Rebecca Coleman - The Kingdom of Childhood

He indulged her with a half smile. Keeping her eyes on the road, she reached back and patted him on the thigh. It was enough to remind him that he wasn’t repugnant to every woman on earth, only to one, and that lifted his spirits very slightly. He looked at Judy’s mild expression, her hands back at ten and two on the wheel, and considered how crazy it was that inside that Suzy Homemaker exterior was a woman who’d grab his ass while tongue-kissing him in a room where they could easily have been caught. Suddenly he laughed. He said, “Turn up the radio.”

She twisted the dial. “Do you like this song?”

“Like it? I love it. I love the Lemonheads.” Sometimes the radio seemed to be possessed. It could read his mind.

She grinned. “It’s not the Lemonheads, it’s Simon and Garfunkel.”

“It’s ‘Mrs. Robinson,’” he insisted. “It’s a Lemonheads song. I’m sure of it.”

“Then they must have covered it, because this is Simon and Garfunkel. They’re not going to play the Lemonheads on an oldies rock station. And I remember this song from when I was your age.”

He gave up the argument. She was probably right; what he had mistaken for an unfamiliar version of the CD track was starting to sound more folksy than live. Still, the coincidence was uncanny. He glanced at Temple and at Scott, and then, satisfied that they were too brain-dead to be listening, asked, “Do you know what it’s about?”

“Sure I do. Do you?”

He worked up his nerve and said, “It’s about an older woman who’s into younger guys.”

She laughed. “Everyone thinks that, just because they played it in The Graduate. But that’s not it at all. That’s got nothing to do with it.”

“What do you think it’s about, then?”

Her fingers flexed on the steering wheel. She glanced at him in the rearview mirror and said, “It’s about a woman who’s going crazy. She’s trapped in the suburbs and in her crappy marriage and she’s losing it.”

He nodded. Her interpretation wasn’t as interesting as his. He said, “Ah.”

“Or rather, she’s lost it.”

He looked at her, at the funny smile she had on her face, her eyes properly focused on the road. She laughed again and said, “Depressing, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. I like my version better.”

She rolled her window partially down. The sound of the wind crashed through the car, drowning out the music. She rested her elbow against the ledge and held her fingers up to the outside air, moving them as if to better feel the wind. “Maybe it’s both,” she said. “Would you blame her?”

On Monday afternoon Dan lingered in my classroom when he came to pick up Aidan. As the other children left, one by one, with their parents and caregivers, I regarded him with a combination of curiosity and dread.

“How was the choir trip?” he asked.

“Very nice. The kids took second place.”

“Didn’t destroy any hotel rooms, did they?”

I acknowledged this with a quick laugh. “Of course not. Model citizens, every one of them.”

“I expect you had a better weekend than I did, then.” He glanced toward the hallway, then at his son, placidly playing with toy animals on the carpet. “The auditor from the Department of Health called me on Friday. She wants us to voluntarily close the school for a week until the measles infections subside. I told her no.”

“Tell her yes,” I said immediately. “Whatever it takes to appease them.”

“We can’t do that, Judy.” His tone disparaged my solution, making him sound, for the moment, much like Russ. “I’ll have fifty parents in here asking for prorated refunds of their tuition dollars. The kids who’ve had their shots aren’t at risk, and the others have probably been exposed already. A closure won’t make any difference at all.”

I shrugged. “I think it’s a ridiculous situation, any way you look at it. The school has no control over whether parents vaccinate their children. All we can do is get our paperwork in order, and beyond that, no one can hold us accountable for the decisions of the parents.”

“That doesn’t mean we won’t turn into the piñata for it anyway. And if our enrollment numbers are down next fall, we’re pretty screwed.”

“We’re always pretty screwed. We get by.”

The skin around his eyes creased with irritation. “Maybe your definition of screwed is different from mine. I mean the kind where we don’t get by.”

I laughed. “How are those class ring sales going, by the way?”

“Don’t take a dig at me. I’m doing all I can. But I need your help. We have two events coming up.”

“The Martinmas lantern walk and the bazaar.”

“Yes. I understand Bobbie Garrison was usually the one to handle the lantern walk, and that you sometimes assisted—”

“ Always assisted. She and I have worked together on projects since college. Had worked. Whichever.” I waved a hand to dismiss my jumbling of tenses. It was a common problem in speaking of Bobbie, the way I shuffled and crunched through words like leaves in various stages of decay.

“Yes, well, obviously we need extra hands to take care of it this year, since she’s not around to do it.”

“She’s not, indeed,” I said coolly. “She’s unavailable.”

He held my gaze with an expression of superhuman patience. “And I know the faculty feels her loss very deeply. If you can take over the planning, that would be a huge help. Make it a tribute to her. I think everybody would appreciate that.”

“I’d like that.”

“And this year it’s very important that we put the event out to the community. Call the local newspapers and see if they’ll send photographers. Advertise the bazaar everyplace that makes sense. And for the lantern walk, we need to try to get as many kids to show up as humanly possible. I’m worried that the school is starting to look undesirable. That will be death for us next year unless we turn it around.”

I nodded. “I’ll do everything I can.”

His words were slow, carefully chosen. “I recognize…that your kindergarten is what compels most of our parents to enroll their kids in Sylvania Waldorf. It comes recommended, then exceeds their expectations. I don’t always agree with you about the direction of the school—”

“You don’t often agree with me,” I corrected.

He laughed uneasily. “True. But I do recognize that the strength of a Waldorf kindergarten will make or break the school. And so I… honor what you offer us.”

“Thank you.” Behind him, the door opened and Zach sauntered in, wearing a black Led Zeppelin T-shirt printed with an image of Icarus arching toward the sky. He hooked his thumbs in his jeans pockets and approached me, smiling.

“Howdy, Teach,” he greeted me.

“Mr. Patterson,” replied Dan with enthusiasm. “How goes school?”

“Fine. Good.”

“Are you getting a lot done on the bazaar?”

Zach nodded. His hair slipped into his eyes. “It’s going better than usual this year,” I interjected. “We have quite a few donations from the community. Massage certificates, doll-making, things like that. And the crafts are starting to come in. The third grade made some beautiful beeswax candles.”

Dan smiled. “And we have that playhouse you built for us, Zach. That’ll bring in some excellent bids. It’s a wonderful job you did.”

“Thanks. My dad’s a carpenter. I’ve been doing that stuff, like, forever.”

Dan nodded and clapped him on the shoulder. “Very good. Keep up the good work.”

He departed, leaving my classroom door ajar. As soon as he was out of earshot I turned to Zach and asked, “What do you think you’re doing?”