Lauren Takes Leave (3 page)

“Myself, of course!” She laughs.

“Of course!” I say, pretending to know what the hell she’s
talking about. “Good luck, then! Gotta run!”

Shay waves good-bye. I watch her graceful descent, amazed
that someone in four-inch heels can make walking down stairs look like
floating.

And then I see the sign: VOTE HERE TODAY! SCHOOL BOARD
OFFICERS ELECTION! POLLS OPEN 7 A.M. TO 9 P.M.

I push past a few more voters and dash down the hall like
I’m really, really excited to be here.

My mailbox contains nothing except a small, handwritten
note scribbled on our principal’s personalized stationery, reading:
Please see
me.

Now, that can’t be good
, I think, leaving through
the nurses’ office door so as to avoid bumping into our fair leader, Martha
Carrington, before homeroom.

I should probably inform her that I’ll be leaving for the
county courthouse as soon as my substitute shows up, but that will have to wait
until I’m on my way out the door in an hour’s time.

Usually, I would stop by Kat’s classroom to say good
morning, but since I don’t want to be spotted and I’m running exceptionally
late, I head directly to the middle school wing, slip inside my own classroom,
and close the door behind me.
Safe,
I think.
At least for now
.

A nanosecond later, the bell rings and my homeroom
students start pouring in. I take a deep breath, put on my happy teacher face,
and say, “Welcome!”

Let the games begin.

A few minutes into a one-on-one reading conference during first
period with a kid named Martin, it hits me:
He has not read this book
.

Problem is, neither have I.

It’s a novel called
Ice Glory
. While I read tons
and tons of young adult literature, this is one that I have missed. In fact,
now that I think of it, when we were in the library last month and the kids
were taking out books, Martin kept asking me about titles. “That’s a good one;
I think you’d like it!” I had said about
The Westing Game
, and, when he
put it back on the shelf and picked up a Gary Paulsen novel instead, I had
said, “He’s my favorite author; I’ve read all of his books!” Finally, Martin
found one I hadn’t read. “It looks good,” was all I could muster. And that’s
the one he selected.

And now he’s bullshitting me with bizarre details that
just wouldn’t make sense in a story about ice hockey.

“Then the dad, he’s the brain surgeon, gets into this car
accident and is paralyzed from the waist down,” Martin says.

“Wow,” I say. “That’s so…unexpected.”

“I know!” Martin says, like he just can’t believe it
himself.

“So, how does it end?”

“With this huge alien invasion.” He doesn’t miss a beat,
this kid.

I take the book from his hands and flip it over to study
the blurb on the back. The story centers on a boy from a small town in Montana
who wants to skate his way to fame and fortune. It’s based on the true story of
an Olympic gold medalist.

“Extraterrestrials, huh?” I ask, my eyes locked on his.

Martin squirms in his seat.

“Did you really read it?”

Martin makes an I-don’t-know-don’t-ask-me-I’m-just-the-messenger
face, but he will not speak.

I believe Martin is pleading the fifth.

I look past Martin to where my New York State Middle
School Association “Teacher of the Year 1998” plaque hangs forlornly on the
wall, crooked and in need of a dusting. There had been a ceremony in Albany, a
new dress, champagne filled with bubbles of hope. I shook hands with the governor,
who suggested I come work for him, help overhaul the failing schools across the
state.

But I had just met Doug, and I didn’t want to move upstate
and away from him and from the middle schoolers that I loved, for a job in
educational policy.

When I first started teaching, and for quite a while after
that, education was a field full of promise and excitement. I spoke at
conferences nationwide and planned on using my classroom research to write
books on educational theory. I created a writing inventory checklist now used
by every teacher in my school district.

There was so much to do, to look forward to.

And now?

I still have that folder filled with research notes in the
top drawer of my desk, and occasionally I revisit it. When I do, I get inspired
all over again and promise myself that during the summer I’ll write up a
proposal and send it to an educational journal for review. But then I never do.

I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. I mean, I recently
bought a small notebook to carry in my pocketbook and jot down ideas for
classroom research. But most of the pages are filled with lists of things I
need to buy at CVS.

The fact is, I’m rooted in the great countdown of tenured
life. In twenty-four years, I can retire at eighty percent of my salary and
with sixty-five percent of my sanity, with a gold watch and a gray head of
hair.

I turn away from the plaque to study the rest of the sixth
graders in my first-period class. They are quiet, hunched over their books, but
are they reading? And how much do I care if they are or are not? Is everyone
just going through the motions and faking their way through, trying to coast?

Or is it just this one little asshole?

I look back at Martin, his eyes too big for his face, his
head too big for his body, his hair cut unevenly. At the open house last fall, his
father insisted in front of one hundred other families that I should be
teaching the composition of e-mails, not essays, because that’s a skill these
kids are going to need in the real world.

I decide,
Nah, it’s just this asshole
.

What is the appropriate sentence for Martin, book faker,
in this particular case?

I’m thinking about one of three punishments. I could make
him reread
Ice Glory
and we could conference again in a week. Or,
better, I could select another book, one that I know inside out, and make him
read that one. In fact, I could take that one step further and say that for the
last three months of the school year I will handpick all of his reading
material and get written as well as oral reports from him each time he finishes
a book.

I know what will happen here. Instead of reports I’ll get
phone calls from Martin’s parents. I’ll have to defend my point of view to the
guidance counselor. Next thing you know, I’ll be roped into spending more time
with Martin than I do already, giving him help after school and during lunch
recess, eating at my desk instead of with friends in the teachers’ café. And
all the while, he’ll continue to look at me with those bulging eyes and that
crooked hair, stressing me out with his inherent awfulness. Eventually, I’ll
fantasize about running him over with my car in the parking lot, and I’ll end
up in jail.

Whose punishment is that, I ask you?

“Hey, Martin,” I say, snapping back to attention.

“Yeah?” He looks at his watch. There’s only a minute left
in the class period and he’s counting down the seconds.

“Good job.” I smile, giving him a thumbs-up. Like a rabbit
freed from the jaws of a raccoon, he darts from the room, bewildered but not
unpleased.

The other children file past me and I wave good-bye, wish
them a nice day, remind them of the homework.

A weight lifts from my shoulders. Like Martin, I feel like
I’ve just dodged a bullet.

My substitute is nowhere to be found. Neither is a pen. I
scribble an unimaginative lesson plan for the remaining sections of sixth-grade
English, using a hot pink highlighter, and leave it in the center of my
cluttered desk, hoping the sub can find it.

Then I call down to the guidance counselor’s office,
explaining my situation. “So you’re going to miss the lunchtime grading session
for the state exams?” she asks accusingly.

Oh crap. Forgot about that.

“It looks that way, Shirley,” I say.

“Well, that’s not fair to the other members of the English
Department, who are going to have to work longer now to grade your papers as
well as theirs. They’ll probably have to stay after school.”

I picture the seven other members of my department
silently cursing me for my absence while they sit, hunched over test booklets,
trying to decipher chicken scratch and determine whether the responses are
worth a random score of a 3 or a 4. I search my brain for a solution. “Maybe…I
can…how about if I come in early tomorrow to do it?”

“You know they have to be completed today. The state needs
them by the end of the week.” She sighs.

Like I’ve planned this or something. Like I’ve concocted a
lame excuse to get out of my responsibilities.

“Shirley, I have
jury duty
for God’s sake! It’s not
like I’m going on a tropical vacation! I’ve had a tough morning, okay? So
just…let it go!” I slam the receiver back onto the phone, knocking the whole
thing off the wall.

“Jeez!” I cry. My hands are shaking as I pick up the phone
and reattach it. Now I’m going to have to buy Shirley some Lindor truffles. From
experience, I know she likes the peanut butter ones.

I’d like to crawl under my desk and hide from the world
for a while, but there’s a knock at my classroom door.

It’s my principal, Martha Carrington.

Of course it is.

And she doesn’t look happy to see me.

Naturally.

“Come in!” I say with fake enthusiasm, pulling the door
open and making a sweeping gesture with my hands.

Martha’s neat hair is brown and her small eyes are brown
and her fuddy-duddy clothes are brown, and I can’t for the life of me determine
how old she is. Fifty-five? Seventy-one? A hundred and forty-three?

She enters my classroom stiffly and does a lap around the
perimeter, like a general surveying his conquered territory after battle. I see
the disorganized space from her point of view and cringe inwardly. My classroom
is a safe haven for abandoned items that never make their way to the lost-and-found
box at the end of the hallway. Currently, I am providing shelter for a homeless
sweatshirt, soccer cleats, a football, and several textbooks from other
classes. There is a pile of newspapers in the right hand corner; glue sticks
and scissors are scattered on desks.

“We’re just wrapping up our journalism unit,” I say, by
way of explanation. I pick up some loose feathers and tuck them into my pants
pockets. She wouldn’t understand.

Martha turns and studies me, left eye twitching.

“So…?” I begin, as a way of politely asking,
What the
hell are you doing in here, when I could be having a cup of coffee with Kat and
chatting away my free period before heading off to the courthouse for the rest
of my awful day?

“You don’t seem ill,” she states flatly.

“That’s because I’m not,” I counter.

“Then we have a serious problem here, Mrs. Worthing.”

“Martha, call me Lauren, please.” I say this every time
we’ve spoken since she first arrived at our school five years ago. I think she
does it so that I’ll call her Mrs. Carrington.

You see how well that’s working.

She crosses the room to my desk and begins typing furiously
at the keypad of my computer, logging me out and logging herself in without
asking my permission. Then she actually sits down in my desk chair. I stand
awkwardly at her side, looking on. Her beady little rodent eyes meet mine. “My
records tell me that you have been absent from school nine times this year.”

“Nine times?” I ask, with actual surprise. I thought it
was more like six.

“Yes, Mrs. Worthing—Lauren—
nine times
.”

Indeed, the blue screen staring back at me does reflect
that information. “Wow. I guess I really
have
been sick this year.” I
pull up a chair and sit across from my own desk.

“I
guess
,” Martha intones, trying to match my
vernacular. I feel like throwing in some “yo’s” and “whatev’s” just to hear her
repeat them back to me.

The thought makes me stifle a chuckle, but it still
doesn’t explain why she’s visiting me in my classroom, or why she seems to be
upset with me.
Again.
Thinking back to our last meeting, I tuck my
clammy palms under my thighs to keep my hands from wanting to strangle her.

“Yet this morning’s notes from my secretary show that you
have called for a substitute for later this morning.”

“Oh!” I say, understanding now. “Did she not show up?” I
ask. “I need her here by nine thirty.”

“The substitute is not the problem.” Here she stops, seems
to consider what to say, like plotting her next move in a game of Battleship. She
tilts her head and raises a finger to the side of her face, stroking a
grotesquely large mole just under her right ear. I try to stay focused on her eyes,
but she doesn’t make it easy. “The problem is…where are you going?” Her voice
deepens as she leans across my desk and enunciates clearly. “
Ten
absences is your legal maximum as stated in the bylaws of the latest contract,
and today
will be your tenth
unexcused absence for the year. It is only
April, and I fear…” I let her go on for a while, thinking of the way her inner
computer wires are probably getting all crossed and creating sparks that are
shocking her ankles.

I love to think of her spontaneously combusting.

Only then do I speak. “But Martha, this is
not
an
unexcused absence.”

There is momentary silence. “But why ever not, Mrs.
Worthing? Lauren.”

I try not to smile. “Because I’ve been called for jury
duty!” It’s the first time I’ve been able to admit this with actual enthusiasm.

“Oh!” Her tone changes immediately. The American flag in
the left corner of the classroom seems to wave at me. I imagine that a
fastidious, rule-loving person like her is all about public service to one’s
country. She leans back in my chair, pleasant now, good cop and bad cop all
wrapped up in one suburban middle school principal. “I didn’t realize.”