by Clay Chapman
Tamara moans. “If this is your idea of heaven, we’re in trouble.” She has been waiting for me in front of her classroom, wearing what I like to refer to as her Office Goth look. Subtly shadowed accents. A sooty half-pleated skirt. High-collared jacket that hides her neck. Her charcoal sleeves conceal the ink that wraps around her arms, over her left shoulder, the telltale tattoos of her after-school life obscured from her kids. Not to mention their parents.
“Hold your books?” I offer.
“Sooo sweet,” she says in her highest-pitched pom squad impression. A part of our intra-school romance is to pretend we’re other people. Role-play the Jock and Cheerleader, Chazz and Jenny, hitting on each other in the hallway between classes. “See you after practice?”
“Can’t,” I say in my best bro-brogue. “I’m totally stuck in detention again.”
“Oh, Chazz…What’d you do this time?”
“Condrey just won’t get off my back,” I huff. “She keeps riding me and riding me.”
Tamara laughs, drawing the attention of our wandering faculty pack. Mr. Dunstan turns toward us, his watery eyes widening, as if he’s hoping to be included in our game. We both drop our act and walk in silence. Tamara dips her chin, concealing her grin.
“How’s the day been?” I whisper. “Break up any riots?”
“Half my kids have come down with something.” She moans. “My class feels like such a petri dish. I can already feel another cold coming on.”
“We should get our flu shots together. We’ll get a babysitter. Make it a date night.”
Tamara stops walking. “I already got mine. We talked about this.”
I feign heartbreak. “You went without me?”
“I asked you, like, five times.”
She had. I’d just forgotten. Can I go the whole school year without inoculating myself against these rugrats? Danvers is its own hot zone. The bell rings and the outbreak begins.
“Hey.” Tamara elbows me. “Where’d you just go?”
“Still here.”
She clearly doesn’t believe me. “What’d I just say?”
“You said…” Find the thread, Richard. Come on, you can do it.
She rolls her eyes and lets me off the hook. “Miss Castevet. Professor Howdy. Who’d do something like that?”
“She probably left his cage open. Just snuck out and some wild animal attacked him.”
“That’s your best guess, Sherlock?”
“Why? You got a better theory?”
She gives me her best interrogator impression: “Where were you the night of…”
I want to turn back. Break out of this building. “Wanna ditch?”
“Too late now.”
“No, it’s not.” I stop walking, tugging on her arm. “Come on.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I’m completely serious. Pleeease?”
“Rich…”
“What? It’ll be fun! We can ask someone else to fill us in on what we missed.”
I tug on Tamara’s arm again, harder this time. A confused expression surfaces, as if she isn’t quite sure if this is still a game or not. She gently pulls her hand away. “Quit it.”
“Your loss,” I say, trailing after her. I do my best karaoke rendition of Enya as we immerse ourselves within the song’s reverberations. “Sail a-way, sail a-way, sail a-way.”
“Keep your day job,” she suggests.
I pretend to be wounded. Her words hit me in the heart. “You don’t like my singing?”
“Sorry…”
The gym doesn’t quite have the acoustics to pull off an Enya concert. It’s all rafters and no phonics. What’s meant to lull the teachers into a calm, soothing stupor before kicking off our first faculty meeting of the year seems to simply set everybody on edge. Maybe it’s just me.
A set of folding chairs is arranged around the center of the basketball court, forming a ring. No backs to the staff. There’s a little pop psychology at play here. Condrey can sit amongst us as our peer. No leaders here, even though she’s clearly the one in charge.
Tamara heads for the other side of the circle.
“What? You’re not gonna even sit with me?”
“Not happening,” she says.
“Why not?”
“You know exactly why. You’re going to get bored after a few minutes and you’re going to look for something to distract you, and then you’re going to start bugging me for your own personal amusement, and then we’ll both get in trouble…I’m not getting dragged in, sorry.”
“It’s going to be pretty boring over there, next to Mr. Lumbard.”
Tamara glances over her shoulder to our beloved science teacher. Mr. Lumbard quickly catches Tamara’s eye and his face brightens. “I’ll take my chances,” she says to me. “Thanks.”
“Last chance. All the fun’s gonna be over on this side, with the cool teachers.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“You’ll miss me.”
“Keep dreaming.” Tamara saunters to the other side of the circle.
Donuts had been voted down because Condrey was concerned they would make us sluggish. She prefers complex carbohydrates. Trail mix. Whole grain breads, lean meats. Some yogurt cups and granola parfaits. Coffee is nonnegotiable. Condrey will have a riot on her hands if she doesn’t have a travel pack set up with paper cups and sugar packets.
A stack of photocopied agendas is passed around the circle. The itinerary is evenly divided and subdivided into bite-sized brackets for easy digestion. The whos, whats, wheres, and whens are all laid out. No whys, though. Never the why—as in, why am I here?
Or the how. How is this even happening to me? How did I get myself into this?
If Tamara was sitting next to me, I’d lean over and whisper about a few particular bullet points on the agenda that immediately catch my eye.
Halloween will be now officially be called “Character Day.” Oof.
Active shooter drills. Parents are bound to kick up some dust over that one.
The recent uptick in graffiti. The inner walls in the stalls of the boys bathroom look like a Mötley Crüe video. Sharpied pentagrams. 666 in bold black letters. How do our kids even know this sort of stuff already? Aren’t they too young for this crap? Save it for high school.
Mr. Dunstan slips into the chair next to mine. “Is this seat taken?”
He’s already sitting so it doesn’t seem kosher to say it’s not available. “All yours.”
Dunstan hums to himself as he peruses the agenda. “No discussion of budget cuts, I see. I do believe that means you and I are safe.” He sneezes. He pulls out a handkerchief, monogrammed and everything. P.D. Do I even know what his first name is? He blows.
“Forgive me,” he says between discharges. “Got a bug going around this week.”
It’s true. I discovered another runny nose in my class today. Timothy Haskell’s upper lip was glistening all through first period. Use a tissue, Timothy, I say almost every day.
“Madame Condrey is fashionably late, I see,” I say. “Anybody got eyes on our fearless leader?” This solicits a few charmed snickers from the faculty. Any opportunity to lightheartedly mock our esteemed principal in private is always appreciated. I could always earn a few points from the other teachers by getting a good jab in that didn’t cross the line into crassness. Condrey could take it. Hell—she might even laugh herself. There’s bound to be a funny bone somewhere in her body.
The Danvers School eschews the traditional educational model for something a little more “hands on.” Our mission statement claims we look at the “whole student”—not just their reading, writing, and arithmetic, but their social, emotional, and cognitive development. You won’t find many desks set up in even rows here. Most are in circles. Mrs. Condrey, our beloved principal, wants
to foster a collaborative relationship between educators and students.
Amplify their voice. Let them be heard.
The faculty represents a mix of pedagogies. There’s the younger generation of hipstructors, intermingled with the old school, Old Testament–type teachers. There are twenty of us on staff, all told. Not a huge roster, but Condrey considers us all to be one big, happy academic family. As in, arguing-with-your-right-wing-uncle-about-whether-or-not-Obama-was-born-in-the-USA-during-Thanksgiving-dinner type of family. That’s what kind of family our faculty is.
I notice Miss Castevet is absent. Her empty foldout chair is taken away. Our circle tightens. Enya’s last chant suddenly halts. Sail a-way. Sail a-way. Sail a—
“All righty, everyone,” Condrey calls out as she presses stop on the portable CD player. Her heels clack over the basketball court, echoing throughout the gymnasium as she joins us. She has an aerodynamic demeanor. Short, sandy blonde hair. No jewelry, unless you count her wireless glasses. She seems to go through a rotation of hip-length blazers. Today is turquoise. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” she says as she glances over her own agenda. “Quick addendum. I’d like to address the elephant in the room.”
I would’ve said bunny, but that’s just me.
“I’ll have a card for Ruth tomorrow. If you could all sign it, that’d be wonderful. Just a little something to say we’re all sorry for her loss. I’ll leave it in the faculty lounge.”
No mention of Professor Howdy or what happened to him. No suspects.
Our faculty meeting begins with a team-building exercise. The agenda even says so. Just a fun activity to bring teachers together. “This is a great game to play with students,” Condrey says. “Especially on the first day. Nice icebreaker.”
I’m imagining tossing a beach ball around the circle to see how long we can collectively keep it in the air or some version of Zip-Zap-Zop.
“Two Truths and One Lie,” she announces. “In class, I always prefer Two Truths and One Tall Tale, just so I’m not advocating for kids to fib…but we’re all adults.”
The rules are simple. Each teacher has to share three things about themselves. Two are true, the third is a total fabrication.
Condrey zeros in on me from across the circle and smiles. Something about her stare makes me feel the slightest bit on edge. Had she heard me mocking her? Why do I suddenly feel like she caught me doing something I shouldn’t? “Why don’t you go first, Richard?”
“Sure.” I feel the spotlight shining on me. I glance through its imagined glare and find Tamara. She leans back in her chair with one eyebrow arched as if to say, This should be fun.
“Hi. I’m Richard, your friendly neighborhood art teacher. Okay. Let’s see…”
My mind goes blank. This is harder than I’d expected.
“Okay. Uh…Got it. This summer I married the love of my life.”
(True.)
That statement earns me a few aahs from the circle, several teachers turning to Tamara to give their nod of approval. Only I seem to notice Tamara rolling her eyes.
“In college, I got to hike the Grand Teton and I broke my leg coming down.”
(True.)
“And…I have never eaten at McDonald’s before.”
(Lie.)
Condrey surveys the circle to see if anyone might know where the fib is hidden. “Which one’s the tall tale?” She tries her best not to look at Tamara, who now bows her head just enough to silently state that she will not be contributing.
Dunstan raises his hand, his fingers grazing my shoulder. “Breaking your leg?”
All eyes are on me. Staring. Like I am the guest on some talk show and this is my big interview. I can feel the initial beads of sweat pebbling my forehead, rising from my skin.
“Sorry,” I say. “That one’s true. Still have the scars to prove it…”
“I’m guessing,” Condrey cuts in, “that it’s McDonald’s. Unless there’s something you want to tell Tamara…” The faculty all laughs. Well, chortles anyway. Huh-huh-huh.
“You got me.”
Got me. Condrey seems pleased. Yes—I’ve got you.
She’s onto the next teacher, and almost immediately, I find myself having a hard time focusing. Her words loosen, fading away. Tamara was right, of course. I’m bored out of my gourd. That didn’t take long. This meeting is only supposed to take up sixty minutes of our lives. Sixty mind-numbing minutes of bureaucratic jibber-jabber. Figuring out parking spaces. Prep for the annual bake sale. The book fair. It’s exhausting, but I keep my eyes open. I don’t doze.
I’m simply not…present. I find myself glancing at the nape of Tamara’s neck from across the circle. I can just make out the hint of scales peeking from beneath her collar. I remember the first time I saw the snake for myself. Tamara has mastered this trick of flexing her bicep so that it looks as if the serpent is coiling around her arm. Reminds me of those old hula girl tattoos on septuagenarian sailors, faded hips of blue ink dancing the hukilau with every twist of their wrist. Whenever I looked at Tamara’s tattoo, I could have sworn I saw it writhing on its own. Alive.
“It’s traumatizing.” I snap back to hear Tamara’s voice lifting. She sounds agitated. Something’s riling her up. “We’re doing more damage than good.”
“I appreciate your point of view on this,” Condrey calmly responds. “I do, but this is happening statewide. It’s not just us, it’s all through Virginia.”
“I can’t be the only one who feels this way. Am I?” Tamara searches the circle.
What are we talking about here? I couldn’t have drifted for that long. I have to catch up before I’m called on.
Too late. Tamara glances across the ring of teachers and locks her eyes directly onto me, cueing me to agree with her. I nod. It’s the best I can do given the circumstances.
“I’m well aware of how parents feel,” Condrey says, clearly in politician mode. “But this is coming from the superintendent. We need our students to be prepared.”
Tamara shakes her head. “Prepared for…what? Are we really saying a third-grader is going to bring in a semiautomatic and start shooting up their classmates?”
Some of the older teachers recoil. Even Condrey winces.
This is one of the many things I love about Tamara. Watching her get all riled up, like a firefighter racing into a burning building while everyone else stands back and stares. Most of us mere mortals have beliefs. Tamara has convictions. I always dread getting into an argument with her. I have made a practice out of avoiding conflict at all costs throughout my life, but she dives right on in, headfirst. Her parents are the same way. Holidays are a blast, believe me.
“How do I explain this to Elijah?” she asks. “He’ll be afraid to come to school, because what I’ll be saying—what we’re all saying—is this is a place to be afraid of. It’s no longer safe.”
Condrey matches her. “What about someone we don’t know? A man with a gun finds his way into the building? What if we’re the next Sandy Hook? How prepared should we be?”
Tamara considers this. This type of heated discussion, these debates, is meant for her to reach some sort of understanding on the subject. It’s never about being right or wrong, not to Tamara, but about achieving a level of knowledge, of truth, that she can only obtain after these intense, in-your-face, voices-raised, heated deliberations. It terrifies me at times how much the truth matters to her. How far she is willing to go to find it. Understand it. Believe it.
“I just wish the lockdowns weren’t necessary,” she eventually says. “I…I just wish all of this wasn’t happening now. That we even need to do this to our children horrifies me.”
“I heard Sandy Hook was a hoax.”
The voice comes from somewhere else in the circle. At first, I don’t know if I actually heard it or if I am just imagining it. A mouse squeaking under our feet. It pip
es up just as Tamara lapses into her own thoughts, lost to the terrors of school preparedness programs.
Someone else has spoken.
Tamara turns her head, confused by who said it. We are all a little taken aback, to be honest. Even Condrey seems thrown.
Miss Gordon inches forward in her seat, clearing her throat. “The government wants to take our guns away. They have an agenda, so the only way they can get their bill to pass through Congress is to make up—”
“What are you talking about,” Tamara cuts her off. It’s not a question.
Miss Gordon is one of our special ed teachers. She wears a pink sweatshirt with an iron-on decal of a kitten printed across her chest. The image has faded from a few too many spins in the washing machine. That cat has deteriorated around the edges, but its paw still reaches up to wave hello at the rest of faculty. Miss Gordon has never struck me as being an outspoken individual—or, more to the point, I don’t think I’ve ever really heard her state her case about much of anything, staunchly political opinions or otherwise. I always greet her in the hallway—Mornin’!—filing in with the rest of the teachers before school starts each and every day.
What nobody is willing to say, not even Tamara, is that the biggest difference—the key difference—between Miss Gordon and herself is that Miss Gordon has lived here her whole life. She is old-school Danvers. In fact, she first taught here when there still was a school in town. That one closed down, decades back. It wouldn’t reopen until the rebirth of Danvers commenced and the heretical pedagogy crept in. Before everything became touchy-feely here. So when Tamara asks point-blank—well, not asks, demands to know what in the hell Miss Gordon is talking about, it’s not much of a stretch to see where this is heading. Careening.
Miss Gordon sits up and speaks directly to Tamara, her double chin lifted. “I was listening to the radio and I heard it wasn’t proven that the shooting actually—”
“You can’t be serious.” Tamara again. I can hear the disbelief in her voice. The incredulousness of it all. “Are you serious?”
“I’m agreeing with you,” Miss Gordon offers. A misguided olive branch. “I don’t think we should do lockdowns, either.”
