Shake Down the Stars (16 page)

I return my attention to the setting sun, turning everything in its path a fiery orange-red. Mr. Hoffman would often wonder why more people didn't make science their religion. “Why turn to fables when directly above our heads we have the entire galaxies to worship and study. Why can't that be enough?” he'd ask. “We should all be walking around amazed that we exist. Amazed by the sun and moon and the stars. Why do humans have to make things so small, Piper?”

When he'd get like this, the night would usually end with a glass of red wine for him, hot cocoa for me, along with a concerto by one of his favorite composers. Music was part of his religion, too, and we'd often listen to Mozart or Beethoven. He'd close his eyes, showing me, I later realized, how to listen properly. “Notice the French horns here. Ah, see how the cello does its best to keep up with the piano? It's like a dance.”

I smile and bring my finger to the windowpane. “I just realized that I do revere something. I revere the sun.”

“The sun?”

“Here we are warmed and kept alive by a big ball of hydrogen fuel and gas. Someone close to me used to say he worshipped the universe—the
actual
universe started by the big bang, not the New Agey kind. That's what I believe in—all that out there: nebulae and planets, satellites, and galaxies.”

She frowns as if I'm not only an alcoholic but also a wacko; yet I'm buoyed by my thought. As long as I've studied the universe, stared directly into its magnificent mind-blowing existence, I've never really considered how it has saved me over the years, calmed me, given me perspective.

Mr. Hoffman would also say that we humans take our place in the universe far too seriously. “What do we know about anything?” he'd ask, chuckling. “We're nothing more than odd beings on a planet, formed from amoeba!”

I'm finally seeing what he meant. For good or bad, I'm an “odd being” living on a planet, muddling my way through. I close my eyes briefly and envision some early human taking a quick piss in the woods, only to have her child attacked by a lion or any other predator. My example is extreme, sure, but it helps. We've been here a million years—that's enough time for a lot of mistakes, and tragedies, and accidents. I mean, I'm not alone in this. We are all kind of crying out to the people we've hurt. We are all human for what it's worth, living our odd human existence with all the glory and loss a human's life entails.

Sherry says, “I don't get it. You say you worship the sun? Is that some kind of African thing?”

“No, it's a science thing, I guess. I'm interested in astronomy. I'm starting to realize it's the one thing that's been keeping me sane. Think about it. All the key elements in the universe started from a dying star. Carbon, iron, gas. What the stars leave behind are the exact chemicals that we're made from. It's beautiful.” I point toward the sun and sky. “We're part of that. Made from the exact same stuff. It's pretty amazing.”

From the way Sherry shrugs off the view, I have a feeling she doesn't see my point. “Your higher power is your higher power. Just make sure you rely on it.”

I feel good until the waitress appears with our bill and it's time to leave and a particular what-the-hell-am-I-going-to-do-once-I'm-home kind of panic sets in. For the first time in years I won't be going back to my apartment and having a drink. I won't be going home to anything except myself. Suddenly, all my talk about the universe and what it means to be human sounds like nothing but babble.

“You okay?”

“Not really. I don't think I can go home.”

She keeps an eye on me while tearing the bottom portion of the bill and taking out a pen. “Listen, I want you to take my number, and if you feel that urge, feel that bottle taunting you, I want you to call me. It doesn't matter how late it is or how early. It doesn't matter if it's five minutes from now.” She presses the thin slip of paper into my hand. “Call when you feel guilt coming at your throat. Call if you feel depressed or alone or depressed
and
alone. Call me anytime, you understand?”

I can't remember the last time someone was this kind to me, and I stare down at the table in as much embarrassment as gratitude. “Thank you.”

“No need to thank me. Just call if you need to; that's all I ask.”

She stands from the table and motions for me to stand as well. “Come here.” She pulls me in for a hug. After a moment I hear her voice next to my ear. “It was an accident, Piper. Start there. It was a tragic accident. Keep telling yourself that, because it's the truth.”

“N
ext up, our Spring Fling dance. Any volunteers?”

My hand shoots up.

“Are you sure, Miss Nelson?” Gladys asks, glancing down at her notes. “You already chaperoned at the Valentine's Day dance and are helping with this weekend's car wash.”

“I know. It's fine. Count me in.”

The few teachers present look at me askance. Everyone is wondering what is going on with me of late; usually during faculty meetings I'm in the back trying to stay awake if I bother to show up at all. But I returned after winter break with a vengeance. There is no function I'm not willing to help with, no faculty meeting I've yet to miss. I smile weakly at Joe, one of three science teachers here at MacDowell. The number of teachers who attend meetings this late in the semester is up and down; today there are sixteen of us, a paltry representation of the forty-member staff.

The dynamics in any given meeting are exactly the same as in our classrooms: We have our dominators, wisecrackers, shy lotus blossoms, and my former clique—the apathetic group that sits in the back, everyone checking his or her watch and sneaking in text messages.

I glance down at my ever-growing list of things to do. Along with helping out with this weekend's car wash, I'm also substituting for Beatrice during my prep period next week and helping with a fundraiser for seniors who can't afford a yearbook or senior class photos.

It's been two months since I started AA, and while I now know the importance of remaining humble and taking things day by day, I have to confess I'm pretty proud of my sobriety. I'm eight weeks, four days sober, to be exact, and I have two sobriety chips to prove it. The chips look like poker chips and are nothing special—unless you've been an alcoholic most of your life; then they're golden. I keep mine in the box where I keep Hailey's things. Staying sober can be challenging at times. I had Christmas dinner at the rec center with a handful of other addicts; New Year's Eve I was alone with a bottle of sparkling apple juice. But I'm also seeing what life as a sober person has to offer—the peace that comes from staying home and watching a movie or reading a book with a cup of
tea
,
for instance. Not to mention the joys of waking up and knowing exactly where I am, or spending time with the girls and not counting the hours until they leave so that I can have something stronger than a glass of wine.

I attend meetings every single night and on weekends. I keep in close contact with Sherry, too, and I'm following the Twelve Steps; not nearly as religiously as some, but I am trying to be more thoughtful and kind, to others and myself. As soon as I returned from winter break, I spoke to Gladys and apologized for my behavior at school. What's more, I apologized to my first-period class for passing out as I had. I know some would have left it alone—why apologize?—but I wanted my students to know my behavior was reprehensible and that I hoped to make amends by doing my best from here on out. Some students stared back with the typically bored expressions, while others looked on with skepticism, but most were dumbfounded that a teacher would apologize to her class. As Pernell Clark said, “I ain't never forgetting this day in all my life. A teacher saying she's sorry? To me? That's crazy. That's just crazy.”

I even contacted Selwyn. I didn't have his address, so I sent a card to Livermore's city hall. I apologized for blowing him off—twice—and thanked him for being so kind and supportive. I still haven't heard from him and don't think I will, frankly. I mean, how often can you reject a person and expect him to keep taking it? But it's about the actions we put out, as Sherry says, not the response.

Sherry also pushes me to take responsibility for my own actions and has helped me to see how my alcoholic me-ness stopped me from having a more expansive, empathetic view of life. Now when I think of that night at the Reverend's church, for instance, I at least understand how horrified Mom must have been at finding me in my car with that guy, and how my choice to seduce a man in front of her church was totally out of line. Hell, I can't even use being a drunk as an excuse. What I can't let go of, can't forgive, however, is that she slapped me—more than once. Not to mention the disgusted look in her eyes when she called me a heathen. Last Sunday at the mourners' group, a woman named Janet talked about her close relationship with her mother. At one point she said, “Mom was everything to me. Our mothers tell us who we are.” If she's right, it's no wonder I'm so messed up. As a young girl, I saw Mom go through man after man, so why should I be surprised that I acted out sexually when I drank? Sherry and I both agree she's my biggest hurdle, but I'm still too angry to deal with her right now, and since I haven't heard from her, I have to assume she feels the same.

Gladys mentions next year's budget, and there's a collective moan. “Less money, more students,” she laments. “I know we're up to the challenge. Meeting adjourned.”

“Glad I won't be here next year,” I overhear Sarah half whisper to Tina. Sarah and Tina are in the math department. Sarah has been here only two years, but like many of our newly hired, she burned out as quickly as a supernova and is leaving at the end of the school year. Turnover is one of the main problems at MacDowell, along with a lack of funds, low wages, apathy, high dropout rate, school fights. . . .

I glance up at the banner behind Gladys's head as I gather my things—
CHILDREN ARE OUR FUTURE!
And I read the words added by a disgruntled teacher in bright red Sharpie:
As long as they can afford private schooling!

I head to the trailer where we hold after-school study hall. Supervising study hall once a week is another task I signed up for. Mrs. Fitch started study hall last year as a way to give students a safe and quiet place to study after the school closes. So many of our kids go home to parents who don't enforce homework, or their homes are too noisy for them to focus. She came up with the idea to open one of the trailers next to the science building from three o'clock to six thirty. The trailer is even more dilapidated than the rest of the school, with a droopy ceiling stained brown from water damage, and missing tiles. I say hello to Sylvia, the teacher I'm replacing, and take out the papers I need to grade after she leaves. A boy and girl sit up front working intently from thick history books. The only other students here are Sharayray, who sits on a desk in the back combing Martina's hair, and Jesse, who's so busy texting that he doesn't bother looking up.

I look around the empty room with feigned drama. “It's so crowded in here, it's a wonder you can get anything done. So many students taking advantage of study hall. I'm amazed.” The two students up front take their eyes off their books long enough to determine whether I'm joking or not. I don't recognize them and assume they're enrolled in one of our four AP classes. Sharayray, who's had me for English for two years now, ignores me.

The two brainiacs return to their studies, hunched over and as intent as monks grappling with an ancient text. I carry a tinge of resentment toward our AP students, grouped together from the start after achieving a high test score in early elementary school and from then on placed in higher-level classes with stricter standards, tracked from their early years to succeed. In other words, they have a chance.

Sharayray trades her brush for a comb. Martina leans back and pops her gum. “Ladies—gentleman,” I say to Jesse. “This is study hall, not a beauty salon. Let's stop combing hair and focus. Jesse, take your phone outside if you don't plan on working.”

“We're hella studying,” Sharayray quips. “We're just taking a break.” She takes a wad of Martina's hair and uses a comb to make a fine part scissor across the back of Martina's scalp. Supposedly Sharayray has a gift for “designing” hair, and she makes money on the side by styling hair at her house and during lunch breaks at schools. What students don't know is how smart she is. Sharayray has always been embarrassed by her high marks and tends to hide her achievements from other students or blow them off. “I just be guessin' the right answers,” she says.

“Miss Erin lets me do hair up in here. She don't care what we do.”

“Do I look like Miss Erin?”

She sighs loudly as she climbs down from the desk and sits next to Martina in a loud huff, leaving Martina's hair looking as if it's suffering from a personality disorder with one side neatly braided while the other side shoots out in wild strands.

“What about my hair?” Martine whines. “I can't go outside like this. She looks to Sharayray for help, but Sharayray only shrugs in my direction. I've been tempted to tell her how her words of wisdom inadvertently saved me from the Neanderthal. Of course I won't, but it was her voice I heard before clamping down on that idiot's ear (
“I pulled a Mike Tyson on that motherfucker”
)
and escaping his apartment.

“Well, okay. Hurry up and finish.”

Jesse exchanges his phone for a game. Martina slaps his arm. “What?” he says.

“Miss Nelson wants you to study, not play around.”

“I am studying! I'm studying this game.”

Blond and blue-eyed, despite his baggy jeans and ratty plaid shorts, Jesse has the solidly Waspy looks of someone who belongs at Park Royce Preparatory, one of the top schools in the Bay Area. But he lives in a foster home and grew up in the hood, as they say. He's been dating Martina since they were freshmen, a lifetime in teen years. His foster mother, Eula, dotes on him, and his foster brother, Angelo, a senior, makes sure he's treated just like everyone else.

He and Martina continue to bicker like the old married couple they've already become. I tell them to quiet down. “Why are you all here, anyway? People are trying to study,” I say.

They look up at the brainiacs as if they've never seen people study before, then answer at once: “We are studying!” “There's nothin' to do outside!” “It's chill in here!”

“Well, if you're staying, please find something productive to do. I know at least two of you have English homework.”

Martina smiles her I'm-so-cute smile and takes out
Long Day's Journey into Night
, our final play of the year. When she slaps Jesse again, he takes out a math book.

Everyone finally quiets down, and I'm in solid grading mode, one essay after another, until I hear Sharayray: “Miss Nelson, is you a alcoholic?”

I look up and all eyes are on me. I buy time saying, “The question is ‘
Are
you an alcoholic?'”

“Well,
are
you?”

Since we alcoholics are masters at lying, honesty is a huge focus of AA meetings, but I'm not sure that admitting my addiction to a group of teens is the right thing to do. Even so, most of the faculty knows about Jesse's mother's drug addiction, which is why he was put into foster care in the first place, and the brainiacs must be here instead of at home for a reason. Which is my way of saying these kids have seen it all.

They continue to stare.

Oh, fuck it.

“Everyone has struggles in life, and I've struggled with alcohol, but I'm trying my best do better. We all have challenges, but as long as we're alive, we're capable of change. I've made mistakes, but I'm here for you and I don't plan on giving up on any of you.”

Martina chomps on her gum. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

Hearing her question, Sharayray and Jesse throw up their hands as if she's gone too far. “You can't be asking her shit like that!”

“That's none of your business!”

“You asked her if she was an alcoholic!”

“That's different!” Sharayray says.

“How?”

“It just is!”

“I ask all my teachers if they have boyfriends!”

“But it's beside the point,” says Jesse. “We were talking about something serious, and then you have to get up in her business.”

“I wasn't in her business any more than you were, fool.”

The matter of my alcoholism is soon lost in their bickering, and after another minute I tell them to go back to their reading. Martina has a mouth, and I'm sure she'll spread what she heard here today, but I'm not worried. I have a feeling most won't care. Besides, I'm doing my best now, today, this hour, this minute; that has to be enough.

Thirty minutes later, Jesse and Martina have decided they've studied as long as they can handle it and start to leave the trailer hand in hand. “Use protection,” I tell them as they walk past my desk.

“Miss Nelson! Dang!”

“I'm just sayin'.”

Jesse adds, “Don't worry, Miss Nelson; the last thing I want is a baby.”

“And you think I do!” Martina shrieks.

“No. I was talking about me.”

“If you're talking about making a baby, you're talking about
us
!
Unless you're making babies with somebody else!
”

“I'm not making babies with anybody; that's my point!”

They continue their back-and-forth as they head out the door.

When it's quiet again, Sharayray raises her hand. “Miss Nelson, you remember how you gave me that list of books to read summer before last?” She'd just finished her freshman year and hadn't earned a grade lower than a B+. But I was onto her and wanted to keep her love of reading alive, so I gave her a list of fifteen books, everything from
Their Eyes Were Watching God
to
The Hunger Games
. She read them all. But by her sophomore year . . . with all my drinking, I dropped the ball and stopped paying her or any of my students much attention outside the bare minimum.

“Yes, I remember.”

“Can I have another list for this summer?”

“Of course.”

“I was thinking maybe if you can help me with my writing a little, I could work on that, because I already like to read, Miss Nelson. I'm good at it. I understand all the themes. I've just been thinking, if you give me another list, I can read and work on my writing. I'm thinking I want to go to Berkeley. You know. I can go there if I want to.”