Alissa Nutting - Tampa

I nodded. “It looks good but I don’t know if nudity and grain particles mix. It seems kind of like beach sex, right? There are some places where sand can be downright painful.” The shock on their faces was sweet to devour. They began to laugh as the door swung wide, an opened drain that sucked all the levity and oxygen from the room. Assistant Principal Rosen walked in. Oddly, my first thought wasn’t of Jack at all but the joke I’d just told—had he been listening at the door? But then it came to me in a single blow that felt as though I might have an accident in my chair; my stomach twisted hot and sharp and the sound of my pulse swelled inside my ears. I licked my lips, feeling my armpits begin to dampen. “Trevor, Darcy, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Rosen scowled at the pair, examining their necks with a look of repulsion. His wing-tip loafers moved back a few steps to allow them a wider berth by which to exit. He seemed to think their hickeys were the contagious sores of leprosy. “No holding hands,” he called after them. “All students signed an anti-PDA contract on the first day of classes, remember? Page two of the conduct handbook?” Their hands fell apart momentarily, then rejoined with the force of attaching magnets the moment they stepped outside the classroom. I gave a nervous laugh.

“Young love,” I joked. He began an assessing loop around the classroom, stopping to examine each lame poster the textbook companies sent that I’d half-assedly taped to the walls in an effort to blend in. There was a timeline of Shakespeare’s life, the text of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” printed in microscopic lettering to form the overall shape of a large black bird.

“Celeste,” he began, his tone sullen, “I’m afraid we have a problem.” Scanning my desk, my eyes fell on the metal body of the industrial stapler. It might be possible, if I hit him hard enough with it on the back of the head to knock him unconscious, for me to escape if the police weren’t yet there. I pictured them leading me away in handcuffs as Ford, having heard the location of the arrest on his CB, pulled up and ran toward me, suspecting there’d been a misunderstanding his connections might easily clear up. I stood and gingerly walked over to the window to peek through the blinds for cop cars.

“This is an awkward conversation for me,” he admitted. “I don’t enjoy this part of my job at all. No administrator wants situations like these to come up. But when they do, they fall on my plate.”

I didn’t see any vehicles on the east side of the building. Crossing the room, I looked out the blinds of a west-facing window. Perhaps the police hadn’t been called yet? Since it was one of the better school districts, I realized it was quite possible they didn’t want the arrest to take place on school grounds. Maybe things hadn’t reached the point of arrest—maybe they’d only heard hallway talk from a few of Jack’s friends, enough to summon Jack down to the office, but he’d denied it; nevertheless, such allegations had to be taken seriously and I’d be suspended pending an investigation. The fact that Jack had told others, and had told them immediately, was infinitely problematic. Could my instincts about him have been that wrong? Blinded by lust, I supposed, anything was possible. Perhaps what I was most guilty of was impatience.

“I know you’re new here,” he continued. “And I don’t want you to get the impression that this is a common occurrence. In fact this is one of the only situations of its kind we’ve ever had to deal with.” He walked up to my desk and rapped the knuckles of his balled fist against it a few times. “I’ll be honest with you,” he said, turning his back to me. “It pisses me off more than I can even say.”

The classroom door was close—mere feet away from where I was standing. I had the urge to run, though that would merely prolong the inevitable. It would also seem a positive admission of guilt. Perhaps things weren’t as bad as I feared; maybe Rosen didn’t believe the rumors at all. It could actually be the students he was pissed at, the randy boys who’d let their imaginations go wild over the attractive young teacher during her first semester on the job.

“Janet Feinlog has got to go,” he said flatly.

“Janet?” Relief flooded my chest with a mentholated cooling sensation; I found myself smiling uncontrollably and even let out a little laugh. He turned his stern face to me and wrinkled his brow. “I’m sorry,” I said, trying to recover, “excuse my reaction. It’s just that Janet is such a strange bird.”

He nodded. “Strange isn’t the half of it. She’s a horrible teacher. Her students’ section of the FCAT has been the lowest of the district for the past decade. Her classroom is unruly; we get more parent complaints about Janet than all the other teachers combined. She has no rapport with teenagers. Do you know what she told one of the parents at open house?”

“Oh no,” I said.

“Oh yes. She told a parent, a mother , that she has fantasies of working in a juvenile detention center where they make the kids wear shock collars.”

Objectively, I could see how Janet might excel in such a position.

“She can’t continue here. Now, this is pathetic seeing as you’ve been with us for all of two months, but I think you’re the best friend Janet has on staff. You’re the only one I’ve ever heard her say good things about. Apparently you pushed some volunteer help her way?”

“I just want Janet to be as effective of a teacher as possible.” I smiled. “For the kids.”

“Well I truly appreciate that. But I think our efforts are lost on this one. I need your input on breaking the news to her. We’ll have security escort her from the building, of course, but I’d still prefer to make as small a scene as possible. I just can’t read the woman. Do you think she’s capable of doing something violent? Returning to the campus with a weapon?”

I winced at how easily I could picture Janet holding an automatic rifle while wearing an oversized yellow smiley-face T-shirt. “Well…”

“Sorry,” he said. “My mind tends to go dark. On the brighter side, Janet’s departure will free up a classroom in the main building, and you’ll have seniority over whomever we hire to replace her. No more stepchild in the attic.” He smiled. “We can move you on up to the big house.”

Suddenly all the panic inside me that had recently drained gushed back in full force. The main building meant doors with glass viewing panels, other faculty constantly dropping in unannounced with their petty needs. Everything said in class would be audible from the hallway—no more sex talk veiled behind a thin veneer of literary studies. No more swearing. No more private flirtations with Jack after the bell rang.

“Mr. Rosen”—I smiled, running my fingers through my hair with a slow thoughtfulness—“I do absolutely agree with you that things have got to change. But I wonder if Janet might be able to turn things around with the further help of some mentoring. My student teaching days generated such… energy in me. And this Mrs. Pachenko who’s working with Janet… I’m really excited about that partnership. Mrs. Pachenko is completely by the book.”

He took a seat on my desk, his pants rising up to reveal trouser socks patterned with rows of tiny rainbow-trout icons. “Go on.”

“What if every few weeks I started observing Janet’s classroom during my grading period? I could give her feedback and submit reports to you of her progress, or her lack of progress. And maybe I could get her to come observe my class during her grading period. It might give her a new perspective. Like you said, she and I have a good working relationship. I think she’d be open to it, coming from me.”