Between Now and Forever

by Margaret Duarte

  His reply, quick, impatient. “What teaching ability?”

  To my surprise, a giggle bubbled to the surface. “Some people are naturals, I guess. You know, born with skills that solidify with experience.”

  He swung around, his eyes twitching as if taking on a life of their own. “You think this is funny, that all these kids need is some flower child with her head in the clouds to whip them into shape?”

  Flower child? Hippies and flower children were of my mother’s generation—and likely his, by the looks of him—though I doubted either of them had been active participants. I held out my hand. “I understand your reservations, Mr. Lacoste, but maybe lack of experience is a prerequisite for the job. I don’t know enough to be scared.”

  He gave my hand a half-hearted shake and dropped it. “You are very inexperienced.”

  “You bet I am, and I’d appreciate your help, if you’ve come to offer.”

  His gaze locked onto the ancient linoleum floor, which had plenty of defects if he cared to look. But his mind seemed focused on mine. “I hardly have time…”

  “That’s okay, I understand. This type of class will be a new one, so I’ll be reinventing the wheel, so to speak. But if you come up with something to help the kids, I’m open to suggestions. You’re seasoned and well-respected, and I appreciate that.”

  He met my eyes for the first time since entering the room. “I know these kids. They’re easily distracted. They refuse to follow directions. In other words, they’re tough.”

  “Yeah, I got that impression on my first day.”

  “You need to tow them into line, show them who’s boss. You’re not here to be their friend, but to teach them the body of knowledge they need to prepare for high school, college, and future jobs.”

  I thought back to my conversation with Dr. Matt and realized I needed to choose my words with care. Apparently, Charles Lacoste wasn’t aware of the Indigos’ special gifts, and it wasn’t my place to tell him. “Well…not exactly. Mine will be an after-school session to help these kids gain a more solid emotional foundation, which is also a prerequisite for success in high school and beyond.”

  Lacoste snorted. “Most of the students you’re referring to have been diagnosed with ADHD. Best leave their emotional foundation to mental health professionals.”

  “Consider me a supplement to—”

  “The only supplement they need is prescribed medication for focus and control.”

  “Prescribed medication?” I heard the pound of foot soldiers in my ears. “Just because they’re unable to conform?” I was going into battle mode and tried to rein myself in. When angry, I often say things I regret later. In fact, I was regretting this conversation already.

  “These kids don’t have the mental maturity to know what’s best for them,” he said, “and you’d better come to grips with that, or you’ll be in for more of what you experienced on your first day.”

  He pulled something from the pocket of his jacket and held it up between his thumb and index finger. “See this? It’s a two-and-a-half-dollar Indian Head gold piece.”

  “It sure is small,” I said.

  “It was minted in 1929, the year my grandfather came to this country from France. He gave it to me when I was thirteen, four years before he died.”

  “You’re lucky,” I said. “I never knew my grandfather.”

  “Grandpa was a good, honest man, who believed he had immigrated to the Promised Land. But he was unschooled and overly influenced by anyone with a high school diploma and the gift of charisma. In other words, he was gullible and lived with his head in the clouds.”

  Like me, I suppose.

  Lacoste palmed the coin and raised his fist like a salute. “I carry this coin as a reminder of my grandfather’s love…and failure.”

  “‘And what if they eat clouds and drink wind,’” I said, quoting Emerson. “‘They have not been without service to the race of man.’”

  But Lacoste wasn’t in the listening mood. “Do you know what Lacoste means in French, Ms. Veil?”

  Do you know what Veil means in English, Mr. Lacoste?

  “It means coast, and I’ve made it my mission here at West Coast Middle School to convince the students that education opens doors and saves lives.”

  And I will make it my mission here to lift some veils and rattle some cages.

  I wondered if Mr. Lacoste, aka Mr. Coast, knew that surface learning was a key reason Emerson left teaching in the formal classroom. He knew the difference between memorizing and reproducing data and deep learning. “Students need to understand ideas for themselves and apply that understanding to their lives.”

  A muscle twitched under Lacoste’s right cheek and his breathing sounded labored. “These kids need structure, not encouragement to fantasize about a perfect world.”

  At this point, I could have told him not to worry, that I’d only be here until June and, though I’d like his support and to be friends, in reality, I could do without either. Negativity was such a drag, and I sensed truckloads in this man. As talented as he might be in his particular subject, his attitude was one of lost hope, the very thing we would be fighting against in this classroom.

  At least, if I had anything to say about it.

  Anyway, it was time for lunch, and I was hungry. Bending like a willow was, in my opinion, highly overrated. “I have a job to do,” I said, “and I plan on doing it. If you have a problem with that, take it up with Dr. Matt.”

  Lacoste’s smile was so hostile, it would have made my ex-fiancé proud. “I already did.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  AFTER A QUICK LUNCH in the school cafeteria, something I swore I’d never repeat (pizza and coke not being my favorite menu items and mass hysteria not conducive to digestion), I checked out the art room through the door at the north end of my classroom. Slabs of clay sealed in plastic bags lay under a long Formica countertop. Gallon jugs of ceramic slip stood waiting to be poured into myriad molds housed on the wooden shelves. I located sanding pads, carving tools, and paintbrushes in rubber trays, plus glazes, banding wheels, and a large kiln.

  Something jarred loose inside of me. For the second time that day, I thought of my friend Anne’s ceramic studio in Monterey. During one of my visits there, she’d taken a mass of pottery clay and, while cutting it into pieces with a wire, explained how to knead it into a workable state. She lifted a piece of the clay to the height of her shoulder and slammed it onto the piece below, impressing me with the violence of it. Then she handed me a chunk of what felt like damp mud and told me to go into the wilderness of my intuition. “But first you need to relax,” she said, “so creativity can flow. Make a mess. Let the clay get under your nails.”

  “Hello,” a female now called from my classroom next door.

  “In here,” I said.

  A fifty-something woman dressed in a bulky red sweater, navy slacks, and brown loafers entered through the doorway. “I’m glad this building is being put to good use again,” she said without a hint of malice.

  Unable to see her eyes behind the dark aviator sunglasses she wore, I stepped forward and reached out my hand. “Hi. I’m Marjorie.”

  She clasped my hand in both of hers. “Maxine.”

  An outrageously funny Hallmark cartoon character came to mind. “Anyone ever call you Max?”

  “Just about everyone, my dear, except for the kids, they call me Granny Max, but I wanted to make a good first impression.”

  “Well, you certainly did.” I enjoyed the firm grip of her hands and the way she punctuated her sentences with commas instead of periods. “And I could sure use your support about now.”

  “I’m not called Granny Max for nothing.” She gave my hand a final squeeze before releasing it, a gesture so full of good will that I felt like the malleable clay in my friend’s art studio. “Give me access to one of those old but still functional kitchens next door, and I’ll whip up a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies
, my forte, besides teaching math, that is. In my opinion, the two best ways to respond to the students’ unanswerable questions are with ‘I don’t know’ and cookies. The first promotes quiet reflection, and the second stimulates the reward center of the brain. It takes about five cookies to erase a negative thought, a bit fattening, but fewer cookies are needed once the kids realize that most of their problems are only in their minds.”

  I laughed. This woman was unreal, in a refreshing way, the elderly Good Witch of the North. “We’ll be open for business starting Tuesday next week and, after that, Monday through Thursday, three to five. So, feel free.”

  I led the way back to the classroom with reluctance. I wanted to stay in the art room a bit longer, savor the memories of cool, wet clay and the exhilaration of molding it with bare hands. I’d felt comfort and love in my friend’s Monterey studio, so much so that my hands had developed a mind of their own, molding, tearing, pressing, and pulling. All had just flowed together.

  “Good Lord,” Granny Max said, halting in front of the wall of windows, “what a view.”

  I chuckled, wondering once again why classrooms of old had windows that embraced the outside world, while modern classroom windows were draped and shuttered, if they existed at all. I thought of cages full of tamed, sensory-deprived animals, learning tricks that had little to do with the here and now, then stopped my mind from lingering there, the analogy too depressing.

  Granny Max slid her sunglasses onto her graying brown hair, revealing eyes the color of Bordeaux chocolates. “This may sound crazy coming from an old-school math teacher, but I believe I’m spending way too much time squelching the very capabilities you’ll be encouraging here. Kids who don’t fit the mold throw traditional classrooms out of whack, if you know what I mean, so we reduce imagination and self-awareness to a minimum, in favor of technical proficiency.”

  Her comment surprised me, and I wanted to press her for more.

  Granny Max must have noticed the lighthouse beam in my eyes, because she went on as though glad for a listening ear. “Dr. Matt has a friend with a doctorate in transpersonal psychology, specializing in mind-body dynamics, all that Deepak Chopra-manifesting-the-life-you-want stuff. The concept of integrating western psychology and eastern spiritual traditions lit the fire beneath Dr. Matt’s feet, if you know what I mean, and now he’s really into all that spiritual development stuff, due to his nephew and all. Quite a character, Shawn is, quiet, but deep. Anyway, all kids need work on their social and emotional skills to become more responsible citizens. Too bad your class will be limited to just a few.”

  “For now,” I said, with a confidence I had no right to feel, not yet, maybe never. “Who knows where an option like this might lead, especially if people like Charles Lacoste can be won over. He’s not a fan of what I’m being asked to do.”

  “I’m no busybody gossip,” Granny Max said, then grinned as though being labeled as such wouldn’t bother her in the least. “But there are a few things you should know about the undercurrents in this school.”

  I said nothing, figured even bad news was better than maneuvering blind. Plus, I hadn’t yet decided if she was an ally or another detractor in disguise.

  “At least ten of the fifty-four teachers here think Dr. Matt is way out of line, giving special treatment to a bunch of disorderly students. This after-school class will cost money that, according to them, would be better spent elsewhere and will take precious time away from extracurricular activities, plus, it’s hardly foolproof, so” —Granny Max paused then finished like a boxer throwing a jab punch— “why not modify the students instead? A little pharmaceutical intervention for focus and impulse control would do the trick.”

  Her jab made contact, as had a similar suggestion by Charles Lacoste only an hour before. I felt my blood pressure rise.

  Granny Max shook her head and frowned, an unnatural gesture for someone as upbeat as Mrs. Claus. “That’s not me talking, mind you, just passing on what I’ve heard.”

  I blew out my breath. “That’s crazy.”

  “Did you know Einstein, Churchill, and Edison did poorly in school?” she asked.

  I didn’t answer, still stuck on pharmaceutical intervention.

  She tut-tutted. “Silly me, of course you do, which serves as a reminder that we should never stop looking for geniuses among the unlikely. Anyway, Edison was disruptive, and Einstein’s parents thought he was mentally disabled. Good thing they didn’t medicate kids back then.”

  “Lacoste is among those who think hiring me was a bad idea,” I said.

  Granny Max gave a what’s-the-world-coming-to sigh. “You need to see it from his point of view. The entire school staff is trying to make every day a teachable one, mainly by standing in front of the students, presenting them with data, and then testing them to see what they remember, while you get the luxury of doing something new, something Charles knows in his heart could make a big difference in their lives. He doesn’t think it fair that he’s rated according to student achievement on standardized tests while you’ll be getting off scot-free.”

  The sudden pause in conversation seemed to rest on a question that made my mouth go dry and my adoptive mother’s words sprout like thistles in my head. “Go back to Cliff, hon. Go back to your old job. You have the opportunity for a secure future with nice things.”

  “At least the rest of the staff has a target with a big bull’s eye in the middle,” I said, my old job and secure future a bull’s eye no longer within reach. “My target is vapor thin with no place for an arrow to stick.”

  “You’ve got a point there,” Granny Max said with an ‘excuse-my-pun’ grin, “but it’s about as useless as your vapor thin target for converting some of the other teachers to your way of thinking. They’re overworked, underpaid, and exhausted. Anyway, I’ll be rooting for you. You have my backing one hundred percent. I’m only one building away, trying to convince a bunch of ‘Nexters’ that algebra and geometry are fun and exciting, but it’s an uphill battle.”

  Algebra and geometry fun and exciting? I could hardly suppress a shudder. Math had been a struggle for me in school, too structured, too black and white, too step-by-step. “Yeah, that would be a tough sell.”

  “Not you, too,” she cried. “We need to talk.”

  “If you can convince me that math is fun and exciting, I’ll owe you big time.”

  “Are you kidding me? There’s math all around us, built into the very fabric of the universe. It’s spoken and understood by nearly all the world’s population. Some say there’s even a mathematical basis for psychic abilities and spiritual phenomena. Right up your alley, if I may say so myself. We use math to explain life’s mysteries, discover cures for diseases, and” —she snorted, slid her shades back over her eyes, and headed for the door— “bake oatmeal raisin cookies.”

  Soon I realized I’d met my only faculty ally besides Dr. Matt. Before another hour passed, four more detractors walked through the door, all teachers, all limited in scope and horizon. Look up, look around, look deeply, I wanted to say, but by the looks on their faces and the stiffness of their gaits, I knew they were beyond convincing. In fact, as far as I could tell, they considered me a threat. Good grief, if I succeeded here, they’d take it as a personal slight, a blow to their worldview.

  After each one’s departure, I stared out the window to calm myself, making me realize that my students would soon need similar calming experiences. The bank of windows with all that natural light would be a start, but they would need more.

  Chapter Fifteen

  SUNLIGHT DID NOT STREAM into my classroom as I had imagined it would on my first day. Instead, wind-driven rain pelted and rattled the single-pane windows, an icy chill seeping through. Bare tree branches undulated in the wind as though pleading for something I couldn’t provide. No amount of potted plants, beeswax votives, and aromatic oils could change the room’s mood, and I wanted to shout in frustration.

  Oddly, on ge
tting up that morning, I had opted to wear Maya’s brown bomber jacket, well-worn jeans, and boots instead of my favored blazer, slacks, and pumps, as if expecting a combat rather than a meeting of minds.

  You’re not in control of the weather, I reminded myself. So, work with the cards you’ve been dealt. Wasn’t that what I’d planned to tell the students today, that there was hope and possibility in every circumstance? It was only a matter of visualizing the clouds, the rain, and the heaviness in the air as opportunities rather than excuses to fail.

  I checked my watch. It was early yet, just past one. My class didn’t start until three. I wanted an inviting, secure place for my students to gather, a place where they’d feel comfortable, where they’d want to share. The home economics room next door stood idle and unappreciated, like a grandmother with myriad gifts to share waiting to be recognized.

  Time to bake cookies.

  ***

  All seven students entered the classroom in silence, their faces expressionless, their bodies bent. Heaven forbid, they reminded me of martyrs heading for execution. This, I decided, had nothing to do with the atmosphere of the room, which had improved significantly since my arrival. The rain and wind had died, and the scent of baked cookies mixed with myrrh and sandalwood wafted in the air. Even the sun was making an effort, its light, though weak and sporadic, penetrating the windowed wall.

  “Take any chair around the tables,” I told them. “You can always move later.”

  They sat. Backpacks dropped to the floor.

  I eased from behind my desk and stood at the head of the tables forming the U. “What’s wrong?”

  Their power was off, big time. Out of service; game over. They didn’t even have the energy—or inclination—to answer me.

  “Shawn?” I hated putting him on the spot, but only two weeks ago, he’d offered his help.

  He shrugged and looked at his hands.