Getting Warmer

by Carol Snow

He opened the door almost immediately. He was even dressed, in gym shorts and a Nike T-shirt, although maybe that’s what he’d slept in. Comforting smells wafted out from behind him.

  “Did I wake you?” I asked after a moment’s silence.

  “No,” he said. “I was just cleaning up from breakfast.” He blinked at me. His eyes were brown and round, fringed with thick, black lashes. Standing in the doorway, he looked both younger and older than at school: younger because he seemed less cocky, more forthright; older because he was so clearly in charge of his household.

  “Can I come in?”

  He stepped aside. I was prepared for dimmed lights, a big screen television with a game cube or Nintendo or Xbox or possibly all three.

  The walls were Southwestern mauve, the furniture blond wood. There was a television, of course, but it was small and neatly stacked on a freestanding glass-and-bamboo bookshelf, between a potted jade plant and Robert’s framed high school picture.

  “Are your parents home?”

  “My mother’s sleeping,” he said.

  “Oh,” I said, silently disapproving.

  “She’s a nurse,” he said, scratching his arm. “Works the night shift. She takes care of premature babies.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling chastened for the flash I’d had of his mother as a crack addict. “And your father?”

  “Left when I was three.”

  I nodded and waited for him to say more. He didn’t. “Does your mother know that you haven’t been going to school?”

  He paused, looked down at the carpet for a minute, then back up at me. “Do you know I’m eighteen? ’Cause that means I’m responsible for myself.”

  “I know that you’re eighteen,” I said. “And I’m not trying to get you into trouble. I just want you to come back to school.”

  “Why?” he said. “What’s the point?”

  “How do you expect to get a job without a high school diploma?”

  He ignored my question and wandered into the tiny kitchen. “You hungry?”

  I started to say no and then realized I was starving. I hadn’t had time to eat before leaving the house, and my mother, now that she was injured, had stopped serving me breakfast in bed.

  “The omelet’s all gone, but this is pretty good.” He handed me a blueberry muffin. So that’s what smelled so good.

  “Your mother bakes after working all night?”

  “No.” He smiled. “I’m the cook of the house.”

  I cupped the muffin in my hand so I wouldn’t get crumbs on the tan linoleum floor and took a bite. “You made this?” It was simultaneously lighter and creamier than the usual blueberry muffin. I took another bite. “What’s in here?”

  “The usual stuff, plus sour cream and cream cheese. A little lemon rind.”

  “This is amazing.” I looked at him. “I never would have taken you for a baker.”

  “You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?” he asked, half smiling. “It wouldn’t do much for my rep.”

  “Your secret is safe with me.” I took another bite. The kitchen was quiet except for the hum of the air conditioner. “You never answered my question. About how you’re going to get a job without a high school diploma.”

  He took a muffin for himself and placed it on a napkin on the glass-topped kitchen table. “I already have a job. At the hospital laundry.” He settled himself into a chair, his long legs spread wide and braced on the floor, as if for stability.

  I sat down in the chair across from him. “And that’s what you want to be doing twenty years from now?” I put the remainder of the muffin in my mouth and chewed slowly.

  “I’ll work my way up. There’s this guy I know, works in the hospital kitchen, says he might be able to get me a job in there.”

  “Is that what your mother wants for you?”

  He sighed. “Listen. My mother has done everything for me. Everything. She’s tired, like, all the time. She could live in a bigger place than this, a nicer place, without so many old people, but she wanted to make sure I was in a good school district. But I just . . . I can’t do it.” He poked at his muffin but didn’t eat it. I thought, what a waste.

  He popped up from the table, leaving his muffin. He strode over to the fridge, pulled out a carton of orange juice and poured it directly into his mouth.

  “I’d always heard teenage boys did that, but I didn’t really believe it,” I said.

  He grinned and wiped his mouth with his forearm. “You want some?”

  I laughed. “Thanks. I think I’ll pass.”

  He put the juice back in the refrigerator and shut the door. “So, what’s the deal with the play? Who won?” He leaned against the refrigerator, his arms crossed in front of him.

  “Who won? You mean, who got the parts?”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  “Katerina got the lead,” I said.

  His smile faded. He nodded. “I figured.”

  “You talk to her?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Ralph Herrera got your part,” I said. “I mean, the part I thought you’d be good for.”

  “Ralph? You gotta be kidding me. Kid’s a total dweeb.”

  “He’s not bad,” I said. “But you would have been better.”

  “Whatever,” he mumbled. He looked up. “I wouldn’t have been able to do it anyway,” he said. “Even if I’d pulled off the audition.”

  “We would have worked something out,” I said. “I could have helped you run lines.”

  “I don’t mean that.” He rolled his eyes, as if his illiteracy were insignificant. “I’m talking about my work schedule. Four to eleven, five days a week. I called in sick that day.”

  “Four to eleven? My gosh. When do you have time for homework?”

  He raised his eyebrows and looked at me expectantly.

  “Oh, right. I forgot.” No wonder he was always so late for school.

  We heard shuffling down the hall. A slightly hoarse woman’s voice called, “Robert? There someone in the kitchen with you?”

  “Just a friend, Mama,” he said anxiously, heading for the hall. “Go back to sleep.”

  “You should have left for school by now,” the woman said, clearly getting closer.

  Robert whirled around to look at me, his eyes panicked. “You can’t tell her!” he pleaded. “Please don’t tell her!”

  “Robert, I’m not going to lie to her,” I said.

  “I’ll go back to school! I’ll meet with the special ed teachers or come in for extra help—I promise! Just don’t tell her!”

  She appeared in the doorway, wearing a faded blue terry bathrobe. She was surprisingly short and curvy, in contrast to her tall, lanky son. She had curly black hair, olive skin, and Robert’s big brown eyes. “Hello?” She blinked at me, clearly expecting to encounter a nubile sixteen-year-old.

  “Hello, Mrs. Baumgartner,” I said. “I’m Natalie Quackenbush, Robert’s English teacher.”

  “Please, call me Lupe.” She smiled, but she looked troubled. “Is there a problem?”

  I glanced at Robert. He was staring at me, pleading.

  I swallowed. “I, um, no. No problem.” There it was: another lie I couldn’t take back, though hopefully this was for a good cause. “I’m helping with the school play, and I just . . . Robert said he might be able to help behind the scenes. Build sets and whatnot. But I guess, with his school and work schedule, it’s not really going to work out.”

  She looked up at her son. “You should do it, Robbie. You can cut back your hours for a couple months.” She turned her gaze to me. “He doesn’t get to have enough fun.”

  I nodded, thinking: and here I had always assumed that Robert suffered from having too much fun.

  As I sat in my Civic, Robert moved his mother’s white car out of the driveway and onto the street, opened the garage, backed out and parked his orange clunker, returned to the white car and drove it into the garage. I heard the car door slam. He appeared from the darkness, hitti
ng a button on his way out. The garage door slid back into place. His mother could have saved him a lot of time by simply parking her car on the street, but this was Scottsdale, and on-street parking was not allowed.

  He walked over to my car. I rolled down the window.

  “You don’t have to babysit me,” he said. “I’ll see you at school.”

  I smiled and drove away. Then I pulled into the first shopping plaza I came to and waited until Robert’s car passed me. I let a few cars get behind him before sneaking my car into the traffic and following him all the way to Agave.

  I had to walk quickly through the corridors to make it to my classroom before the bell rang, but there was a lightness in my step today, a new sense of purpose in my heart.

  I walked into the classroom just as the bell rang. A quick glance showed me that my Honors English students were all in their seats, pencils on their otherwise empty desks.

  I strode over to my desk, dropped my bag and said, “Good morning, class. I hope you studied last night, because, as you know, today I’m going to have you write an in-class Odyssey essay.”

  A figure in the corner caught my eye. I looked over.

  It was Jonathan. He was completely still, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “Good morning, Miss Quackenbush,” he said at last.

  eighteen

  I left Claudia in charge. “These are the essay questions,” I said, thrusting a piece of paper at her. “Write them on the board.” I yanked open a desk drawer and pulled out some blue test books. “One per student.” I dropped them on the desks.

  “What if someone fills up all the space?” Claudia asked.

  “Then give them another book.”

  “Ms. Quackenbush?”

  “Yes?”

  “Shouldn’t it be ‘Give him or her another book?’”

  We stood in the hallway outside my classroom, our silence echoing down the corridor. Farther down, a dark, hulking boy in oversized nylon shorts embraced a too-thin girl in too-tight jeans, their arms clinging to each other’s necks, their faces and bodies smushed together, their legs entwined. I was supposed to stop them. I was supposed to check them for hall passes. I was supposed to report them to the office.

  I turned to Jonathan. I looked at his face. Unable to bear his expression, I looked at my sensible, rubber-soled shoes. My heart thudded all the way down to my stomach.

  Finally, he spoke. “Why don’t you just have them do their essays at home?” he asked quietly.

  “Because their parents will write them. Or some of their parents. And it’s not fair to the kids who do their own work.”

  He nodded.

  “I was going to tell you,” I said.

  “Mm,” he said.

  “I’ve actually . . . I’ve actually looked into getting a job at the prison. To make it up to you.”

  He squinted in a way that let me know I’d just said something ridiculous.

  “How did you find out?” I asked.

  “I Googled you. Nice Web site, by the way.”

  “Every teacher has one. I don’t actually know how to use it.”

  “It didn’t have a picture,” he said. “Up until the moment you walked into class I thought maybe, just maybe, there was another Natalie Quackenbush in town.”

  “My mother doesn’t have Alzheimer’s,” I said.

  “I kind of got that,” he said.

  “I was going to tell you.”

  “Did I ever tell you that my mother has Alzheimer’s, too?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, aghast.

  He waited a beat. “That’s because she doesn’t.” He turned and began to walk down the hall.

  “Jonathan! Wait!” I scurried after him. The necking couple paused to look at us and then slunk around the corner.

  He stopped, but his expression was stony. “Can we get together later?” I asked. “To talk?”

  He stood frozen for a moment. And then he shook his head.

  “So this is it?” I asked. “You’re just going to walk away?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “We have something good going,” I said. “We have a connection.” I searched for yet another hackneyed expression and came up with: “You can’t just walk away from this.”

  “Watch me,” he whispered.

  “Oh, yeah? Like you walked away from all the others?” I said, suddenly angry. “And what little nickname will you give to me?”

  He narrowed his eyes and tightened his mouth. “The Big Let-down.”

  And then he left.

  My day went from crappy to crappier. After Jonathan disappeared around the corner, I ran off to the faculty bathroom in a vain attempt to compose myself before returning to class.

  After taking a few deep breaths and splashing cold water on my face, I headed back to my classroom and to what I assumed would be the hushed concentration of a room full of overachievers spewing forth intricate sentences peppered with multi-syllabic words. (The uninspired essay topic: “Is Odysseus a classic hero? Explain.”) Instead, I heard squeals of laughter upon approaching the classroom. I opened the door and stood there, frozen for a moment. Jared stood in front of the class, one hand on his hip, the other gesturing dramatically. He warbled in a high-pitched voice, “Okay, Class, that’s a good concrete example, but, Class, I need you to use your higher level thinking skills.” The students were red-faced with mirth. It took me a moment to realize that Jared wasn’t just being randomly obnoxious. He was doing a full-on impersonation of me—and, judging from the reaction, a pretty good one.

  “That’s enough,” I said. They quieted immediately, staring at me with wide-eyed remorse. “Class, I need you to focus on your work. Jared—” Here I stopped to shoot him evil death rays. He glared right back at me with a sociopath’s self-assurance. “Jared, go to the office. Now.”

  Once he was gone, I sat down at my desk, shaking, thankful that the kids had a task to focus on, that for once I didn’t have to perform. I should make in-class essays a regular thing. Once a week, maybe. And the kids could do in-class presentations on another day. That left only three days a week for actually teaching—and surely I could shave that time away, too.

  I was crying. I didn’t even realize it until a big, fat tear plopped on my desk, landing on a stack of Odyssey chapter summaries.

  I fled to the faculty bathroom without leaving any instructions. Without Jared around, the class would be fine.

  I shut myself into one of the two stalls and let loose. Good thing I hadn’t had time for eye makeup before rushing out of the house. When I heard the outer door swing open, I muffled my sobs as best I could. Eventually, I flushed the unused toilet and opened the stall door slowly.

  Mrs. Clausen stood by the sinks, looking concerned. “Natalie! Is everything okay?”

  “Not really,” I sniffled. “It’s just . . . it’s been a rough day. I’ll be okay.”

  “The first couple years of teaching are the hardest,” she said. “Everyone cries.”

  I nodded. I couldn’t imagine Mrs. Clausen crying. I couldn’t imagine her being anything but perfectly groomed and perfectly composed.

  She unrolled some brown industrial-grade, super-rough paper towel and handed me a piece. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Later.” I blotted my eyes with the paper towel. “Right now I’ve got to get back to class.”

  I called Jonathan before my next class started. No answer. I tried him again when it ended. Nothing.

  Robert showed up for Adventures, but he seemed different, more subdued, like a spark had gone out of him, like he was just another Adventures student.

  I called Jonathan after Adventures. He didn’t answer.

  At lunch, Mrs. Clausen sat next to me. Sweet, but I’d really wanted to spend the twenty-five minutes wailing to Jill about Jonathan. Instead, I described my encounter with Jared, who had been given detention (big whoop). Then I told her about Robert.

  “Have you talked to the Special Ed department?”

&n
bsp; “Yeah. They’re going to see him twice a week. The thing is, he’s been in Special Ed most of his life, and it hasn’t worked.”

  I called Jonathan after lunch. I was so surprised when he answered that I didn’t even know what to say.

  “You’ve got to stop calling me,” he said after a moment’s silence.

  “How do you know I’ve been calling? I never even left a message.”

  “My phone tells me every time I’ve missed a call.”

  “Maybe you need a new phone.” Silence. Perhaps this wasn’t the time to be funny. “I should have told you sooner.” Silence. “I’d like to start over.” Silence. I took a deep breath. “I hope it’s not too late.”

  Finally, he spoke. “It started off too late.”

  “I don’t want to lose you,” I whispered.

  “You lost me at hello.”

  Later, during play practice, Jill slid into the seat next to me while I pretended to pay attention to the kids running their lines.

  “I heard you lost it during your honors class,” she whispered.

  I looked at her aghast. “Did Mrs. Clausen tell you?”

  “No, of course not. I heard it from Claudia.”

  “Since when does Claudia need counseling?”

  “She doesn’t really. She just likes an opportunity to talk about herself.”

  I told her about Jonathan. “‘You lost me at hello?’ That’s pretty funny, actually. I didn’t think he had it in him.” She snickered. I scowled and told her that I was devastated. Heartbroken. As low as I could go.

  “It was kind of inevitable, though, wasn’t it?” she said. When I looked pained, she added, “At least you got to have sex first.”

  And this from a woman who got paid to be sympathetic.

  Play practice ran until five o’clock. “Is it always going to be this late?” I asked Lars.

  “Sometimes it’ll be later.” He shot me one of his trademark Mr. Handsome smiles. “Why? You got someplace better to be?”

  Going home meant finding my mother moping on the living room sofa, her foot propped up on pillows, the television flickering in the background. “I cleaned the bathrooms this morning. Now I’m paying for it.” She readjusted her foot on the pillows.