by K. Ryan
CHAPTER TEN
“So we’re all in the tap room,” Finn told me in between bites. “It’s my buddy Chase’s five-year anniversary with his company and all our friends, his boss, and his co-workers are there. And I guess, before I get too into the story, you should probably know that Sling’s got this inferiority complex when it comes to being around people who’ve got a college degree and a successful career.”
I laughed, grinning back at him from my spot on the couch. “Right. College isn’t for everyone.”
“It’s hard to put my finger on, but he wasn’t exactly a straight-A kinda kid in school, you know? I mean, I definitely wasn’t either, but Sling really had a hard time even sliding through with Ds. I think the only reason he graduated was because Coach would quiz him on the ride home from away games and made him come in after school during the off-season.”
“Sounds like your coach was a good teacher, too,” I smiled wistfully.
What I didn’t say was that it also sounded like Slinger was someone who might have an undiagnosed learning disability...possibly. Sharing that suspicion would once again throw me into the deep end of the pool and sooner or later, I wouldn’t be able to float through on Finn’s politeness alone.
“Yeah, he was the best,” Finn affirmed¸ none the wiser that I’d just drifted off into that dark territory. “So, everybody’s there and things are starting to go downhill once the beer taps start free-flowing. Sling is just blitzed out of his mind, and I don’t know how he even made it over to the other side of the bar without falling on his face, but he marches right over to Chase’s boss, completely unprovoked. Picture the most polished, regal, stick-thin, polite as shit, blonde business woman you can imagine and that’s Chase’s boss. The head of the company and everything.”
I covered my mouth as my shoulders shook with laughter. This was not going to end well.
“So, Sling marches right up to her, jabs his finger right in her face and says, ‘I bet you think I work at Wal-Mart, don’t you?’”
My shoulders were still shaking as I leaned back against the couch, just enjoying being here like this with him, in my apartment, listening to him talk. “Oh no…”
Finn just shook his head, that sly grin playing on his lips as he leaned forward to grab his beer from the coffee table. “That poor woman...she didn’t know what hit her. She’s just standing there, completely in shock, and she’s saying, ‘Sir, I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why would I think you work at Wal-Mart?’ At that point, I’ve got Sling around the shoulders, I’m pulling him back, and Chase is just white as a sheet, absolutely mortified, and he’s waving his hands at his boss going, ‘I swear to God, I don’t know that guy!’”
I had to cover my mouth yet again, laughter shaking my entire body, and I shook my head as the whole scene flashed through my mind. “Poor Slinger. I barely know him, but I feel so bad for him.”
He scoffed and batted a hand at me. “Trust me, he brings a lot of it on himself. And he’s not exactly short on, uh, female company, if you know what I mean. Whatever he lacked in high school, he’s more than made up for since.”
“I can picture exactly what you guys were like…” I started, fumbling for the words as I realized I was about to tell him something I’d never intended on revealing, at least not yet. “You know, I probably had at least a hundred students just like you two.”
Finn’s head snapped towards me, shock and surprise flickering across his face. Now he would have questions and I already knew where those questions would lead. Just great. I’d opened up the floodgates now. No going back...
“You were a teacher?”
Were. Past tense. Hearing it out loud hurt a little more than I expected.
“Yeah,” I nodded weakly. “I was.”
His brow creased in thought and I could practically see the wheels turning in his head, trying to put it all together without overstepping.
Yeah, I thought ruefully, good luck with that, Finn.
“So…” he hesitated, chewing on the inside of his cheek and I waited for the inevitable question I just wasn’t ready to answer yet. Why aren’t you teaching anymore?
“What did you teach?”
The deflection had me moving closer to him now, and out of sheer gratitude, I kissed him. I pulled away just as quickly, just needing to thank him, and the soft grin that curved up his mouth told me he understood.
“I used to teach social studies.”
Used to. Talking about it in past tense was worse than hearing it said out loud.
Finn’s eyebrows flew up into his forehead at the admission. “Social studies? Like history?”
“Yeah, like history. Well, actually, I was teaching civics and U.S. history if you wanna get all technical about it.”
“Huh. I gotta say...that’s not really what I would’ve expected.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I laughed, swatting him on the shoulder.
“I don’t know,” he chuckled and ducked when I wound up one more time to hit him. “I guess I just would have figured you’d teach music or art or English or something like that. You know, all the classes I never took or paid attention to. Actually, I can’t say I really paid much attention in history class either.”
“Too boring?”
He smirked. “Yeah. I paid a little more attention in math and science class, which definitely paid off for me in the long run.”
“Trust me, I hear that all the time...well, heard, I guess.”
I had to look down at my hands on my lap, momentarily overwhelmed by the depth of my failures and shortcomings and humiliations and all the things I just couldn’t tell him.
“But,” his strong, deep voice jerked me right out of my negativity. “I gotta say, Em, if I’d had a history teacher that looked like you...let’s just say I would’ve paid a helluva lot more attention, you know?”
I knew that comment was supposed to distract me and take my mind off the painful memories, but all it really did was sting. He had no way of knowing, of course, what he was really saying, what that really meant in the grand, epic failure that was my life and the end of my teaching career, that encompassed all the reasons I just couldn’t let myself do much more than kiss him.
How could he? I hadn’t told him anything.
He must have sensed there was something very wrong with what he’d said, so he gestured with his head towards the bookshelf leaning next to my TV.
“I take it that’s why you’ve got all those books?”
Finn pushed off the couch and ambled over to the bookshelf until he peered down at the titles. Following his lead, I rose from the couch and padded across the living room, stopping right next to him.
“Team of Rivals. People’s History of the United States. Killing Kennedy. 1776. Unbroken. Diary of a Young Girl…” he trailed off and glanced at me, one side of his face pulling up in that crooked grin that sent shocks down my legs. “You’re kind of a history nerd, aren’t you, Em?”
I rolled my eyes. “I think history buff is the correct term you were looking for, thank you very much.”
His hands flew up in defense. “Sorry. History buff. So, tell me, oh wise history buff, what does history have that say, English and art don’t?”
“Wow,” I laughed. “Okay. Where to even begin?”
He grinned back at me. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
“Sure. I guess the simplest answer is that history is like a great book: larger-than-life characters doing either insanely heroic or insanely deplorable actions no normal person would think of doing. Except the difference between history and a great book is that it really happened; everything those people did impact us today one way or another, whether it’s where we live, what we eat, how we speak, the laws we live under…it can all be traced back to those great historical heroes.”
Finn’s eyebrows rose, but this time the amusement in his eyes was more affectionate than anything. “Historical heroes? Like JFK, who…did what in office? Sleep with
Marilyn Monroe?”
“Yeah,” I chided him. “JFK gets a bad rap—cheating rumors aside. He played a big part in getting the Civil Rights Bill passed, just so you know.”
“Okay, okay,” he held his hands up in defense. “So who would you consider a ‘historical hero’ then?”
I just shrugged. “An ordinary person doing extraordinary things. I think people who are remembered in history for good reasons are the ones doing the things no one else wants or even has the strength to do just because it’s the right thing to do. They’re not trying to be a hero, you know? That’s what makes it heroic.”
He nodded, admiration shining in his eyes. “So, like Martin Luther King, Jr.? Abe Lincoln? Nelson Mandela?”
“Sure. Or people like Susan B. Anthony, for example, or Eleanor Roosevelt or Harriet Tubman—no one would’ve ever looked at them and thought they’d be capable of doing what they did, but they did it. I don’t think most people know what they’re capable of until their backs are against a wall. That’s why I love history…all these fascinating stories that are so much better than fiction, you know?”
“Shit,” Finn muttered under his breath. “Now I feel bad for making fun of you for having all these books.”
“Well,” I just batted a hand at him and gestured to a particularly yellowed copy of Night. “A lot of these older ones were my dad’s. He was a history teacher, too. We actually taught at the same high school...not at the same time though. He, um...he died when I was 10. Car accident.”
Again, past tense still didn’t hurt any less. Even though I hadn’t meant to share all this with him today, this minuscule step forward, rather than all the steps backward I’d seemed to have taken over the last year, felt like something had opened up inside me, cranking its way free, stubbornly unwilling to go unnoticed anymore.
Finn’s face softened with remorse.
“It’s okay,” I shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”
“So you taught back at home?” Finn was asking me now, his eyes filled with empathy and understanding.
“Hickory,” I corrected quickly. “I wouldn’t really call it home anymore.”
He nodded tightly, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down enough to let me know he understood just what thin ice we treaded on now. “Do you ever miss it?”
I noticed that since we’d been standing next to each other, we’d systematically, unconsciously inched closer and closer to one another, so much that all I’d have to do was lean a hair to the left and my shoulder would brush against his.
“Teaching?” I frowned. “Or Hickory?”
Finn just lifted a shoulder. “Both.”
Considering the severity of the question, I didn’t know how else to answer other than with as much truth as I could muster. “I don’t know. Sometimes I do. I mean, my brother and sister-in-law still live in that area, so I miss seeing them, especially now that Cris is about to pop soon.”
I gestured to a picture frame resting on the top shelf. “That’s Noah and Cris.”
Finn tilted his chin up to get a better look and his eyebrows rose a little. “Your brother looks like a badass. Was he a wrestler or something?”
“Baseball player.”
“Ah,” he nodded. “I guess that explains the arms on that guy. And, let’s face it, your sister-in-law is way out of his league.”
I laughed and shook my head. “Yeah, I make sure to tell him that every time I see him.”
“Do you get to see them a lot?”
“Not as often as I’d like. And now with the baby coming...I guess there’ll always be a part of me that wishes I could live closer to them. They’re the only real family I have.”
Please don’t ask about my mom, I pleaded inwardly, please don’t ask about my mom.
To deflect any other questions about my family, I quickly changed gears. “And teaching? I don’t know if I really miss it. I mean, there are some things about it that I definitely did like. Summers off, for instance. Snow days were always a huge plus, too."
He huffed out a laugh and bumped my shoulder.
“I liked basically being able to plan out my own day. The curriculum wasn’t always mine or what I would’ve chosen, but I was still the one dictating what the lesson was and how I delivered it. That part I didn’t mind. I liked the actual teaching part of it, too—telling stories from history, figuring out what lessons we’re supposed to learn from it, you know? But the rest of it...the politics, the grading, the stress, the 30-plus kids crammed in a room who are too busy playing on their phones to listen...honestly, I’m sorta glad I’m not doing it anymore. Okay, not sorta glad, I am glad. I loved history—I still do—and I think I was good at teaching, but I never really loved it. Most of the time, I didn’t even really like it. Teaching, at least for me, was one of those things where everything looked great on paper, but the reality was so different from what I thought it would be.”
“What do you mean?”
I lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know...you think you’re gonna change lives and inspire all these kids to better themselves like Hilary Swank in Freedom Writers or Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds.”
“Or Jack Black in School of Rock,” Finn added.
“Right,” I laughed, but my face fell just as quickly. “But then you get there and it’s real and you’re lucky if two kids in the class even really care all that much. The other 20 are just taking it for the graduation credit and the other ones are doing everything in their power to waste time, distract their friends, or give you shit and make your life miserable because they think it’s funny. Not to mention that getting them to put their phones down for even a second is like asking them to chop off a limb. I don’t think ever I loved it, not even on my first day. I don’t know...maybe I never should’ve been a teacher in the first place. I did it for four years and I was miserable for nine months out of the year for all those years.”
I hadn’t realized I felt that way until I finally said it out loud. It was an ugly truth, but it was still my truth.
“So, this was a good change for you then, huh?” he asked, smiling sadly like he could read my thoughts.
Well, it brought me to you. And Oliver. So yeah, maybe it was a pretty good change. And that was the first time I’d ever seen anything positive about what had happened to me.
“Yeah,” I modified.
“What’s the worst thing a kid ever did in one of your classes?”
Dread washed over me...and here I’d been actually telling the truth. Well, it wouldn’t be quite a lie. I could give him something that actually happened. But the worst thing? That I couldn’t tell him. At least not yet.
“Well, I’ve been flipped off before. Called a bitch. Some kid gets pissed off because they’re not getting their way or they just want attention. Oh, and there was the time a girl called me the c-word because I took her phone away in class. That was a fun phone call home.”
Finn cocked an amused eyebrow at me. “The c-word? You mean cu—”
“No!” my hand flew out to cover his mouth. “Don’t say it! That’s the worst word ever!”
His fingers reached up to coax my hand away from his mouth, his shoulders shaking with laughter. “The worst word ever? I think I’ve just made it my personal mission in life to get you to say it.”
“No.”
“Yes,” Finn laughed. “Mark my words, Em. Sooner or later, I’m gonna get you to say it.”
I just rolled my eyes at him. “Oh boy.”
“Hey,” his expression had turned softer, more apologetic now. “That really sucks. I mean, I wasn’t crazy about all my teachers when I was in high school either, but I never would’ve called one a cu...sorry, the c-word. I might’ve flipped one or two off behind their backs, but I never would’ve gone that far. Especially not if it was a teacher like you. You’re just...the nicest person I know. I can’t imagine anyone ever saying that to you.”
“Well, if makes you feel any better,” I added. “That girl was suspended for a couple
days. It was more of a three strikes and you’re out sorta thing, but anyway, it’s not like that happened all the time. I think I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve actually been called a name at school. It’s just that...for every 10 nice kids in the class, there’s always that one who ruins it for everyone else and that one is pretty much the only one you remember.”
Here I was talking about it like it was still present tense, like it was still my life, when it just wasn’t. And besides, I was really speaking from experience before the bomb went off. After, I’d been called every name in the book to my face and otherwise. Not like Finn exactly needed to know that right now either.
“Still sounds like you were surrounded by assholes, Em.”
He didn’t even know the half of it.
As if he could, once again, sense my thoughts, Finn’s attention shifted to my turntable and record collection on the other side of my bookshelf.
“Wow. This thing is pretty cool,” he murmured, leaning down with both hands on his thighs to hover over my state-of-the-art turntable with its digital volume settings and recording capabilities.
The whole thing was one giant contradiction, playing old school, out-of-date music recordings on a high-tech, modern, digital machine.
“I used to use my dad’s ancient one, but it broke a few years ago.”
Finn cast me a sideways glance. “So you traded up, I see. Do you mind if I…?”
He trailed off, gesturing to the crate of worn records next to the turntable and despite my hesitation at letting him see deeper into my world, I couldn’t deny him. Especially not when he was looking back at me so hopefully and so patiently—all my defenses were no match for him.
“Sure,” I nodded carefully. “Go ahead.”
Now that he had permission, he didn’t waste any time crouching down for a better look with both hands flipping through my collection. It was a leisurely perusal though, like he was taking his time, trying not to rush, and just letting himself enjoy the experience.
“Ah, sweet!” Finn murmured, more to himself than anything. “Pink Floyd? The Who, The Rolling Stones, Crosby, Stills, & Nash, The Police, Triumph, The Doors, Cream, Van Halen, Foreigner, Blue Oyster Cult...look at all these vintage Zeppelin records...this is crazy. Were these all your dad’s, too?”
