by Carol Snow
“I’ll think about it.” I eyed her sandwich and weakened. “You know, I wouldn’t mind just a little taste of the sandwich.”
thirty-four
No one ever tells you to sit down for good news, so when Dr. White offered me a visitor chair the next morning, I held my breath. Tyler had gotten there ahead of me. Today’s T-shirt, gray this time, was emblazoned with a computer code, which, for all I knew, translated into something like, “I know your American Express account number and your mother’s maiden name.”
Ten minutes into my first period class (Freshman Honors), Nicolette had clicked into my classroom on the painfully high heels that she wore with her excruciatingly tight white jeans. “Dr. White needs to see you,” she said. “I’ll take over.”
I practically ran out of there. Knowing that honors was my first class of the day, I’d arrived early to make sure my room was clear of feces, reptiles, bugs, bombs, or any other surprises. Once the bell rang, I poured all of my energy into not meeting Jared’s eyes. I was afraid I would start crying.
“Did Tyler catch him?” I asked Dr. White once I was seated. She nodded. “It’s Jared, isn’t it?”
She shook her head.
I looked at Tyler, who, for once, had turned away from the computer to face us, though one hand still trailed on the keys, as if for comfort. “Was he hard to find?” I asked. “It is a he, isn’t it?”
Tyler rolled his eyes. “Took me, like, five minutes to get his name. If that. He registered under his real name, as if no one could ever get past his screen name. Pathetic.”
“But you used only legal methods to find this information, right, Tyler?” Dr. White said casually.
He grunted in the affirmative—I think it was the affirmative—without making eye contact.
Dr. White thanked Tyler and sent him to class with a yellow pass. Then she closed her door and sat down behind her desk. She clasped her hands in front of her, leaned forward, and looked at me with concern. “It was Cody Gold.”
For an instant, I thought she was kidding. Cody wouldn’t write those things about me! Cody was like a puppy dog. Cody loved me! “But—why?”
She shook her head slightly. “I have no idea. Have you had any problems with him?”
“No! He’s always—well, I always thought he liked me.”
“Your students don’t have to like you,” she said gently. “They just have to respect you.”
“I know. But Cody . . . he had a little crush on me, I think. It seemed sweet at the time. But now—” I stopped. If I talked any more, I’d start crying. To maintain self respect, I could allow myself no more than one breakdown a week in Dr. White’s office. No, make that one breakdown a career.
“I’ve called Cody’s parents,” Dr. White continued. “They’ll be here for a meeting at three o’clock. I’d like you to join us.”
I nodded and stood up. Suddenly, I wanted to get out of there.
My classroom was no more appealing, though. As I approached, I could hear Claudia’s voice: “How can you tell the difference between genuine love and infatuation?”
I was trying to figure out how that would figure into a discussion of A Separate Peace, when Nicolette answered, “Ya know, I still don’t know. I mean, when I met Rodney, I thought: this is it. He was so not like the other guys I’d gone out with.”
I was about to march in and end the discussion before Nicolette started comparing and contrasting Rodney’s sexual proclivities with the countless partners who’d gone before when I caught a glance at Cody’s face. I recoiled, as if I’d seen a snake. Or a bag of crap. Or the face of someone who had betrayed me.
My eyes filled with tears. I envisioned Cody finding a dead snake in his yard (surely he didn’t hate me enough to kill something), smuggling it into his backpack and leaving it on my chair in anticipation of my fear and humiliation. I envisioned him finding some dog poo in his backyard (surely he didn’t hate me enough to hoard his own shit) and stinking up his locker for an entire day until he had the chance to unload it.
I was a failure. Anyone who could inspire such venom should be doing something else.
I fled to the teacher’s bathroom and shut myself in a stall until the bell rang.
Next was one of my college prep classes. I had the students take turns reading aloud. They were quiet, expressionless, slumped over their desks.
Next came Adventures. Five minutes into a lesson on semicolons, I thought: this is ridiculous. These kids haven’t mastered commas; why bother with semicolons? Only three kids handed in homework. (Robert’s excuse: “I worked a party for Suzette last night—you know I quit my job at the hospital? And anyway, I got home really late.”)
Robert lingered after class. I felt a little better. Robert liked me. He was still borderline illiterate, but at least he liked me. I asked him how Ladd’s tutoring was going without pointing out that his work had slipped off since he’d stopped coming in for extra help in the mornings. Robert considered his paid tutor for a moment. “He’s—he’s bending my mind. An interesting dude.”
Katerina sauntered in. Robert beamed. He hadn’t hung around to talk to me. Of course not.
Katerina said, “Ms. Quackenbush, is it true that you’re directing the winter play?”
It was true, I said, though I didn’t think I could do as good a job as Mr. Hansen.
Her smile fell. “Yeah, Mr. Hansen was really cool.”
Jill caught me as I was sneaking out the door at lunchtime. “I forgot my lunch,” I lied. “I was just going to grab a burrito.”
She came with me even though she probably had a plastic container filled with something wonderful waiting for her in the faculty fridge.
“I talked to Cody’s mother this morning. She and her husband separated last month,” she told me as we sat in a booth at a Taco Bell, sipping giant Diet Pepsis and waiting for our gorditas. “Most likely, Cody’s transferring his feelings of anger onto you.”
The acoustics in this place were terrible. Shrieking chairs, slurping sodas, rustling paper: the sounds bounced off the walls and ceiling. People talked too loud, trying to be heard over the noise, making the din even worse. At the tables around us sat men in various matching shirts. One table had burly white guys wearing royal blue T-shirts that read, VALLEY PLUMBING. Another table had short, solid Mexican guys. Their T-shirts were purple and read, GOODMAN’S LANDSCAPING.
Everyone looked happier than me, the plumbers, the landscapers, the moms with toddlers trying to claw their way out of strollers. Me with my save-the-world attitude and my eighteen years of schooling. The plumbers probably out-earned me by a good twenty thousand dollars a year.
My cell phone rang. I fished it out of my bag. “Hot date?” Jill asked.
I checked the display number. “My mother.” I let it go to voice mail.
A group of familiar-looking teenagers walked in, two skinny girls and a boy with bad acne and squinty eyes. I smiled. They ignored me. Jill waved. They ignored her, too. “Two bulimics and a chronic liar,” she murmured. “If you have to use the bathroom, I’d do it now.”
I didn’t smile.
“Oh, come on, Natalie!” she said. “So one kid doesn’t like you. It’s not the end of the world. Cody Gold has problems that have nothing to do with you.”
“Has he been acting out with any of his other teachers?”
“Well, no,” she admitted. “But that doesn’t mean anything.”
“Of course it does,” I said. A girl at the counter called our number. I glanced at my watch. “We’ve got five minutes to eat,” I said. “Let’s get moving.”
* * *
I didn’t go to the meeting with Mr. and Mrs. Gold. When the final bell rang, I packed up my bag, locked up my classroom and hurried off to my car before anyone could stop me.
I was a coward, true, but it was more than that. It hit me during my third college prep class of the day, with a third group of students reading the same Dickens passages aloud, their bodies slumped just so, sneakered fee
t splayed out, elbows on the desks, eyes glazed, hands holding up faces that would topple over without the support. I didn’t want to be here anymore than they did. I wasn’t saving the world. I was boring the world.
Dr. White had two good candidates for Lars’s job. Why turn one away?
I felt oddly free and jubilant. If I hadn’t wasted the bathtub champagne, I’d pop it now. No matter. When I got home, I’d turn on the spa, slip into my bathing suit and soak away the tensions from the last year and a half.
Marjorie Wamsley ruined everything. “Shoot,” I said when I saw her white SUV parked out front. Then, remembering that my role-model days were numbered, I amended my exclamation to, “Shit.” Saying a bad word felt so good, I said it again. “Shit, shit, shit.”
Marjorie and the Sandlers were standing out by the spa. My spa. I stuck a smile on my face and strode outside.
“Oh, hello, Natalie! Did your mother reach you?”
“What?” Oh, right. I’d never returned my mother’s call. “I was just going to call her back.”
“We have some exciting news!” Marjorie said. Mr. and Mrs. Sandler smiled shyly behind her. “The Sandlers have made a very nice offer on the home.”
“On this home?” I said stupidly.
“This very one!” Marjorie chirped.
By the time they left, two hours later, I didn’t really want to go in the spa anymore but I did anyway, recognizing that my backyard-as-resort days were numbered. The sun was just starting to fade, and the air was chilly. The flagstones iced my feet; I should have worn flip-flops. As I slipped into the spa, I had one of those cold-to-hot, agony-to-ecstacy moments. The steamy water thawed my feet and stung my legs. I halted halfway into the water, my bottom half too hot, my top half too cold, until, with a squeal, I plunged myself up to my chin in the Pebble Tec cauldron, settling at last into the blood-warming brew.
I left the jets off, immersing myself in the dusk sounds of the desert. Mourning doves cooed, their voices soothing rather than sad. Owls hooted in the distance. My heart thudded in my ears. Above the stucco wall that surrounded the yard, jagged mountains rose brown and purple against a dusty pink and blue sky, while the majestic saguaros held their prickly green arms aloft.
This is “When I Lived in Arizona,” I told myself, as the clouds darkened and the present faded into the past.
thirty-five
Dear Dr. White:
It is with great sadness that I announce my resignation, effective December 21, as a secondary school English Teacher at Agave High School. My decision to leave is personal and is not in any way a reflection on you or any of the other staff members at Agave High School.
Please know that I have nothing but the greatest respect for you, and I thank you for all of the efforts you have made on my behalf.
Sincerely,
Natalie Quackenbush
“No,” she said, placing the letter on her desk.
“Excuse me?” I stood across from her, one foot pointing toward the door, poised to make my exit.
Dr. White crossed her arms across her chest. She was wearing a new suit today: Christmas red. Her blouse was white and had a wide, pointy collar. Her glossy lipstick matched the suit. Her skin shone dark and brown. Dr. White had the right complexion for Arizona. “You’re upset about Cody Gold. You’re being impulsive.”
I shook my head. “I’m not. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. This was just the thing that pushed me over the edge. The tipping point. The final straw.”
She smiled, just a little. “Have you started your writing unit yet? The part about avoiding clichés?”
“No, that’s next quarter. Or, it would have been.”
She held the letter out to me. “Finish out the year. Then decide.”
I left the sheet in her hand. “I’ve already decided. This is the right thing to do.”
She put the letter back on her desk. “The first two years are the hardest. You’re a good teacher, Natalie. Don’t give up.”
I backed away. “I’m sorry, Dr. White. I hate to disappoint you. But I can’t do this anymore.”
She didn’t give up. First she sicced Mrs. Clausen on me. “We don’t want to lose you from teaching, Natalie. You’re incredibly talented.”
Then she moved on to Jill.
“Cody Gold’s parents are separating just as he is hitting puberty. He felt a kind of Oedipal attraction for you. It’s only natural he would lash out.”
She even had the vice principal, some guy named Mr. Flynn, talk to me. “Dr. White tells me you’re one of our finest history teachers.”
“I teach English.”
“Oh, right. Well, best of luck to you.”
When I had a free period, I stayed in my classroom to avoid any more ambushes. I shut the door and called my parents. We had spoken last night. I told them the Sandlers seemed like nice people, that my parents’ house was going to a good home, as it were. I didn’t tell them I was going to quit my job; I thought I should tell Dr. White first.
My sister answered the phone. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” I said.
“I have a cold.”
“Bad one?”
“Not really. But Mom made this big deal, says I have to be especially careful because of the baby, and God forbid I should get pneumonia, blah, blah, blah.” Shelly sighed. “She’s driving me crazy. She’s completely taking over my life. She treats me like I’m twelve.”
“A pregnant twelve-year-old, no less.”
She moaned. “My life is so fucked up.”
I rolled my eyes. “Is Mom around?”
“She went to the store. She’s buying chicken soup and ginger ale.”
“What about Dad?”
“He went with Mom. He’s driving me crazy, too. He keeps saying if he were in Scottsdale, he could be playing golf.”
I took a deep breath. “I’m moving back East.”
“What?”
“I’ve quit my job. I’m moving home. Or, home-ish. I’ll probably go back to Boston.”
“But—why? You have a job, friends . . . Mom said you have a boyfriend.” Her voice dropped. I think I heard her sniffle, whether from her cold or the memory of Frederick, I wasn’t sure.
“I hate my job, and I don’t have any real friends,” I said as evenly as I could manage. “There’s no boyfriend. That’s over.”
“Men are assholes,” Shelly said.
The kids made it harder. Katerina stayed after class to talk about the winter play. “I’ve got this idea, and, like, tell me if you don’t think it’s going to work. But you know how you said you were, like, not feeling confident about directing? Well, the thing is, I’ve always wanted to direct. So, I was wondering—would you consider taking me on as your student director? It would be, like, the biggest thrill of my life.”
Sarah Levine lent me a poetry anthology she had read at home. “I love Keats, especially. Sometimes I start reading him, and an hour goes by and I don’t even notice.” She smiled shyly. “I waste so much time that way.”
Even Claudia got to me. “Mrs. Quackenbush, do you think you could read this short story I wrote? It’s about this girl, nobody really understands her, so she runs away to New York to be a dancer. Everybody thinks she’s dead, but then she gets to be really famous, and they realize who it is. And there’s this guy, she loved him when they were young, but when he drives to see her dance, there’s this snow-storm and his car crashes and he dies.” She took a breath. “Anyway, I think it could be better, but I’ve taken it as far as I know how.”
Cody wasn’t in class. Jared and I ignored each other.
Robert handed in his homework, a short descriptive paragraph. So did Marisol. Actually, over half of the other Adventures students did the work. I glanced at Robert’s paper and managed to catch him before he walked out the door. “Did Ladd help you with this?”
He shook his head sheepishly. “The thing with Ladd is, well—he’s not really a good tutor. He’s not even that good a cook.”
“You got all your punctuation correct,” I said. “Everything! Even the quotation marks.”
“It took a long time,” he admitted. “I spent a lot of time looking at the stuff we worked on together. The comma exercises and stuff.”
“Keep it up,” I said.
He looked at the ground. “If you have any time, well . . . could we go back to meeting in the mornings?”
“Of course!” I said without thinking. “At least until the holiday break.” He looked at me quizzically. “I just can’t schedule anything after that.”
It went on like that for the rest of the week. Every day, Dr. White asked me if I’d changed my mind. Every day, I told her no.
I took to eating lunch with Jill again. Miss Rothstein (Stacey) ate with us one day; the next day, having heard that I’d handed in my resignation, she was back at the math table. I couldn’t blame her. I had one foot out the door; there was no point investing in a friendship.
My parents had already bought me plane tickets to Providence for Christmas. Maybe they could get a refund on the return flight.
In a week I’d be gone.
On Friday afternoon, I made a final visit to Dr. White’s office. “I’ve thought it over,” I told her for the fourth and final time. “I’m going to tell my students on Monday.”
She nodded. I waited for her to say something. She didn’t. She looked sad.
Jill caught up with me as I left the office. “I was just calling your cell phone. You’ve got to come out with me tomorrow night. A last hurrah.”
“Another night at the Happy Cactus?”
She shook her head. “Something nicer. It’s a surprise.”
thirty-six
Lars pulled up in front of my house—my parents’ house; the Sandlers’ house—in his Prius. Jill hadn’t told me that he was coming. I immediately vowed to act like I didn’t care—only to realize that I really didn’t.
“Nicolette’s going to meet us over there,” Jill told me.