Ever After (3 page)

I did the first half of my practice teaching at Arizona State and applied to do my second half at the American School in Paris, where Mom taught. I wanted to get back to Europe. I never really fit into the American scene.

So, at almost thirty, I came home, lived with Mom and Dad on their houseboat, and learned how to teach. I felt closer to the family than I ever had before. The boat, like the mill, had never been one of my favorite places, but now I loved it. Mom and Dad had a knack for finding places that were unique.

Dad took Wills to the French school every morning and picked him up in the evening. It was tough for Wills, but I think he had a good time with Dad. He began to learn some French, and the river-banks were a terrific place for a seven-year-old boy to play. He made friends with a few French kids, despite the language barriers.

He loved going to the top of the Eiffel Tower. He varied between calling it the “Awful Tower” and the “Eyeful Tower” but said he liked it more than Disneyland. He also enjoyed climbing up on the lead roof of Notre Dame with Dad, the two of them looking as if they'd just conquered Everest. Neither Mom nor I could look at them; we both have a terrible fear of heights, as does my brother, Matt. There are four children in my family. I'm the eldest.

I received good reports on my teaching and a high recommendation from the head of the school. I had done my practice teaching in first grade and decided to remain at this level—kindergarten or first grade. It was the same grade levels as Mom taught. It turned out that when my younger sister Camille did her practice teaching later, at La Jolla in California, she would come to the same decision. It runs in the family. I never thought Camille and I would wind up kindergarten teachers.

W
HEN I'VE
finished my practice teaching, I sit down to write out a curriculum vitae that will sound good. Although I did graduate
cum laude
from Arizona State, I hadn't quite finished my credential. It's hard finding a job in an overseas school without at least two years' US experience. But I decide to try anyway.

I mail out sixty letters, then buy a Eurail pass and start on my journey. It's May. Mom is still teaching, Wills is in school. Dad says he'll take care of Wills when Mom isn't home. I hate to depend on them so much, but there's no other way.

I travel at night from one city to another. I sleep on the train to save hotel bills. I do quite a bit of criss-crossing Europe, looking for the night train-rides that are about eight or ten hours long. When I get off a train in the city where I'm going to be interviewed, I head to a phone, confirm the rendezvous, then look for a reasonable restroom where I can put myself in order. I take more “bird-baths” in sinks of train stations than I ever thought I'd take in my whole life.

Most of the interviews are discouraging. People are usually interested in the fact I can speak French, German, and English, and have a good academic background, but they hold the lack of experience against me. I try to beef my résumé up with my nursery-school teaching in Idylwild and Phoenix, but it doesn't help much.

After two weeks on the road, with one or two interviews every day, I still have nothing definite. The next stop is near Munich. In fact, I have one interview at an international school right at the head of the Starnberger See near the city of Starnberg. We lived nearby, in Seeshaupt, when I was a child and Dad was on sabbatical from his teaching. It's only a half-hour trip on the train from Starnberg to Seeshaupt.

The last time I saw Dad, he said he'd just started writing a new book, part of which takes place in Seeshaupt. He said it's built around the stories he told us in the morning about Franky Furbo, a wonderful magic fox. In fact, I was the one who suggested he could make a great adult book from those stories. I'd love to have read it, but I guess I never will. Or maybe there is a way. I just don't know about those things yet. It's a strange situation we're in.

The man who interviews me in Starnberg, Stan, is one of the smilingest men I've ever met. We get along right away. But it's the same thing: he doesn't think he can hire someone without experience. The fact I speak such good German impresses him. I'm impressed too because he, an American, can speak incredibly good German himself. It turns out his first wife, who has died, was German.

He asks me to wait a few minutes in the office and he'll be right back. I think maybe he's going to the bathroom. I've already given up. After around twenty rejections, one loses confidence. I'm hoping to catch a train down to Seeshaupt before dark.

He comes back smiling. But then he's always smiling. He rubs his hands together.

“You're lucky, Kate. I talked the director into it. I exaggerated your nursery-school experience a bit, even more than you did, so don't make a liar of me. But you're the kind of teacher I'm always looking for, optimistic, smiling, full of enthusiasm and energy. Maybe after you've had two years' experience, you won't be that way, but you're hired to teach first grade. You'll get the same salary as the other first-grade teacher I hired last year. I'm sure you'll love her.”

I could have fallen over right there in his office; I have a hard time to keep from crying. It's all been so difficult the last few years and now it looks so beautiful. I know I must have thanked him but I don't remember. He comes around his desk.

“Come on, Kate, let me show you the school. We're really proud of it. The German government built this place for us and about half our students are German. Their parents don't like the strict, old-fashioned ways of German schools. We have the best mix of Germans, Americans, and all other nationalities, but we teach an American curriculum. It's an exciting place.”

We walk over to the campus, which is in the country, with modern buildings and old cow-barns and a small castle. My room is bright and neither too big nor too small. Stan says they try to keep the classes to under twenty students. God, it's like a dream. I can't believe it. I'm still a little teary.

“Do you have a place to stay, Kate?”

“I have friends near here, in Seeshaupt. I think I can stay there. Then I'll start hunting for a place in Starnberg and be ready to teach in September. Is there any chance I can come out during the summer to get my classroom ready?”

“Anything you want. Boy, this is great for me. Usually I need to hunt up a place for new teachers because they don't speak German. But you're all set. Are you sure you don't want anything?”

I find I'm smiling, and then I laugh.

“How about a contract? I'd actually like to sign a contract so I know this is all true. I can't wait to tell my parents. My little boy, Wills, is just going to love it here. Do faculty children get to go to this school free?”

“Absolutely, completely free to faculty kids. Who do you think I am, Scrooge?”

“More like Santa Claus, Stan.”

The temptation to put my arms around him and give him a big kiss is enormous, but I resist. I don't want to do anything to screw up this chance.

I phone Dad and Mom. They're as excited as I am. I find a little furnished apartment near the lake, and work like crazy getting it into shape. I make curtains, wax all the furniture. It's a little nest on the second floor with a beautiful view of the lake. I have a large room with a corner kitchen and a curved nook eating area. Almost everything's made of wood. I've decided to keep everything simple. I buy two dishes, two cups, two spoons, two knives and two forks. It'll be just Wills and me, no social life, at least for a while. I can't wait till Wills comes.

In the evenings I study my books from Arizona State and plan lessons. I want everything to be just right when I start. I'm very nervous.

I have a little stove but no refrigerator. I'll buy some kind of used refrigerator as soon as I get my first check; for now, I'm almost flat broke. I have enough to pay Wills's air fare and we can get by on food till my first check, but that's it.

Wills arrives at the airport in Munich the same day school lets out at MIS. MIS stands for Munich International School, my school. We both cry, hugging each other outside customs.

We take the S-Bahn home and Wills loves everything—the lake, the town, our apartment. But he falls asleep on the floor in about ten minutes. I carry him to his bed and undress him. I imagine he hasn't slept much the night before with all the excitement. I'd had a hard time getting to sleep myself. I whisper in his ear that I need to go to school for a while but I'll be back when he wakes up.

I'm supposed to go to an end-of-the-school-year party. Stan asked me to come, even though it's the day Wills arrives.

There are six new teachers for the next semester. Stan introduces me and I stand up. People clap. I meet most of the other teachers. One is a huge, bearded guy who doesn't have much hair. I can't get over how much he looks like Dad and my brother Matt. He's flirting with the new librarian. When introduced, he says he comes from Oregon, although he's just been teaching in Southeast Asia. I don't see a wife around. The married teachers seem to have their spouses with them.

I work like mad getting my classroom in order. Wills comes with me every day and plays: on the soccer field, kicking a ball, or at the gym, trying to shoot baskets. They have a great playground here, too. Sometimes he'll come in and give me a hand, pushing desks around.

A couple times the big, bearded guy from Oregon comes in. He's going to be teaching computing and is getting his room fixed up, too. He speaks very slowly, but the more we talk, the more I like him. He doesn't waste time with anything that isn't worth talking about. Chatter is about ninety percent of all conversations anyway, but when he says something it's usually interesting. He can't believe I can really speak German and I'm not German. I try explaining, but I'm not sure I come across.

I find a refrigerator being sold by an elderly German couple, at a price I can pay. They're willing to hold on to it till I get my check, but I need to find someone to move it.

The next time Bert, that's the name of the bearded Oregonian, stops in my classroom, I ask if he could help me move a refrigerator. I promise him a home-cooked meal, American-style, in return. He stares at me a minute, then lifts an eyebrow and says, “Spare-ribs?”

I have no idea where I can find spare-ribs in Germany, although I do know how to cook them. That's one advantage of those years cooking at home instead of washing dishes. So we make the deal. He wrestles that machine out of the cellar of these old people, across town, and up my stairs, single-handedly, as if it were a portable radio or something. He's bushed when he's finished and flops down on my couch.

“You don't perhaps have some of this great German beer around, do you, Kate?”

By luck, I have one bottle. I don't drink beer myself. It isn't cold because we haven't plugged in the refrigerator yet, but he doesn't seem to mind. He has a bottle-opener on the knife with his keys, and drinks it out of the bottle before I can find a glass. Just then, Wills comes running in. Bert lolls back and smiles.

“Hi there, buster, what's your name?”

Wills, his mouth open, is taking in this hunk of a man. Bert has to be six-three and 200 pounds.

“Wills, sir.”

“Well, Wilzer, I've seen you shooting baskets down there in the gym. You like basketball?

“Yeah, but I can't get the ball up high enough to go through the basket. It's too high.”

“Sure you can. Next time I see you down there, I'll show you how. You'll be dropping in baskets like Magic Johnson.”

I've prepared most of the dinner. I've borrowed some dishes and cutlery—so much for my bachelor life. I've let the spare-ribs simmer for three hours, basting them with my ersatz barbecue sauce. I've set the little table. Wills is as excited about having spare-ribs as Bert is. I haven't done any real cooking in quite a while.

Both Wills and Bert eat with such gusto that my hokey barbecue sauce is spread all over the kitchen. No cook can ever complain when people dig in like that, and I don't.

For me, Bert looks part grizzly bear, yet, strangely enough, it's attractive. He's physical, is deeply into sports; likes beer, chasing women, horsing around with the boys. He's exactly the kind of man I've spent most of my life trying to avoid. I also recognize in him some of the things in my dad which drove me up a wall. I wonder what Mom would think of him: dismiss him probably as one of the unwashed peasants. But I admit his very simplicity gets to me. I know I'll need to watch myself.

For Wills, Bert is just some other kid to play with. Bert actually listens to him ramble on, and shows him about ten different silly things you can do with a knife, fork, and spoon, including drumming. They start drumming on the table, the glasses, the dishes, anything they can touch, while Bert sings or hums, “When the Saints Come Marching In.” That's how a lot of the sauce is spread all over the place.

In self-defense, I move over to the kitchen and begin taking things off the table. But all the time my eyes are glued on Bert and he knows it. He's acting up. He knows when I look at his massive forearms or the hair squeezing up over his T-shirt. That's right, he's wearing a T-shirt at the table, a dirty, sweaty T-shirt. After all, he's just moved a refrigerator. I'm giggling, thinking to myself: what would it be like, making love to a grizzly bear?

I have the answer that night. After Wills is in bed, we begin chatting. He tells me about his home town in Oregon, a place called Falls City. His best friends are still his high-school buddies, especially the ones he played basketball with. He's thirty-two, a year older than I am and has never been married, says he has no intention of getting married, at least not for a long time yet.

He makes simple moves, the kind adolescent boys make, and I don't resist. It's been months since I've had a chance to be with a man.