Lily King - The English Teacher

But Brick saw her fighting laughter and decided he was through waiting. He’d given her more than enough time. His hands separated and he read out the list in the stentorian voice he reserved for his worst offenders. “‘November sixth: allowed discussion of abortion to go unchecked in the classroom.’ We’ve got Catholics here, Vida, in case you’ve forgotten. ‘November eighth: gave ten demerits to Julie Devans in study hall for picking her nose.’ Ten. To the daughter of a trustee. ‘November thirteenth: referred to Mark Stratton’s computer lab as Jonestown and asked students if they had enough Dixie cups.’” Brick’s mouth curled slightly after this last one, but the next sobered him. “‘November sixteenth: told American lit students that,’ and I quote, ‘God is in my underpants.’”

“Apart from this last, I simply see a bad attitude. I can accept that. I understand your resistance to the computer and the weekly lab day, which Mark tells me you haven’t once shown up for. It’s nearly the end of the term. I’m sure a lot of us are giving out some negative vibes to our students. I’m sure each comment had its context. But Vida, I’ve thought long and hard about this and I cannot imagine any context for ‘God is in my underpants.’ A teacher, especially a female teacher, should never, not in any situation, be talking about her underpants.

“I should fire you. Anyone else with this sort of a list and they’d be out. But you’ve been here too long and I like you too much. So as of right now, you are on probation. One more report like this and I’ll have to inform the board.”

Vida gave Brick the solemn nods he required, and was released.

Climbing the two flights to her office, she had that brittle, eviscerated feeling she normally didn’t get till the end of the day. When she reached the top she smelled the must and mold that everyone always complained about. She opened the three windows in her classroom and a violent wind cut through the room. She erased her nearly illegible words from the board. God is in my underpants. She laughed out loud. Had she really said that? In American lit? She imagined her juniors in their seats, then she remembered. A discussion of transcendentalism had turned into an argument about the role God should play in one’s life. John Swiencicki said he liked Emerson’s idea of trying to achieve unity with the universe, and Gretchen O’Hara asked what was the point of believing in a God that isn’t separate from you, that isn’t in every part of your life, controlling everything. Vida had suggested then that there be God-free zones. “For example, I don’t want God in my underpants.” That’s what she’d said. Not that He was in her underpants, but that He wasn’t . Her first impulse was to go down and clarify it with Brick, but she knew it would only stir him up again.

In her office she looked down at a pile of junior quizzes. She fished out her best student, Henry Lathrom’s. He’d scrawled his name at the top of his paper, as they all did, though none of her students needed to label their work anymore; their handwriting was more familiar to her than their faces, and far more expressive. Henry’s letters were minuscule and virtually without curves, so that an essay looked like thousands of tiny sticks painstakingly laid out. She read a sentence three times, then shoved the quizzes away, threw on her coat, and drove down to the gym. This was Fayer Academy’s newest monstrosity, with two sets of locker rooms, nine offices, a tennis bubble, a swimming pool, a volleyball court, a weight room, and three turquoise basketball courts. Peter was practicing at the farthest of these. Vida took a padded seat in the bleachers.

They were doing drills. A pair of boys were released from the center, one dribbling toward the net, the other flapping away in front of him, guarding him. Then, when the dribbler approached striking distance of the basket, another boy came shooting out from the side to take the pass.

Gary Boyd coached the team, the thirds. His Fayer sweatpants were barely held up by a brown necktie and billowed out at the knees, even when he was standing straight. Vida doubted they’d ever been washed. Gary lived alone in an apartment above the post office in Fayer. In the nine years they’d worked together, they’d never spoken more than a few sentences at a time, and always about a mutual student, but when word of her engagement leaked out, he’d given her a forlorn congratulations one night in the parking lot, holding her hand a few seconds too long, as if there’d been an understanding between them she hadn’t quite understood.

When he noticed Vida in the bleachers, he slapped his hands together a few times and called out, “This should be easy, offense. If you’re not making the points, there’s something wrong with you.” This encouragement made the next two groups miss their shots.

Peter stood in the line at the side. She knew from the way he’d shifted his torso away from the bleachers that he’d seen her. He had a large dark bruise on his upper arm. Had he been in a fight? He was doing what all the other boys were doing, letting out a hoarse grunt when a basket was made, then slapping the guy on the back as he sauntered past. Vida enjoyed seeing him like this, in a group, barely distinguishable from the nine others in dress or gesture. Here, he was just a boy, not her hefty personal responsibility. He was looking to someone else to tell him what to do and how to do it. He did not need her. He sprinted out now for the pass. He caught the ball badly, then took a shot. It fell far short of the rim. She was only making things worse by being here. She stood, then sat again. It wasn’t even four o’clock. Where was she going to go? She couldn’t be alone in her office one more minute today. She missed Carol. She tried to remember where she’d put all her notes for that letter. How was it possible she still hadn’t sent it? Tonight she would find the papers, pull it all together. By now Carol would know about her meeting with Brick. What a good laugh they could have had about it this afternoon. God is in my underpants. She knew Carol would be hooting at that one.

Gary blew the whistle and hollered out another drill formation. He glanced up at the clock on the scoreboard in the corner, and his face sank a bit. Fifty more minutes till cocktail hour, she felt like yelling out to him. He liked his martinis, she knew that. Every teacher on this campus was going to be able to sit down to a good healthy drink this evening. Every one of them — except her and Davis Clay. An unfamiliar tingle crept up her arms and settled in her chest. She breathed deeply, and paid closer attention to the scene below.

The boys now stood in three lines at one end. Every ten seconds or so, Gary blew his whistle and a set of three was released. The boy in the middle passed the ball to the boy on the left, then ran behind him and took his place. Now the one with the ball was in the middle and he passed to the right, then ran behind that boy. Like this they weaved quickly and fluidly down the court. She didn’t watch Peter when it was his turn. She didn’t have to watch him to know he was the weak link, that a pass to him had to be exact, and a pass from him would be unpredictable. She saw how the two other boys, younger boys, compensated without annoyance, and felt grateful to them. She’d hoped with her being there he’d try harder, which he did, but trying harder didn’t translate to playing better. Again she felt the impulse to leave and half stood, then worried that her departure would be interpreted as disgust, and sat. She’d slip out once he made a basket. But even though Peter had three turns to make an unopposed layup, he missed each time. Then Gary called them over, tossed half of them red pinnies, and they all took their places for the jump. Vida was surprised to see Peter on the court and not on the bench. Before he threw up the ball between the two tallest boys, Greg flashed an eye at Vida and she realized he’d put Peter in solely for her benefit.