Evan Hunter: The blackboard jungle

“I love you, Rick,” she said.

“Are you going to really love me?”

“I really love you, darling.”

“Have you cooked supper yet?”

“No, I...” She put her hand to her lips because she hadn’t even begun supper yet, and here Rick was home with wonderful news, news that rated at least a supper begun. Her green eyes clouded. “I...”

“Good! Because I am going out for supper. I shall bring supper home to you as befits the wife of a new English teacher at North Manual Trades High School, Incorporated, of America.”

“Rick,” she said, chiding and laughing at the same time, and feeling the happiness swell inside her like a blossoming flower.

“How about ravioli?” he asked, his eyes sparklingly excited. “How about that? That goes well with champagne, doesn’t it?” he asked. “Ravioli, and a good antipasto before. And we’ll put candles on the table, and these roses, by God, these good American Beauty roses!”

“All right, Rick,” she said, watching him happily, loving the excitement in his eyes, and the high flush on his cheeks. “All right, Rick.”

“And I want you to wear your black strapless, and I’ll wear my blue...”

“Rick, I’d never get into it!” she complained.

“The hell you say, Skinny.” He swept her into his arms again and kissed her lingeringly this time, and she tightened her arms around his neck, not wanting to let him go, wanting to preserve this bubble of complete happiness forever, wanting to coat it in bronze and put it on the living room end table, the way people put a baby’s first pair of shoes on the living room end table.

He released her suddenly, holding her at arm’s length. “That new maternity thing then, the pink one. I want this to be dressup, Anne. Do you understand?”

“Yes, darling,” she said. “I do.”

“Good. Are you happy, Anne?”

“Yes, I’m very happy.” She could not keep the happiness off her face, and she knew he must have seen it there because it was reflected on his own face, in his eyes, in the smile on his lips.

“Good. Now you set the table, and don’t forget the candles. You can use those goddamn brass candlesticks your mother gave us. By God, I knew they’d come in handy someday.” He laughed aloud, and he danced a little jig across the kitchen floor, and then he pointed a finger at her like a commanding officer and said, “Hop to it, wench! I’ll go get the vittles.”

He kissed her again, swiftly this time, and she said “Be careful, darling,” and he left the apartment like a whirlwind, leaving a curiously empty silence behind him.

They could not have asked for more from the evening.

The candles cast a warm glow onto the stiff regularity of a City Housing Project kitchen, and the food looked inviting and tempting. They ate with relish, and he related the entire interview to her, still excited, leaving nothing out, telling her all about the frightened jerk who was there when he came in, and then all about Jerry and how guilty he’d felt about him (to which Anne said, “That’s silly, Rick. Someone had to get the job”), and then all about how he’d recited Hank the Cinq, and Stanley calling it Henry the Fourth to trip him up. He told her all about it, and she listened while she ate, listened excitedly, enjoying the experience vicariously because he told it so marvelously, leaving no details out.

And afterward they turned on the radio and danced in the living room, with the cool breeze blowing off the East River, and across Bruckner Boulevard, and up Soundview Avenue, into their eleventh floor window. They danced with her belly big against him, and he held her tightly, and they didn’t speak, just listened to the music and felt the breeze and were content in the tight little happy vacuum they had built around themselves.

In bed, they were not awkward. It had become awkward this past month, sometimes so awkward that all the pleasure was lost in their near-adolescent strugglings. She had begun to curse her mountain of a belly because she had always enjoyed bed with Rick, and now it was rapidly becoming anything but a pleasure. But tonight, there was no awkwardness. There was something about both of them tonight, something that transcended the hill of flesh that could have made things difficult. She was slender again for him tonight, the way she had always been, and she did not even realize she was pregnant, this thing in both of them changed all that.

They did not know what this thing was. They accepted the gift gratefully, moving with the casual abandon of expert ballet dancers, but with none of their scientific aloofness. This thing that miraculously surrounded them was all a part of Rick’s getting the job, and the impromptu supper suggestion, and the dancing afterward, and now the sex in this beautifully tender way they had almost forgotten.

They did not stop to realize that this thing about them was simply being in love.

Solly Klein had been to Organizational Meetings before. In his twelve years at Manual Trades he had been to plenty of them. And in his own words, they were all just so much horse manure. The Boss would get up there like the coach of a football team between halves, and he’d tell them all how he wanted them to get out there and fight. He’d tell them all what a fine school this was, as if they all didn’t know this was not a fine but a ratty school, and then he’d tell them all to get out there and fight again.

Solly had been getting out there and fighting for twelve years, and he prided himself upon the fact that he was still not punch drunk. He did not know why he was not punch drunk, but he imagined it had something to do with his attitude, and his attitude was damn well not shaped by any stupid Organizational Meetings. It always amazed him how The Boss could get up there in front of all those fairly honest people and lie his goddamn head off so baldfacedly. It was like using an advanced form of Orwell’s doublethink, he supposed, but he always wondered if The Boss really belived everything he said about the vocational school system and the need Manual Trades filled in that complex, complicated system.

This year, there was a new Boss, and so the between-halves talk would probably be more spirited. He remembered back to when Ginzer had come in as principal, and the talk then had really set a mark for spiritedness. Ginzer had come to Manual Trades fresh from an administrative assistant’s job at Evander Childs, which was a fairly decent academic high school. He had read all the books about the vocational high school, and he had proceeded to tell the gathered teachers — some of whom had been at Manual Trades for close to twenty years — all about it. They were very polite, and they did not laugh at him. Perhaps because the talk had had so much spirit in it. Besides, they were all returning from summer vacation, and facing the fall term after summer vacation is certainly not a laughing matter. Not at Manual Trades.

Of course the new Boss, Small was his name — and he was anything but, if Solly was any judge of height — had come from another vocational school, and so he should know the score. He had caught a glimpse of him this morning as he’d gone into his office, and after that Stanley had led in his bevy of new English teachers, all shined up and spruced, the way the new English teachers looked every year. Kalbenstadt had followed Stanley in with a new science teacher, and Morley trailed behind both of them with the two new history men, and that was probably the fall lineup as picked by Red Barber in Collier’s. Thank you. Red Barber.

The meeting had been called for noon, and it was quarter past that now, but these damn things never started on time. The tables in the library had been situated so that they formed a rough semicircle around one table over near the fiction section. The Boss, naturally, would sit at that table, together with Mike Angelico and a few of the other wheels. Solly had greeted all the old-timers, and they’d exchanged the usual prattle about how was your summer and how was yours , and then he’d found an inconspicuous spot at a table off to one side of the Boss’ table. He’d also found an old copy of Today’s Woman , and he was leafing through it, musing over the crap women would read and wondering what a copy of a woman’s magazine was doing in Manual Trades, when Stanley came in with his train of English teachers again.