Janice Kay - The Word of a Child

Mariah’s room was on the fourth floor, which kept her in shape. The English teachers didn’t complain, because they stayed the warmest in winter when the inadequate heat the ancient furnace pumped out all rose to their floor, making it comfortable while the math classrooms in the basement were icy.

A student, then a senior at the high school, had come back several years before to paint a minimural of Shakespeare surrounded by actors costuming themselves on the wall outside her classroom. Today she paused, her key in the classroom door, and stared at the lovingly created mural.

Her students liked her. Remembered her. Trusted her.

Tracy Mitchell had trusted her. Had come to her for help.

How could she let one of her students down because her own scars weren’t fully healed?

She turned the key and went into the classroom, for once locking the door behind her. Empty or full, this room was a refuge. Bright posters and glorious words decorated the walls. Old-fashioned desks formed ragged rows. Mariah absently traced with her fingers one of the long-ago carved notes that scarred them: JB+RS. Morning sunlight streamed in the wall of windows. She even loved the old blackboard and the smell of chalk and the uneasy squeak of it writing on the dusty surface.

Her meandering course between desks brought her to the one where Tracy Mitchell sat from 10:10 a.m. until 11:00 a.m. every day. Sometimes she whispered with friends or used her superdeluxe calculator to write notes for them to read. But once in a while, she actually heard the magic in words, saw the wonderful, subtle hues they conjured, and she would sit up straight and listen with her head cocked to one side, or she would read her part in a play with vivacity and passion if not great skill.

Mariah stood, head bent, looking at the desk. Tracy had a spark. She had promise she would likely never fulfill, given her family background and her tight skirts and her sidelong glances at boys. But it was there, and teachers were sometimes wrong about who would succeed or fail. She did not deserve to be blackmailed, to have her budding sexuality exploited, to have to feel that this, of all things, was her fault.

With another sigh, Mariah went to her desk and dug in her tote for her cell phone. Apparently, despite the sunlight, warm for October, it was really a cold day. A very, very cold day.

Somewhere.

She picked the wadded-up message from the otherwise empty waste can, smoothed it out on the desk and dialed the number.

“Detective McLean.”

“This is Mariah Stavig. You asked me to call.”

His voice was calm, easy, deep, and agonizingly familiar. “I wondered when you have a break today so that we could talk.”

“I take lunch just after eleven. Or I have a planning period toward the end of the school day.”

“Eleven?”

“School starts at 7:20.” Why did he think she was returning his call so early?

He made a heartfelt comment on the hour, with which she privately agreed; students would learn better with another hour of sleep. But Mariah said nothing except, “You must start work early, too.”

“Actually I just got up.” He yawned as if to punctuate his admission. “This is my cell phone number.”

“Oh.” Oh, dear, was more like it. Obviously he wasn’t at the moment wearing one of those well-cut suits he favored. More likely, pajama bottoms sagged low on his hips, if he slept in anything at all. An image of Connor McLean bare-chested tried to form in her mind, but she refused to let it.

“Eleven, then,” he said. “Where do I find you?”

She hesitated for the first time, hating the idea of him in here. But the teacher’s lounge was obviously out, late October days, however sunny, were too chilly to sit outside, and short of borrowing another teacher’s classroom—and how would she explain that?—Mariah couldn’t think of another place as private as this.

“I’m on the top floor of the A building. Room 411.”

“Can I bring you a take-out lunch?”

Annoyed at his thoughtfulness, she was glad to be able to say, “Thank you, but I packed one this morning.”

“See you then.”

She pressed End on her phone and stashed it again in her tote. Her heart was drumming. Ridiculous.

The door to the classroom rattled, and she glanced up to see a couple of blurred faces in the mottled glass. Startled, she saw that the clock had reached seven-fifteen without her noticing.

She let in the eager beavers. Probably eager not for her brilliant instruction, but for the chance to slump into their seats and achieve a near-doze for a precious few minutes before she demanded their attention. Most did, however, drop last night’s assignment into her in-box as they passed her desk.

This ninth-grade crowd was reading Romeo and Juliet. She was big on Shakespeare. She’d let them watch the updated movie version last week, the one with Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio and guns and swimming pools, which she personally detested as much for what it had left out as for the interpretation. But she’d found it effective with the kids, helping them to understand that the words were timeless. Now she was making them read the original, not cut to suit the constraints of moviemaking budgets and filmgoers’ limited attention spans.

Tracy wasn’t in her seat for Beginning Drama. Was she too scared or embarrassed to come to school now that the cat was out of the bag? Or had her mom made her stay home? The principal might even have suggested she take a day or two while the police investigated.

The class passed with Tracy’s empty desk nagging at Mariah. The bell had rung and students were making their way into the hall traffic when Detective McLean’s head appeared above theirs. Under other circumstances Mariah might have been amused as he tried to force his way upstream in a hall so packed, kids shuffled along in file with their backpacks protectively clutched tight. Stopping to visit with friends was impossible, the equivalent of an accident during rush hour on a Seattle freeway.

His progress would have been even slower on one of the lower floors. This was the bottom of the bottle, so to speak, tipped up to empty. Students were fleeing it for the commons or the covered outdoor areas where they could hang out for the lunch hour.

“God Almighty,” the detective muttered when he finally stepped into her room. “What if there was a fire?”

“That,” Mariah said, “is our worst fear. There is a fire escape on each end of the building, which would help, but since going down that would be single file, evacuating all four floors would still take way too long.”

He looked back at the stragglers in the now-emptying hall and frowned. “The fire inspectors have been here between classes?”

“What are they going to do? Condemn the building? Where would we go?”

He growled something and closed the door on the hubbub. Mariah fought an instinctive desire to step back. Connor McLean was a very large man, easily six-two or six-three, with bulky shoulders to match. While she watched, he strolled around her classroom reading quotations, scrutinizing photos, smoothing a big hand over a desktop just as she’d done earlier.

“Place hasn’t changed at all.”

She raised her brows. “Since?”

“I went here. Smells the same, even.”

“I like the smell.” She was sorry immediately that she’d let herself get personal.

He inhaled. “Yeah. Creates instant memories, doesn’t it?”

Yes. Yes, that was exactly it. Floor polish and books and chalk dust could release a kaleidoscope of memories of herself behind one of those student desks. The rustle of a note being passed, the wonder of the passage a teacher read with deep feeling, the stumbling recitation of a report before bored classmates, the glow of seeing a huge red A—good work!—on the top of her paper. Days and weeks and years spent in classrooms like this, the time happy enough that she had chosen teaching as a career. No wonder she loved the smell of school.