Rogue Ever After (The Rogue Series Book 7)

by Tamsen Parker

  A wave of angry voices crashed over me as I tugged open the heavy wooden door to my classroom. Instinctively I squeezed my eyes shut, already bracing for a throbbing headache. When I cracked them open, there she was. The woman from the dog park. Instead of running clothes and a radiant smile, she wore a navy-and-white boatneck top, cropped, loose-fitting jeans, and a panicked expression. Our eyes locked. Hers flashed wide.

  I snapped into professional, union rep, cohort-lead mode and extended my hand in greeting. “You must be Mia Davis. I’m Ruth Chan. Welcome. Apologies that everything’s so hectic.” As soon as I finished speaking, I regretted being so weird and cordial. Was I supposed to acknowledge that we already kind of knew each other?

  She slid her hand into mine, her handshake firm and quick. Standing close to her, I caught a hint of her perfume, something light and softly floral. For a brief, glimmering moment, everything else in the room seemed to fall away. She chuckled and shook her head, like she was trying to dispel an errant thought. “Yeah. This morning has been pretty overwhelming. Was it like this last year?”

  The angry voices roared back to life, and I shrugged, resigned. People were pissed, and rightfully so. We’d gone from a beloved principal who’d dedicated her life to the well-being of teachers and students, to a guy who seemed confident he had all the answers after an hour in the building.

  “This is bullshit, Ruth!” Jenny, the hugely pregnant math teacher, looked more harried than usual. “I read up on this scripted curriculum crap last night. It’s test prep. Like, all-year test prep. You know how bad the fights are gonna get?”

  Before I could respond and ask everyone to take a breath and find a seat, our resident libertarian social studies teacher and devil’s advocate cut in. “I think it’ll be just fine. You’ll see. These kids need some structure. He seems like a good guy. Organized.”

  Next to me, I heard Mia mumble something that sounded suspiciously like, “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  Jenny shook her head hard. “I don’t know. I was up half the night going through the district’s new strategic plan, and I have to say, I’m worried. Did you see the new discipline policy? Three strikes? What the fuck is that?”

  The conversation continued but shame snaked up my spine into my ears, dulling the sounds. I hadn’t even bothered to open the email last night. Sure, I knew we would meet our new principal today. Sure, he’d seemed awful in the intro email we’d gotten at the beginning of the month. But I’d been distracted. Thinking of the cute girl at the dog park. Worrying about our contract and stagnating wages. Eager to check in with students from last year. I’d gotten complacent. I’d assumed the district’s strategic plan would be pretty much the same as it’s been every year. I’d assumed everything would be normal. This was not normal.

  I moved to stand behind my desk and waited. The classroom miracle happened and everyone quieted. We’d been through tough things like this before. We respected each other, for the most part. We could handle this school year. We would make it work. Together.

  2

  Mia

  “Ah, hell no! I’m not doing another one of these.” Matt stared me in the eye as he ripped the history of biology graphic organizer clean in two. The few students who weren’t asleep or engaged in side conversations laughed. Ebony and Thomas, the only two students who seemed able to put up with this horrendous, robotic curriculum, shot me sympathetic glances and returned to reading pages 22–55 in the textbook.

  Unbidden, the face of the hippy-dippy, mindfulness-practicing, assistant soccer coach from Georgetown popped into my mind. Drop the attention to the feet. Engage the breath. I did. Then I retrieved a fresh worksheet from the pile on my desk and brought it to Matt.

  “I know this isn’t the most exciting task. But here, look.” I flicked open the textbook sitting neglected on his lab table to the half paragraph dedicated to Rachel Carson. “This woman wrote a whole book called Silent Spring about the biotic risks of DDT, the insecticide we used against mosquitoes after World War Two. It ended up getting largely banned in the US as the result of her work.”

  During the horrible getting-to-know-you activity required by the curriculum—name your favorite animal and explain why (honestly who wrote this stuff for ninth graders?)—Matt had boldly declared that his favorite animal was the mosquito because they were annoying.

  His eyes flicked over the information then he glanced up at me, incredulous. “Why can’t you just tell us about this shit? I hate doing all these worksheets.”

  His lab partner nodded seriously. “Yeah. No offense, Miss D, but this class sucks. Like my brother said bio was cool. Why you always just read out the book and make us do packets?”

  I hated the physical tells that I was about to cry: hot face, tingling nose, burning eyes. I hated how upset I was. I hated how weak I was. I was failing. My second week teaching and already almost none of my students were completing their assignments. Attendance was abysmal. I was exactly who I’d never wanted to be, the privileged white girl who went to work in a city public school and ruined everything she touched.

  From the front row, Ebony turned and pinned both boys with a sharp stare. “Haven’t y’all noticed that all the classes are like this? Even Ms. Chan’s class sucks.”

  Not for the first time, I wanted to thank Ebony for being sweet and gracious beyond her fourteen years. Intense relief coursed through my veins. I wasn’t the only teacher they hated. Logically, I knew all of the teachers were struggling with the new curriculum and policies. Stepping into faculty meetings felt like going to dinner with my dad’s side of the family—bouts of brittle silence followed by explosions of indignation.

  “Whatever. I’m out.” Matt slammed his book shut, crumpled up the fresh graphic organizer, and stormed out of the classroom.

  The new student intervention policy mandated that I call the vice principal, alert the security guards, and give Matt two days of in-school suspension for walking out of class. But I couldn’t. Instead, I poked my head into the hallway to feebly call after Matt. My master’s thesis had been on the school-to-prison pipeline and how those exact policies outlandishly targeted children of color for tiny infractions. I couldn’t bring myself to punish Matt for leaving when I wanted to do the exact same thing.

  By the time the bell rang, I was ready to dissolve into tears. One of boys playing poker in the back of my classroom had called me a bitch. Matt hadn’t come back. Only five students had completed the graphic organizer. And one of those was filled in with nothing but lines directly copied from completely random pages in the book. School policy told me to immediately enter zeroes for the incomplete work. Instead, I bit my lip hard to keep from crying and took stock of my classroom.

  I hated it. When I’d walked across the stage to retrieve my Masters of Arts in Teaching diploma at the end of June, I’d envisioned my future classroom. Compost bins. A thriving class garden. Colorful student work adorning the walls. Lab tables arranged in the way my advisor told us encouraged creative scientific thought. Instead, I looked out at neat rows, closed textbooks, and crumpled up worksheets. There was student work on the walls, sure, but it was bland, modeled after posters from the district curriculum. Graded on a rubric that prized regurgitating information and following rules.

  My face buckled. I was not about to be the green teacher sobbing in her classroom during her planning period. The lounge bathroom was an option, but last time I’d ventured in there, the stalls had been full of other teachers, some sniffling, some outright weeping. No. I knew what I needed to do. With brisk efficiency I was certain my father would be proud of, I walked to my desk, signed into Spotify, and blasted ABBA’s Greatest Hits. Then I opened up the district policies, combing through them to find any wiggle room.

  I was munching on carrot sticks, very dramatically singing along with “Lay All Your Love on Me,” and reading a forum about the failed implementation of the same corporate curriculum in New Jersey when I heard a throat being cleared. My face flooded with heat, and
I dropped the carrot I’d been bobbing in the air in time with the music. Thank god Principal Christensen was hardcore about the cell phone policy because the last thing I needed was for my live disco performance to be all over Snapchat. But when I turned to apologize to whichever student I’d just traumatized with my singing, my embarrassment transmuted to horror. Ruth leaned against the doorframe, her full lips curved up in a very amused smirk.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.” As always she was professional but warm, immediately setting me at ease.

  I waved my hand dismissively. “Not at all. I was just going over some curriculum stuff.” My mood tanked as I remembered the ubiquitous looks of confused irritation and boredom gracing my students’ faces every period. How was it the second week of school and I was already desperate for winter break?

  “Ah. Jamming to ABBA while you torture yourself, I see. Maybe I can help? With the research, I mean.” Ruth stepped closer, and I tried really hard not to stare at her. But I couldn’t resist. Her dark hair, neatly buzzed on the sides and perfectly tousled on top, fell in her eyes a little as she bent down to look at my computer screen. The sleeves on her chambray workshirt were rolled up just enough that I glimpsed the intricate linework adorning her forearms. And she smelled fresh and clean, like eucalyptus and soap. On the other hand, I routinely arrived home at the end of each day smelling like sweat because the building didn’t have AC, and french fries from cafeteria monitor duty.

  In order to force myself to stop gawking at—and sniffing—my cohort lead, I started babbling. And whining. “They hate me.” I sounded pathetic but couldn’t stop once I opened the floodgate. “I want to make this interesting. I really do. Biology is not boring. It’s amazing! The gateway science! This should be fun. But Perez observed me last week and tore my lesson apart.”

  It had been brutal. Rick Perez, the well-meaning vice principal, had been ordered to conduct near-constant observations. Christensen wanted to ensure teachers were sticking to the script. Perez arrived, unannounced, on exactly the wrong day. After three days of dull seatwork, I’d come up with my own fun lesson plan to give the kids a break. I’d set up interactive learning stations around the classroom to get students doing hands-on work to engage with the scientific method. By the time Perez walked in, students were already busy with the tasks. I couldn’t exactly go back to the bookwork we were supposed to be doing. So, sheepishly, Rick had informed me that I would be the proud recipient of across the board unsatisfactory ratings for my teaching. That day, I had cried in the bathroom.

  “And…” Now my voice sounded weird and thin. “I’m sorry but Matt Johnson walked out halfway through the lesson today, and I didn’t write him up or anything. But honestly I would have walked out of my class too! I suck.” A tear slid down my cheek and I hastily wiped it away.

  “Psshh. Matt doesn’t even come to my class anymore. And I never write the kids up for minor crap like that. Three bathroom passes a semester? What kind of 1984 shit is the district trying to pull? And Christensen trying to ban hoodies? He’s a racist piece of trash.” Ruth looked mad. Her normally delicate features had gone sharp and color rose high on her angular cheeks.

  The hoodie-ban email had come late Sunday night. Ostensibly our lovely principal wanted to prevent students from texting during class or surreptitiously wearing headphones, but it didn’t take a very critical eye to read the real message hidden between the bland administrative lines. While over 60 percent of the students at Edison were Black, the vast majority of the teachers were white. So maybe Christensen thought he would get away with his not-so-subtle racism. He hadn’t. A few minutes after the email went out, Ruth along with the physics and art teachers, sent kind but firm responses pointing out that the district dress code contained no such rule.

  It was nice to hear Ruth, a veteran teacher and someone with actual power in the building, voicing the thought that had been rattling around in my head for the last two days. “Right? It’s unbelievable. I mean, actually it isn’t, unfortunately. It’s crap, though.”

  “Other than the fact that our principal is a jerkface and the district is turning us into test-prep robots, how’s the school year going for you?” Ruth smiled and my stomach flipped.

  Must. Not. Nurse. Crush. On. Cohort. Lead.

  I giggled despite my best efforts. “Pretty good. I mean, I have some great students. Matt is super-smart. I wish he’d stick around because when he has the chance to participate, he has really interesting things to say.”

  “Yeah, I had his sister, Maya, two years ago. She was the president of the GSA actually. Now she’s studying political science at Penn, and I’m pretty sure she’ll be the actual president some day. Those are some smart kids. Shoot his mom an email. Kiara is a sweetheart and will help you get him back on track. You know how to look up the parent contact info? If your onboarding was anything like mine, you were handed a packet and that was about it.”

  My attention had snagged on Ruth’s mention of the Gay Straight Alliance. Was she involved? Was she queer? Would there be room for me to help out?

  “I didn’t know we had a GSA here.” I was trying for casual but failed miserably.

  Ruth grinned again. She had the nicest smile I’d ever seen. The kind that made me want to smile too. So I did.

  “Yeah, Joey and I helped get it started way back when I was a brand new teacher. We’re actually working with the district right now to write a nondiscrimination policy for trans and nonbinary students. So if you have any students who’d like to get involved or if you want to help out at all, you’re more than welcome. I’ll bring a flyer for your bulletin board.” She gestured toward my very sad corkboard.

  Her eyes drifted to the constellation of framed photos next to my computer. My parents hamming it up next to me at graduation. A group photo of the soccer team at Georgetown. Me and my brother, Bryce, arm-in-arm at the summit of Spruce Knob. Her eyebrows drew together, and she glanced between me and that particular photo.

  “Thanks, that would be awesome.” As usual my brain started churning. Should I tell Ruth I’m bisexual? That the hulking dude in the photo with me was my baby brother, not my boyfriend? Would that seem weird? And wait, Joey? Before my mind could catch up, I blurted out, “Joey’s queer? Like gym teacher, basketball coach, Joey?” I knew my surprise was unwarranted, but muscle-bound, protein-shake chugging Joey Rossi had not pinged my gaydar.

  Ruth laughed, a full sound that warmed me down to my toes. “Yup. His husband teaches at Allegheny. He and I went to grad school together. I know he seems like a meathead, but he’s the sweetest. And he’s super-smart, even if every other word out of his mouth is ‘bro.’”

  I rolled my eyes and reached for another carrot stick in an effort to distract myself from staring at Ruth’s long fingers splayed out on my desk as she returned her attention to the website I’d been looking at.

  My planning period was over before I knew it. For a full thirty minutes, Ruth and I discussed teaching strategies, ideas for pushing back on the new disciplinary measures, and for a few delightful minutes, music. It turned out we both loved ABBA and Earth, Wind & Fire. Ruth blushed a little as she mentioned a 70s night at a club in Lawrenceville that I’d heard of but never felt cool enough to visit.

  When the bell rang and Ruth darted back into the hallway din of pop music and chatter with a promise to check in on me tomorrow, I couldn’t hide the enormous grin on my face. My students filtered in and took their seats, faces blank and defeated. I squared my shoulders. I was going to teach. And I was going to do it right.

  3

  Ruth

  November

  One of the perks of being the building union rep was that I had my own office. Yes, it was tiny and lacked a window or proper ventilation. But it was an office: home to a mini fridge, far too many pictures of my family and Frida, and the rickety metal desk that I’d grown to love. Usually I didn’t spend much time in the small room. In past years, union issues were typically handled in the principal’s
office as Dr. Garcia liked to lend her support and stay looped in on faculty concerns. Mostly I had used the space as a place to avoid teacher gossip and drink coffee in peace during the early-morning, pre-homeroom hours. It had been something of an oasis.

  Since Christensen’s appointment, my office had transformed into a daily three-ring circus. Crying teachers. Angry staff. Baffled students. Even the security officers were regular visitors, and they’d never been great fans of me and my restorative justice views.

  Today would be brutal. Standing at the base of the stone steps leading up to the school—my school—I took a moment to breathe. Collect my thoughts. I quieted the cacophony of worries in my mind and focused. The early-morning air was soft and cool, the sky a twisted smudge of pink and inky blue. Birds chattered in the established oaks along the city street. A few students huddled by one of the decorative flowerpots turned garbage cans, singing along to a horrendously autotuned pop song. Even if I hated what was going on inside of it right now, I had to admit Edison was beautiful. On the outside, it was a marvel of Pittsburgh steel-boom new money. Ionic columns, granite, elaborately carved slogans about self-improvement. Sure, it was stifling in the summer and freezing in the winter. Sure, the computers were 90s throwbacks and the hallways always smelled like a mix of weed and garbage. But I loved it. It was my home.

  I’d been a student at Edison back when I was a timid American-born Chinese girl, pretending she loved lip gloss and Nick Lachey as much as all her friends did. Honestly, my time here had been awful. I never talked in class. Never tried out for the sports I desperately wanted to be a part of. Never did anything but paint and read and try to be invisible. Almost every day of my sophomore year, I pretended to have either a migraine, period cramps, or the stomach flu in order to avoid walking through the big brass front doors of my high school. But after the post-college year spent figuring out my sexuality and how I wanted to move through the world, I’d decided to come back. I wanted to make things easier for students of color and queer kids. I wanted to make school a safer place for kids like me.