Terry McLaughlin - Learning Curve

“Men.” Linda sipped her coffee. “Food and sex.”

Emily nodded. “Hit and run.”

The copier clunked once, twice and then flashed a jammed code. Emily sighed. “Is it just me, Arnold? Or do you treat all the girls this way?”

“It’s the colored paper. Can’t do anything creative on this machine.” Linda opened the front compartment and ripped a shredded piece of paper out of the gears. “Did Wiz ask you to do this?”

“No, this is for the hospitality committee. Double-sided.” Emily refilled the feed bin with a thick stack of plain white paper. “Wiz wouldn’t use green paper for a handout.”

“Guess not.” Linda reached past her to punch Reset. “But it might be fun to see what would happen if you brought him a stack in hot pink. I have a secret stash of neon stuff. You could tell him we ran out of white.”

“Are you trying to cause problems for me?”

“Just looking for a little more entertainment. I enjoyed hearing about the show you two put on yesterday. Maybe I’ll get lucky and see your next spat live.”

“What spat was—oh,” Emily said. Her cheeks were getting warm. “That was just—well, I was—”

“Marcy told me there was a fight in the faculty room.” Linda set her coffee on the counter and hoisted herself up next to it. “But I didn’t believe it until Russell came in, shaking his head and saying he’d never seen Wiz get red in the face before. I’m just sorry I missed the opening round.”

“There wasn’t any opening round.” Emily keyed in the copy commands and punched Start. “We were having a simple, civilized, philosophical discussion.”

“I heard you two were going at it in the hall during break.”

Emily’s face grew uncomfortably hot. “We weren’t ‘going at it.’ Not exactly.”

Not unless you counted intense hissing from nose-to-nose range.

Linda looked unconvinced. “Maybe not in the halls. But in the faculty room, definitely. I heard it from a couple of sources who had ringside seats. What was that about him being a jerk?”

“The word was knee-jerk. As in response.”

Linda’s smile was beatific. “Hmm.”

Emily sighed. “Here I am giving my master teacher a bad time when he’s been nothing but generous and patient with me.”

“Pull-eez. Joe’s patience is laziness in disguise. And generous?” Linda snorted.

“I’m trying to be grateful here,” said Emily.

“How about honest? What’s he been generous with besides copying duties?”

“That is part of the job.”

“A very small part.”

Emily pushed aside another batch of misgivings about this internship assignment and pulled the feed bin open to slip the printed papers in, sunny side up. “Maybe he just needs time to get to know me better.”

“And maybe he’s keeping you at arm’s length precisely because he doesn’t want to.”

“He made it pretty clear he didn’t want me here.” She muttered a quick prayer to the copier gods and hit Start again. “I figure he needs another couple of weeks to come around. Eventually, he’ll have to get used to the idea of sharing his classroom.”

“Don’t count on it.”

Emily leaned against the counter and crossed her arms. Beside her, papers slapped and settled into the side tray without a hitch. “I can be very persuasive when I set my mind to it.”

“That’s what’s going to make this so much fun to watch.” Linda sipped her coffee. “And I’m not the only one looking forward to the fireworks. Most of the faculty think you’re the best thing to happen to Joe Wisniewski in years. More than one witness to yesterday’s ‘philosophical discussion’ mentioned how good it was to have the old Joe back, even if it was only for a few minutes. We all thought he’d dried up and fossilized way ahead of schedule.”

“The old Joe?”

“Lord, yes.” Linda flapped her hand. “He was hell on wheels his first year here.”

“I’ve heard some stories.”

“He used to drive us nuts with his causes and his arguments. I think he won most of the debates just by wearing down the opposition. He had more energy than any three of us put together. He was like a walking vibrator. You could get a buzz just from being in the same room with him.”

Emily pulled the papers out of the tray, trying to imagine Joe’s laid-back charm hyped up into killer charisma—The Wiz she’d known through her brother’s tales and her parents’ reactions, The Wiz she’d daydreamed over. “So, what happened?”

Linda frowned down into her mug. “I don’t know. He never talked about it. He took off work for a while that spring—which was a shock, because he’d never taken so much as a sick day. And when he came back, he was sort of…I don’t know. Defeated. Dull. It was like all the life had drained out of him. He never told any of us what was wrong. What had happened.”

“That’s so sad.”

“Yeah.” Linda took another sip of coffee. “The old Joe—the Joe that I remember—that Joe never came all the way back. But a couple of teachers saw a bit of that old fire in his eyes when he was arguing with you.”

Emily started in on a second batch of copies. “I wonder what happened?”

Linda shrugged. “Like I said, it’s a mystery.”

Joe was turning out to be a mysterious man. And Emily never left a mystery unsolved—it was so careless, so untidy. Besides, whatever had happened to Joe all those years ago had affected his teaching, which was affecting her internship.

She hesitated to dig too deeply into his private life, particularly when the public parts were so…well, scandalous. Maybe she wouldn’t need to unlock the secrets of his past to get him fired up again. There were other ways she could help him rediscover the joys of teaching or the excitement of a worthy cause, to help him find happiness.

“A mystery, hmm?” she asked Linda. “Sort of like the P in Joseph P. Wisniewski.”

Linda smiled along the rim of her mug. “I happen to know the solution to that little mystery. But before you start in on me,” she said, holding up her hand, “I have to tell you I’m sworn to secrecy.”

“Come on. Not even a hint?”

“You’ll never guess. Not in a million years. And that’s the only hint you’re going to pry out of me.”

“Ms. Sullivan?”

Emily glanced behind her to see Kyle standing in the workroom doorway.

“Yes?”

“May I see you in my office?” He frowned at Linda, lounging on the counter. “When you’re finished with your work here.”

A summons to the principal’s office. Disaster alert. Plague, pestilence and another dose of fake walnut paneling. “I’ll be right there.”

“Thank you.” The door clicked shut behind him.

“Oh-oh,” said Linda. “Watch out.”

“Why?” Emily’s pulse rate spiked. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” Linda narrowed her eyes at the spot where Kyle had been standing. “And that’s what has me worried.”

“Did someone call with a complaint?”

“No. You’re doing fine. He’s probably just fishing, that’s all.”

“Fishing?”

“His wife never came home from her little summer trip, you know. And he’s been sighted at the local watering hole on more than one weekend evening.”

“His wife left him?”

“That’s the rumor.” Linda slid down from the counter. “So, watch out.”

“For what?”

“For a move.”

Emily shuddered. “Yeeuchh.”

“It shouldn’t be too tough to spot,” Linda said. “Kyle may think he’s smooth, but he never made it past the slippery stage.”

EMILY WALKED down the short hall as if it were the plank. She knocked on Kyle’s office door and waited for his “Come in” before entering.