"Did you see the McDonald's at the airport?" Leon smiled at me, his eyes sparking with mischief. "I was so worried about that when I came here from Florida, and whenever anyone asks me if Kuwait's civilized I say, 'They've got McDonald's, what do you think?'"
Before I could respond to this, the woman raised her chin, her dark eyes fierce. "Our definitions of civilization aren't the same. The Middle East has been civilized for centuries. Well before McDonald's. Well before America, for that matter."
Their eyes locked and I thought he'd argue, but he simply smiled again and said, "If you say so, Amirah. Well, if Larissa doesn't care, I vote for Lebanese."
The others all agreed, and I nodded though I'd never tried Lebanese food. It was nice of them to be willing to spend time with me and I didn't want to rock the boat. Even if I didn't like everything, surely there'd be something I could eat.
Leon offered to drive us all to dinner, but Amirah lived on the other side of the restaurant so said she'd drive herself instead. As we walked to the parking lot, I wondered at Amirah being allowed to drive. I'd assumed women wouldn't have that privilege here. Janet had been able to do it, but she wasn't Middle Eastern.
When we reached Leon's car, Omar, my fellow grade four teacher, said, "Katherine, should we sit in the back so Larissa can see more of Kuwait on the way?"
I started to protest, since it would be a tight fit for them, but my other grade partner smiled at him and said, "Certainly," in her crisp British accent.
Omar was no taller than me but quite a bit wider. Janet had introduced him as "the Egyptian I told you we had on staff" and he'd surprised and amused me by saying "Walk like an Egyptian" and doing a passable imitation of the arm movement from that old song. I hoped I wouldn't frustrate him too much with my complete lack of experience or knowledge of how to handle a classroom.
At least he seemed friendlier than Katherine. She had smiled and nodded when we'd been introduced, but the coolness in her expression suggested she wasn't keen on working with me and the way she'd run her eyes over me made me think she hadn't approved of my appearance either. She was almost as wide as Omar and a few inches taller, wearing a pale pink sweater and an equally pale purple skirt that swirled around her ankles above high heels that matched both her sweater and the ribbon she'd tied around her brown ponytail. My neutral colors must have bored her half to death.
Once the two of them had stuffed themselves into the back seat and I'd settled in the front beside Leon we headed off, but Omar soon interrupted Leon's tour-guide act by saying, "We should go there for dessert," as we drove past a small strip mall.
Katherine said, "Brilliant idea," and Leon laughed. "Omar, I don't know how you don't weigh four hundred pounds instead of whatever you do weigh." To me, he added, "If you're ever looking for Omar, he'll be at Pinkberry stuffing his face with ice cream."
"She'll understand once she's tried it," Omar said. I glanced at him in the car's side mirror and we shared a shy smile. I hoped he'd still be smiling at me once he started working with me.
Far from there being 'something I could eat' at the Lebanese place, I found I loved everything they offered. Leon ordered for the group, with input from the others, and everything arrived on little platters and was shared between us. Skewers of various meats barbequed to perfection with spices I didn't recognize but found delicious, hummus with triangles of warm fresh-baked pita, saffron rice and potato cubes and tiny fried chickpea patties that Leon told me were the falafel I'd always heard about but never seen, a refreshing mint-laced frozen lemonade... everything was delicious and exotic and somehow really brought home to me that I wasn't in Canada any more.
Halfway through the meal, unfortunately, Janet's coffee wore off. One moment I was giving a condensed and sanitized version of why I'd come to Kuwait in such a rush ("I thought it sounded like a neat opportunity and I didn't have anything preventing me from taking it") and the next I was nearly facedown in the falafel.
I tried to hide it, but Omar eventually said, "I think we're losing Larissa."
"I'm fine," I said, blinking hard. "What time is it, anyhow?"
Leon checked his watch. "Seven-thirty."
My eyes rolled halfway back into my head before I could stop them. "Feels later," I said unnecessarily.
"Didn't sleep well on the plane?"
I turned to Amirah. "I didn't sleep at all. And then once I got into the apartment last night I was too hyper to sleep."
"You will sleep tonight," she said with a small smile.
No doubt.
Leon ordered coffee for me, confusing our waiter since we were still mid-meal, and it perked me up again though Zainab's had been much tastier.
"So, should we tell her all about the madhouse she's walked into?" Leon said to the others.
They shook their heads, and Katherine laughed and said, "At least let the poor girl get over her jetlag first."
The poor girl wanted to know, though, so I said, "Maybe I can handle it better now when I'm only half conscious."
Leon gave my shoulder a squeeze, letting his hand linger a little longer than necessary. "That's the spirit. I knew you could take it."
I looked at him, he winked at me, and I thought maybe my fresh start would indeed include a relationship with this Kegan knock-off. I liked the idea.
"Why don't we tell her the good things?" Omar said. "Why dwell on the bad?"
Leon shook his head. "Omar, you poor sweet deluded fool. What good things?"
I tensed at this, but Omar said calmly, "The kids are nice." Ignoring Leon's grunt, he went on with, "And so are most of the parents. And we get paid well and the apartments are nice and..." He smiled at me. "And the ice cream is amazing."
We all laughed, even Leon.
"I guess we don't have ice cream at work?"
Omar gave me a sad face and shook his head. "But if you ever want to get some, I'd be happy to go with you," he said, and I thought he might be blushing a bit although his dark skin and the restaurant's dim lighting and my exhausted eyes made it hard to be sure.
"Larissa doesn't look to me like someone who eats much ice cream," Leon said, looking pointedly at my stomach and then at Omar's admittedly pudgy one. "And I don't think it's fair to toss her to the lions tomorrow without telling her what to expect."
"I don't want to hear all the bad stuff," I said, "but is there anything particular I should know?"
"What did Janet tell you?" Katherine and Leon said in near-unison, then laughed.
I walked them through what she'd said, that classes started at seven in the morning and ended at two with half an hour off for lunch at eleven, and that for the first week she had provided me with lesson plans but after that I would need to put together my own. I'd read those over and over again that afternoon and I thought I was ready. I hoped so, anyhow.
"Nothing about the students?"
I looked at Omar and shook my head. "Anything I should know?"
He frowned but shook his head. "I think you'll be fine."
"She will," Amirah said firmly. "It's better not to tell too much about the kids and their families, or people end up judging them before they meet them."
I didn't want to do that, but if there were any big problems in my class I'd like to know about them.
"It's not the kids she has to worry about anyhow," Leon said. "It's not the teaching part that wears you down, it's the rest of the crap."
"She won't have to deal with that right away."
As if Omar hadn't spoken, Leon went on. "It's the administrative junk and the paperwork and the grading and all the nitpicking little details. That's what made Helena quit."
"Your predecessor," Katherine said to me.
"Up and left in the middle of the night." Amirah shook her head. "Very inconsiderate."
"She vanished like a phantasm," Omar said, looking proud of himself.
I blinked, surprised by the word, and Leon gave my arm a squeeze. "Weird, huh? Get used to it. The guy eats the dictionary, I think."
<
br /> Omar smiled. "Only one page a day. I find myself a new word each day to help me expand my English vocabulary and try to use it in a sentence. I wasn't sure I'd be able to work that one into conversation."
"Well, you managed it," I said, impressed that he was that determined to improve his already great English. "Nice job. And I guess you were helping to cover the phantasm's class?"
"We all were. So we're very glad you're here, Larissa."
I returned his smile and pretended not to hear Leon muttering, "She won't be glad soon." This was my big chance to start over, and I wasn't going to worry about the bad side of my job. No Hot Caramel or Chaz or Hayley to deal with? How bad could it be?
Chapter Twelve
That thought, unfortunately, woke me at three the next morning and made it impossible for me to get back to sleep. I lay in my unfamiliar bed beneath sheets that smelled like spices instead of the more floral laundry scents that were all I'd ever used at home, feeling agitated by the sound of the cars zooming by on the Gulf Road outside my window and wondering if I could really survive a classroom full of kids. If I couldn't, I'd be one of Janet's 'pulled a runner' stories. Had anyone ever given up on their very first day?
At four, I gave up trying to sleep and went to take a shower. While I was drying my hair and doing my best guess of teacher-appropriate makeup that would also minimize the scabs on my cheek I made a decision: I would work the entire length of my contract. No matter what. If I wasn't careful, I'd end up just like my sister Rachel, running away from everything I didn't like in my life. I didn't want to be that way.
Knowing I had committed myself to over a year in this foreign country could have made me more nervous, but strangely it soothed me. Lots of time to figure out this new world.
I managed to keep that calm as I had a breakfast of toast and tea, as I dressed in a black skirt that covered my knees and a white short-sleeved blouse with a navy cardigan over top to keep my arms under wrap, and as I packed a lunch from the food Janet had left me. When I was done, though, I checked my watch and realized it was only five o'clock. I had an hour to fill before the driver I'd arranged the night before would arrive to take me to school, and I had nothing to do with that hour but panic. And I didn't want to let myself do that.
In the old days I would have spent the unexpected free time communing with my tarot cards, but I didn't want to frustrate myself with their lack of clarity. Instead, I flipped through Janet's lesson plans for at least the twentieth time, confirming that I did understand everything as I'd confirmed so many times last night after my return home from dinner stuffed with both Lebanese food and what had indeed been amazing ice cream. I'd read the plans until my eyes wouldn't focus any more before finally collapsing into bed.
In the folder after the lesson plans were the seating charts and the previous teachers' notes on the students. I would be the poor kids' third teacher this school year, and I vowed anew that I would not make them have a fourth. From the notes, it was clear that some of the kids might be a challenge, especially the one called Khalid who was listed simply as "he requires constant attention and will act out to get it". I wasn't quite sure how to handle that: if I gave him the attention he wanted he wouldn't act out, but how would I then also give my attention to the other twenty-three kids in the class?
I read and reread the information, trying to memorize every last detail and not worry about all the things I didn't know about teaching, until my phone rang and it was time to leave. Mohammed the harris was there, as he'd been the night before when I came home, and I wondered when exactly he had time off. He was just as smiley and cheerful as he'd been when I met him, though, so he must have had a break at some point.
I had a different driver, who introduced himself as Aziz. He looked to be about sixteen but he drove well and quickly without terrifying me and I was inside the school at six-fifteen. I went up the stairs to my room, not feeling ready to go to the staffroom and chat with my new coworkers, and stepped into the darkness. A little fumbling on the wall by the door, and I found and turned on the lights.
Then I stood and stared.
Janet had shown me the room briefly the day before, but now it felt different. It was my room. I was to be in charge here.
How on earth was that going to work out?
I stood still for a moment of utter panic, my fingers wrapped around my frog pendant like I could draw strength from it, then released the frog and pulled myself together. I could do this. I had to do this.
I went to what was clearly the teacher's desk, and found it surprisingly difficult to make myself sit down behind it. I'd never been on the authority side of a teacher's desk before.
Several textbooks and binders lay spread out over the fake-wood surface, each with a sticky note listing page numbers on the front. I compared Janet's lesson plan to the notes and realized she was just giving me yet another way to keep track of what was going on. I piled up the afternoon's books so I could focus on the morning, and as I did I found a note resting on the desk.
Good morning, Larissa! Welcome to your first day. If you need anything, please don't hesitate to ask. I'm across the hall and one door down. Omar
I smiled at this, then pinned it to the bulletin board on the wall behind me. Nice guy. Feeling a little more confident knowing that if everything completely exploded I could scream for Omar and he'd come rescue me, I again read through the lesson plan making sure I knew which book was involved and what I'd want to say. To my pleasant surprise, all of my readings of the plan had sunk in and I knew exactly what I had to do.
With fifteen minutes before the students' arrival, I got out the seating chart and began looking back and forth between it and the little desks lined up in neat rows. I didn't have it as clear in my mind as I'd have liked, though, when I heard the bell that I knew from Janet's notes meant the students were being allowed in, and that made my fear rise again. It'd be hard to teach kids whose names I didn't know. If only I could label them like Janet had labeled my books.
A thought struck me and I scrabbled through the desk drawers. No name tags, but mixed in with other supplies I did find a roll of masking tape. Good enough.
I heard a rustling in the hallway and a cacophony of high-pitched voices, and I briefly considered jumping out the window but then pulled myself together. Clutching the masking tape in one hand and a marker in the other, I took a deep breath and opened the door.
The hall was indeed full of kids, all wearing navy skirts or pants and white dress shirts in various degrees of tucked-in-ness, who turned nearly as one to stare at me.
"Miss Larissa, good morning."
I looked down the hall to see Omar smiling at me.
"Good morning, Mr. Omar," I said, taking my cue from how he'd addressed me and smiling back. "Thank you for your note."
He shrugged. "I know you won't need assistance, but I wanted you to know it's available."
His confident tone, even though I knew it wasn't based on any actual knowledge of my skills, calmed me and my smile grew bigger. So did his.
A tug on my skirt interrupted our little smile-fest, and I looked down at a young girl with her long black hair pulled into pigtails that stuck straight out from each side of her head. "Yes?"
Her gaze went to my scraped cheek, then she blushed and pulled her hand away from my skirt. "Miss?"
"Yes?" I said again, hoping she wouldn't say "Miss?" again or we'd be standing there all day.
"Do we go sit down or wait here?"
Beats me, kid. I looked around and saw that Omar's students were trooping into the room but Katherine across the hall had hers lined up. However, the kids at the end of her line were engaged in punching each other in the arm since she couldn't see them from where she was. I didn't want my students doing that. "I think you should come in and sit down in your usual place."
She nodded and called something in Arabic, and what seemed like a million kids swept from the hall into my room.
Omar chuckled, and I looked over to s
ee him giving me a thumbs-up before he disappeared into his room.
Katherine gave me a cool smile and said, "Have a good day."
"Thanks, you too." I smiled back, wishing she were a little friendlier but glad she wasn't completely ignoring me, then heard a particularly loud shriek from inside my room. "I'd better go."
She nodded and I took a deep breath and stepped into the classroom, closing the door firmly behind me.
The click it made caught the kids' attention, and twenty-something little faces turned in my direction.
Terror filled me again but I pushed it back. "Good morning," I said, making myself walk slowly and deliberately back to the front. It's like they say about wild animals, I told myself. Don't let them see your fear. Picturing them all as baby wild animals made me smile and it helped calm my nerves.
When I reached the front I turned to face them. "I'm Miss Larissa Collins. I'm new here, obviously, and I'm from Canada."
They erupted.
"You eat maple syrup, right, Miss?"
"Did you bring us some snow?"
"I've seen snow."
"Oh, you have not, Mohammed."
"Miss, I have too! Baba took me! It was in the mall in Dubai!"
"Do you have a polar bear?"
"Do you? I want to ride on it!"
I clapped my hands twice, and they settled. I stared at them, wondering how I'd come up with that idea. I must have had a teacher who'd done that but I didn't remember. Well, it had worked, so who cared?
"I will tell you about Canada, but not now." Ignoring their groans, I said, "We have other things to work on. First, I need to get to know all your names." I held up the masking tape. "I'm going to make each of you a name tag so I can learn your names faster."
"Sticker," the girl who'd asked if they could come in breathed from her seat in the front row as if I'd offered them each a million dollars and a pony. Or a camel.
I had indeed seen a pack of stickers in the drawer beneath the tape, so I pulled that out and said, "And of course you can put a sticker on with it. And if you behave I'll tell you something about Canada when we're done."
Toronto Collection Volume 3 (Toronto Series #10-13) Page 38