Belinda Missen - Lessons in Love

‘What is it this week?’

‘Sewing. I’m not so secretly loving it, because she’s making me a heap of dresses.’

‘I would be, too,’ I agreed. ‘Do you think she would make me some?’

‘I think she would be thrilled.’ Penny refilled her glass and waggled the empty bottle about. ‘Want me to grab another one?’

‘No more tonight.’ I placed a protective hand over my glass. ‘I’m not sure bloodshot eyes and reeking like the back end of a wine barrel is a great look in front of the principal.’

‘Come on, he’s a lush from way back. You remember all those Friday mornings, watching teachers smuggling bottles of wine and slabs of beer into the staffroom. It was like a reverse walk of shame. No, kids, we’re totally not getting wasted after the 3.30 bell. No, siree.’

‘I do remember that.’ I nodded. ‘Very well.’

‘Are you prepared?’ she asked. ‘How are you feeling? Excited? Anxious?’

‘Positively shitting myself,’ I laughed nervously. ‘Please tell me it won’t be too painful?’

‘You’ll be fine,’ Penny soothed. ‘You’ve survived worse.’

She was right. If I had managed to get through the last nine months without having myself committed, this next week was going to be a walk in the park. I mean, I’d taught before. How hard could it be?

‘Perry?’ Penny narrowed her eyes at the name scribbled on her takeaway coffee. ‘I didn’t say Perry,’ she whispered, thrusting the offending cup with orange marker scribble under my nose.

‘That looks like a Penny to me.’ It really didn’t. ‘And this says Eleanor, so it’s definitely the right order.’

‘And, look, he even drew you a car.’ She pointed at mine. ‘A car !’

‘Oldest trick in the book.’ I took a sip and checked my watch.

If I’d heard it once, I’d heard it a thousand times. It was a lucky year when someone didn’t question the origins of my name. No, I wasn’t named after a car. My Dad, however, had a massive political crush on Eleanor Roosevelt, so that was something. At least it wasn’t Eleanor Bradley, nude model. Imagine explaining that to people. At this point in life, I was happy to take the small wins where I could get them.

‘Come on, this looks like a penny to me.’ I pointed out the squiggles beside her name. ‘See, you have a coin there. He drew a coin.’

‘I thought it was a smiley face.’ She leaned in and whispered, ‘Do you think we should stay for breakfast?’

I shook my head. ‘Nah, I’m okay.’

‘All right then. Are you ready?’

I’d been ready for hours. Awake long before the rest of the world, I’d sneaked a few slices of toast and watched the sunrise while curled up in the egg chair on the deck. Breakfast television was out of the question; Penny’s Elvis obsession stretched to her television, which looked like it would have been new when the King ate his last sandwich. That meant subtitles were out, and I could not lip-read for shit.

Had my brain been in gear, I might have nicked the bathroom before she got out of bed. As it ended up, we squashed ourselves in front of the mirror, shoulders over elbows and hairdryers in each other’s eyes as we did our best to not look like Game of Thrones extras. Oh, and we agreed that perhaps it would be best if one of us showered at night, and not in the morning. I volunteered for night shift. A clean body in clean sheets? Yes, please.

My mousy-brown hair had more pins in it than an angry woman’s voodoo doll. One wrong move and I’d either scalp myself or pull my brain out through the back of my Nordic braid. But, combined with my very favourite navy wrap dress and heels, I was ready to take on the day.

School was a twenty-minute walk from home, thirty minutes if we went via the café. The first trickle of nervous sweat made its way down my back as we traipsed through the rippling bitumen of the car park. It had seen better days; shrubs had grown from weeds and created tectonic rifts in the surface, and the once vivid white lines were nothing more than faded rubble.

A time capsule to my youth presented itself in a carving on the trunk of a pinkish-grey eucalypt by the main quadrangle. What were the odds Josie Smith still loved Trevor Reeve, the kid who told everyone Superman was his uncle?

‘That would be a negative,’ Penny explained. ‘Last Christmas was the season for cheating, or so it seems. Trevor took off with a barmaid and is currently living in Warrnambool.’

So much for “tru luv”.

The winds of time had taken a barren school oval and replaced it with a football field, used by the local team on weekends and training nights. An ochre running track encircled the field, and newly upgraded demountables were dotted around the main building – the Pentagon, as Dad used to call it.

It was neither five-sided, nor did it hold huge secrets. It was a giant red-brick square. A library, staffroom, and admin block sat at the heart of it all, and nests of classrooms branched out at each corner, creating bricked-in walkways that were perfectly cool on hot summer days.

‘You ready?’ Penny stopped, hand on the front door.

‘Nope,’ I squeaked. ‘Not in the slightest.’

She laughed. ‘Yes, you are. You’ve got this.’

After a hall lined with current class photos, we walked into the teachers’ lounge. The early Nineties décor remained, white tiles with crumbling grout and stucco walls, and a café bar that was miraculously still bolted to the wall. It was already feeling the effects of providing cheap coffee grinds for a horde of perpetually exhausted teachers, and brown grains littered the bench like ants across a picnic blanket. I made a mental note to bring my own coffee tomorrow.

A heavy grey door swung open to my left. Phillip Vine, the same jovial white-haired principal I’d had, and had come up against in several scrapes, stood before me with arms outstretched. ‘Eleanor Manning.’

‘Ellie, please.’ I leaned into his hug. He was still an Old Spice man. ‘It’s so good to see you again.’

‘And it’s nice to see you didn’t skip the country before the start of term,’ he teased. ‘Welcome to the team. Officially, anyway.’

‘Thank you so much.’ I wrung my hands and tried to take in as much of my surroundings as possible which, despite my history, was likely going to be very little today.

‘Or, should that be: welcome back?’ He fixed me with a curious gaze before laughing at his own joke. ‘I wasn’t entirely sure which one to run with.’

While Phillip launched into an explanation of what was going to happen over the course of the day, Penny disappeared towards reception, chirping excited greetings to anyone she ran into. Her bright infectious laughter could be heard through walls and doors and, when she returned, she was jangling a set of keys in my direction.

‘Let’s go check out your office.’

‘Please do.’ Phillip squeezed my shoulder. ‘Just make sure you’re back for the staff meeting in here in ten minutes?’

‘Sure.’ I wiped sweating hands against my sides. I angled myself towards Penny. ‘Lead the way.’

Like that, I was whisked out of the staffroom via the swinging door, and into the adjoining library.

Growing up, I’d always wondered what it would be like working in this library. I’d sit in class and daydream about having students of my own, stacking shelves and stamping the return cards in the front pocket of each book. I didn’t have to imagine any longer. Did this mean I was living the dream? I guess it did, except for the fact that return cards were now obsolete. Thanks a lot, technology.

After wading through an information technology degree at university, I shuffled into a teaching diploma and took up a position in the library of a central Melbourne primary school. Oversized classes, under available resources, and a handful of firebugs, who’d found joy in old books and magnifying glasses, gave new meaning to the term burned out. No matter how many times they tried, I couldn’t buy the excuse they were simply trying to rid the room of ants.