My students look at me, an audience awaiting a revelation. I have them hooked. I’m good at this, good enough to know that I shouldn’t do the whole sage-on-the-stage thing all the time. But there are times it works well. Like now.
I stop in the center of the horseshoe of desks. “Because he wants to,” I say. “He knows it’s wrong, and he does it anyway.”
My classroom door opens again, but I don’t look to see who’s coming in. All my students are present. It’s probably Coleman dropping by to watch me teach; he does that occasionally. Besides, I’m in the flow, onstage, before my students, and I don’t want to lose my momentum.
“The witches plant an idea in Macbeth’s head that he knows is dead wrong, and he can’t shake it loose,” I continue. “He cannot stop imagining himself as king. And he murders the king, literally has his blood all over his hands. He commits himself to evil. And he pays a high price for it—he can’t sleep, he’s shaken with fear, he isolates himself from the rest of humanity. Lady Macbeth goes mad and kills herself. But Macbeth goes on. He self-destructs, but he does it on his own terms. It’s awful and awesome in the original sense of the word—inspiring fear and wonder. Look at his last words to Macduff. He realizes all is lost, and Macduff even offers him a way to surrender, but Macbeth throws his shield forward. ‘Lay on, Macduff, / And damned be him that first cries, “Hold, enough!” ’ ”
I stop. My students sit unmoving, caught up in this vision of Macbeth. Even Mark looks intrigued, nodding in agreement.
I turn toward the doorway, ready with a smile or a quick retort if it’s Coleman. Coleman is there, all right, leaning against the wall and smiling. But it’s the woman with him who brings the world to a temporary stop. The last time I saw her, she was facedown on a hotel bed, naked, sleeping. Now, in a navy-blue pantsuit, Marisa Devereaux stands in my classroom, hands clasped, and gives me the smallest of smiles, applauding my performance.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Sorry to interrupt,” Coleman says in a stage whisper. He’s smiling like a man who just learned his earlier diagnosis was wrong and he doesn’t have cancer after all. “I just wanted to introduce you.”
Marisa gives me a proper smile now, professional and courteous. I stand for a moment just looking at the two of them, flummoxed. Why is she here? I’m surprised and self-conscious and also feel the pleasant buzz of attraction.
I realize I’m standing there like a schmuck, my students looking at me and Father Coleman and Marisa, so I tell my class to get started on their homework and I step out into the hallway with Coleman and Marisa. “Hi,” I say, taking Marisa’s hand. It’s soft and smooth and well manicured. I realize I don’t know whether I should refer to having already met her or introduce myself as if for the first time.
Marisa solves the problem for me. “Nice to see you again,” she says. “Did you enjoy the conference?” She continues to smile, but there’s no suggestive tone, no sly wink or quick squeeze of my hand. She lets my hand go.
“Yeah,” I say. “Yes. It was good.”
“Marisa met Byron at the conference,” Coleman says. Byron Radinger is Archer’s assistant head of school. “She’s looking for a position,” Coleman adds, raising his eyebrows at me. “Byron was impressed and invited her to visit.”
I turn back to Marisa. “You’re the sub?”
Marisa looks a little bashful. “I’m sorry I didn’t call first to make an appointment,” she says. “I was heading up to Kennesaw State this morning—there’s an adjunct instructor position there—but traffic was so bad I called to tell them I’d be late. They said 285 was shut down, so they rescheduled me for tomorrow. So I got off the highway and realized I was right near Archer, and I remembered talking with Ethan”—she turns to me—“about how you all needed a long-term sub, and since I was already dressed for an interview, I just took a chance.”
We talked about the sub position at the hotel bar on Friday night. It was early in the conversation, only one drink in. Marisa had asked about Archer, and I had mentioned Betsy Bales and the long-term sub debacle. That was before we ordered more drinks and started flirting and wound up in bed together.
Coleman smiles. “I, for one, am glad you took that chance,” he says. His relief is clearly palpable.
We all stand there for a moment, smiling at each other, while I try to wrap my brain around the idea that Marisa might end up being Betsy’s sub. Might? Coleman looks like he would hire her on the spot. “So, where are you teaching now?” I ask.
The smile on her face falters a little. “I was teaching at the Hastings School up in Connecticut until last summer. I came back to Atlanta to help take care of my mother—she’s had some medical issues. But she’s better, and so I’m back out on the job market.”
“I’m sorry to hear about your mother,” I say, and Marisa nods in appreciation.
“Ethan, I’ll let you get back to your class,” Coleman says, “but I’d like you and Betsy to talk with Marisa after lunch. Tell her about the position, get a sense of whether or not this would be a good fit.”
“Betsy’s got a doctor’s appointment at one,” I say.
Coleman looks at his watch. “I’m trying to get Marisa to meet with Teri and Byron and a few other folks this morning,” he says. “Guess it’ll just be the two of you, then.”
Marisa turns to me with a smile and a slightly raised eyebrow.
“Sure,” I say, trying to ignore the nervous flutters in my stomach. “You bet.”
* * *
AFTER TEACHING CLASSES all morning and grabbing a quick lunch in the dining hall—a cavernous room of long tables, wooden beams overhead, and high windows that the students have dubbed Hogwarts—I return to my empty classroom to find Marisa sitting in the front row, looking at her phone. She puts her phone down and stands, smiling. “Hey,” she says.
“Hey,” I say. “How was your morning? They run you through the gauntlet?”
She holds up her hand and ticks off her responses one by one. “Assistant head, principal, athletic director, dean of students, and lunch with a few student council kids. Pretty comprehensive.”
“That’s Archer.” I pull a chair around to face her, and we both sit down.
“How long have you taught here?” she asks.
“This is my fourth year,” I say.
“You like it?”
I nod. “It’s a good place. The coffee is terrible, but Coleman supplements that with his own supply. What do you think so far?”
She considers the question. “The adults seem to care a lot,” she says. “The students seem bright, mostly eager, polite. As for the coffee, Coleman’s is fine.”
We smile at each other. I realize I’m fidgeting with a pen and put it down on the desk. In college, whenever you hooked up with someone and had to sneak out the next morning, it could be awkward later running into him or her between classes or in the student center. Sometimes a relationship would form, either casual or serious. Other times you’d cut your eyes away and avoid future one-on-one encounters. That was the route I usually took. Except now I’m interviewing a woman I slept with four days ago, a woman I could very well end up co-teaching with.
“So,” I say, thinking I’ll ask her about the classes she’s taught.
“So I wanted to—” she says at the same time. We both stop.
“Go ahead,” I say.
“No, you—”
“Please,” I say, gesturing with an open hand.
She smiles, looking down at her desk, then looks back up at me. “I wanted to say I enjoyed seeing you teach this morning.”
“Oh,” I say, flattered and embarrassed. “Thanks. I found that lecture on Macbeth online somewhere. I didn’t come up with it.”
Marisa shakes her head. “Maybe not, but you’re good at this. You aren’t just reading some notes off a page to your students.” She grins. “Makes sense, I guess. I mean, Faulkner, English teacher … you aren’t actually related to William Faulkner, are you?”
I smile. “
No, but students ask occasionally. My mom taught English.”
“She must be proud,” Marisa says. “Does she give you tips?”
“She died,” I say. “When I was a kid.” I’m shocked that I’m saying this, especially to a relative stranger—I’ve spoken to only two other people at school about my parents—but I feel the urge to share this, to unload a bit of this dark thing I carry around with me.
“Oh,” Marisa says, her eyes rounding. She reaches over and touches my forearm, and her touch stirs something in me. Not lust; it’s more like gratitude. “I’m so sorry,” she says.
“Thank you,” I say. She nods and removes her hand, and I’d be lying if I said I don’t want her to put it back.
“Well,” she says, and she stands up. I get to my feet as well. “I’m sorry to run, but Coleman wanted me to check in with him before school ended.” She holds out her hand, and we shake. “I really hope this works out. I know you all are in a bind with your colleague going on maternity leave and the sub having quit on you. But I’d love the opportunity to work with you all.”
“Likewise,” I say. We stand there for a moment, looking at each other. “Marisa,” I say, and I feel like I’m stepping into a field with a deep hole hidden somewhere in it. “About last Friday …”
She smiles, a tentative curve of her lips. “I was wondering when you would bring that up.”
“I just … I’m sorry if that—embarrasses you, or anything,” I say. “I know I just left the next morning, and maybe today was a little awkward, but—”
“Ethan,” she says, and I shut my mouth. “It’s fine,” she says. “We’re adults. I’m a big girl. It was consensual, and fun. But I’m here for a job, and I don’t want to make things complicated for you or me.”
“Oh,” I say. Oddly, I’m both relieved and just a bit disappointed.
She tilts her head, as if considering me from a new angle. “If me working here is a problem, please, tell me now, and we can work it out.”
“No, it’s fine,” I say, shaking my head.
“Or I can go to Kennesaw State and their lovely adjunct position.” She makes a little pout at that.
Now I laugh. “No, seriously, it’s fine,” I say. “It wouldn’t be a problem at all.”
She smiles, clearly relieved, and holds her hand out again. I take it and she squeezes softly. “Thank you,” she says. “For everything today.”
“Good luck,” I tell her, and I watch her as she walks out the door. She turns to look back over her shoulder, tosses me one last smile, and she’s gone.
CHAPTER SIX
When I get home from work, Susannah greets me at the door wearing her Get Up the Yard T-shirt, artfully torn jeans, and black Doc Martens laced halfway up her calves. “We’re going out for drinks and food,” she announces. “Pick somewhere that has lots of both. My treat.”
I look over at Wilson, who is eyeing me from his bed and thumping his tail. I put my workbag down, walk over, and crouch down to scratch his belly. “What did you do to him?” I ask as Wilson half closes his eyes in doggy ecstasy. “He normally dances around when I come home.”
“Took him on a long walk around the neighborhood,” Susannah says. “Fed him lots of treats. He’s half comatose; he’ll be fine. I just took him out to pee. I’ve been stuck here all day. I even mopped your damn floors, which, by the way, were probably violating an EPA rule.”
“I thought the EPA was a bunch of hippies who believe in global warming.”
“Come on, Ethan,” she says, making a pouty face. “I’m hungry.”
Part of me wants to just have a beer and order a pizza and stare at the TV. I still need to process what happened today at work with Marisa Devereaux. But I’m sure as hell not going to talk about it with my sister. “You’re so pushy,” I tell her.
She grins, a dazzling show of teeth. “I’m assertive and cute.”
* * *
WE GO TO the Palms, a brewery three blocks up Roswell Road that serves good pub food along with craft beers. They have a pool table in the back, and after Susannah has had a beer, she heads to the pool table and hands me a cue from a rack on the wall. “Age before beauty,” she says.
We play a round and I win, sinking the eight ball into a far-corner pocket. “Lucky shot,” Susannah says, but she smiles as she says it.
“You’re in a good mood,” I say.
“Mercury’s out of retrograde,” she says, taking a sip of her beer. “Hey, I forgot to ask; how’s Frankie?”
I bend over my cue, chalking the tip and wishing I could avoid the question. “He’s good,” I say. I finish with the chalk and put it back on the edge of the table, and when I look up, Susannah is staring at me.
“You didn’t go see him,” she says.
I sigh. “No, I didn’t go see him.”
“So when’s the last time you did see him?” Her stare is getting sulfurous. “Last Thanksgiving? What about the year before that?”
I shake my head.
“You haven’t seen him since you and I went together? That’s over two years ago. What the hell, Ethan?”
I start putting balls into the triangle on the table. “I didn’t want to,” I say.
“Didn’t want to? He’s your friend.”
“I know that.”
“Did you feel guilty, or—”
“I didn’t want to go by myself,” I say.
She puts her hand on her hip, her other hand holding the cue with the butt end on the ground, like she’s planting a flag. “Don’t put that on me,” she says.
I roll the triangle of balls on the felt, hearing their muted clack, then lift the triangle off and hang it on its hook on the wall by the cue sticks. “You weren’t here,” I say. “It didn’t feel right to go alone.”
Susannah narrows her eyes in disappointment. “You think Frankie wasn’t alone?”
I lean my cue against the table. “I need to take a leak,” I say.
“Yeah, you do that,” Susannah mutters, grabbing the cue ball and lining up her shot.
* * *
AFTER OUR PARENTS died and Susannah and I moved in with Uncle Gavin and Fay, the world, to my disgust, kept turning. I still went to school. I tried to become invisible and inured to the profound hole in the center of my world. What I really wanted was the opposite, to have someone truly care for me, to let me cry and grieve and grope around in the dark to find hope again. But I was thirteen years old, and although I could understand Shakespeare and algebra and the history of ancient Rome, I had little or no clue about how to act like a human being. This was complicated by the fact that everyone at school treated me as if one wrong word would cause me to either dissolve or explode. So I withdrew into my hooded sweat shirt and walled out everyone. After a few weeks, everyone else in eighth grade quit acting like I was going to have a screaming meltdown in the middle of earth science and they all left me more or less alone.
And then, the summer before high school, I began working at Uncle Gavin’s bar, where I met Frankie.
My uncle’s bar is in Midtown, at West Peachtree and Eleventh Street. The frontage is all dark green and windows, Ronan’s etched in glass above the black front door. Uncle Gavin named it after where he and my mother were from, Cill Rónáin on Inis Mór, an island west of Galway. Uncle Gavin thought Ronan would be easier for people to pronounce. We always went in a service door on the side, which opened onto a short hallway with worn wooden floors. There was the scent of beer and fried food and the zing of some sort of industrial cleaner. We would pass a private room or two, then go through a swinging door that led past a staircase before entering the kitchen. That’s where I worked that summer, and then all through high school, washing dishes.
Uncle Gavin’s business partner, Ruben Gutierrez, essentially ran the bar, at least the day-to-day operations. I can remember him standing in the middle of the kitchen in dark slacks, a maroon shirt, and a black fedora pushed back on his head, his hands moving expressively as he talked. The first time Susannah and
I met him, soon after our parents’ funeral, he gripped my hand firmly, like one adult to another, and he clasped Susannah’s hand in both of his, as if about to get down on one knee and propose. Ruben was theatrical, perhaps, but I could see sorrow in his broad face. I was surprised, would continue to be surprised for a time, by being the subject of such sympathy. It’s not that I was a cynic—I understood why people were reacting this way to my loss, how it was a kind, human gesture. But I did not know the protocols of grief, or how to react.
Ruben’s son, who was my age, also started working at the bar that summer. He was named Francisco, although he told me to call him Frankie. Some people are like a bright flame in a cave, rendering everyone else in flickering shadow, and that was Frankie. Within seconds of meeting him I felt self-conscious about the old pair of Target-brand jeans and the indistinct polo shirt I’d put on. Frankie wore crisp Levi’s the color of midnight and a bright-red short-sleeve button-down. He needed only a black fedora to complete the picture of his father. It took me a week to realize that Frankie alternated wearing the red shirt and its identical twins in yellow and green, but he wore the exact same pair of jeans every day. Eventually Frankie told me he washed those jeans every night to get rid of the stink of food, but he washed them in the sink so they wouldn’t fade. “Always gotta look good, man,” he said. “That’s my motto. They’ll put it on my tombstone.”
As we washed dishes and racked clean glasses and plates, Frankie would talk nonstop about Braves baseball, the Twilight movies, crunk music, how there was going to be a Hispanic comic-book Spider-Man, the relative hotness factors of the bar’s waitresses, his eternal love for Salma Hayek and Lindsay Lohan, his utter hatred of The Old Man and the Sea (“Guy finally catches the fish, and then the sharks eat it, the end—¿qué chingados es eso?”), and the ’71 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am his father was teaching him to repair.
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