Long Division (13 page)

David was bound to spending a whole week in his hometown of Port-land, Oregon, so we celebrated the holidays together in mid-December. I remember thinking it all felt so grown up and because of that, borderline lame. But really, it was a fantastic day. We drove up to Seattle and spent the morning in the aquarium
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and the afternoon touring his favorite microbrewery. We were already tipsy when we settled down for a steak dinner, a meal hearty enough to induce the sort of food coma where sitting for two hours during the Pacific Northwest Ballet's
The Nutcracker
was both welcome and almost necessary. Our seats were close enough that I could see the sinewy lines in the arms of the lithe dancers as they flapped and waved with a grace not unlike that of my new octopus idol. Retrospectively, though this outing was pleasant, it was kind of a boring thing to do. See the f-ing
Nutcracker
? I probably won't be due for another session of waltzing gumdrops for a good decade at least.

Annie: Will fix her hair to suit the tastes of her sweet mother and convince her parents that smothered enchiladas is a traditional Christmas Eve dish in Mexico and a great idea for their own holiday feast. Did Annie mention she's an only child?
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Her parents will warmly and eagerly go for the plan o' enchiladas, and they will eat at their kitchen table. It still has four chairs.

David: will spend as much time as possible on the telephone spouting well-wishings to his parents, his grandparents, and six brothers and sisters. And hopefully his girlfriend!

 

I wonder what Gus and Rex (his dad) and I guess, maybe Gina are doing.

T
oday I'm calling my book
Pins and Fucking Needles
for reasons that are very obvious.

 

Talk about tumultuous. The first day back from winter break is always messy. The kids are nonstop bragging and sharing and practically buzzing inside their new oversized sweaters. There are always fresh haircuts and a couple of boys who seem to have grown several inches over the holiday. Like all the ham and candy canes stimulated the production of growth hormones. But this year when I stumble into the teacher's lounge, the secretary immediately tells me to stop by Gene's office. She says it in a way that reveals nothing as to why the principal needs to see me first thing. So of course I get nervous, rolling through any potentially questionable words or actions I've committed that could merit a talk from the school's top dog. The kids call him Mr. Barkley, or Mr. Barfley when they think I can't hear. Barfley has an air about him that makes one suspect he was once hip and attractive—nice clothes, good hair—but like anyone, age has betrayed him, and he just can't wear the paunch belly and falling jowls with the kind of frat-boy confidence it seems he used to possess. He's always saying one-word sentences like
Absolutely!
and
Awesome!
with more enthusiasm than anyone can believe. He coaches JV girls' basketball at one of the high schools in our district, and I swear every time I visit his office, he's poring over catalogs for uniforms and snazzy warm-up gear. It's a bit disturbing.

“Harper,” he says this morning. “You've got a new kid today.”

My natural reaction is pure glee. A newbie! Another story, another personality, another potential friend for the few seemingly friendless shy kids. My brood of twenty-eight bumped up to twenty-nine, which sucks for partner assignments, but is a prime number and somehow that makes it feel like a more cohesive bunch. An indivisible group! I've had new kids before, but usually a few weeks into the school year. Never halfway.

“Lacey Atkins. Here's the file from her last school. Looks like a bright and easy-going kid. Let me know if you need anything.” Barfley doesn't give me a chance to talk and really, there's no need to. I head for my classroom and prepare myself for an even bubblier first day back.

“Class, this is Lacey Atkins. She just moved to Tacoma from California and she'll be with us for the rest of the year.” I give the standard
Let's all help Lacey feel at home here
speech, which basically means
No crap or I'll kill you.
Lacey is a doll. Is she a doll, Principal Barfley? Absolutely! Long, skinny braids pulled up into a thick ponytail. Real stylish clothes and dangly gold hoop earrings that have a delicate scrawling cutout of her name cradled in the bottom curve. She's wearing a belt encrusted with plastic gems, and I can almost smell the cherry ChapStick-scented envy from the eight or nine prissy girls in my class. As Lacey walks to her desk, I almost feel intimidated myself. The sort of ridiculous inferiority I felt as a college sophomore at parties, surrounded by sorority girls and their perfect, shiny everything. It's silly how an eight-year-old can remind me that I'm inarguably a huge dork, but Lacey just radiates coolness.

The day goes well. By lunch recess, Lacey seems to have attached to the trio of girls led by Lizzie McDonnell, and I'm relieved to hear them talking about tetherball rather than hip-huggers as they shuffle out of the room. A few minutes after the final release bell rings and the troops
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have all departed, I hear the sound of sneakers slapping and heels clacking in the hall. Lacey bursts through the door panting, followed by a woman a little older than myself with the same gold name earrings (though I can't read them from a distance), the same long braids, and the same big, dark eyes.

“Mom! And this is my teacher, Miss Harper.” Lacey yanks her mother's arm so that she flies forward a few steps and is standing so close to my desk that she could be turning in a math test. I stand up and come around. I'm about to open my mouth when she beats me.

“Hi, Miss Harper. Lacey wanted me to come in and say hello. I'm Charese, Lacey's mommy. Looks like a really great classroom you have here.” Charese sounds very sincere. Not patronizing and skeptical like many of the other moms.

“Oh. Thanks. I like it.” I don't know how to gracefully receive the compliment. It's not like it's a sweater and I can say,
Oh, it was on sale
or
Just a hand-me-down from my old roommate.
The classroom, with all the wild animal posters, the beanbag chairs by the Book Nook, the fourteen spider plants and six cacti along the windows, and the giant butcher paper collage of the water cycle,
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it actually is genuinely mine. And theirs, of course. But theirs under my guidance. Tutelage. Leadership. Mentorship. Awesomeship. I notice I've been taking too long sweeping my glance around the classroom, but when I look back Charese is smoothing Lacey's hair and smiling. Her casual compliment is the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a very long time. I say thanks again and that I hope Lacey will like it here.

“Sure, she will,” Charese says. “We weren't too hot on leaving San Diego, but Lacey's daddy was a bit too hot on his buddy's little sister. So we had to get out.” I can start to feel my shoulders curl forward because that's what I do when I'm socially uncomfortable. In my three years teaching, the personal lives of my students have stayed conveniently out of the classroom. Yeah, there are always the ones who wear stinky clothes and who complain about weekends at their dads' houses, but I've never had such a fresh family dysfunction spewed in my face.

“Well, if you have any questions about the Tacoma area, I've lived here most my life.” Yes. I can show you the grimy diners of my youth and shortcuts along South Tacoma Way.

“Yeah, me too. Met Lacey's daddy while he was stationed at Fort Lewis. We moved down south four years ago.” Charese's directness is killing me. I suddenly feel like one of my eight-year-old slackers stuttering to give an oral book report on something he didn't read.

“Oh. Well. I bet it's kind of nice to be home.” I'm trying so hard to remove the goofiness from my smile and replace it with compassion. I mean, I think I'm feeling compassion. It should look authentic.

“Right. My mother's house really beats a day at the beach. Anyway, nice to meet you, Miss Harper. We better hit the road.” Charese reaches down to Lacey and fixes a twisted shoulder strap on her daughter's backpack. Turning it over causes the purple pack to shift and align in the middle of Lacey's back, distributing the weight of her first day at a new school into a uniform, manageable burden. And there's something about the way Charese does it that's so natural and mature. Like she wasn't even thinking about it but subconsciously knows that the simple act will save her daughter from any risk of scoliosis. I am in awe of Charese. It's obvious that she'd been with Lacey's father for years—probably since she was a teenager herself—and here she is back in her hometown, wounded and probably tired. But her makeup is perfect, her demeanor pleasant, and her child obviously adoring. This woman has got her shit together.
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So I know that it's kind of lame, but I spend Friday night with Loretta. Gus had invited me to the opening gala of some art exhibit, and even though it promised nude photography and free wine, I passed. By Friday night I'm usually so tuckered out, and I knew I just didn't have the wit to clink glasses with Gus's hip friends. If I'm not super aware of myself at those kind of events, I end up spitting wine down my shirt when one of them says,
It's like totally neo-cubist fundamentals under the auspices of bourgeois sentiments.
Or something like that.

I've brought three surprises for my evening with Loretta: an AM/ FM clock radio,
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the backgammon set Gus gave me, and a plastic tub of sugar-free spice drops I bought at the drugstore. I figured old people love spice drops; they're classic, like Ovaltine and Preparation H. I even called Jean to ask if Loretta could eat the candy, and she answered me with her typical exhausted/exasperated tone. Like I'd asked the most obvious thing in the world.

I guess two out of three isn't bad. Turns out Loretta avoids the news on all fronts. She says it's all just depressing and reminds her either of what she is missing (“trapped in this hellhole”) or of how the world is falling apart (“that terrorism gobbeldygook”). I ask her if she likes music, and she says that she does and that there's a stereo in the common room where the residents play jazz records and compact discs. She's glad the holiday season is over because “there's only so much Neil Diamond a woman can handle.” We laugh, and I hope I'll be so funny at her age.