“No, I’m at Wolf School on the west side.” Mark answered before Sarah could say anything. And then he continued more slowly, “But honestly, I don’t think I’m called to be a teacher. I was sold by the schtick—I’m with USAteach right now—and—” He took a breath and released it. “—I’m doing okay but I feel like I’m taking a spot from someone who was trained and created to teach. I may not be making things worse but I’m not adding value, and the school environment is getting to me, too.”
Sarah looked at him, her eyes going wide. He hadn’t said anything in his texts, which were optimistic about his students’ progress. Of course, her pastor did have the gift of pulling unsolicited truth out of people.
Mark looked her in the face. “I know. I just…I’ve been a soldier, and children are not soldiers. And you—you light up when you talk about teaching. I shut down.”
“So you’re gonna quit? This far into the school year?” Sarah grabbed his arm and pulled him towards the door. “Bye, Pastor Louis.”
They walked down the front entrance steps together. “No, I don’t want to leave them in the lurch—it would probably be even worse for the kids there, but I’m hoping I can leave mid-year. It’s pretty clear I haven’t bought into the culture of the school, so I don’t think they’ll be too surprised or even disappointed to see me go.” Mark said it with a twisted smile. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with my lease or what is going on with my life but yeah. Teaching isn’t going to be the way I make my mark on the world.”
She cautiously laid a hand on his arm and when nothing electric happened, spoke. “Teaching isn’t the only way to make a difference in the world. There’s so much to do here in St. Louis.”
“Yeah, but can I make a difference and still pay my rent?” Her heart contracted a smidge at then woebegone look on his face.
She tossed her hair. “We’ll worry about money later. For now, let me take you to lunch.”
Some of her hair brushed his face, and he tightened his clenched fists. He’d dampened the zing he felt as soon as she could when she’d touched his arm, and he felt all kinds of naked while admitting his failure in discernment. But it was her, and she wasn’t judging. He could go to lunch with her and it would be okay.
“Have you ever had Vietnamese?”
“Sarah, I might be from the south, but that doesn’t mean I’m a rube. Of course I’ve had Vietnamese.” Once.
“Well, when I am having problems with the world, Vietnamese soup is what makes me start to feel better about life. It’s just…it’s like God’s love in a bowl.”
“Okay—that sounds like what I need today.”
She wasn’t wrong about the soup. At Mark’s first spoonful of the broth, he closed his eyes and just felt. Suddenly all the feelings that had been overwhelming him—school, Sarah, Sarah, school, the way Sarah felt about his school, what would happen when he quit...all those feelings slipped away and instead he felt overwhelmed by the goodness of God. Because God was good—it was good that he knew Sarah. It was good that he wanted to kiss her forever. And maybe make her lunch to take to school. God would be good to those kids in his soon to be ex-classroom, with or without him.
He must’ve moaned a little or something, because Sarah kicked him under the table. “You need a moment alone with your pho? I can go outside, sit on the patio.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, am I embarrassing you?” He slurped up some noodles.
“Well, I think you’re embarrassing yourself. You did just close your eyes and moan just now. I don’t know what people are going to be thinking you’re thinking.”
“Probably that I’m imagining what I’m going to do to you when we get back home.”
“Mark!”
“That’s not what I was thinking, just for the record, but I’m sure that’s what other people are thinking. I mean, I can’t blame them. You are a hot lady, and I am an infatuated man.” Jesus, what in the world is happening?” How did he go from a spiritual experience to practically dirty-talking a woman he wasn’t even in a relationship with? Was this even acceptable?
“You’re infatuated?” Her tone was light, but she was very careful about how she was twisting the noodles from her noodle bowl onto her chopsticks.
“I mean—” he took a deep breath and let it out. “Yeah. I’d say so. I look at everything you are doing with your school and your garden and you probably have a school garden too, don’t you, and with church, and your life is just full. You fill your life up with good things. You’ve had the chance to do it and you have. You share your squash. You kiss like an avenging angel. I’ve almost run into the dumpsters in the alley like 20 times ‘cause I’m checking to see if you’re in your garden.”
She let out a sharp laugh and stopped messing with her noodles.
He continued. “And I know I’m like your worst nightmare—I’m not from St. Louis, I’m at a charter school and with USAteach—for now, at least, and I still don’t understand exactly why you hate them, I’m not a godly Black man your students can look up to.”
She choked at the words, and he smirked.
“Infatuated, Sarah. I’ve been asking about you. I want to know you more, for you to show me more. And now you’ve introduced me to pho, and I’m just stuck.”
Sarah coughed. “Wow. I didn’t realize. Okay. Can I have a minute to process all this?’ Her face was becoming a deep shade of red.
“Sure, I’ll just eat my soup without moaning. Don’t mind me.” He wasn’t sure what was happening. He’d planned a long campaign, maybe after he was finished being a teacher, not to blurt everything out the first time he was alone-ish with her. Subtlety, precision, he’d had plans. Maybe even some heirloom seeds. Instead he’d blurted everything out, and now he felt like the scrubby, pimply thirteen-year-old, still short and smooth, with a crush on a beautiful eighth grader, taller than him, curvy and gloriously pony-tailed. She could laugh at him and walk away and would be well within her rights.
Sarah negotiated getting just the right proportions of pork, peanuts and noodles on her chopsticks. She risked a look up at Mark. He was staring grimly into his pho, his slurpy spoon in his hand. Oh man, earlier he’d been moaning into his soup, and now he looked at it like it was a firing squad. What had even happened?
And oh man, could she believe he’d said that thing about “when we get home”? Did nice Christian boys talk like that? And if they didn’t, did she want a nice Christian boy after all?
She took a moment to look at him. Even when he was sulky, she was…yeah, dammit, he still shone. Where and how to go from here? At least she could start with the easy questions.
“Okay. So first off, I hate charter schools because it’s an opportunity for people to disinvest from the local neighborhood schools, and just because some parents choose to go to charter schools or magnet schools, none of the kids at any of the schools really have a choice. And charter schools divert resources and love that our neighborhood public schools desperately need. They can have rules and restrictions that public schools can’t.” She stopped and took a sip of her Sprite. Mark slurped up some broth. He caught her eye and winced.
“I can see some of that,” he said. He covered his face with his hands and dragged his fingers to his chin. “What else?”
She swallowed hard and kept going. “And I hate USATeach because it is a slap in the face to all the real education majors who love kids and the idea of education. I went to school for four years—FOUR YEARS!—to study education. And then I went back and got my Masters. Meanwhile, they are just parachuting you in after you studied business or something for four years. Just because you have high test scores and a good application. And no offense to you, but then the folks who apply and can’t hack it leave. Kids need consistency at their schools. My best students are the ones whose older siblings I’ve taught, where I’ve been able to form a relationship with the whole family. I know them. And USAteach talks about using it as a foundation for something other than teaching—our neighborhood kids sho
uldn’t be a stepping stone on your resume! Get the fuck outta here.”
Mark actually scooted his chair back. “Whoa. I can leave.”
Sarah reached out her hand to touch his forearm. “No, no, you can stay. That wasn’t at you. Sorry. It’s a very sore subject. Seems like everybody thinks about what’s best for their family alone, not about all the other kids around them. Even at church.”
“I can see what you’re saying, though.” Mark pushed his hand through his hair. “We do have really strict standards, and we require volunteer hours from parents, and we can do that because there’s a waiting list. And it’s so messy about perception because you are definitely a better teacher than I am.”
Sarah shook her head vehemently to agree with him. Boy, all the anger had come out again.
“I bet you feel lonely, huh.” Mark scooted his chair a bit closer to the table.
“Yeah. I do.” Now he was even slipping into the chair beside her.
“Nobody understands?” His chair was close enough that their thighs were touching now.
“Yeah.” She sniffed. His arm was around her now.
“People you went to college with, your family, your old church, nobody really understands the choices you make? Or the politics you’ve come to?” He was nuzzling into her ear now.
“Mark, what are you doing?” He was so close, so warm.
“I want to be close to you, Sarah. You said you were alone, but I just want you to know you don’t have to be alone now.”
“That’s…that’s really sweet.” Shit. He was still glowing. She had the feeling her life would never fit the same way again.
“Well, not all of my other thoughts are sweet but yeah.”
“What does that even mean?”
“I can’t tell you.” She looked at his face, which was kinda red.
“Mark, are you having dirty thoughts again?” She asked with laughter in her voice, but he squeezed his eyes shut tight in a grimace and put his face in his hand. His other arm, though, the one around her, pulled her even closer.
“Yes. I got close to you again, didn’t I? I gotta go home and repent, man.”
“Maybe take a cold shower?” She was teasing him again.
He was glumly serious. “Yes.”
She made a squirmy dance of happiness that brought their bodies into a wave of contact. “Holy shit, Sarah, be still. Please.”
“Oh—sorry.” She smiled at him and she could feel the zing that went from her smile, the kind that lifted up her cheek apples and stretched her cheeks, that went right into his chagrined eyes.
At this moment, she was feeling a peace—maybe even a joy—and some anticipation that she’d never felt before. Her life before he ran into her in the alley had been peaceful, a semester at a time eddying over her, and joyful as students lit up inside because of her teaching and her garden grew. It had been a good life before. She’d been content. Occasionally wistful, but overall, content. She dismissed the frustrations and irritations and the brief spurts of anger she’d experienced with Mark and with educational policy in the city and the country. Life had been good.
And now, it was going to be a different kind of good. Maybe even good-good. She wasn’t even sure how to process it. This was even better than the first sip of pho. The warmth of his arm was around her. And then his eyes changed from shamefaced to warm and clear and, dear Jesus, so intense. And then he blinked hard.
“Okay, baby, we have to go.”
She couldn’t resist a mischievous grin. “Let’s go.”
Mark thought really cold thoughts all the way home, and ended up not needing his shower after all. He was like, there and not-there. Already and not-yet. He was all-in and he hadn’t even unpacked everything. He’d never felt a pull this strong from anything. Well, except Jesus, right? No town, no idea, no other woman, no video game, or sports team. It was fucking awesome but he also felt like he’d been hit upside the head with a two-by-four. Repeatedly. He tried to watch football, but his team wasn’t on, and he wasn’t sure he could have concentrated anyway. They were way out of play-off contention anyway.
Finally he changed out of his church clothes and put on exercise clothes and went for a run. Except he started saying all the thoughts he was thinking and he finally had to slow to a walk so he could yell at God properly. Not loud enough to get the police called on him, but wow it felt good to vocalize his problems.
“Jesus, did you just bring me here to destroy me?”
He hadn’t had a real clear idea of his future when he’d moved to town. Hadn’t seen a trajectory clear—it had been a new start with the potential for anything to happen and maybe he’d move the arc a little bit closer towards justice. But what he hadn’t expected was seeing his plans, as gauzy as they were, get exploded in just a few months, by his own failings, by his neighbor, who didn’t even think he was moving the arc at all.
He’d thought maybe he’d meet a co-worker, maybe someone at that seminary? Certainly not someone as outspoken, as opinionated, as… fuck it, wise…as Sarah. She was a little bit angry, a lot compassionate, and Jesus, he wanted to touch her, to be close to her, to be inside her.
It felt like a train wreck. He’d pictured more an airplane flight, with lots of waiting, seatbelts on, when he did meet that counseling seminary student, probably from the south, with a heart “for the marginalized”. Instead he’d met Sarah, and it was like a fucking train wreck. Boom, crash, it was over.
“Is this really what you want, Jesus? Jesus, please show me the way. Help me. What in the world is going on?”
He’d been kinda wondering around mindlessly but when he finally stopped and looked at where he was, he just face palmed. Of course he ended up at her school. It was a beautiful building, no doubt built during the 1910s. Mostly beautiful. There was a window boarded up in one of the windows on the front, a sign probably from the original building, that said, “Children Only. No Adults.” Trash on the sidewalk. He walked around the block to try to get a feel for it. There was a sweet, carefully tended garden, still verdant despite the end-of-summer heatwave. Each section was neatly labeled. He knew that was probably Sarah’s work.
He saw some places where the raised beds needed reinforcing, where the plants could’ve benefited from supports. Despite the sign, he opened the gate to get closer to the garden. He reached the herb section, each one clearly labeled, with a reason to use it. He picked a sprig of lavender “for peace” like the sign said. He twisted it in his fingers and raised his hands to his nose to smell.
He breathed deeply—one twice three times. Something about those breaths re-centered his heart and his soul. The shock and uncertainty faded away, at least for now, and the bone-deep feeling of resolve settled in him.
“Okay, Jesus, I trust your providence. I’ve trusted you with my life in shittier situations, I will try to trust you now. For me and for Sarah. Just please, keep us.”
And then, because it was Sunday and tomorrow would bring another day of instruction, he had to go home and get ready to try to teach. As he walked back home, his mind teemed with possibilities for his future. He had to find a new career, convince his neighbor they should be together, and honor God all the way through it.
Surely somewhere in his past life he’d been prepared for this, right?
His pace picked up as he ran back home towards his future.
7
“Hey, Ms. Miller?”
Sarah was in the school yard, keeping her class from climbing on the railing, and making sure each kid went off with the right family member, and the fifth graders didn’t get into any fights. And okay, yeah, smiling a little at the really cute pre-K student waiting for her big sibling in kindergarten to come outside. Kindergarten was always last. But this voice was the mom of her favorite student.
“Hey, Ms. Campbell. How’s it going?”
“It’s okay. I just wanted to tell you we are moving and changing schools at the end of the month.”
“What?” She quickly tried to
control her face. Families moved all the time. She knew this. “Where are you going? Where will Jon be in school?”
The mom named a neighborhood to the west of them. “And he’ll be at that Wolf school that’s over there. You know he’ll even have a male teacher, and I know that’s important.”
“Oh—okay. Thank you for telling me. You know I’m going to miss him and your family so much.”
She had to keep it together. She had to. She had kids around her, still waiting to be picked up. She wasn’t prepared for the depth of the bleakness she felt. There was always turnover at the end of the fall semester, and she’d thought she’d gotten used to it.
But Jon was special. She’d taught his older siblings, she knew his family, he’d been a gift to her classroom. His usual bright smile and ready laugh brought more peace into her class room than all her specialized routines. He probably didn’t know it yet, but he was a leader, and even if he struggled with long division, he struggled until he got it. And she was losing him to a charter school—that was probably what hurt the most, that his mom had chosen, that her school wasn’t good enough anymore, even though she knew the whole faculty side of the school loved and rooted for the students to succeed. So many years of service, and it just wasn’t enough. But at least it was Mark’s school. Mark’s school that he was quitting. Her heart had lifted for one instant and then plummeted.
She was crying by the time she walked to Mark’s back stoop. She’d parked in her alley lot spot and walked straight to his house. His truck was there, just barely not sticking out of the alley, and she patted it as she walked past it and more tears fell. She pounded on the outer door. It was tempered glass with decorative bars over it.
He didn’t open it right away so she hit it so hard the glass rattled against the bars. “MARRRRK—let me in!”
She heard rushing footsteps and a “Coming!”
He opened the door and looked at her. “I’m so sorry, baby, I had my headphones in and couldn’t hear. Are you okay?”
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