Danielle Steel - Big Girl

After he spent forty-five minutes with her, Eric Walker passed her on to his assistant, and she gave Victoria a tour of the school. It was an impressive building with well-kept classrooms, full of alert students using brand-new, very expensive equipment. It was an atmosphere that any teacher would have given anything to teach in, and they all looked like bright, alert, interested, good kids to her. And then she met with the dean of students, who told her something about their student body, and the type of situations she’d face. They were the same as high school students anywhere, except with more money and opportunities, and in some cases very complicated family situations. But difficult home lives were not exclusive to the very rich, nor the poor.

At the end of the second interview, they thanked her for coming, told her they were seeing several other candidates, and would let her know. And after thanking them too, Victoria then found herself out on the street, looking up at the school, praying she would get the job. She had no idea if she would, and they had been so pleasant to her that it was hard to tell if they were just very polite or enthused about her. She didn’t know. She walked west all the way to Fifth Avenue, and then north five blocks, to the Metropolitan Museum, where she saw a new wing of the Egyptian exhibit, and then had lunch in the cafeteria alone, before treating herself to a cab back to her hotel.

She sat in the backseat watching New York slide by and people swarm around like ants in the streets. All she could hope was that she would be part of it one day. She expected to hear back from Madison in a few weeks. And she realized that if she didn’t get the job, she would have to start interviewing at other schools, in Chicago, and maybe even L.A., although the last thing she wanted to do was go home. But if nothing else turned up, she might not have any other choice. She dreaded the thought of living in L.A. again, and even worse, the possibility of living at home, and facing all the same problems she’d always had there. Living with her parents would be too depressing.

She packed her bag and took a cab to the airport. She had an hour to spare before her flight, and she was so anxious after the interview, wondering whether she had done well or not, that she went to the restaurant nearest her gate and ordered a cheeseburger and a hot fudge sundae, and devoured both. She felt stupid once she had. She hadn’t needed it, or the french fries that came with it. But she had been starving and nervous, and the meal she’d eaten offered some comfort and relief from her terrors. What if she didn’t get the job? She told herself that if she didn’t, she’d find something else. But the Madison School was the one she wanted most, if they would just give her a chance. She knew how unlikely that was, fresh out of school.

When they called her flight, she got up, picked up her hand luggage, and headed for the gate. All she could do now was wait and go back to Northwestern. All things considered, for once it hadn’t been a bad Valentine’s Day. And it would be the best one of all if she actually got the job in the end. She was still nervous about it, when she got on the plane, even after the cheeseburger and hot fudge sundae. They hadn’t helped. And she reminded herself as she put on her seat-belt that she would have to be serious about her diet again, and start jogging. Graduation was only three months away. But when she was offered a bag of nuts and another of pretzels, she couldn’t refuse. She ate them absentmindedly as she thought about her interview, hoping she hadn’t blown it in some way, and praying she’d get the job.

Eric Walker, the head of the Madison School, made the call to Victoria himself in the first week of March. He said it had been a tough choice between her and several other teachers, but he was happy to tell her that she had the job, and she was thrilled. He said a contract had been sent to her by mail.

She was going to be the youngest member of the English department, and she would teach four classes, to sophomores, juniors, and seniors. She had to report for teachers’ meetings on September 1st, and school would start the following week. In exactly six months, she was going to be teaching at the Madison School in New York. She could hardly believe it. And unable to keep the good news to herself, she called her parents that night.

“I was afraid you’d do something like that,” her father said with a disapproving tone. He actually sounded disappointed in her, as though she’d been arrested for taking her clothes off in a supermarket and was in jail. As in why did you go and do a dumb thing like that? “You’re never going to make a penny as a teacher, Victoria. You need to get a real job, in advertising or PR, or something in the communications field. There are lots of things you can do. You can work in the PR office of any major company. You can go to work at McDonald’s and make more than you will as a teacher. It’s a total waste of time. And why New York? Why not here?” He didn’t even ask what kind of school it was, and gave her no credit for landing her first job, in a first-rate school, against stiff competition. All he had to say was that it was the wrong job in the wrong city, and she’d always be poor. But teaching was her chosen career, and it was one of the country’s best private schools.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” she said, apologizing for it, as though she had done something wrong. “It’s a really great school.”

“Really? How much are they paying you?” he asked bluntly. She didn’t want to lie to him, so she told him the truth. And she knew too that it was going to be hard to live on, but it was worth the sacrifices to her, and she wasn’t planning to take anything from him. “That’s pathetic,” he said, sounding disgusted, and handed the phone to her mother, who sounded worried the minute she got on the phone.

“What happened, dear?” her mother asked.

“Nothing. I just got a terrific job, teaching at a wonderful school in New York. Dad just thinks they’re not paying me enough, that’s all. But it’s a real coup that they hired me at all.”

“It’s such a shame that you want to be a teacher,” her mother said, echoing the party line, and managing to convey to Victoria, just as she always had, that she had failed, and was a disappointment to them. They took the fun out of everything for her, and always had, and any sense of accomplishment over what she had achieved. “You could make so much money doing something else.”

“I think I’ll really like the job, Mom. I love the school,” she said, sounding young and hopeful, and trying to hold on to the excitement and enthusiasm and pride she had felt before she called.

“I suppose that’s nice, dear. But you can’t be a teacher forever. At some point you’ll have to get a real job.” When did teaching become not a “real” job? It was all about money to them, and how much you made. “Your sister just made fifty thousand dollars for a two-day shoot for a national campaign,” her mother said. It was more than Victoria was going to make in a year. And Grace just did it for fun, and the college fund their parents had set up for her. To Gracie, modeling was like a game, for which she was highly paid, and she only did it occasionally. Victoria was going to be working hard for the money she made. The discrepancy and dichotomy were shocking to her. But it was no secret that teaching was not a highly paid job, and she had known that when she chose it as a career. She didn’t have the modeling opportunities that Gracie did anyway. They were not an option for her. And teaching was her vocation, not just her work. She hoped that she’d be good at it. “Where are you going to live?” her mother asked her, sounding worried about that too. “Can you afford an apartment on a teacher’s salary? New York is a very expensive city.”