”
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