The English Teacher

by Lily King

  She stroked one of the gold tacks pressed into the leather of the chair she’d chosen while Brick warmed up.

  “How have you been, Vida?”

  “I’ve been fine, Brick.” She mocked his unnatural earnestness with her own. He didn’t like that, and took a moment to rethink his strategy.

  “You and Tom have been married how long now? A month?”

  A quick, quivering pain traveled through her at the sound of his name. Though she knew it wasn’t April, she couldn’t think which of the other months it was. “Something like that.”

  He removed his fingertips from the yellow piece of paper and leaned back in his larger leather chair. “Marriage is a curious institution, isn’t it?”

  She knew this was how he behaved with students in deep trouble; he took the time to indulge them, to pamper them, like drawing a warm bubble bath before tossing in the toaster. Vida had always thought this a cruel tactic until now, when to her surprise instead of barking at him to cut the crap, she egged him on. “It sure is,” she drawled.

  “It is quite frankly the most challenging experience any of us will ever face. As you know my daughter Betsy got married last summer. A nice fellow. We’d waited for what seemed like decades for him to ask her, and then when he did, suddenly I felt she was too young and what was the rush. I’ll be honest with you. They’ve had a rough year. He never told poor Betsy about his allergy to cats.”

  “Cats?”

  Brick looked disappointed, as if Vida, having known Betsy since the girl was eight, should be able to fill in the blanks. He took a deep breath, not having wanted to stray this far from the point. “All her life, Betsy has loved cats. She begged for one every birthday and Christmas. But Charlotte was firm. She always told her, ‘When you marry and you have your own house, you can have as many cats as you like.’ So on the first morning of their honeymoon in Paris, Betsy went out and bought a kitten. Brought it back to the room. Within minutes, that husband of hers, his eyes puffed up and his windpipe shrank and, well, they’ve had a rough time of it.” He looked at Vida expectantly and again seemed disheartened. He shifted in his chair. The leather cracked. He took another breath. “Charlotte and I have certainly had our differences. I don’t play bridge. She doesn’t like cake. Twenty-three years and a cake has never been baked in my own house. But we’ve made our allowances, shifted our priorities, relaxed our ideals a bit.” He paused, pursed his thick lips, then said, “I’ve never betrayed her, not once.”

  But not for lack of trying, Vida thought, remembering the lick on her neck and the many other equally inept passes he’d made at other teachers over the years. Who did he think he was talking to? But he needed soothing now; this confession had made him vulnerable.

  “There aren’t many men who could say that, I imagine,” she said.

  He puffed up instantly. “No, I can assure you, there are not.” He looked at her with a mix of love and confusion. Where was he headed? He remembered, and aimed perhaps a little too directly. “Is Tom treating you well, Vida?”

  Had he orchestrated this? Had he arranged for her to be laughing privately at him and his self-deception when he zinged her here? It was the first time anyone had asked her such a specific question about her marriage. “Yes, of course,” she answered, too automatically. Even she heard the falseness of it, but she could think of nothing to add to change the effect.

  Finally he spoke. “You are one of the very best teachers we’ve got here, Vida. And you haven’t seemed yourself lately. And since the only change I’ve known about is your marriage, I just assumed. But perhaps there’s something else.”

  Let’s have it, Vida thought. “How haven’t I been myself?” Was anything more foreign than this self other people believed you could maintain?

  “Frankly, I haven’t noticed all that much myself, but there have been reports.” Careful not to glance down, he folded his hands atop the yellow sheet. He was still willing to negotiate. If she would just confide in him; he’d much rather be daddy than boss. He prodded her with sleepy sympathetic eyes. It might feel nice to say a few things out loud. She could be careful not to reveal too much. What a relief it would be to utter a complaint or two to somebody, even if it was Brick. And it would make him laugh, the accusation that she, whom he had always teased for not being able to keep up, had a drinking problem. A warm bubble rose in her chest and she waited for it to settle before she spoke.

  But Brick saw her fighting laughter and decided he was through waiting. He’d given her more than enough time. His hands separated and he read out the list in the stentorian voice he reserved for his worst offenders. “‘November sixth: allowed discussion of abortion to go unchecked in the classroom.’ We’ve got Catholics here, Vida, in case you’ve forgotten. ‘November eighth: gave ten demerits to Julie Devans in study hall for picking her nose.’ Ten. To the daughter of a trustee. ‘November thirteenth: referred to Mark Stratton’s computer lab as Jonestown and asked students if they had enough Dixie cups.’” Brick’s mouth curled slightly after this last one, but the next sobered him. “‘November sixteenth: told American lit students that,’ and I quote, ‘God is in my underpants.’”

  “Apart from this last, I simply see a bad attitude. I can accept that. I understand your resistance to the computer and the weekly lab day, which Mark tells me you haven’t once shown up for. It’s nearly the end of the term. I’m sure a lot of us are giving out some negative vibes to our students. I’m sure each comment had its context. But Vida, I’ve thought long and hard about this and I cannot imagine any context for ‘God is in my underpants.’ A teacher, especially a female teacher, should never, not in any situation, be talking about her underpants.

  “I should fire you. Anyone else with this sort of a list and they’d be out. But you’ve been here too long and I like you too much. So as of right now, you are on probation. One more report like this and I’ll have to inform the board.”

  Vida gave Brick the solemn nods he required, and was released.

  Climbing the two flights to her office, she had that brittle, eviscerated feeling she normally didn’t get till the end of the day. When she reached the top she smelled the must and mold that everyone always complained about. She opened the three windows in her classroom and a violent wind cut through the room. She erased her nearly illegible words from the board. God is in my underpants. She laughed out loud. Had she really said that? In American lit? She imagined her juniors in their seats, then she remembered. A discussion of transcendentalism had turned into an argument about the role God should play in one’s life. John Swiencicki said he liked Emerson’s idea of trying to achieve unity with the universe, and Gretchen O’Hara asked what was the point of believing in a God that isn’t separate from you, that isn’t in every part of your life, controlling everything. Vida had suggested then that there be God-free zones. “For example, I don’t want God in my underpants.” That’s what she’d said. Not that He was in her underpants, but that He wasn’t. Her first impulse was to go down and clarify it with Brick, but she knew it would only stir him up again.

  In her office she looked down at a pile of junior quizzes. She fished out her best student, Henry Lathrom’s. He’d scrawled his name at the top of his paper, as they all did, though none of her students needed to label their work anymore; their handwriting was more familiar to her than their faces, and far more expressive. Henry’s letters were minuscule and virtually without curves, so that an essay looked like thousands of tiny sticks painstakingly laid out. She read a sentence three times, then shoved the quizzes away, threw on her coat, and drove down to the gym. This was Fayer Academy’s newest monstrosity, with two sets of locker rooms, nine offices, a tennis bubble, a swimming pool, a volleyball court, a weight room, and three turquoise basketball courts. Peter was practicing at the farthest of these. Vida took a padded seat in the bleachers.

  They were doing drills. A pair of boys were released from the center, one dribbling toward the net, the other flapping away in front of him, guardi
ng him. Then, when the dribbler approached striking distance of the basket, another boy came shooting out from the side to take the pass.

  Gary Boyd coached the team, the thirds. His Fayer sweatpants were barely held up by a brown necktie and billowed out at the knees, even when he was standing straight. Vida doubted they’d ever been washed. Gary lived alone in an apartment above the post office in Fayer. In the nine years they’d worked together, they’d never spoken more than a few sentences at a time, and always about a mutual student, but when word of her engagement leaked out, he’d given her a forlorn congratulations one night in the parking lot, holding her hand a few seconds too long, as if there’d been an understanding between them she hadn’t quite understood.

  When he noticed Vida in the bleachers, he slapped his hands together a few times and called out, “This should be easy, offense. If you’re not making the points, there’s something wrong with you.” This encouragement made the next two groups miss their shots.

  Peter stood in the line at the side. She knew from the way he’d shifted his torso away from the bleachers that he’d seen her. He had a large dark bruise on his upper arm. Had he been in a fight? He was doing what all the other boys were doing, letting out a hoarse grunt when a basket was made, then slapping the guy on the back as he sauntered past. Vida enjoyed seeing him like this, in a group, barely distinguishable from the nine others in dress or gesture. Here, he was just a boy, not her hefty personal responsibility. He was looking to someone else to tell him what to do and how to do it. He did not need her. He sprinted out now for the pass. He caught the ball badly, then took a shot. It fell far short of the rim. She was only making things worse by being here. She stood, then sat again. It wasn’t even four o’clock. Where was she going to go? She couldn’t be alone in her office one more minute today. She missed Carol. She tried to remember where she’d put all her notes for that letter. How was it possible she still hadn’t sent it? Tonight she would find the papers, pull it all together. By now Carol would know about her meeting with Brick. What a good laugh they could have had about it this afternoon. God is in my underpants. She knew Carol would be hooting at that one.

  Gary blew the whistle and hollered out another drill formation. He glanced up at the clock on the scoreboard in the corner, and his face sank a bit. Fifty more minutes till cocktail hour, she felt like yelling out to him. He liked his martinis, she knew that. Every teacher on this campus was going to be able to sit down to a good healthy drink this evening. Every one of them—except her and Davis Clay. An unfamiliar tingle crept up her arms and settled in her chest. She breathed deeply, and paid closer attention to the scene below.

  The boys now stood in three lines at one end. Every ten seconds or so, Gary blew his whistle and a set of three was released. The boy in the middle passed the ball to the boy on the left, then ran behind him and took his place. Now the one with the ball was in the middle and he passed to the right, then ran behind that boy. Like this they weaved quickly and fluidly down the court. She didn’t watch Peter when it was his turn. She didn’t have to watch him to know he was the weak link, that a pass to him had to be exact, and a pass from him would be unpredictable. She saw how the two other boys, younger boys, compensated without annoyance, and felt grateful to them. She’d hoped with her being there he’d try harder, which he did, but trying harder didn’t translate to playing better. Again she felt the impulse to leave and half stood, then worried that her departure would be interpreted as disgust, and sat. She’d slip out once he made a basket. But even though Peter had three turns to make an unopposed layup, he missed each time. Then Gary called them over, tossed half of them red pinnies, and they all took their places for the jump. Vida was surprised to see Peter on the court and not on the bench. Before he threw up the ball between the two tallest boys, Greg flashed an eye at Vida and she realized he’d put Peter in solely for her benefit.

  She could endure it no further. Finally she gave her legs the unambiguous signal to stand and they carried her off the bleachers, back along the narrow sidelines, and down the fire stairwell to the parking lot, where she sat in her car with her tingling chest for the remaining twenty minutes.

  But removing herself from the scene, putting a windowless wall of concrete between her and Peter, didn’t prevent her from seeing him. His feet were fast; he had no trouble getting free of an opponent. He would be darting in and out of the key, always open, gently calling to the teammate with the ball, “With you, with you,” his eager arms out and ready, always ready. His hair would have fallen over his eyes but he wouldn’t brush it away, wanting to keep his arms out for the pass. His mouth would have that desperate, beseeching shape to it as it became clear to him that his teammate was stalling, dribbling in place, until someone more reliable broke free.

  He was the very last boy to emerge from the locker room. He walked out well behind Jason and a few others. And it was only at that moment, when she did not feel the urge to tell those boys to include him, that she realized how angry she was that he was in cahoots with Tom.

  Without a word, he opened the door, kicked down his knapsack to make room for his feet, and breathed flatulently through his nose. She did not, as she had done every day since he started pre-kindergarten, ask him about his day. She did not offer him a greeting at all; she simply turned left out of the school driveway and headed fearlessly toward the great test of her character they had plotted together.

  Like any decent protagonist, she would pass it. But that, she told herself, did not in any way mean they would have won or gotten the better of her.

  By the time they reached Larch Street, their silence was no longer tentative but an established fact. As they approached the house, Vida saw that Tom’s car wasn’t in the driveway yet, which meant hers would be blocked in when he came home. Like the carpet cleaners, like gloomy Mrs. May, she parked alongside the curb. She could feel Peter wanting an explanation but she didn’t give it. They walked up the driveway single file.

  From the smell of the house Vida knew that Fran and Caleb had snacked on raisin toast and Stuart had a girl in his room. She heard the window in his bedroom shudder shut; now the girl would be creeping off behind the house. Seemingly oblivious, Peter headed down the hall to his room, which would be thick with sex and incense.

  She whistled for Walt. When he didn’t appear, she called, “Here, baby.” She thought she could hear his front paws scraping the floor of the kitchen, trying to get up, but the kitchen was empty. So was the backyard. She checked under the table and in the pantry. Her new bottle of bourbon, still three-quarters full, was there. Walt was not. Stuart had probably taken him into his room as some sort of seduction accessory, but she headed to her bedroom first. It was an unlikely place to find him. The room was dark, and it took her many seconds of stroking the wall to find the light switch. He was lying right in the spot where he had usually lain in their old house: beside her bed, waiting for her to wake up. Perhaps he’d been waiting there all day. Such a long awful day. She thought of the bourbon on the shelf. Just as she was about to call to him, she saw that his head was at an odd angle against his right paw. For a moment she thought it was another dog, some sort of prank of Stuart’s, some misunderstanding, some confusion in the universe. She crouched beside him and swung his head, his beautiful head, on her knees.

  He was stiff, even his hair felt stiff, but she knew she could pull him back. She heard herself crooning in his ear, luring him home with sounds that weren’t her words but new words, a sort of dog talk, like in her dreams about him, that she was finally fluent in. He would listen. He’d always done anything she told him to. Such an easier child than Peter, never recalcitrant, never moody. Walt was her best friend, her partner, her lover. She heard him laugh. Don’t laugh, she told him in their language; it’s true. You are my love, my deepest love. She began to laugh with him. She pressed her face to his, though his eyes were looking off toward the nightstand. Didn’t you know that, baby? Didn’t you know? I found you at a gas station. I rescued
you. And you rescued me. We drove across the country together, just you and me. What would I have done without you? Where would I have gone?

  She was still trying to coax some movement out of him when she felt a hand on her shoulder. At first she thought it was Brick, asking her to have another talk.

  “He’s gone, honey. He’s gone.”

  “He’s just so tired.”

  “He’s dead.” He said it as if he enjoyed the word.

  “Please, just go get Peter.”

  Peter stood several feet back. “What happened?”

  Vida wanted to raise her head and reach for him, pull him down beside her, but she couldn’t bring herself to let go of Walt’s head.

  “What happened to him?”

  From far off, Tom said, “He was old and in pain. His heart probably just gave way.”

  She felt Peter’s fingers on her back briefly. “I’m sorry, Ma.” That’s all he said. He did not squat down with her, mourn with her.

  He left. After a while Tom left, too. She thought of the bourbon on the shelf. She continued to talk to Walt in their language. She wanted to cry but he wouldn’t like it. She shut his eyes and stroked the velvety fur of his eyelids. She apologized again and again for not having been home, not having been on her bed when he came in to find her, to spend his last minutes with her, his only love. He had never warmed to Peter. Peter had never loved him. They’d never had that boy-dog thing.

  Occasionally there were voices behind her. “He was a nice dog,” she heard Fran say.

  “He’s finding his new form now,” Stuart said. “Something more elegant and powerful.”