Been Here All Along

by Sandy Hall

  I hop up on the desk, making sure my Laura Ingalls miniskirt doesn’t ride perilously high, and then lean over to check the time on my phone. I’ll give them at least four more minutes. It’s the first day of school, and even though they’re mostly upperclassmen I doubt many of them have been into this far-reaching subbasement before. I swear, it’s well below sea level. I would say the depths of hell, but the air-conditioning just kicked in.

  There are nineteen seats taken and twenty-seven kids on the roster. I can’t help but hope that an odd number of them drop the class. I hate having an odd number of kids in creative writing; it throws everything off when we pair up.

  The door opens and my TA comes in.

  “Hey, Cole,” I say.

  “Hey, Inga. Where are we? Twenty thousand leagues under the sea?” he asks, gesturing around confusedly.

  “You’re telling me. I’m gonna have to leave a trail of Beer Nuts back to my office.”

  “Why Beer Nuts?”

  “Because if I’m wasting food like that it’s going to be something I’m not particularly fond of. I would never waste decent nuts.”

  The door opens again and student number twenty walks in. He’s frazzled looking, out of breath, but when he sees us looking at him, he smiles shyly at Cole and me. He takes a seat on the side near the door, next to the angry-looking kid and a girl who looks younger—and more nervous—than the others. He makes blink-and-you’ll-miss-it eye contact with the girl before they both blush and turn away.

  I glance at the time again and clear my throat. This is the part I’m bad at. I’ve been teaching my own courses for ten years, but every semester I feel like I mess up my greeting. I always try to be way too cool. I’m thirty-six; what am I trying to prove?

  “Hey, hey, hey!” I say, and inwardly groan. I’ve obviously watched too many reruns of Fat Albert in my life. “Let’s get this started,” I add, clapping my hands.

  At least I omitted the word “party” from that sentence this semester. One year I said, “Let’s get this party started!” and then ended up on a tangent about how writing can be a party, it can be fun, but there are no kegs involved and limited opportunities to dance.

  The students all look up at me attentively, aside from the angry kid. He scratches his ear and rolls his eyes. Guess he’s not a Fat Albert fan.

  “I’m Inga Myerson, and this is Cole … my TA.” I blank on his last name and mouth “sorry” to him. He shrugs and smiles. “And in case you’ve trudged into the depths of Narnia by mistake, this is creative writing.”

  I fall into my usual creative writing spiel and pass out syllabi while I chat. I put it on autopilot and try to pick out the two students who I want to see get together this semester. I have a weird knack for this. It all started when I was a TA for my favorite professor back in grad school. She said she liked to think about the students as stories and enjoyed writing one in her head as class unfolded. I took it one step further and made it a romance.

  There were a couple of boys I picked in a seminar in the late nineties who are now happily married with two kids of their own. They’re my most successful pairing, but pretty much every semester I see the couples at least get to the point of in-class flirtation.

  “I’m going to take attendance, because I like to get everyone’s name right eventually. We’re going to have to get to know each other in this class, so I hope everyone is comfortable with that idea. There’s no way to become writers together without knowing each other at least a little.”

  The angry kid’s name is Victor. I’ll remember that.

  The nervous-looking girl is Azalea, though she quickly amends it to “Just Lea is fine.” She seems less nervous after that.

  The last kid who walked in is Gabe. He’s got a quietness about him that I like. He has the kind of posture that makes me want to tell him to stand up straight, but I’m sure he has a mother who likes to tell him just that every time she sees him.

  There’s a girl named Hillary who is everything you imagine a Hillary to be. At least everything I imagined a Hillary to be before Hillary Clinton came on the scene and smashed all of my previous Hillary prejudices, like hair tossing and talking like a Valley girl. This girl is setting that movement back twenty years.

  There are other kids, obviously, but these four stick out more than the rest.

  When I finish taking roll, I jump back into my spiel.

  “I’ve got a theory,” I say.

  “That it’s a demon,” Lea says, so quietly I almost miss it, and I probably would have, but she slaps a surprised hand in front of her mouth. I see Gabe turn to her and smile.

  “A dancing demon?” he says quietly.

  And then in my finest Rupert Giles impression of all time I say, “No, something isn’t right there.”

  No one else seems to get the joke, but it’s in that moment that I know my couple of the semester is going to be Gabe and Lea.

  The quick eye contact they shared was good, but the fact that they both picked up on my inadvertent Buffy the Vampire Slayer reference makes me feel like they must be kindred spirits. Also it makes me happy to realize that kids these days still watch Buffy.

  Now I have to figure out a way to orchestrate this relationship.

  I hope Cole’s into it. I’ve had TAs in the past who were wet blankets about my little game. I look over at him and he chooses that moment to give me jazz hands and I know we’re going to be on the same wavelength.

  Bench (on the green)

  I’m the oldest bench on this green and I get no respect.

  I’d like to say there are worthwhile things about the job. And maybe sometimes there are. Sometimes you get a really perfect butt; however, all rear ends are not created equal.

  The one currently seated upon me is the kind I appreciate; it’s the kind of behind that I would invite back time and again, if I had the ability to speak. And the best part is that it seems to be attached to a person who wants nothing more than to sit. No chatting, no moving around, no graffiti or gum. I could get used to this.

  “Gabe,” a voice says, sitting next to him. I’m not a big fan of this tuchus. It’s ruining the quiet time I was enjoying.

  “Sam,” the good butt owner says.

  “Did you notice that you’re sitting like a millimeter away from bird shit?”

  “Is there a reason you’re here?”

  “No. Mom gave me money to buy you lunch on the first day. She was worried about you not eating enough.”

  “Why would Mom worry about that?”

  I imagine there’s a meaningful look here and that seems like just enough to make the best butt I’ve ever known stand up and walk away.

  Sam (Gabe’s brother)

  “So, how’s your first day back going?” I ask.

  He shrugs. My brother has never been much of a talker but in the past nine months he’s practically become mute.

  “No, seriously, you have to tell me something to tell Mom, or else she’s not going to believe me that I took you out for lunch. She’s gonna think I kept the money to buy a keg or something.”

  “Take a picture of me eating,” he mutters.

  “Or you can tell me something about your day.” I pull on his arm to get him to stop and actually look at me. “As your older brother, it is well within my rights to force you to talk.”

  He sighs. “Fine, tell her that I’m more tired than I expected, but that’s what happens when you sit on the couch for nine months. But everything else is going really, really well.”

  “You’re tired?” I prod. Gabe is not a sharer. Gabe is a holder-inner. A holder-inner who is punching me in the arm. “Ow!”

  “Why can’t she ask me herself?”

  “Because she thinks you lie to her.”

  “Whatever. Why are we still talking about this?”

  As we’re about to turn off the green, a girl sitting on a bench waves at Gabe and me. Mostly at Gabe, I’d imagine, because I’ve never seen her before in my life.

  He waves
back, so I guess it was meant for him.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Just some girl,” he says.

  “We should invite her to lunch! She’s not doing anything.” I turn back toward her and he grabs for my backpack to haul me around.

  “No we will not.”

  “You’re never gonna get a girl if you ignore them.”

  “I didn’t ignore her.”

  “I think she’s talking to that squirrel.”

  “She’s … quirky.”

  “How do you know her?”

  “She’s in my creative writing class.”

  “Oh. Excellent. How was that class?”

  He smiles at that. “It was good actually. Aside from the fact that I was almost late because I had no idea there were two levels of basement in the English building.”

  “Oh, subbasement classes. Yeah, I’ve been there. They’re in many fables, but few have experienced them. I heard there’s a clan of mermaids who live in one of the bathrooms.”

  I’m surprised when Gabe laughs out loud at that. It’s really not a great joke to begin with and he hasn’t been a big laugh-out-louder recently. He just hasn’t been Gabe. I’ve tried to explain that to our mom, but I don’t think she gets it. I think she assumes there’s more she could or should be doing, but the secret is that there isn’t. This is something Gabe needs to deal with in his own way.

  “Anyway, the professor seems cool and the other kids seem okay. It might not be so bad.”

  As we approach the diner, I want to get one last sentiment out, even though I know he’s going to sort of hate me for it.

  “You’re allowed to talk about it, you know.”

  He rolls his eyes. “I promise I know.”

  Squirrel!

  I notice the girl eating peanuts. I love nuts.

  Nuts, nuts, nuts.

  Acorns!

  I hop across the grass, trying to be as cute as possible, hoping that maybe if I’m lucky she’ll drop one. And her loss will be my gain.

  She sees me and smiles.

  I’m in! Hooray!

  She purposefully drops a peanut on the ground and I eat it up.

  Then she drops one on the bench next to her.

  Is this a trap?

  I take my time eating the first one, watching her, trying to see if she has a net or a cage or a brown bag that she’s going to capture me with.

  I decide it’s all clear, so I hop up on the bench.

  She watches two boys walking away across the lawn.

  “Do you think they’re brothers?” she asks. “They have the same eyes, and maybe the same nose; it’s hard to see from here.”

  I sit up straight. She’s talking to me. No one ever talks to me. Oh, how I wish I knew human and could answer her.

  Instead I nibble on my peanut.

  Victor (creative writing classmate)

  I hate everything about this stupid class. We’re only a week into the semester and it’s already the bane of my existence.

  I hate the professor’s dumb jokes, I hate the location, I hate the other people in it. In particular, these two idiots who insist on sitting near me every freaking class make me want to stab my own eyes out with my mechanical pencil.

  I take a couple of deep breaths. I need to calm down. I need to make it through this semester. This was the only lit class that fit in my schedule; I need it to graduate. I do not want to worry about taking a lit class next semester when I want to be concentrating on my kickass internship.

  But seriously, I thought the people in my own major were awful—the comp sci guys can be pretty annoying—but these English majors are the dopiest bunch of assholes this side of the Mississippi. They think they’re so deep and filled with meaning. They are not.

  And if this dude behind me kicks my chair one more time, I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I know I probably couldn’t take him physically, but I would definitely win in a battle of wits.

  As I’m thinking that, he kicks it again and I turn to give him a death glare. He sits up straight, moves his freakishly long legs into the aisle, and begins his assault on the chick sitting next to him. Or at least, an assault on her bag. He kicks the shit out of it.

  I’m not shocked. He has the biggest feet ever. I suppose they go along well with her abnormally long neck.

  Does he realize he would be a lot more effective helping her pick up her bag if he would bend his elbow? He’s like Frankenstein’s monster over there, all jerky movements and no movable joints.

  I tune it out as Big Foot makes random noises of apology and the Giraffe squeaks that it’s not a big deal.

  I hate them both so much.

  How many days until the semester is over?

  Bob (a bus driver)

  I have hundreds of kids getting on and off this bus every day. Some kids are real sweethearts and some kids are complete jerks and some kids are neutral. Some are loud in a good way, some in a bad way. There are always a couple who stand out. Sometimes it’s because they’re just noticeable looks-wise, or sometimes it’s a simple case of logistics, like they always get off at a weird stop. My wife, Margie, loves to hear about all of them.

  Lately I’ve been telling her lots of stories about these two kids, a boy and a girl. There’s something different about them.

  I noticed the boy because he grips the standing bar awkwardly. It’s a funny thing how you can be an expert on gripping the standing bar, and this kid is doing it all wrong. He’s awkward and it kind of looks like it hurts. I want to give him in a lesson in making it less painful.

  And then a couple days ago, I realized that he does it so he can sort of hinge into her personal space every once in a while, because I see him do it even when the bus is almost empty. But he doesn’t ever want to get close enough to her to sit near her; it’s like he’s happy to lurk.

  The girl is a different story. I always notice the readers on the bus. I can’t read when a bus or car is moving. I get motion sick.

  But she’s always reading. And he’s always holding on like it hurts his arm. And I’m sitting up here thinking about them.

  I make the next stop and they get off together, though they don’t talk to each other at all. Both of them thank me, and they’re the rare kind. Makes me happy, makes me think that maybe they should talk to each other, but I suppose I don’t have any control over those things.

  I watch them walk until they part ways, her going toward the cluster of dorms, him veering off toward the student center. Then one of them little devils in the back calls out, “Are we going already?”

  Some of these kids are just dicks.

  Casey (Gabe’s friend)

  I’m sort-of-almost napping when there’s a knock on my bedroom door. I swear to God if it’s that new guy from the room off the kitchen again I’m going to go postal on him. I’m not doing anything in my room; I’m napping, there’s no way I could be thumping around. He acts like I’m a moose or something up here.

  I flip over on my bed and throw myself to the end to open the door. I have to say the best part of having a tiny room is being able to open the door without getting out of bed. I find Gabe standing on the other side. He’s looking straight ahead and makes a confused face when there’s no one standing in front of him.

  “Hey, man!” I say, sitting up straight and throwing the door open wider for him. He looks down and smiles.

  “I couldn’t figure out how the door opened,” he says, dropping his backpack and taking the computer chair. “I was thinking you rigged it somehow.”

  “I’m not that kind of engineer,” I say.

  “What’s going on?” he asks.

  “Not much. I was napping.”

  “Oh, damn. I’m sorry, I should have texted. I’ll go,” he says as he stands up. That’s the kind of guy Gabe is. He’s always so worried about stepping on other people’s toes that he doesn’t even notice if you want your toes stepped on. Or like, I don’t ever want my toes literally stepped on, but my point is, I like having Gabe
around even if he is interrupting my nap.

  “No. Sit.”

  He obeys, because that’s also the kind of guy Gabe is. The first time I met him, my freshman year, after I had already been roommates with his brother, Sam, for a couple of months, I was shocked by how different they were. Gabe came to spend a weekend with us to check out the school for himself, and knowing Sam, Gabe was not who I expected.

  Where Sam is loud and nearly shameless, Gabe is easygoing and sarcastic. But even with his quieter vibe, it was boring around here without him. I made sure I told him that every time I went to see him last year.

  He chews on his thumbnail.

  “How’s everything going?” I ask, leaning against the wall behind my bed.

  “Pretty good. I was just in my creative writing class and there’s this girl who has totally … captured my attention.” He smiles.

  “That’s cool, but you know that’s not really what I was asking.” I know he’ll talk about everything if and when he wants to, but I like to let him know that I’m around when he’s ready.

  “No, but that’s what I feel like talking about,” he says.

  “All right, that’s fair,” I say. “Tell me about this chick.”

  “She’s not a ‘chick.’ “

  “Tell me about this skirt, broad, gal Friday.”

  “You’re the worst, you know?”

  “I know.”

  “She’s just in my class and she’s cool and I keep thinking I should talk to her because she’s always chill about everything in class. Like the other day I knocked her backpack over and instead of giving me a dirty look she was all smiling and telling me it was no big deal.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Lea.”

  This is weird. Gabe and I don’t usually talk about girls. Or I talk about girls and he nods and listens and reprimands me for being kind of a dick about girls. I thought maybe he was asexual or something for a while, but then I realized he was so shy he didn’t really know what to do about girls so he kind of ignored them.