The kids were why I got into teaching in the first place - or at least they were why I was trying to get into teaching. Working at the Sunshine Daycare Center was a day job, a way to pay the bills while I got my Masters in teaching via night school. It made for a punishing schedule, but I stuck with it because being a teacher was all I had ever wanted, and because working with the kids was its own reward. Of course the money was important too. A Masters is an expensive commitment - just meeting living expenses was tough enough, even if you're not living in the big city. The money I earned didn't have time to get comfortable in my bank account - it went straight in and straight out again.
"It's beautiful," I said to Bobby. "I'm going to put it up on the wall."
"Fank you Elmelemanor!" My name--which was more usually pronounced Eleanor, or just plain Ella--was always a bridge too far for Bobby's diction.
He scooted off happily, back to the drawing table to work on his next masterpiece, while I surveyed the room. The brilliant thing about kids at this age was that they had no concept of 'cool'. Even before the word was used in human history there was a sort of unconscious concept of 'cool' - some cavemen would look down on others because they wore the wrong type of animal skin, while others self-consciously hid their interest in quartz because everyone else was into flint. For some reason, this is how we're wired.
But not kids.
Kids do what they want without ever worrying about how it might look. They dance if they want to dance for sheer joy of doing it and don't care that they look like a puppet with its strings cut, on speed. They tell each other, their parents, their teachers and even random strangers that they love them. They wear what they like, they say what they think and they never worry that anyone might judge them for it. Best of all, none of their peers do judge them for it. When they dance badly, no one makes fun - they're more likely to join in. Sometimes you'll see kids behaving like kids in the park and parents will desperately try to rein them in - my heart breaks a little every time I see something like that. This stage of their lives, this joyous, non-judgmental attitude, is all too short. In a scant ten years it will be gone and they'll be picking on the weaker ones in the herd because they're wearing the wrong sneakers or listening to the wrong music.
I often wondered how much we accidentally inflicted those prejudices on children from our own experience. Or perhaps it was just an inevitable part of growing up; finding your people, your tribe, your clan. Either way, the more time I spent with children of this extraordinary age, the more I thought we could all learn a thing or two from them. I didn't have to look back very far through my own life to think of opportunities missed because I was too scared to go after what I had really wanted. I know it's a horrible trite to say - I'm supposed to be teaching them but I feel like they're the ones who are teaching me' - but that's genuinely how I felt. To live without the societal inhibitions of adulthood, that would be something.
"Ella!"
Just as I was thinking these very deep thoughts, Janet, one of the other caregivers, yelled to me and pointed at where Tyler Montgomery was painting a mural on the wall of the naptime room with the contents of his diaper.
"I got him," I called back to Janet. "Tyler! What are you doing? You wouldn't do that at home would you?"
As I chased after the half-naked Tyler, who had made a break for it as fast as his pudgy little legs would carry him, I reflected that Tyler's mother was in fact a conceptual artist, who had apparently won a major award last year for a pile of distressed tires which she set on fire outside the Rockefeller Center. I had asked what it meant but she said 'Whatever you want it to mean', which didn't really help. For all I knew, she was training Tyler up for her next exhibition. I made a mental note to ask her to tell Tyler that feces were not an appropriate medium.
After a surprisingly vigorous chase around the soft play area--the kid had an impressive turn of speed--I managed to grab Tyler, who acquiesced immediately with a big grin on his face.
"Come on." I took Tyler to the changing table to clean him up and get him into a clean diaper, while Janet made a start on the wall. I'm wasn't sure which of us had drawn the short straw there, but tomorrow the roles might be reversed. You couldn’t work with kids without taking the rough with the smooth, or without developing a pretty high tolerance for poop over every surface. Of course, there was a downside to just doing what you wanted at every opportunity. But still, it looked like a pretty good way to live your life. Provided there was someone else to wipe the poop off the walls afterwards.
By the time I had managed to manhandle the squirmy Tyler into a fresh diaper, located the rest of his clothes and persuaded him back into them, it was close to quitting time. Parents were starting to show up to claim children who begged for 'Five more minutes!' to finish whatever made-up game they had embarked upon. Janet and I, along with the other two caregivers, Ruth and Valentina, helped bundle kids into hats, scarves and boots to protect them from the wintery chill without. Lost mittens were tracked down, sweaters stretched over tiny heads, and toys pointedly taken and put to one side for 'just long enough to get your coat on'.
Much as I enjoyed my work, I was happy enough to see them go, it had been a long day, with the troublesome Tyler setting the seal on it. As more parents turned up, I tried to make myself a little more presentable following my cross-country assault course on the tail of the budding conceptual artist. There again was that very human need to look the part in the presence of others. All these people had children. They all knew that looking presentable and handling kids did not go hand in hand, and yet I still felt the need to force my auburn hair back into the bun from which it had escaped.
I was still glowing--men sweat - women glow--so much that my blouse was sticking to my back, but there wasn't much I could do about that, or about my still red face. I really needed to get a bit more exercise - when a three-year old can out-run you and get you out of breath, then it's time to dig out that long-forgotten gym membership. But not tonight. It was Friday night, which meant that there was no school for me this evening and that the pile of studying on my desk could wait until the weekend.
The first order of tonight was a long, relaxing bath with a tall, relaxing glass of wine, closely followed by an evening in front of the TV with friends and more wine. When I was younger that would have sounded like a pretty tame Friday night, but at the grand old age of twenty-four it was about as wild as a night gets. I was looking forward to the Christmas break, when I might unleash what was left of my wild side for long enough to actually go out to a bar.
"Doing anything this weekend?" asked Janet, as we watched over the leaving children, exchanging smiles and encouraging words with parents as they came and went.
"Studying," I admitted.
"You work too hard."
"That degree isn't going to master itself."
"Yeah but doing it alongside this?" Janet indicated the quietening chaos of the room.
"Well, if I want to eat, I have to work."
Janet rolled her eyes. "I am aware of this. I'm just saying, there may be jobs which are better paid and less exhausting, which might be more suited to someone doing a degree on the side."
Of course, she was right. I thought about telling her that doing a job in the childcare industry was an important part of my training and would count in my favor in the future - which was kind of true. But that wasn't the real reason I worked here. I loved working with kids. Perhaps that was a dumb reason to exhaust myself daily, but there it was.
"Thanks for the advice, but I'm happy with things the way they are."
Janet shook her head. "You're nuts, girl. I can't think of one good reason to work in a place like--” she broke off and let out a low whistle as her cheeks went pink. “Well, hello good reason."
Janet's gaze had drifted away from my face and towards the door behind me, through which parents were still arriving and departing. I turned to see what she was looking at, and what Ruth and Valentina had now joined her in looking at.
The man seemed to fill the room. Not just because he was tall, although he was; not just because his chunky sweater struggled to contain his broad chest--how could muscles be outlined in wool?-- but because he carried with him an indefinable aura, a charisma that extended around him. Any room into which he walked, he would automatically be the center. It helped that he was perhaps the most handsome man I had seen - and based on the slack jawed looks of the other girls, it was not just me.
His hair was black and I looked for dark eyes to match, but instead my gaze was met by a pair of piercing green ones, almost cat-like in their intensity. As they lighted on me I felt my knees wobble, and surreptitiously steadied myself against a desk.
For a moment, it felt as if all four women were in the starting blocks for the one hundred meter sprint. Janet was married, Ruth had a boyfriend and Valentina had an 'understanding' with the man who delivered the kids' lunches every day, and yet this still seemed like a four-way race, and they would explain things to their partners at a later date. Fortunately for me, the man spoke before any of us could move.
"Is one of you ladies Miss Maxwell? Eleanor Maxwell?"
I was sure I had actually heard Janet whimper quietly when the man started speak, in a voice that sounded as if it had been coated in dark chocolate. When he said my name, something happened inside me that didn't usually happen without inappropriate touching.
"That's me!" My enthusiasm probably sounded a little over the top but I was rewarded with the man's face breaking into smile that made his chiseled good looks even closer to sublime perfection. I could feel the quiet jealousy of the other three women burning holes in me as I strolled, as casually as I was currently able, towards the tall, dark stranger, feeling almost as if I was drawn by his eyes.
"I'm Eleanor Maxwell. Ella. Call me Ella. What can I do to you? For you!" I blushed deep scarlet--no one can blush like a pale-skinned girl.
"You were recommended to me. By Mrs. Miller," he added, just as I had started wondering what I might have been recommended for. "I want to offer you a job."
Daisy Miller was a lovely child, one of the sweetest you could ask to meet, but she was also very shy, with an unfortunate habit of wetting herself around strangers. I had taken the girl on as my personal project and got her over this issue - it was nice to know that it had been appreciated.
"She says you're great with kids," the man continued.
"Kids. Yes," I said, with less articulacy than many of the Sunshine kids could manage. I tried to ignore the not very subtle giggling and whispering coming from behind me and made an effort to be more professional. "I'd definitely be interested." As long as I was still working with kids then I could cut back my hours at the center, assuming this would be better paid. "Would you like to come back to the office and discuss it?" As I finished, I allowed my eyes to do a surreptitious sweep of his hand - no wedding ring. Not that that mattered of course since this was all business, but still good to know.
The man looked about him. "Looks like you're closing up for the evening and I don't want to rush through the details. There's a bar down the street, how about we discuss this over a drink?"
However much my libido was calling the shots at this point, I was not stupid. I realized that going to bar with a strange man was not a sensible thing to do. He could have been a serial killer. On the other hand, he had asked me in front of three giggling witnesses, the bar he was talking about was always busy, and he was very handsome. It had also been a long time since I'd been for a drink with a man, and even longer since I'd done any of things that having a drink with a man was supposed to lead to. I was in the middle of a dry spell that made the Sahara look like Sea World, and I was standing here with the most attractive man I'd ever laid eyes on who might just be willing to end it. My mind was no longer dwelling on what was the worst that could happen, and moved onto what might be the best. And from the looks of him, it would be The Best. For a moment, my thoughts took an incongruous turn back to earlier in the day; if you want something then go for it. Live like a kid for once.
"That sounds great."
The man smiled, which was in itself enough to convince me that I'd made the right decision. Besides, I do need the money; my fridge is on the fritz.
As I headed out with a man whose name I did not even know, I glanced back at Janet and saw her biting her knuckle, making me laugh. I wondered if Mr. Tall, Dark and Green-Eyed would be open to mixing business with pleasure. A girl could dream.
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Copyright © 2017 by Savannah Skye
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