by Sean Oliver
Someone was smacking at her left arm. It was Trisha. She was pointing across the auditorium, still in hysterics. Deanna turned to see what she was indicating. It was Jared. Standing and pounding his hands together, stone faced.
“Dude, I’m moving out today,” Deanna said to Trisha over the applause. “Kid’s a freak.”
SEVEN
TRISHA ALMOST SLAMMED the stapler through her hand. It caught the corner of her thumb and ripped through the edge of her cuticle. She’d been pounding the tool through dozens of worksheet packets in preparation for the influx of students. Lost in a rhythm, she wasn’t aware of anything around her in the empty classroom.
The sight of two women standing silently in her doorway jolted her and caused her to take her eyes off her task and bang her thumb. She simultaneously clutched her chest and stuck her finger in her mouth. She stood up, straight as a plank, looking at the two young women. They were the same height, the same skinny build, one lighter and one darker.
“Careful,” Arlene said. She wasn’t smiling, nor was her cousin, Ellie. Arlene was soft spoken, half a smile on her lips. Ellie was wide-eyed and icy, staring. She wasn’t even blinking.
“I will be,” Trisha said. “What room are you in?” She kept her finger in her mouth.
“Upstairs,” Arlene said. “Guess this is your room now.”
“Yes.” Then nothing. The air was thick. Trisha was looking for some clue in their tone, their attitudes. What was going on? What was this? “Wanna come in?”
“Transfer?” Arlene asked.
“Yes,” Trisha said. The cousins nodded at her. “From within the district, though, so I’m not a scary outsider. Don’t worry.” That got the cousins out of their trance. Ellie looked at Arlene and started laughing. Arlene was laughing, too, but looking at Trisha incredulously, mouth agape.
The distrust in the hallways of a school is always palpable. Add to that a new face in the building, and within a day an entire floor will have them pegged as a state worker, a new supervisor from the board of education, or a spy for the building administration.
But the cousins’ laughter wasn’t friendly, not even a cute “You got me” giggle. It was inappropriately intense and took a while to wind down. And Trisha waited for that.
“Guess both of your rooms are done,” she said when the cackling ended.
“Of course.” Arlene looked around Trisha’s room from the doorway. The walls were still mostly bare. Plastic covers were still on the five desktop computers along the far wall. Trisha had dropped her bags on a cluster of student desks when she walked in, and there they sat.
The doorway team surveyed all that. They turned their heads to each of the more noteworthy undressed spots in the room, making a show of it. Then they looked back to Trisha—waiting. Arlene cocked her head, confused, not unlike a puppy.
“I just inherited an empty space here,” Trisha said. “You guys were already done from before the break.”
“Oh, but it’s a new year,” Arlene said.
“Important year,” Ellie added.
“Well, I’m getting there,” Trisha said. The cousins looked around again while Trisha watched, her innate politeness starting to give way. Nothing on earth could ever happen to blow Trisha up in anger, but she was definitely heading toward miffed.
But she swallowed it. She was the new kid in town and she was bad with confrontation as it was. The two women in the doorway would have plenty of time to get to know Trisha, her helpful nature, her kind disposition. It would take time, like anything else. The women didn’t look too intimidating. They were pretty—Arlene with a touch of Latina, or maybe Middle Eastern, with poker-straight black hair. Her skin was a shade darker than Ellie, who was light eyed, light skinned, and light haired. She could have been a runner-up Miss Norway, circa 2010.
“Does everyone here get in at 4 a.m. to decorate?” Trisha asked. “The building looks pretty much ready. Except for me, of course. And my friend.”
Arlene cocked her head and offered a faint squint. “Who is your friend?”
“Deanna. Up on the second f—”
“Ah, yes.”
“Last year’s transfer,” Ellie said.
“Oh, that’s right,” Arlene said. “Interesting.”
“Is it?” Trisha said. Arlene nodded at her. The entire exchange felt like a dreamlike interrogation. Trisha would have preferred her interrogator yell and pound the desk. Who are you? Where are you from?
But this was just gross. Trisha felt like she was getting a rash.
She examined her finger, which wasn’t all that bad. But it would be a fine vehicle to get her the hell out of that room. She started toward the doorway.
“Would love to keep making new friends but I’m gonna go grab a Band-Aid before the bell.” She walked between the cousins, splitting them in the doorway, and passed without pleasantries.
“You should go,” Ellie said. Trisha stopped in the hallway and turned back to them.
“Excuse me?” she said.
“You should go.”
Ellie pointed down to Trisha’s finger.
“You should go get a Band-Aid.” She smiled at Trisha. Trisha turned and paced down the hallway of her new school, heading nowhere.
EIGHT
“WHAT IS THAT kid’s deal?”
Principal George was busy moving files around his room, speaking more to himself than to Deanna, who sat before his desk in his office. She just shook her head. Was he really reprimanding her for that idiot’s behavior?
“He’s…Jared,” she said.
“Good thing he knows computers.” George was carrying a stack of cumulative folders, each containing paper records of a student’s entire school history, almost higher than his head. Every stitch of student information, including grades, was already in the district computer system. Still, schools were a mass of duplicate and triplicate info—paper report cards, computer databases, and cume folders. In Carson Public Schools, technology didn’t supplant pen and paper. It was just added to the pile.
“Do you need help? You’re gonna fall.” She didn’t get up.
“I got it. Thank you, Deanna.” He dropped the folders in a stack behind his imitation leather chair, which he then spun around and sat in.
“I don’t know why you’re asking me about Jared being late to the meeting,” Deanna said. “Ask him.”
“I don’t want to ask him. You’re closer to him. Figured you’d know.”
“Know what?” she asked.
“Why he’s like that. He’s a nice guy, he works hard, knows his shit. But then he does stupid stuff like interrupting the meeting. Like he has to be anti-establishment. I thought protests went out of style when I was young.”
“Always in style. You just got older.”
“And you’ll be associated with his attitude because of your situation.”
Deanna gasped. “Oh, my God, Dad, did you just call my wedding a situation?”
“No. He’s your situation. Your wedding will be very nice.”
“Just leave him alone. Let him be himself. It was a useless meeting anyway.”
“Thanks, I’m not offended.”
“It’s true. Pointless staff meeting in the beginning of the year. Like a teacher giving busywork to kids.”
George sat up in his chair and expanded his hands. What?
“Come on, Dad. It was so weird. That rah-rah about trainings and stuff. Don’t you think that’s weird?”
“We need Albrecht. We need the trainings. Your fiancé needs them.”
“Are the trainings about punctuality?”
“No, they are not.” George continued working on his laptop, his eyes never coming up. “They will cover test preparation, exclusively. If we aren’t ready for April, we’re screwed.”
“You’re screwed,” she said.
“Yes. I’m screwed.” He kept working. “This…it just has to happen. That’s it.” He seemed about done with their discussion. It changed Deanna’s tone as she sat fo
r a moment, then spoke.
“I just didn’t understand that meeting today.”
“It’s the beginning of the new year. The staff is excited.”
“No one is excited to come to back school after having ten days off.”
“Sure they are. The kids are back, refreshed. The slate is clean.”
“Please.” She mimed gagging on her index finger. George took a long breath.
“There have been teachers I’ve worked with who had your I’m-better-than-teaching attitude,” he said, looking up from the computer and leaning toward her. “But there are some people who think they’re better because they are teachers. Those who act like this job is a pit-stop can never be great teachers until they change that.” He held her eyes. And she his.
“Maybe they want to be a great something else.”
“Why not be a great everything?” He went back to work. Deanna just sat and let the silence of the room work on them both. She tapped her foot to no music, looked around the room.
“You’ve been different toward me since you came back,” she finally said.
“I haven’t.” He was barely audible over the clacking of his keyboard.
“I think Dr. Lee did your brain instead of your heart last year.”
“Four stents and having an artery in your body referred to as The Widow-maker changes your menu a bit. Hope you never find out what it feels like.” He didn’t break stride in his work. He was done.
Deanna, though? Not so much. Didn’t much matter to her when others were done. She had more.
“It’s like you’re taking it out on me that I’m here.”
“I’m not.” He stopped with the computer and looked up to her. “But I am very busy today. It’s nuts in here. I’ll see you tomorrow night at our house. Dinner is at six. Don’t make your mother wait.” He turned back to the screen. “Tell Jared it’s at five.”
“He’ll be on time. It’s not a boring meeting.” She headed to his office door and grabbed the handle. She stopped and turned.
“Have you noticed a lot of weirdness in here today?” she asked.
“Every damn day, Dee.”
“I’m serious,” Trisha said. “I’m having you come downstairs with me for backup.”
The building was mostly cleared out when Deanna walked Trisha back upstairs to grab her purse before leaving. Their steps echoed up the tall, cinder block cavern.
“You don’t need it,” Deanna said. “Teachers are just weird about new people. I went through it last year. Still am, kinda.”
“Yeah, but they work for your father. How bad are they going to treat you?”
“You’d be surprised. Some people don’t like him, so why would they give a shit to tiptoe around me? And believe me, they didn’t.”
They got to the first-floor landing and opened the metal door. They walked across to Trisha’s classroom.
“They stood right here, one on each side.”
“Yeah. It was definitely Arlene and Ellie. They were scoping out my room when I got in.”
“You friends with them?”
“Yes and no. Just casual stuff. But I don’t call them when I get into a fight with Jared.”
Trisha went into the room and headed to her desk. Deanna leaned on the doorway and pulled her phone out of her purse.
“What the hell?” Trisha said from her desk.
“What?”
“My packets.” Trisha was looking down at her desk, which was littered with loose papers, hundreds, their corners torn where a staple once bound them. Deanna joined Trisha at the desk.
“What are they?”
“They were my study packets. I spent an hour collating and stapling them when—”
Deanna reached down and picked up a sheet.
“Not good,” Deanna said. She looked around the room, looking for more problems. “You left your room open last period?”
Trisha stood with her fingers in her hair. “I’m stupid.” She walked to the closet. “My purse was in here.”
“They didn’t want to rob you.”
Trisha stopped before the closet and looked back at Deanna.
“Who?”
“Take your pick.” Deanna threw the paper back on the desk. “Come on, day’s over. Fix it tomorrow.”
Trisha went into the unlocked closet. Her purse was there, seemingly intact. Trisha unzipped it and pulled out the wallet. It was fine.
Deanna was standing at the door waiting for her.
“Told you,” she said. “No one wanted to rob you.”
NINE
JARED’S CAR WAS already parked. Their condo allowed for a spot, deeded with the unit, in the downstairs parking garage. The spot was visible from the street level as one approached the lobby door. This was one of downtown Carson’s new developments—fully sold-out during the pre-construction phase, all to the under-forty crowd.
Deanna knew they could barely afford the one-bedroom they got. The salary of two newer teachers didn’t get you much beyond the basics, certainly not downtown. They got the unit because the builders saw stability in their jobs—the one thing the profession still had going for it. It was secure and teachers almost always stayed with the profession for the duration of their careers. The finance company looked at their application, though not into Deanna’s heart.
Things still got hairy when the mortgage came due, but that was just money. Their bank accounts didn’t speak to the emotional currency that’s just as important when you’re thirty.
Well, to her.
Deanna felt a particular way when she strode into the apartment building—opening the large, heavy door of brass and glass. Her feet tapping the glistening stone floors made her grow taller than her cute frame as she walked across the lobby. The smile from the doorman, the floral greeting on the lobby table, and the immaculate elevator waiting to whisk her up to her sanctuary, high above the streets, made her float every time she came home. It made her someone. If things got bad, they could go down to a one-car household if they had to. At her discretion, of course.
She’d forgotten to become spiritually elevated by her big condo building upon returning from school on the first day after Christmas break. The disorder of that day put her in a mood. And now, the disorder she would soon be marrying would no doubt make for some adventure at home.
She arrived at her unit door and stepped over the transom to find Jared eating at a snack table, seated on the couch, some bullshit on TV. The unit still smelled new-construction new, all woody, a little paint. It wasn’t oppressive, just enough to remind you that you were first. She liked that.
Their furniture was modern and angular. Legs were thin metal. The place was sedated, a sea of neutrals, grays, slate, some blue. Media was hidden in cabinets except for the wall-mounted TV. The condo unit was small—good-sized living room, small dining area beside the breezeway kitchen, hallway bathroom, bedroom with a small master bath. But the floor to ceiling windows and smart decor made the just-thirty couple look like they fit.
“Hey,” she said, once inside.
“Hey,” he mumbled through a bite.
Deanna dropped her keys and crossed into the small pass-through kitchen. She grabbed an avocado from the fridge and began paring it. She was getting tired of rifling though the things she could say to get Jared talking, so she just did a Deanna.
“What the fuck was that?”
“Am I expected to know what you’re talking about?” he said from the living room. Deanna walked to the doorway, the avocado-smeared knife in hand. Jared looked up at the blade and raised his hands. “Okay, I’ll talk.”
“I missed the memo about our classrooms having to be redone by eight o’clock this morning.”
“Just wanted to get ready.”
“You and everyone else? Seriously?” He shrugged. “And you’re up, showered, and out the door before my alarm even goes off?”
“I was being polite. I’ll wake you up next time.”
Deanna turned and walked back into t
he kitchen. “I walked down to the basement hallway and saw Doris Calhoun on her hands and knees in the hallway, like a buffalo drinking from a stream, trying to look under the guidance door to see if the office was decorated. Under the door.”
“I actually thought she lost some weight over the holiday.”
Deanna and her plated avocado came into the living room and dropped on the sofa beside Jared. They ate beside each other, staring at the TV.
“My father thinks you were late to the staff meeting on purpose.”
“Why would I do that?”
“General dickiness.” He didn’t have much to retort on that. She waited. “Nothing sarcastic? Impressive.”
Jared crumpled the aluminum foil sandwich wrapper and headed to the kitchen. “I’m gonna work on my website in the bedroom,” he said.
“We have the meeting with the invitation lady in an hour,” Deanna said. Jared stopped midstride and just stood there. “You forgot. Well, you had a lot on your mind, it’s understandable.” She got up and headed to the kitchen, smacking Jared on the ass as she passed. “Turning on all those laptops and running your antivirus scan, after all.”
“My head is just funky. I’m all distracted.”
“Well, get focused on fonts and paper. I want them picked today. I have to start designing them.” Jared still wasn’t moving. Deanna walked to the doorway and observed. “Okay, what is this? This whole thing—running out of here this morning, the one-word texts, being late to the meeting.”
He turned, shaking his head, looking at her blankly. He shrugged.
“Helloooo,” Deanna said, waving her hand in front of his face.
“I don’t think…”
“Go ahead.”
“I don’t think I’m ready for this.” He stared at her expectantly. Deanna sucked her teeth, nodded. She blew past him to the bedroom.
“Knew this shit would happen with you.” She was closing drawers too hard, slamming stuff about in there.
Jared made his way toward the bedroom doorway. Deanna was slinging receipts and papers across the dresser, looking at some before tossing them aside.
