“I’m not really as lonely as I seem. I mean, yes, I come home every afternoon to an empty house, turn on my favorite jazz record (Ella and Louis doing Porgy and Bess), and grade papers. But it’s what I wanted in life. Honestly.” The rest of the circle smiled. They knew me too well.
We were in yet another completely unnecessary “team-building” workshop for teachers at Harrison Academy, and our perky “togetherness-guide,” Sally, had asked us to talk about something other people thought about us, and explain whether it was true or not. It sounds deep, but Sally’s bouncing, permed brown hair and over-eager smile trivialized even what I had supposed were deep thoughts. I heard one of the teachers across the circle let out a huge yawn. We’d been building this team since nine that morning, and it was almost lunchtime.
“Let’s take a break, guys,” Sally smiled at us, eliciting a round of relieved sighs.
“These sessions are hell on my blood pressure,” Frank DeNatra (not Sinatra, as he vehemently explained to everyone who thought it was funny to point out the similarity), muttered to no one in particular as he headed over to the coffee pot.
As soon as Sally had disappeared into the ladies’ room, Sharon Wine-Highsmith, the Sociology teacher, exploded. “Oh, my, God, I hate these stupid waste-of-my-life in-service days!” Sharon was dressed down in a polo shirt and tennis skirt, as per the requirements of our new in-service-happy principal, Mr. Prather, who wanted us to “bond with each other in a casual setting.”
Joseph Anthony smiled wryly. “If only Prather knew how much real bonding we do.” He was referring of course to our little Faculty/Staff weekend mixers. It sounds like college, I know, and they’re just as puerile, but perhaps even more fun. Just like college, we all go to the apartment of the most popular in the group (Sharon), sit around, gossip, and drink. Of course the gossip in college used to be about teachers and professors, and now it’s about our students, which I think is much more fun.
“Speaking of bonding, who’s up for a get-together tonight? This afternoon? I need to let off some steam. Prather’s making me crazy. He’s been monitoring my class at least twice a week for the last month and I can’t stand it! Why doesn’t he trust me to be a good teacher? My students can chatter away in Spanish, they’re brilliant!” Maya scowled, her pretty green eyes clouding over. “Why does he think they need all that ridiculous grammar? Real Spanish people don’t think about that, they just speak!”
Poor Maya had spent her entire life wishing she was Hispanic. She’d told us how she lived in a Puerto Rican neighborhood growing up and she was the only one of her friends with blonde hair. Poor thing. But she is a lot of fun.
At every party, there’s that one drunk person whom everyone just watches. That would be Maya. The poor thing can’t keep her hands off anyone when she’s had just one or two drinks, and by the end of the night, she seems really upset, but you can’t tell what’s wrong, because she won’t speak English and none of us remember any “Español.”
“I beg to disagree with you about the grammar, Maya, I find that my students are just crazy about participles,” I teased her and she rolled her eyes.
“Maybe whatserface won’t come back and we can leave soon and get started on that party. I’ve got about ten thousand papers on the French Revolution that I want to put off grading as long as I can,” Frank suggested hopefully, grinning as he stirred his coffee with a tiny straw and strode back over to where Joseph, Sharon, Maya, and I stood. Mrs. Holderman sniffed disapprovingly at us and went back to explaining to poor little Jeff Rivers, the biology teacher, how he was to assist her in the upcoming Sex Ed. section of her health class.
Before Frank could get our hopes up, however, Sally bubbled back into the room with renewed zeal, and we grumbled to ourselves as we took our seats.
We sat down obediently in our folding chair circle, and Sally bounced around to the center, clapping her hands for attention.
“I think we should talk about our teaching philosophy next, okay? What are some things we all have in common?” Why did Sally need so much affirmation? Did every sentence have to end in a question?
The hot pink stripes on her spandex pants clashed with the mint-green cinderblocks of the YMCA conference room. Mr. Prather said it was good for us to get away from the school and meet in a different environment. We teachers just thought it was a waste of a carpool.
“I’ll begin,” Sharon cleared her throat delicately and folded her manicured hands in her lap. I don’t think it was an accident that she drew Sally’s attention to the ridiculously large diamond ring on her finger. Sharon loved to flaunt that rich husband of hers. “My philosophy involves treating my students like competent adults. I find that if I treat them like children, they tend not to respect me.”
Frank guffawed and Maya elbowed him.
“Um…who’s next?” Sally’s smile wavered.
Always tactful, Joseph tried to smooth things over. If he hadn’t decided to be a history teacher, his perfectly-modulated voice and flawless manners would have made him a wonderful diplomat. “I think what Sharon’s trying to say is, we appreciate what you’re trying to do, Sally, but—”
“Joseph, please.” Evidently that had not been what Sharon was trying to say. She turned to Sally. “Look, Sandy, we don’t want to be here, either. You don’t have to do this. Why don’t we all just go home and tell Prather on Monday what a great time we had discussing our teaching philosophies.”
“Hear, hear!” Frank chimed in, and Maya nodded enthusiastically.
Sally looked lost. Mrs. Holderman hid a smile behind a Kleenex and blew her nose.
And then, of course, our joy was completed by the entrance of our new principal himself.
“Hello there, everyone! I’m so glad you could all make it out here today! I just happened to be driving by and thought I’d stop in and see how it was going.” What a droll coincidence that he happened to be in the vicinity, and how kind of him to compliment us on our attendance at his mandatory program. Prather kept talking in his own nasal way. He had the kind of voice that sounded like it would come from a pedagogue, even though his appearance was more along the lines of a used-car-salesman, but with slicker hair. “What are we discussing now?
Sally’s huge 80s hair bobbed up and down as she looked at all of the eyes boring into her. “Our dreams! We’re going to talk about our dreams for teaching. Joseph just spoke, so now it’s…you?” She nodded at me, then ducked out of the circle to get away from Prather, who was behind me.
I cleared my throat. I could almost feel our principal breathing down my neck. What was I supposed to say? I imagined an impassioned panegyric on the wonders of teaching would suffice. But I just didn’t feel like it.
“You know, actually, I hadn’t planned on being a teacher forever. I always wanted to write. I was going to teach to support myself, and meanwhile work on this brilliant, groundbreaking novel or a book of really heart-wrenching poetry—” there were some gentle snickers and I shrugged, “I know, I know, maybe just some delightful bedroom farce that would earn me enough money to retire…although I don’t even know if I would retire, seeing as I’m just in the habit of being a teacher, and there isn’t much else to do in this little town.” Several approving chuckles. A harrumph from Prather. Well, Mr. Prather. We aren’t even allowed to call him Dick.
Sally smiled, evidently delighted that I’d shared something personal, and started to prompt Mrs. Holderman to explicate her dreams.
“Excuse me for interrupting, but we need to maximize our time here. I have a little idea I wanted to share with all of you today,” Prather stepped into the circle, squeezing between Maya and Sharon while smoothing back his varnished hair.
An idea—I wondered what it could be…what delightful new ordeal did he have planned for his faculty?
“I’ve been thinking, and wouldn’t it be great if each of you wrote a written evaluation of yourselves as a teacher?”
I pause for a moment to emphasize that the words “wrote a written,” did indeed escape his lips. Wrote a written.
He continued. “As you know, the budget hasn’t been so…big…lately, and I need to prove to the board of trustees—you know how they can be—that you all are valuable to me. Because you are. Each and every one of you. Even Mara. Your humor is priceless. Now I’d like to have these on my desk by Friday. That gives you almost a week, folks. I look forward to reading them,” His smile stretched tightly across his broad face. “I have to head off to a meeting, but I just thought I’d share that before I scooted on out. Have a good day, though, all of you. See you on Monday!” And he was gone, although not before pocketing a few of our donuts.
Joseph and I exchanged a glance. “Did he?” He mouthed at me. I nodded. He really did put donuts in the pockets of his suit.
Maya glowered. “Mara. Yeah, that’s me. The stupid little airhead Spanish teacher. You know he’s not even going to read my evaluation, he’ll just fire me for having students who like me. The bastard.”
“Whoa there, let’s not have any of that language! I want this room to be filled with positive energy! You all have to work together and once we’re a team, a unit, a family, things are going to be so great!” Sally kept right on bubbling, and the rest of our team-building continue in that vein, with each of us teachers exercising our sarcasm until poor peppy Sally finally let us go early. Our carpool on the way home was rather bitter.
So now we were charged with composing these ridiculous self-evaluations. How can one prove one’s worth through a composition? Especially one done in only a week—even Handel took twenty-four days to write Messiah.
As for the budget problems…I think they’re more in Prather’s head. The Board of Trustees—mostly just the rich parents of our rich students—allocates enough money to keep the school in the best of everything. God only knows what he does with that money, though. Prather always insists we need to be more efficient, and that we, as teachers, lack that all-important quality. I think I deal with my allocation of the school’s money with the utmost efficiency and prudence. If a teacher already has an eraser, why should he or she not invest that school-given eraser money in a fund toward a nice bottle of sweet white Riesling? I hardly doubt I am alone in my sentiments.
Perhaps this evaluation won’t be so bad. At least it’s another excuse to put off writing that magnum opus of mine. I really do plan to embark on it, even though I doubt I’ll ever succeed.
Why this lack of faith in my ability to create a masterpiece? I have descried the reason why I’ll never be a great author—I am viciously, excruciatingly ordinary. Why do I have to be so normal? If I had to overcome some hideous disfigurement, or if I performed heroic rescues of small children from high places or sharp objects—perhaps that would be worth writing about, but filling young minds with grammar that has already become obsolete? Taking long walks every night to listen to the lovely little noises my neighborhood makes as it falls asleep? Trying desperately to understand how Joseph Anthony can wear a new bow tie every single day? These are things no one wants to hear about, I feel, but myself.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
I entered the Faculty/Staff lounge with gusto the Monday afternoon following that agonizing team-building Saturday, anticipating the bountiful spread of cheese and crackers and little sandwiches with mysterious fillings provided for us on this, the lovely first Monday of every month, Faculty Appreciation Day. Sometimes they have it twice a month, and while none of us complain, we always wonder if it augurs some coming pay cut or benefit reduction.
The Board of Trustees can be sneaky like that, but they forget how much their children like us (at least most of us teachers), and how much influence an indignant adolescent can have over his or her parents. We usually stay a step ahead of the administrators simply by telling their children excessive homework is the teachers’ way of coping with the stress imposed on them by the Board.
Maya, Joseph, and Frank were all clustered at a table under the window in a big yellow puddle of warm sunshine, and after loading up a flimsy paper plate with plenty of those strange yet delicious little sandwiches, I settled down next to them. The weather had been so gray ever since school started, that I found myself savoring every second of sun. Usually the only sunlight we ever got was during lunchtime, and it had already started raining by the time classes dismissed. So this table was perfect for basking and gossiping, which I could already tell we would do. If only Sharon were here to enjoy it. Damn Prather’s new “efficient” scheduling system for dividing the lunches into two time blocks.
“So Frank,” Maya began, “I heard you spent the night at Sharon’s after last weekend’s party…and we all know her little attorney hubby was out of town on one of those rich lawyer cases!” Maya delighted in gossip and most of us usually soaked it in.
Joseph Anthony looked dubious, though. “Sharon’s been married three months, Maya, and we all know old Blue Eyes could never do anything naughty. He was probably just too drunk to make his way home.”
Frank glared at Joseph, but in a less-than-harsh way because after all, he had come to his defense against the charge of adultery.
Joseph’s point was logical, since the only accommodations in the ritzy little suburb of Harrison that are affordable to our teachers’ salaries are in the same apartment complex, we never have to worry about driving home from Sharon’s parties tipsy. Although since she got married and moved into the top-floor penthouse, I suppose if Frank really was that inebriated, he couldn’t have been expected to find his way to the elevator and down two floors.
As to the charge of hanky-panky…secret little “every-now-and-thens” between faculty and staff at Harrison, especially after Sharon’s fabulous parties, have been known to occur more than sporadically. Joseph and I once snickeringly speculated that onecould connect any teacher (excluding Jeff in Biology, who never get any action because he relishes explaining in excruciating detail the negative effects alcohol has on your body) to any other by about three other teachers. (There are only forty or so in the school.) Except Joseph and me. I’ve never felt like getting involved in that business, and he was married until just recently.
I like Joseph Anthony. In spite of his bow ties. I mean come on, we’re teachers, do we have to play up the nerdy stereotypes? Today his bow tie was dark blue, and it matched the dark blue flecks in his eyes. His eyes are light blue, but they have these speckles all across them, like a rainstorm, or maybe more, perhaps a monsoon. But in any event, I wondered if he knew his tie matched his eyes. Probably not. He seemed aware of everything but himself. The poor fellow was always tripping and falling because he saw something interesting somewhere and forgot to watch where he was walking.
Noting a lull, I spoke up, “So has anyone else started on those dread evaluations?” I had changed the subject, but at the rate of our gossip and in the scant half-hour we get to eat lunch, our conversation is so rapid-fire that no one minded the shift.
“Why do they think we have to justify ourselves as teachers? I have a hell of a lot of fun, and I’m pretty sure my students do, too!” Maya’s eyes sparkled and she tried to simulate some sort of Spanish dance while sitting at the table. Was she drunk already? On a Tuesday morning? My blood froze in the sunshine as I saw Prather poised just outside the narrow window in the lounge door, watching us with his scary, rodent-like little eyes. Watching Maya make a damn-ass fool of herself. I imagined I could smell his greasy pomade all the way from behind the closed door. I tilted my head ever so slightly toward the door and Frank scoffed when he saw what I meant.
“What a lowlife! The nerve of him, spying on us!” Frank’s bushy Italian brows plunged together as he scowled. Maya didn’t notice and kept on dancing, starting to hum a little tune.
“Sssh!” Joseph tried to put her arms down when he saw the intruder, but Maya was smiling more than ever. Prather reddened and nodded when he realized we’d spotted him, and stepped inside as if he’d intended that all along. We just watched him in silence as he piled some sandwiches on a paper plate and took the last chocolate chip cookie before hurrying off down the hall. Joseph wearily let go of Maya and poked at a triangular sandwich on his plate.
“What the hell are these, anyway? And why the hell do I like them so much?”
We all laughed a bit and it made us forget a little the panic of the incident. Or was it even an incident? Did we overreact? We caught waves of suspicion oozing out of that new principal’s every movement…he didn’t trust us. He thought we were irresponsible. We all sat quietly for a few moments, playing with our food or looking out the window.
“You know how when you’re in kindergarten and they teach you how to spell principal? The boss of the school as opposed to principle, the rule you live by?” Asked Frank suddenly, his shoulders still tense and hunched from our recent encounter with the man who held our fate in his donut-grubbing hands.
Maya nodded, a little too enthusiastically.
“They teach you that in kindergarten? I was learning how to spell CAT and DOG…” Joseph mused.
“And that’s why you’re History instead of English,” I teased him and he shoved me playfully.
“I could write a term paper that would make you weep!” Joseph insisted.
“I’m sure you could,” I retorted dryly, and Frank harrumphed for silence.
“Well, they say that the “princiPAL” of the school is spelled with a P-A-L because he’s your pal, and that’s how you should distinguish between the two. Pretty damn ironic, don’t you think? He ain’t no pal of mine!” Frank is a brilliant man, but when he gets enthusiastic, his grammar goes to pot. I actually enjoy listening to him—to anyone who speaks fervently and passionately. I don’t think I’ve ever had much passion in my life. Except the passionate desire for passion. Or maybe now I passionately hate the “princiPLE.” Frank had a good point.
At the staff water fountain (none of us will go near the disgusting regular student water fountains, God only knows what those young ruffians do to them), I ran into Joseph Anthony, quite literally, and the flecks in his eyes seemed to jump in surprise.
“Oh, hello Robert! How are things?” He was shy but genuinely friendly and interested. Ever since his divorce a few months ago, Joseph’s seemed a lot more outgoing. Usually people get depressed going through issues like that, but I guess it was a good thing for him. He says he and his wife are still close friends, so I guess that’s part of why it went so smoothly.
I shrugged. “I’m a little concerned about those ridiculous evaluations we have to write. Prather doesn’t seem to be entering into this with an intention to read them objectively. But I’m trying not to be too worried about it. You shouldn’t be either, Joseph, we’ve been here what, ten years? The state’s short of teachers, anyway, isn’t it? We’re practically indispensable!”
Joseph bit his bottom lip and leaned in toward me. He smelled like dark, peaceful pine forests. “Actually I have some really bad news. How I came to know this is…really embarrassing, but I overheard Prather telling that disgustingly flirty secretary of his that he has a friend he owes a big favor to who’s head of the placement office at some teacher college upstate. He wants to replace us ‘old folks’ with young kids, fresh out of college, who won’t ask for higher salaries and will let him control their curriculum.”
I didn’t ask how he came to know it. I’d heard from the chatty, all-seeing janitor that poor Joseph was walking past the principal’s office when he tripped and fell into the bushes, and I guess it knocked the wind out of him, because before he could get up, the principal and his little lady had carried on this conversation.
I stood there for a moment, watching his bow tie move up and down gently as he breathed. Thinking… then I spoke, “Now…it’s just Prather himself who wants to go through with this, right? I mean the Board of Directors is never that gung-ho about anything that will require them to do extra paperwork, and they never did seem that fond of Dick, did they?”
Joseph smiled a little at my using Prather’s first name.
I had an idea. “Well why don’t we just get rid of him, then? It’s not like he’ll be missed. Except maybe by that little tart he calls his secretary.”
Joseph grinned. “That sounds like a plan.”
* * * * * * * * * * * *At Sharon’s house that night, we sat assembled in her new, expensive, perfect parlor, sipping wine which we knew would turn into shots before the end of the night. I was beginning to feel incredibly nervous about this whole affair. What if we didn’t manage to get rid of the devil at our helm? This little world of cheery, friendly complacency would be gone…I couldn’t think about it. We had to find a way to get Prather to leave, and soon. I looked around at all my friends. Maya and Frank were flirting on a spotless white sofa while Joseph used a clump of cocktail napkins to mop desperately at the red wine he’d spilled on the mahogany table and keep it from dripping onto Sharon’s cream-colored carpet.
Sharon married a corporate lawyer recently, which means she’ll be pregnant soon, and quit teaching to sit around, be rich, and coddle her offspring. It happens. You can always tell which will stay and which will get married and get out as soon as possible. The ugly ones stay, honestly. Sad but true. Or maybe teaching turns them ugly, so that all the older teachers at our school might have been quite lovely, but years of contumacious high schoolers turned them sour.
“So we have to get rid of him. That’s what we’ve decided?” Sharon’s face looked intent, more serious than I’d ever seen her, and the covert, dangerous nature of our plan delighted me.
“He’s the only one who wants to get rid of us. Everyone else is fine with status quo,” Frank was sitting awfully close to Maya, who had evidently been in fiesta mode since much earlier that day.
Sharon stood up, setting her wine glass on the grand piano (which made me cringe—thank God it was red and not white wine so it wouldn’t leave as much of a condensation ring). “So we’re going to take him out, then?”
“Whoa, there, Sharon.” I couldn’t believe my ears. “We’re not killing him! We’re just going to humiliate him so that he has to leave, right? Or make him get fired. I for one don’t want a homicide on my hands!” Heads nodded, and Sharon sat down, pouting.
“Damn.”
“Honey, murder is so cliché. It’s so much more delicious to ruin someone’s life,” Maya smiled and nursed her glass.
“Well, how can we get him? Is he really doing that little dish of a secretary?” Frank seemed to relish the thought.
I shrugged. “That Vanessa character? She acts like it, but who really knows?”
“Oh, honey,” Sharon rolled her eyes, “You should hear the way she talks about him in the ladies’ room. They’re definitely doing it. All the time. And she says he’s terrible in bed, but he’s promising to take her to Aruba, and she believes him! It’s like a bad soap opera, really.”
“Well then, it looks like this will be a piece of cake!” Joseph smiled and I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
We began to plot our ruse.
Maya had told us that every Thursday was “Tequila Sunrise” day for her and the slutty secretary. (She was the only one who saw anything of merit in Prather’s choice of office assistants. But Maya was like Joseph in that she could find something likeable in almost anyone. Well, except Prather.) I’d wondered why Maya seemed even more trashed on Thursdays than most other days.
So while the two ladies tossed back shots of tequila in the coffee niche of the principal’s office in the early hours, just as the janitor was unlocking the buildings for the day, Maya set her trap. She told us all about it in great detail. Surprisingly good detail, actually, for someone so drunk at the time.
“So, you and the new principal? He’s cute!” Maya asked after a couple of shots. (How could she bring herself to say he was cute? He’s hideous!)
“Oh my God he is so bad in bed! It’s almost funny. But he’s actually really rich, he’s just doing this job for humanity, you know?” Maya said the Vanessa’s voice was so squeaky she wanted to break a shot glass over the woman’s bleached-blonde head. I guess I’m glad she didn’t.
Racy Receptionist continued: “So he’s going to take me on a really ritzy vacation to the Caribbean during Christmas break. I can’t wait! It’s going to be so much fun! But after that I think I want to see if Frank the History guy is available. He’s kind of cute. I’m pretty bored with the whole boss/secretary thing, I mean that’s so last season, or whatever, you know?”
Maya nodded. I think at that point she lost all sympathy. “Well, uh, I heard actually that Mr. Prather was pretty much decided not to take you to the Caribbean after all, he was telling some of the guys that you just don’t put out enough. He didn’t think it was worth it.”
“What? After all this? There is no way in hell I’m going to miss out on going to the Caribbean! What should I do? Oh my God this is terrible!” The poor little strumpet was beside herself.
“I don’t know, I mean I guess try to change his mind.” Maya downed one last shot and patted the secretary on her bare shoulder. “I guess give it all you’ve got,” she murmured suggestively, winked, and made her exit.
I was trying to focus on explaining to a room of apathetic sophomores why they should cherish the distinction between the nominative and subjective cases when I saw our loyal janitor peek his head up in the window in my door and give me the signal. I don’t think my class minded too much when I asked them to excuse me for a moment.
Before long, Joseph, Frank, Maya, Sharon, and I met up in the faculty/staff room and marched toward the office. By some odd coincidence, we had simultaneously realized that we needed a conference with our principal.
“Oh my God I’m so nervous! I’m shaking!” Joseph really was shaking and I suppressed the urge to put my arm around him. Instead I gave him a reassuring smile.
“It’s going to be fine, Joseph. He’ll be so embarrassed to see us, he’ll do whatever we want.”
It was so much fun, and it felt dangerous, too, striding down the linoleum under the buzzing neon lights, our loafers squeaking and the pens rattling around in our pockets. We were out to save our way of life.
When we got to the principal’s office, the secretary was mysteriously missing from her desk.
“Hmm, I wonder if it would be okay for us to go on in and see our boss?” Sharon asked innocently and wickedly. She almost kicked open the door. I think Sharon was the only one brave enough to look inside, but we all heard the screams.
Later we found out that the Vanessa’s shrieks were heard all the way out on the football field by the kids in P.E.
The doctors said it was impossible to tell whether the principal’s heart had stopped from the exertion of having intercourse or from the shock of being walked in on. Either way, I kind of feel responsible. We hadn’t meant to kill him…but when his poor wife found out how he died and came to thank us personally, it made me feel a little better.
Our new principal is a woman—in fact, she was Sharon’s roommate in college. That should tell you something. Vanessa quit her job, but before she left, she wanted to establish a scholarship fund in honor of Prather. I think we all gave more than we could afford, but when combined with the “office supplies” funds that Prather had been allocating in his personal bank account and that his wife relinquished with joy, at least it gave a little help to that nearsighted boy in Jeff’s AP Biology class. The budding scientist is headed off to pursue his dreams of studying bacteria at Berkeley. I thought the bacteria part was especially fitting.
Right now I’m waiting for Joseph, and then we’re heading down to Sharon’s for a “welcome to our school/oh my God he’s really dead” party. Even the Board of Trustees seems happier with Prather gone. I think we might actually get raises this year, and if we do, I want to go somewhere warm for the holidays. I’m so sick of these dreary skies and can’t wait to feel the sun on my face again. Maybe I’ll get a friend to come with me.
Since I didn’t have to do that evaluation, I started writing a little something. It’s not much, probably too autobiographical and definitely more lighthearted than earthshaking, but Joseph had nothing but praise for it, which gave me enough confidence to think about sending it off, maybe, someday. And I’m not really as lonely as I was.
Places to go
Fiction main site
The Ballad of Penny Sue
Tell Me About Your Mother
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