He wasn’t surprised to hear it. “Want to?” She shrugged. “Why not?” He unrolled a soft leather board and dumped out a box of chessmen carved from ebony and rock maple. He watched as she set up the pieces with a practiced hand. It had begun to snow.
She smiled. “Oh, look, it’s snowing.” He winced, thinking of the ride across the river. “Oh, boy.”
“You don’t like snow?”
“Oh, yeah, I do, I’m just thinking about my boat.” She turned back to the window. “I never saw it before I came here. I love watching it fall.” He watched the side of her face, the small, dark curl of fine hair in front of her ear, coming close to feeling it with his eyes. of course she would love the snow. It was right somehow.
A fifth grade girl wearing a red jumper and an impish smile came to stand close by them. Hair the color of oat straw hung to the backs of her knees. Smile gone, she regarded Solange with intense green eyes.
“Lorena,” O’Connel said. “ You better?”
“I’m a lot better, now. Who’s she?”
“This is Miss Gonsalvas, the assistant superintendent. Miss Gonsalvas, Lorena, Frank’s sister.
Lorena solemnly offered her hand. Frowning in thought, she regarded them with large blue eyes. At last, she decided. “Are you Mr. O’Connel’s girl friend?” Concealing a smile, O’Connel made some adjustments to the pieces, leaving it to Solange to explain.
Solange leaned forward on her elbows, hands supporting her chin. “No, I’m here to make sure Mr. O’Connel’s doing a good job. What do you think, Lorena? Is he?”
Cocking her head, she frowned in thought. “Frank says he likes him. I just come here after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays to play chess. He gives us candy sometimes, so I guess he is.”
Several more girls came in, and Lorena drifted off. Solange saw he thought it was funny. “Thanks for all the help.”
“I thought you handled it pretty well.”
She looked after Lorena. “That’s the girl in the trailer with the croup, huh?”
“That’s her. I want you to make note of what she said, now, she’s my sole character witness.”
Snow fell heavily now, shrouding cars and asphalt, tumbling slowly in the calm air. Inside, sounds were muted, voices hushed.
Paul sat opposite Armando, a tall, attractive boy, and with few words, they began their game. Contemptuous even now, Paul read as he played, while Armando gave the small plastic pieces all his attention.
Solange leaned forward over the board, whispering. “Is he as good as he thinks he is?” O’Connel regarded the pair. “It’ll be close.” Several cheerleaders in short uniform skirts came in to find seats around the two champions and both boys looked up in stunned surprise.
“Mr. O’Connel,” Armando said, “Why are they here?”
“I guess they want to know who’s the smartest man at Elk River. Don’t let it make you nervous, Mondo. They’re just here to see a good contest, right girls?” The girls looked on, bare legs crossed tightly, ankles bobbing.
A small, dark girl with a turned up nose and a mane of walnut curls smiled, blew a bubble, popped it. “Yeah,” she said.
Still puzzled, the boys went back to their game.
O’Connel laid out a waxed paper-wrapped sandwich and a Thermos of milk for Solange and himself “What’s this?” she asked.
“Albacore, mayo, and dill pickle on whole wheat—good home cookin’. No strychnine, I promise.” She gave him a dubious look.
He smiled. “Oh, don’t trust me?” He slid both sandwiches between them. “Okay, here, you choose.”
She claimed one. “Thanks, smells good, I forgot my lunch. There aren’t many girls in your club.”
“Only Lorena and her friends. Girls don’t seem too interested. Kind of a male thing, isn’t it?”
“Oh, is it?” Aware he may have offended her, he held up a hand in surrender, “Hey, I didn’t mean it that way.”
She nodded at the pep squad. “What about them?”
He took a bite of sandwich and nodded as he chewed. “Offered them extra credit to come.”
She leaned close, whispering. “You bribed them?”
“Yeah, you scandalized? Sure I did, why not? Why should sweaty oafs be the only ones fawned over? Why shouldn’t brains get some adoration, too?”
She took his pawn, sweeping it effortlessly from the board and nearly reached to slap a timer, catching herself.
He frowned, wondering if he’d been had. “How good are you, anyway?”
She smiled back, eyes wide. “Not as good as I was.”
He pressed back his wire rims and settling down to it. “Oh, boy.”
Her mouth curved into a tight-lipped smile. “You’re not one of those men that have to win at everything, are you?”
He couldn’t help laughing. “No, and it’s a good thing. Your move.”
Players whispered. Radiators prattled. Outside the big windows, snow sifted down. He took a bite of sandwich, washed it down with milk. It was nice. Nice just being there, sharing a tuna sandwich, a game of chess. Nice. He felt the irony of that.
That hair, those eyes, how the hell was he supposed to come up with a strategy? Already feeling the pressure from her advance down the middle, he warned himself to pay attention to the board. Lorena called him to settle a dispute, and when he returned he was again called away. He held his own until the end game, when freshly back from peacemaking, he stumbled. Having set his queen where it and the king could be forked by her knight, he groaned, tipping his king. “You’re good. I was lucky to last that long.”
“You were distracted.”
He was that. She had no idea. He slid the pieces off the edge of the table into the box. “Okay, I’ll blame it on that.”
The speaker on the wall over the door crackled. “Teachers, please excuse the interruption—” It was Celia. “School will be releasing after lunch because of snow.”
Over the roar of rapture, he heard Celia ask if he could cover bus duty. He said he could.
Paul, book set aside, grappled with Armando in a closely fought end game as other players gathered quietly round to watch. As each sought advantage, the cheerleaders looked on. Solange saw a move which would give Armando the game. But would he see it? She concentrated on the nape of his neck.
Reaching out slowly, Armando replaced Paul’s queen with his own, and she took a much needed breath, relieved.
Ignoring Armando’s offered hand, Paul bolted. The girls gave Armando a short cheer, clapping their hands in time, and his face flushed crimson as they went out eying him with what Solange thought might be newfound interest.
Armando came to O’Connel, smiling in a way that struck Solange as both humble and egotistical. “Did you expect him to win?”
O’Connel slapped him on the shoulder. “Two weeks ago, I would have.”
Armando nodded. “He’s too sure of himself. He thought no one could beat him.”
O’Connel shrugged. “He let arrogance get in the way. Now you’re top dog, you going to get arrogant?”
Armando shook his blond head, smiling over his shoulder as he went out. “Not me. I’m too smart for that.”
O’Connel motioned after the boy. “Father works in the winery, five kids, everyone of them a good student. The parents can’t speak a word of English, I doubt they can read. Three of the kids are in college already. He’ll be next.” He grabbed a leather jacket off his chair. “School works for kids like him, always has. School programs aren’t the reason Armando’s what he is—his family’s the reason.” He held the door for her. “Come on, Ms. Assistant Superintendent, we’ve got bus duty. Remember what that is?”
• • •
Dense as angel food, snow fell.
They stood in it ankle-deep as kids threw snowballs and skidded on the sidewalk in their sneakers.
“It’s against school rules to throw snowballs,” O’Connel said, “but it only snows here once in maybe ten years, so what the heck.
Don’t
count this one against me, huh?” Solange huddled in her thin wool coat next to him, hands thrust deep in her pockets. A thin boy in a dirty tee shirt came running up to throw one of the powdery snowballs at O’Connel. He ducked, and Solange caught it in the face.
The boy froze, smile gone.
O’Connel called him over. “Oh boy, Arturo, you’re in big trouble, now, big big trouble. Muy malo! Do you know who you hit with that? You hit a very very important lady. She’s the boss of the whole district. What do you say to Miss Gonsalvas, now, huh?”
Arturo looked down, frowning with thought. “I’m sorry I missed, Lady.” He looked up at her timidly, worry clouding his narrow face. “Are you gonna get me in trouble, huh?”
Wiping powder from her eyes, she said she wasn’t, and he smiled, showing crooked teeth.
“Ha, ha, I knew you were kidding, Mr. O’Connel. I’m not in trouble, see?”
“Okay, so I was wrong.” Arturo bent to scoop up a double handful of powder. “Ha, ha!”
“Hey, where’s your coat today, Arturo?”
“Couldn’t find it.” He stuffed the snowball down another boy’s back, and careened away, chattering with laughter.
O’Connel looked her over. “You okay?”
“Yeah, it’s just cold.” She shook what she could out of her collar before it melted, nodding across the yard. “He seems like a nice kid.”
“Arturo? Yeah. We’re buddies.”
“Isn’t he cold in just a tee shirt?”
He shook his head. “Well, I would be. The thing is, he can’t seem to hang on to a jacket. I gave him one a couple of weeks ago, and Monday I saw a guy wearing it down the street at the tavern. Maybe it was his dad, I don’t know.” He shrugged. “What do you do? Whoever’s the biggest is the one that gets the coat.” They watched him race madly around the sidewalk as the buses filled.
“Have you called Child Protective Services?”
He flinched. “You kidding?”
“It’s your legal responsibility to inform CPS if you even suspect abuse.”
“Oh, don’t start. I know what the law says. If I thought that would help him, I’d be on the phone in a heartbeat. What are they going to do, huh, tell me? What?”
“Whatever needs to be done. Sweet Christ, to be without a coat in this weather—it’s insane!”
“Okay, okay, so it’s cold, what’s CPS going to do about it, put him in a home? You think that’s what he wants, to be taken away? He’s had it a little rough, but he doesn’t want that.” He nodded at Arturo as he went sliding across the snowy blacktop in his high tops. “Look at him. Does he look like he’s suffering to you? Hey, just because his parents are a little ignorant doesn’t mean he doesn’t love them. You know, you’ve got to get over the idea that we can fix everything—we can’t.”
She looked appalled. “So, what, we’re not supposed to try? We’re just supposed to forget about the kids, is that it?”
“Calm down. I didn’t say that. Arturo’s twelve; in two more years he’s going back down to Mexico. He’s got a grandfather down there. He’ll find himself a little Senorita and have a dozen kids of his own. We’ll probably have them in class here, wait and see. He’ll make a good worker, too. He’s not one of the great minds of the western world, but he’s a good guy, old Arturo. Oh, yeah, he’ll get along all right.”
“How do you know all this?”
The kids were on the buses, and O’Connel waved to the drivers to say there were no more coming. “He told me.”
With a great billowing of exhaust, they pulled out, chains clanking. The engines quieted to a distant grumble, then silence. Flakes as big as silver dollars floated down on the still air. They might well have been a hundred miles from school, abused kids, letters of reprimand. He looked in her eyes and was a swimmer caught in an undertow. Too strong to fight, it drew him irresistibly deeper. He fought his way to the surface, with an effort severing her gaze. He was too old, too smart to be suckered in by a pair of eyes, a shock of hair, a taut figure. He could imagine what she thought of him. He didn’t kid himself
“Where could I find a Mr. O’Connel?” A woman in sweats and rubber boots had come up beside them.
Whoever she was, she didn’t look happy. “I’m O’Connel.”
“I want to talk to you about my son’s test, the first quarter final.”
The way she stood reminded him of a leghorn rooster. “Who’s your son, then?”
“Aaron Reynolds. He says you failed him on his test because he didn’t put some number on his paper.”
“Good to meet you, Mrs. Reynolds. May I introduce our district assistant superintendent, Ms. Gonsalvas? I’m sure you’ll want her to hear this, too.”
The woman’s eyes brightened. “You’re damned right I do. It just ain’t right, failing kids because they forget to write some stupid number on their paper!” She was talking to Solange now. “My boy’s got a name. He ain’t some gall darned number!”
“I do ask my students to put a number on their papers that corresponds to their class and number in my grade book. It helps make sure they get credit for the work they turn in and avoids a lot of confusion. It also allows me to read off grades while allowing some degree of privacy for the students. I see over one hundred fifty students every day.”
“Well, I think failing a kid because he forgets to put a number on his paper is pure bull.”
He clenched his teeth. This was it. This woman was the whole thing bundled up in one small package—everything that had changed what it meant to teach.
“The question isn’t whether or not my numbering system is a good idea. The question is, will your son choose to make the effort to meet the requirements I set in my class? As it happens, Aaron failed not because he forgot to put his number down, but because he didn’t listen, didn’t do the work, didn’t study.” He opened the grade book under his arm, dusting snow off the line he wanted.
“Here he is. As you can see, he hasn’t been doing the work.”
“Well, Aaron says he has been turning it in, and the only reason he failed the test was because he forgot his number.” She kept her pig eyes on his face. “My son wouldn’t lie about it.” He smiled, opening his hands in surrender. “Well, then, I guess we’ve got nothing else to talk about, do we? You’re welcome to look through the papers from last quarter. I have them all.” Suddenly, watching her, he was curious. “Mrs. Reynolds, let me ask you this—is there any requirement I could set, anything I could ask of your child that you would support? Anything at all?” She looked at him, eyes narrowed.
“What are you asking?” She looked at Solange. “What’s he asking me, Mrs. Gonzales?”
“No, no, really—” he said. “I’ve wanted to know this for a long time. Is the only way to be a good teacher to ask absolutely nothing?”
She looked up at him, shuffling rubber boots in the snow. “I don’t have to listen to your smart mouth.”
He nodded. He might as well be talking to the oak across the walk. “No, no, you’re right, you don’t. I’ll leave you with Mrs. Gonzales, here, who I’m sure will want to hear everything you have to say.” He turned and went up the snowy steps, waving over his shoulder. “Nice meeting you, Mrs. Reynolds.”
• • •
In the office he checked his box, finding Celia alone at the counter.
“How’s it look out there?” she said.
Plowing through his stack of ads, he tossed them one by one into recycle. “White.”
“Thanks a lot. Meeting in ten minutes.” He looked up in frustration. “Why’d you tell me? I was hoping it was canceled.” She licked an envelope, obviously intrigued. “I didn’t think you went to them anyway.”
“Then why’d you tell me?”
“You’re a teacher. I’m supposed to tell teachers the meeting’s in ten minutes.” She shrugged. “Whether they go or not’s their business.
Does that mean you are?” He went back to his mail, disappointed. “I said I’d go to this one.” She s
miled. “So, now we know how to keep you in line, huh?” O’Connel tossed the rest of his mail away, gave her his best withering look.
She winced. “Hit a nerve, did I? Sorry. You’re not going to get in trouble at the meeting, either, then, huh?” He went for the door. “I’m really, really, going to try not to.”
“Oh,” she laughed, hurrying around the counter. “This I’ve got to see.” In the cafeteria, he found a seat at the table with Helvey, Calandra, and Lott, who passed him a sheet of math problems for kids in East L.A. The first was a problem about how many rounds would be left in a home boy’s AK-47 if he were to fire so many rounds at each drive by. Another was about a pimp’s finances, and a third covered the math of a dope deal. No matter how true, this stuff just wasn’t something you talked about. That’s what made it so irresistibly funny.
Solange squeezed her way into the cramped cafeteria bench beside him, and he could feel her there as he might feel the radiant heat from an open oven. She opened her computer, took out a pencil and pad. Mouth set, she kept her eyes on her hands—a girl’s hands, short nails unpainted. He wanted to drag them under the table and press them to his stomach, entwine his fingers with hers, feel the pulse at her wrists.
Mrs. Fleming, Elk River’s Principal, clapped her hands for attention.
A big-boned redhead barely five feet tall in her heels, she offered them a big-toothed smile. She had taught kindergarten for ten years and always seemed to be talking to a child. Head tilted at an angle when she spoke, like a dog puzzled by a strange sound, she’d always made O’Connel vaguely uncomfortable.
“Come on everybody, let’s form a circle, big circle, now. Come on, let’s go. “
With as much grumbling as any school kids, at last they made something like a circle in the middle of the cafeteria.
“Now we’re all going to give the person on our right a back rub,” she said. “Doesn’t that sound fun? Oh, I know it does.” Karl raised his hand. “Which right, this one?”
“No, dummy,” Helvey said, “the other one.”
“Oh.”
“I remember this,” Lott said, loud enough for all to hear. “We did something like this at college in the sixties.”
A Terrible Beauty: What Teachers Know but Seldom Tell outside the Staff Room Page 10
