“Oh, an encounter group!” Helvey said. “What if I get head lice?”
“We used to catch something else in college,” Lott said.
Calandra giggled. “Is this safe sex?”
Fleming took their ribbing with a tired smile. A first-time principal, her skin was still too thin for the job. Lott commonly returned her memos red-penciled for punctuation and spelling. O’Connel was sure that had to hurt.
“Okay, now, don’t be bashful,” Mrs. Fleming said. “Let’s get started.” Lott tried to cut in behind a cute aide, but Calandra shouldered him out of line, and he went back behind Helvey, making a big show of his disappointment.
Solange stood in front of O’Connel, hair hanging straight and heavy. She gathered it gently into a satiny bundle and lay it over her shoulder. Soft as suede, it tingled cascading over the back of his hand.
She turned to look at him, eyes reproving. “Thanks for leaving me out there.”
A gold hoop earring lay against her downy neck. An intimate view, a lover’s view, it sparked a burning in his belly, a weakness in arms and legs. “Thought you might be gone by now.” She looked over her shoulder. “I thought you might.” He worked his thumbs along her spine up to her neck. Thin silk did little to disguise the feel of muscles taut as roots beneath.
She flinched.
“Too hard?”
“Just tight, I guess.” Lott moaned in the ecstasy of an overacted climax, setting the room off in nervous laughter.
“Oh, come on now, guys. Let’s take this seriously.” Fleming clapped her hands. “Okay, time to change.” They turned.
She touched him hesitantly with icy hands, and he jumped. “Ho, ho, helpless feeling, huh?”
He nodded, giving himself up to her strong fingers as she worked her way up his back, discovering the sore place inside his shoulder blade. His head fell forward. He shivered as her nails went up the nape of his neck. She grabbled a handful of his hair, drawing his head back.
“Hey,” she whispered, mouth close, “don’t fall asleep on me.”
Nothing to worry about there. “I’ll try not to.”
Fleming clapped her big hands again. “Okay, guys, time’s up, that’s all for now!”
“Ooooh,” Sid said, moaning with exaggerated disappointment. “Can’t we play just a little longer?” They worked themselves back into the small benches and the speaker, a horse-faced woman in her forties, came to the lectern.
Lott leaned near. “Wasn’t she the county filmstrip coordinator or something?”
“Oh, yeah!” Helvey said. “I knew I’d seen her before. Maybe she’ll tell us how to get those old movie projectors to stop eating films.”
O’Connel noticed it was still snowing. Why were they sitting here being snowed in? Six inches was already on the ground, and more was dropping every second. He wasn’t worried. The old buggy would get him home however bad it got.
The woman’s talk started out well enough; he’d sat through worse. It was stock stuff, uplifting drivel about teaching being the noblest profession and the like. He wasn’t surprised to hear her talk about how much she’d loved the classroom. They always said that. It was just the usual inanity.
No one asked her why she’d left. That was one of those questions you just didn’t ask. They all loved kids so much that they couldn’t wait to get away from them to give motivational talks about how wonderful it was to be a teacher. It all made a wonderful sort of sense—if you didn’t think too much.
She went on to reveal great insights into what she called their failures as educators. It was simple—they were going about it the wrong way. Catching her stride, she went on, “As educators, we’ve got a problem; our students aren’t learning. Now, why is that? It’s because we’re boring them, that’s why. If a child hasn’t memorized his times tables, we keep drilling him on it. Over and over again! if a student hasn’t learned to do long division or multiplication we keep them at it. Wouldn’t you be bored? I would. We must challenge them, teach them algebra, geometry, give them something that will turn them back on to learning.” O’Connel frowned, looking up from his doodling. Had he heard that right? He looked over at Lott who shook his head, face red. He must have.
“We’re boring our kids, and they’re tuning us out. It’s that simple.” Lott’s hand went up, head hanging low. “How am I supposed to teach kids who can’t divide two digits to factor polynomials?”
She was quick to reply. “The same way you’d teach anyone else.”
He asked her if she didn’t think a little thing like not knowing how to multiply or divide would interfere with them learning algebra.
She said she had studies backing her up. Lott, tenacious as always, asked to see them. She said she’d speak with him after her presentation. It was no use challenging a speaker. They held all the cards. It was their show. You were expected to sit and nod like a dashboard Jesus.
She forged ahead. “If test scores are low, it’s our fault as teachers.
If you were paid one hundred dollars for each student that scored on grade level and nothing for each that didn’t, all your students would be there. It’s that simple.”
A burning warmth crept up O’Connel’s neck. He’d had it, now.
Test scores at Elk River weren’t among the lowest in Oregon be cause a fourth of the kids didn’t speak English when they started, or because so many of the parents were uneducated, but because the teachers didn’t teach.
He looked over to find Celia smiling. She knew him, knew what was coming, looked forward to it. O’Connel raised a hand and she pointed to him. “Is anybody listening? The district pays this woman $1,500 to come here and tell you that you don’t try to teach, and you sit and listen?”
Waiting, he glanced from face to face. Some corrected papers, some wrote. Few met his eye. “Anybody offended by that?”
Nothing.
“Nobody?” He laughed, suddenly tired. “Well, in case you don’t know it, folks, you’ve been insulted. I’ve seen what you do. I’ve seen you give your hearts and souls to these kids. I’ve seen you take them home with you, give them clothes, food, toys, books. I’ve seen you go home after school dragging your behinds like you worked the plywood line all day. I know how hard you try. I’ve seen the kids when they come in through those doors at five years old speaking no English, never having been read to, never having even seen anyone read.
“I know where you start, and I know where the kids are when you send them upstairs. They speak English—at least the ones that aren’t in bilingual education can. They read—even the dumbest can read a little. That’s a miracle! Nothing we do upstairs compares with that. You teach them to sit in a desk, not to hit and push to get what they want, to wait in a straight line, to be quiet. You teach them all the things they should learn at home, but don’t.” He turned to the woman at the lectern. “And she, a woman who couldn’t do what you do—”
She came around the lectern. “Just a minute—”
He raised a hand to her. “I’m not finished.”
Cowed for the moment, she waited, arms akimbo.
“She comes here and insults you, and your profession— And you sit there. Do you wonder why we make less money than garbage collectors? You know,” he said, voice low, “If you really think that little of yourselves, and what you do— Then I don’t want to be one of you.” He grabbed his case, and turned to the woman at the lectern.
“Go ahead, it’s all yours.” The door banged behind him.
• • •
Snow a foot deep shrouded the cab of his truck.
From the inside, it was the blue-green of the inside of a glacier— and as cold. The engine caught and he eased the choke back in to slow the idle. Heart pounding, he waited for the thermostat to open and send warmth to the defroster. He slammed a hand down on the wheel. An ass, he was such an ass! He didn’t belong here; maybe he never had. Then where did he belong? He had no idea.
He remembered an old owl of a history teacher, probably long
dead. “Just play the game,” she’d said. Years later he’d understood, but never learned to do it. For years he bit his tongue. Now, jaws unclamped, he couldn’t stop them.
He got out to lock in the hubs and found Solange waiting by her car. “You’re missing the show,” he said.
She surprised him with her answer. “I don’t like her any better than you do.”
Sure she didn’t. He watched her standing in the falling snow, hair and coat dusted white. Damn it, that hair. “What are you waiting for?”
She shook powder from her hair, stomped her feet. “I’m stuck.”
“You are?” He cleared snow from his windows with his arm. “Got chains?”
She shook her head. “Is there a tow truck in this berg?” He wiped powder from his sleeve, dusted it from his hands, warming them.
“Closest one’s Crow.” He looked up. It was coming down harder, now, if anything. “Might take them a couple hours to get here if they’re busy.” She looked down at the highway. “If I could just get out of the parking lot—” O’Connel peered down the hill to the road, weighing her chances. “They won’t get the roads out here plowed before dark.”
She frowned. “Well, I’ve got to get home somehow.”
So much for his big exit. He got out, squatting down to look at her tires. He flicked snow from the tread with a nail. “These radials won’t be worth a dime in this stuff.”
They stood in silence, exhaust billowing behind them. “Where do you live?” he said.
Her eyes turned suspicious. “Eugene, why?”
“I’m going to the bakery on eighth to pick up rolls for tomorrow.” He shrugged. “I could drop you.” She shook her head, smiling warily. “I don’t think so.”
Okay. Fine. He’d be damned if he’d argue. He got in, slamming the door. “See you tomorrow, then.” He trudged back to his car, leaving her where she stood.
She could go to hell. She could freeze out there while she waited for a tow, for all he cared. He slammed the brake in under the dash and jockeyed the rig forward a couple inches to lock the transfer case into four-wheel drive.
A tap at the fogged glass. He rolled it down a crack and saw it was she.
“I’ll take you up on that ride. Give me a sec to get my bag.” He waited in the warming cab, defroster roaring. When would he learn to keep his mouth shut? Dreading the long, tense ride ahead of him, he reached over to unlock the passenger door.
She got in and he set her bag behind the seats as she ran her hands through her hair, shaking out the snow. “Thanks.” His tires weren’t new, but they still had some good meat. They got out to the highway with no problem. Solange settled demurely against the passenger door in the bucket seat, lean legs tightly crossed, skirt riding up her thighs.
O’Connel kept eyes on the tracks ahead, clearing fog off the window with an old tee shirt. Wipers thunked. Tires crunched dry powder. Her scent filled the musty cab. Was it her perfume, or just her? Whatever it was, he couldn’t get enough. Feeling her eyes on him, he wondered if he could stand an hour of frigid silence.
“That was quite a performance.”
Here it came. “I told you I don’t go to staff meetings.”
They came to a section of plowed road, tires singing.
She shook her head, regarding him through narrowed eyes. “What are you trying to prove? That you’re better than everyone else? That you’re the only one with any integrity? You’re not. Those teachers back there are tougher than you could ever hope to be.”
“Then why do they take that from somebody like her?”
“They take it because they need their jobs! They’ve got house payments to make, families…”
He pulled hard onto the shoulder, killing the engine, getting out fast. The footing was slick and he had to slow down. He squatted to take out the hubs, forcing himself to breathe deep. She was right, of course, and he knew it.
She leaned out the window. “You’re not throwing me out here? How would I…”
He had to smile. “What?” He got up from his crouch by the wheel.
“Why did you stop?”
She was really scared he was going to dump her. “I’m unlocking the hubs, we’re on pavement, now.”
She glared at him as he pulled back on the road. “That wasn’t very nice, I thought you were going to dump me.”
He shook his head as he drove. “Now why would I do that?”
“Because I was giving you a hard time—maybe because of everything.”
“I’ve been given a hard time before. I said I’d get you home and I will.”
She took a deep breath. “When I mentioned families—”
He cut her off with a raised hand. “Just don’t… don’t say you’re sorry.”
He drove and the tires sang on asphalt.
“Okay,” she said, looking at the road ahead.
Damn. It was going to be a long drive. He regretted being harsh with her. “Look… I got to where I dreaded seeing people. I couldn’t stand to hear them say it.”
“I wasn’t going to.” She kicked off her shoe, dangled it on her toe, watching him appraisingly with those incredible dark eyes. She was thinking something over. At last she spoke.
“You know… you may be alone, and I’m sorry… but they’re not. They don’t have the luxury of thumbing their noses at everyone the way you do. That doesn’t make you better than they are. It makes you one of those spoiled brats you talk so much about. Don’t get confused. It takes a hell of a lot more guts to stay and put up with all of it than it does to throw a tantrum and get yourself fired.”
It hurt and he knew why—because she was right. He downshifted into a long curve. “Okay, I get it. I’m a jerk.”
She sighed long. “That wasn’t my point.”
The rattling of the old truck relaxed him. The road he loved. It was familiar. In the rig it was warm, cozy almost. “You know, when I was in college, I spent a month bumming around. One rainy night in London I met this guy. He seemed old to me at the time—he was maybe…” He blew out a breath. “I don’t know… forty. We got to talking on the bus. He had lived in Argentina for a while. Now he was in London. He had no family, no friends, nobody.” He looked over at her. “When my stop came up, I shook his hand, stepped off the back platform, and watched him disappear down Kensington High Street.”
In front of the bakery, he parked, killed the engine. It seemed unnaturally quiet with only the sound of traffic muffled by snow.
He had no idea why he should be telling her this. “And now, twenty years later, here I am. I’m that guy.”
She said nothing as he unbuckled, went inside, returned with a big box. Tossing it into the back the smell of freshly baked bread and toasted sesame seed filled the cab.
She told him how to get to her place, and he found a spot not too far from the front of her apartment under the branches of a century old London plane, parked, let the engine run. His hands he kept on the wheel, his eyes on the street. It seemed easier that way.
“Thanks for the ride,” she said.
He looked at his hands on the wheel. Why didn’t she just get out? “No problem.”
She tried to open the door, but had trouble with the latch, and he leaned across her to work it. He could feel her warm breath on his neck as he jiggled the stubborn lever, and a rush of cold as the door swung open. Quickly, he moved back to his side, and a moment passed in awkward silence as the wind blew exhaust into the cab.
“Come up. I’ll brew some tea.”
Oh no. No. That was not happening. He wanted to be alone, in the woods, by the river—anywhere but in here apartment. Sipping tea? Uh uh. He forced a smile. “Thanks, anyway.”
She reached over, turned off the ignition, and it was quiet.
“I asked you up for a cup of tea. Are you really going to say no?”
He looked over at her and felt suddenly numb. He took out the key, reaching for his buckle. “I guess not.”
• • •
He follow
ed her up the wide stairs to the second floor, and waited, hands jammed in his jeans, ill at ease, as she cleared papers from the kitchen table.
“I’ll have this mess cleared in a sec. I don’t do this a lot—have people over.”
For something to do, he opened a beveled glass bookcase door, tilting his head to read the titles. “Okay if I look at your books?”
“Go ahead.” Surprised, he slipped one out, held it up. “You read Buck?”
“What’ve you got?” She laughed, looking up to see he held The Good Earth. “Oh, yeah, isn’t she great?”
He nodded, not sure he could picture her reading about women who walked ten paces behind their men. “Sad, though.”
She shrugged, filled the kettle, turned the flame up high, “Life is, sometimes.”
In the kitchen, she motioned him to a seat at the table, got two cups and saucers down from the cupboard, and set a sugar bowl in front of him on the table.
Unsure whether or not she’d made a mistake by inviting him, she leaned back against the counter while the kettle sputtered and hissed. Head down, he ran a finger around the lip of the sugar bowl.
She frowned, watching him. Could he be shy away from the classroom? She searched for spoons, watching him. She couldn’t imagine him afraid of anything. Not her, anyway. Least of all her.
As teachers went, he was one of the best she’d ever seen. But with every right, every reason to hate her, he didn’t seem to. Why not?
“About what you said— “ He set the sugar jar lid gently back into its place, as if trying not to disturb a single grain of sugar clinging to the rim. “I said what I did today because I respect them—so much. I know they’re just doing what they have to do. So am I.”
“Oh, yeah?” She got down a box of tea and folded back the foil. The tea smelled good, solid. “And what’s that?”
Eyes on the sugar, he answered, voice low. “Tell the truth, do what’s right, teach, really teach.” He smiled, laughed at himself. “I know it sounds corny. I’m no crusader, I’m just tired of all the lies. So many years I went along, never believing any of it. One stupid, inane reform after another.” He tilted his head to look closely at the sugar bowl, shook his head with finality. “No more.”
A Terrible Beauty: What Teachers Know but Seldom Tell outside the Staff Room Page 11