“Desperately. Don’t you?”
He didn’t look at me, but instead made some minor adjustment to the rose arrangements. Then he said, “I didn’t feel like I had the right to comment. We’ve never said anything about being exclusive.”
But it was implied, and we both knew it.
“Kirk doesn’t mean a thing to me. Let me explain what happened. It was—”
“And it’s not like I could ever take you to that country club. According to my mother, they don’t admit any black members.”
“Good Lord. I could care less about that stupid club. Sit for a minute. There are a couple of things about myself I haven’t told you about yet.”
He perched on a stool at my breakfast bar, and waited expectantly for me to speak.
“Remember when we went to Tranquility Hall?” I said tentatively. “And my aunt mentioned to you that I went a little crazy after my injury?”
He nodded.
“Well, you have no idea how wild I was.”
Telling him about my out-of-control behavior after the accident made me feel exposed, but I held nothing back: The boozing, the pot smoking, the slutty one-night stands, even the arrests for public intoxication.
I kept waiting for him to curl his upper lip in disgust, but he was just listening intently.
I ended my soliloquy of unsavory sins with the kicker: I confessed to him what I’d done to Baby Bowen at Lois Atkin’s funeral.
“Lois was my tennis coach. And I always thought of her as a surrogate mom. After my wrist got infected she came to visit me in the hospital once, and then I never heard from her again. I’d call her, and she’d never get back to me.”
“That’s harsh,” Carl said softly.
“I was heartbroken over it. Then, not too long afterwards, she had a heart attack on the tennis court and died before she made it to the hospital. On the day of her funeral I chugged a few shots of Wild Turkey and smoked a fat joint. When I got to the church, I was sitting beside this girl named Baby Bowen, who’d also taken some lessons from Lois. She was wailing and keening like she wanted to throw herself on a funeral pyre. As for me, I couldn’t shed a tear.”
“Because Lois treated you unkindly?”
“No. I’m not a big crier. I haven’t shed a tear since I was a little kid.” I paused, suspended in an embarrassed silence over what I was about to reveal.
“Go on,” Carl said gently.
“So I’m watching Baby Bowen bawl her eyes out, and I want to cry so badly, but I can’t. My body was begging for some kind of release, and since I couldn’t cry, I did something else. Something revolting. It’s almost too disgusting for words.”
I pushed a snarl of bangs over my eyes as if to hide behind them.
“I’m still listening,” Carl said.
It took me a second before I could continue. “My stomach was queasy, and I knew I was going to lose my lunch at any second. I was frantically looking around for something to catch the vomit. I’d brought a little clutch purse, so I couldn’t use that. Lord knows, I didn’t want to sentence myself to eternal damnation and vomit into a hymnal. Then I looked at Baby, who was wearing a straw hat.”
I could tell Carl was struggling not to smile. “You didn’t.”
“I did. I snatched her hat off her head and threw up into it. But that was just the beginning. I threw up on her dress, in her hair, on her face. It was horrible projectile vomiting, like a geyser, and it reeked of Wild Turkey. Baby was covered in it. She screamed and made a huge scene, ruining the funeral. Not that I blame her.”
“I’m sorry. That must have been an ordeal.”
“It was. I tried to make light of it because I didn’t want people to know how badly I was hurting. It was one of my lowest moments…But the main reason I’m telling you this story is because I had a bit of a relapse into the old Toni Lee last night. I got upset with Joelle and drank too much. The guy I was with kissed me, which took me by surprise, but that’s as far as it went. I forgot myself for a second.”
He sighed. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that.”
“Your mother wasn’t jumping up and down when she discovered I was dating you. I understand if you don’t want to continue to see someone she doesn’t like.”
“To be honest, my mother and I aren’t all that close.”
That surprised me. “Why?”
“She’s a lot like Deena. She also thinks teaching’s beneath me and wants me to find a more lucrative career. She wishes I was a big-time breadwinner like my brother Mitt. He got her a Lexus for her birthday. Made my faux pearl earrings look pretty pitiful.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay.” He brushed his lips against mine. “I’ll take you as a consolation prize any day…One more thing.”
“Yes?” I said, relieved we’d worked things out.
“Why don’t you ever cry?”
I had good reason for never shedding any tears, and it had to do with my own mother, but I wasn’t yet ready to tell him about that. I’d given up more than enough secrets for one day.
“I can’t say really. Maybe my tear ducts are just jammed up.”
He gave me a skeptical look but didn’t press me any further.
That night, I put Norah Jones on my iPod and lit a collection of vanilla-scented votive candles, transforming my tiny bedroom into a flickering, golden haven. The ceiling fan whispered above, and we slowly unpeeled each other’s clothes. We entwined, a tangle of dark and light limbs.
Neither of us had yet used the “L” word, but lovemaking was what we were doing. Like a pair of alchemists, we’d spun lust into something much deeper and more fulfilling. Afterwards, as we lay next to each other, our skin glazed with a fine mist of sweat, Carl said, “Let’s not have any more secrets, okay?”
“Okay,” I whispered.
I hated to sully the moment with a lie. But how could I tell Carl about my deal with Cornelia or my unholy alliance with Dr. Lipton? If I did, he’d surely leave me, and I loved him far too much to fathom a world without him in it.
But if you love him, how can you deceive him, I thought.
I shook away the question. I knew I was being selfish. Carl would never sacrifice his integrity, not even for five million dollars. Furthermore, I had no excuse for my slacker approach to teaching. No one was paying me to be a slouch. I was doing that for free. Carl had been led to believe I was the female version of John Keating in Dead Poets Society, and if I loved him, that’s the kind of teacher I should try to be.
The next morning I downloaded an assortment of education books on my e-reader: Setting Limits in the Class, Assertive Discipline and my personal favorite, Teach Like Your Hair’s On Fire. For a week, whenever I had a free moment, I devoured the books, taking notes on techniques that might work in my classroom.
The texts made it seem so simple, like a recipe for frozen margaritas. Do this, dump in a little of that, and voila…well-behaved students.
For several days I immersed myself in the teaching books until I felt ready to try out some of the tricks I’d learned. I listed rules on a big piece of cardboard—only five—the teaching books said that too many rules were confusing. I also wrote the rules in positive terms, i.e., “Do keep quiet when the teacher is talking” instead of “hush up or I’ll skin you alive.” I’d also planned a seating chart, a rewards program, including intangible incentives such as teacher praise, and individual behavior plans for each student.
I was surprised to discover my new knowledge made me feel virtuous and exceedingly organized, like a real-life teacher instead of playing one on TV.
Monday morning I was half-tempted to hang a sign on the door: “Under New Management.” I stood outside my classroom, anxiously nibbling a hangnail as I watched teenagers stream by in squealing packs.
When the bell rang, I calmly greeted students as they filed in with their usual shouts, hoots, and hilarity. After the tardy bell sounded, they sat in their desks, waiting for their daily worksheet so they could scribble down a few facts and move on to the electronic portion of the day.
I felt a flutter of excitement in my throat. “People. I’d like to talk to you about some exciting new changes in our classroom starting today.”
I launched into my spiel, hoping to ease them into the new plan without too much drama or bloodshed. First, I explained the rules, and then I went over the seating chart; the kids had begun to fidget but were still listening, which made me feel hopeful. Then I reached the most ticklish part of my lecture: the explanation of rewards.
“Free time every day is officially over. If you meet all your academic goals for the week and follow the rules, you’ll be allowed a half period of free time on Fridays.”
I braced myself for howls of protest and flying tomatoes. Instead silence reigned, which made me wonder if I’d been worrying for nothing. Maybe change would be as easy as the books promised.
“Questions?”
Vernon raised his hand. “I got one.”
“Yes, Vernon?”
He flashed the metal in his mouth. “Are you tripping? Do you really think we’re going to bust our tails for one half-hour of free time every week?”
“Well—”
Other students immediately chimed in with their own prickly protests. Within moments everyone in the room was shouting so loud, I was tempted to yell, “ZIP YOUR YAPS” like in the olden days, but every book I’d read said teachers needed to remain calm no matter what kind of crap storm was going on in their classrooms.
Stupid books.
“I hate you,” Monica said several times, and the rest of the class joined in and chanted it over and over. They were so loud I thought they might bring the ceiling down. I grabbed the PlayStation, rushed to the open window, and held the game system aloft. “Everyone needs to pipe down or the PlayStation gets it.”
Silence fell over the room. The PlayStation was the most popular gadget. While I had their attention, I said, “Today we’ll go back to our old ways. But, I warn you, tomorrow there’s going to be a new sheriff in town.”
I heard a few “yeah, rights” and “we’ll see about that,” letting me know that they weren’t going to give up their free time without a bitter battle.
For the rest of week, I continually tried to institute the new world order but it went over like an astronomer addressing the Flat Earth Society. I’d begin a lesson, such as the correct way to fill out a bank deposit slip, and moments into it, someone would shout, “Boring!” and the rabble would chime in until I relented and let them do as they pleased.
Over the next few days I received several complaints from my neighbors. Ms. Evans served me with a violation of the third-floor noise ordinance, which I didn’t even know existed. Almost made me nostalgic for my battered portable where I could set off plastic explosives and no one could hear it.
Unfortunately I couldn’t ask Carl or any of my peers for advice. Since my Rookie teacher nomination they’d been led to believe that I was Super Educator, able to quell unruly students with a single raised eyebrow. Nor would my Teacher Corps instructor be of any use. During his classes, people whispered, texted, and played Candy Crush.
Occasionally I tried to reason with my students. “How are you going to earn any money without an education? What will you do if you flunk out?”
Blank looks. Shrugs. Eyerolls. Carl had once told me that the graduation rate at Harriet Hall was below sixty percent. And what happened to the forty percent who dropped out before they got their diplomas? Let’s just say they weren’t sipping champagne at the Grammys or going one-on-one with a New York Knicks player, as many of them fantasized. In general the dropouts would be choosing between two gloomy fates: poverty or prison.
Eighteen
Discretion is advised. Some might find the following incident disturbing. Think of Silence of the Lambs when Buffalo Bill says to the girl trapped in the pit, “It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.” Or just about any scene in Human Centipede II.
Yes, that disturbing.
The kids showed me their most repellent sides over the next week. One afternoon Vernon shouted, “Go to hell” several times in my face, his spittle spraying my cheeks. Another day I opened a desk drawer and found a naked plastic doll bristling with straight pins. Someone had written my initials across the doll’s chest.
But that was kid stuff compared to what happened next.
Since I’d been teaching I learned that teenagers were masters at discovering a person’s weaknesses, and my students were no exception. During our battle of wills, they’d lob various insults at me, trying to make me crack:
“You so dumb you got stabbed in a shootout.”
“You so ugly you shave your pits with a lawn mower.”
“Your teeth are so yellow you spit butter.”
The worst came from Monica, which wasn’t surprising. Besides Vernon, she was the one student who seemed to hate me the most. One day she interrupted my lesson and rapped a song called “Can You Control Your Hoe?” I ignored her and she got into my face, so close I could see the down on her cheeks and the gold flecks in her brown eyes. She said, “I’ll bet even your mother couldn’t stand you. I bet when you were born she took one look at you and said, ‘Put that thing back in; she’s broken.’”
I flinched as if she’d slapped me. Immediately I experienced a deep burning heat in my belly. I’d heard people say “I saw red” before and until that second I always thought it was an expression, but I was wrong.
I definitely saw red, and the red I saw was blood.
Monica’s blood.
I wanted to scratch her face with my nails until I broke the skin. I had to squeeze my hands into fists to stop myself. She must have sensed my rage because she immediately darted away from me. I took several quick breaths, trying to calm myself, but it was too late. She’d found my Achilles’ heel.
“Your mother hates you, hates you, hates you,” she gleefully shrieked but this time from across the room, out of scratching range.
Stop it, I wanted to scream but I knew it would make things worse. I had the urge to lock myself in the closet or hide underneath my desk. Never had I been closer to fleeing Harriet Hall.
Luckily the bell rang. Before Monica left, she threw one last taunt over her shoulder. “Your mother hates you!”
After the students were gone, I closed the door and leaned against it for support. Who was that out-of-control freak? I wasn’t thinking of Monica; I was thinking of me.
I’d been angry plenty of times in my life, but those instances were like small trashcan fires compared to the inferno I’d just experienced. For the first time in my life I understood why people committed crimes in the heat of passion.
It wouldn’t take a genius to guess why I’d nearly lost control. Monica had enraged me because she’d managed to stumble across an agonizing truth in my life. One I’d never revealed to anyone except for Joelle.
When I was eight years old I’d found my mother’s journal underneath a loose floorboard in a small room off my parent’s bedroom that used to be my nursery. When I read it I discovered the one thing no child should ever know about her mother: She didn’t love me.
After that terrible incident I’d pretty much decided to give up. Let my students play all day. Animal House was far better than There Will Be Blood. Trying to be a good teacher was the hardest thing I’d ever done, harder than quadratic equations, harder than trying to tie a cherry stem in a knot with my tongue, harder, in some ways, than having to give up tennis. My respect for Carl and other talented teachers like him deepened. I’d never be one of them.
The next week was a grueling r
epeat of all the school weeks that had come before them. Even though I tried to hide it, Carl had begun to notice how bedraggled I seemed at the end of each day. I fibbed and told him I was coming down with a cold.
Thank God next week was Thanksgiving holidays. I didn’t know what I was going to do after they were over, but at least I would have several days to recover from the mayhem in my classroom.
Nineteen
Saturday morning, over Thanksgiving break, I was sprawled out on Carl’s couch, wearing one of his old dress shirts.
“You’re so damn sexy in my shirt,” Carl said.
I fingered the top button of my shirt. “I’ll show you how sexy I can be.”
“Choose the locale,” he said.
We’d already tried out almost every square foot of his apartment, including the top of the washing machine in the laundry room. A location that definitely had the Toni Lee seal of approval.
“Shower?”
“Meet you there in one minute. I’ll bring the body wash.”
I jumped up from the couch with a squeal and dashed in the direction of the bathroom. “Don’t forget the rubber duck,” I said over my shoulder.
We enjoyed a half-hour of sudsy, naked fun. Afterward Carl was toweling my hair dry on a stool in the kitchen, both of us smelling like an orange grove from the citrus body wash. I nibbled a bagel and talked about what movie we might want to see. I noticed Carl seemed distracted.
“Did you hear me?”
“I’m sorry. I was thinking about a problem I’m having in class.”
“You?” I hopped up from the stool to face him. That was hard to believe. It was like hearing that Tiger Woods couldn’t get the ball into the clown’s mouth in miniature golf.
“Yes, me. I have a student named Rose Wyld who’s failing my class. If she gets an F, that means she can’t compete in the Miss Hall pageant. Her older sister’s called me several times. The two of them even went in to see Dr. Lipton. He emcees the pageant every year and has the final say about who gets in.”
Girl Meets Class Page 15