Part 2 (2/2)
It reminds me of my days volunteering at the county hospital, and the way some patients would always touch you, and the touch was warm and slippery and the morphine tanks dripped endlessly, endlessly.
”Don't you ever get tired of it?” Alice is smoking and driving with equal intensity. It is a bright Monday morning.
”Of what?”
”Of having to be at school. Of having to be in front of them, of having them come up to your desk, in the hallways, in the cafeteria. Always wanting to talk to you. And then, the other teachers, always talking about their cla.s.ses, about lesson plans, about the students, about the princ.i.p.al, about faculty meetings and curriculum. All the time. All day long.”
I wave her smoke out of my face and say, ”Well, it's the nature of the job. Everyone takes these jobs, chooses teaching because they do care, right?”
She looks at me, blowing smoke from her lower lip and smiling faintly. ”I notice you didn't say 'we.' ”
”What do you mean?”
”You didn't say, 'We take these jobs because we care.' ”
”I was speaking generally,” I say.
She doesn't say anything, her eyes darting at the traffic. I can't tell if she is thinking of a response, or if she's already moved on.
”I've always known I was going to be a teacher,” I add.
She nods vaguely, hitting her horn lightly as a car threatens to force its way into her lane.
”You'll get used to it,” I say.
”You'll come to enjoy it,” I continue. ”Truly. You'll come around.” I can't stop talking. Somehow, it's me now who can't stop.
The sense always that there is a ticking time bomb ... and then, quite suddenly, it seems to be ticking faster.
It is a month or so before final exams, and I'm in the main office, where the attendance secretary is helping me track down an errant student.
”Don't take it personally, Miss King.” She clucks her tongue. ”Peggy's been missing all of her cla.s.ses. We're going to have to call her mother.”
”All right,” I say. As I turn, I collide with Princ.i.p.al Evans, his vested chest nearly knocking me down.
”I thought I heard you, Miss King,” he says. ”Come into my office for a moment, will you?” He opens the door for me with his usual formality.
”Have a seat. I have a small favor to ask.”
”Yes, sir.”
”When we hired your sister-”
”Sister-in-law.”
”Sister-in-law. When we hired her last fall it was under the precondition-the state-dictated precondition-that we would receive a copy of her certification from ... what was it...” He began thumbing through the file in front of him.
”Van Nuys Community College,” he reads aloud, then looks up at me, over his reading gla.s.ses.
”Right.”
”Well, somehow we never received the paperwork from Van Nuys. Or from Lomita, where she taught for ... a semester.”
”Really.” I want to be more surprised than I am.
”I'm sure it's merely an oversight.” He smiles serenely.
”I'm sure. Why-may I ask, why are you asking me and not Mrs. King herself?” ”Well, you see, I didn't want her to feel we doubt her,” he says. ”She's very sensitive, you know. A fairly green teacher.”
”I see. I'll be sure to bring it up with her.”
”And I'd hoped to take care of it today, because I have a lunch meeting Wednesday with the superintendent about next year's renewals. Do you know, will she be back tomorrow?”
”Pardon me?”
”Well, I might have broached the subject with Mrs. King herself, delicately, but her illness-”
”Illness?” Alice had seemed fine when we drove to school that morning.
”Oh, I a.s.sumed you generally drove in together. She's out sick today. Apparently some sort of flu.”
”Right,” I say, rising. ”I'll speak with her tonight.”
”Righto.”
As I walk out, head suddenly throbbing, I try to guess at what point Alice might have slipped out of school. At what point she gave up her pretense of coming to work and drove away. Perhaps she felt ill once she arrived.
”Miss Harris, have you seen Mrs. King today?”
”No, no,” she says, thumbing through her card file. ”She called in sick.” She waves a card in front of me. ”She phoned when I first arrived, seven A.M.”
”Thank you,” I say.
That night, I call my brother to tell him about the missing paperwork. I speak to him in simple, even tones, trying to keep my voice free from any concern or doubt or judgment.
Like the detective he is, he asks a series of questions I am in no position to answer, questions about how the school or the college must have bungled the process, why he and Alice hadn't been told sooner. Then, he a.s.sures me that he will take care of it.
”There must have been some mistake, some kind of filing error or something,” he says, and even over the phone I can somehow see his brow wrinkled in a gesture so old it seems timeless.
”Don't worry,” he says, for the third time.
”I'm not worried, Bill.”
”I'll drive to Van Nuys myself if necessary,” he adds.
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