My shoulders straightened. I’d met Phoebe’s mom, Amy Granger, in the office yesterday. She had explained how she’d taken the part-time administrative job to build up her résumé after enduring a nasty divorce the year before. She said her daughter would be in my class and hoped Phoebe could keep up her grades between her new spot on the varsity tennis team and multiple AP classes.
I moved my eyes away from Phoebe. I’d envisioned her differently. More involved, for one. It seemed like she couldn’t give a crap.
A pale, lanky boy near the back was also completely unengaged. A dark trench coat hung from his narrow shoulders, despite temperatures near 80 degrees outside. His dense eyes sunk into his head like heavy stones. The boy’s name was Rowan Hasloff, and his reputation as a troubled loner had preceded him.
I squared my shoulders toward him. “Rowan, do you have any ideas?”
The boy pressed his thin lips together, his shaggy bangs obscuring his eyelids. He shook his head without making eye contact. I wondered how he’d made it into AP Chemistry.
A freckle-faced boy named Liam scooted forward in his chair, a devious spark in his eyes. “How about when you took a crap this morning, Rowan?”
The class erupted.
I held up my hand, swallowing my smile. Show no reaction. I’d learned that in teaching 101. Liam’s older brother had been in my class two years earlier and had also produced a smart-ass response at every opportunity.
“Actually, Liam, you’re correct. Our bodily functions are part of chemistry, too. Thousands of chemical reactions take place during digestion.”
As I lectured the room about an enzyme in saliva that breaks down sugars and carbohydrates, sunlight poured through the floor-to-ceiling window of my classroom and brushed against my skin. Despite the occasional wise guy, there were few places I’d rather teach than in this Midwestern college town where progressive education and inclusivity reigned supreme. I’d moved from Chicago to Ann Arbor eight years ago and landed the teaching position at Ravenswood a year later, and I’d never looked back. I was grateful for the chance to shape the scientists of tomorrow. The school’s sustainable construction had been completed the same year I’d been hired, seven years earlier: a state-of-the-art, four-story, energy-efficient building complete with solar lighting, a geothermal heating and cooling system, and a vertical axis wind turbine to generate power. The school’s campus sprawled across one hundred acres, but only half of the land had been developed, the remainder preserved as woodlands and wetlands to coexist with nature. I couldn’t have done it any better if I’d designed it myself.
On a tidy patch of grass outside my classroom window, the new English teacher, Elena Mayfield, sat cross-legged in the center of a circle of students. Her calico tank top billowed in the wind, a strand of honey-colored hair whipping across her face. Every once in a while, she rotated herself around and pointed at someone, throwing her delicate chin in the air as she laughed. The scene played out like a silent movie from another era. Elena looked to be in her mid to late twenties, a few years younger than my thirty-three-year-old self, but way prettier and cooler. It blew my mind that straight-laced Principal Albright had agreed to let her teach outside.
As I observed the engaging outdoor lesson, my fingers touched the blunt ends of my utilitarian haircut, a Great Clips special landing just below my jawline.
“Why can’t we have class outside?” Liam asked.
I turned my head, shoving my hand in my pocket, and realizing my entire class had been staring out the window along with me. “Because chemistry requires indoor equipment.”
Several students groaned.
Outside, Ms. Mayfield stood up with a dandelion tucked behind her ear and her pride of students following behind her.
“Let’s talk about matter,” I said, picking a subject guaranteed to spark enthusiasm. “As I’m sure you remember, all matter can be understood in terms of various arrangements of atoms.”
A door slammed in the hallway, hoots and hollers ringing out. Despite the school’s solid construction, the wall between my classroom and room 102 was thin.
Twenty-eight sets of eyes flickered toward the classroom next door as I rambled on about chemical reactions and the transfer of electrons. Elena’s voice chirped from the other side, followed by intermittent waves of laughter.
I paused my lecture, flipping through notes, my equilibrium upset by the unrestrained glee next door. My students shifted in their seats, probably wishing they were on the other side of the wall.
My first impression of Elena had been formed during a teacher workday last week. She introduced herself to me with overeager eyes and a mild quiver in her voice. My initial reaction was harsh, silently predicting that her students would eat her alive. But when another teacher told me that Elena had transferred from a magnet school near Detroit, I realized there was substance behind the demure facade. I’d pegged her all wrong.
I lectured for a few more minutes before giving my students some independent work time. Then I redirected my attention toward the fidgeting students in front of me. “Tomorrow, we’ll pick up with lesson 1.2, changes in matter. No homework until next week.”
“Yes!” Liam pumped his fist. Several others let out sighs of relief.
The bell rang, and chairs scraped out in all directions, backpacks flung upon shoulders.
I pointed toward a pile of my husband’s business cards I’d stacked on a table near the door. “Feel free to take a card on your way out. My husband is a handyman. He can fix anything.” I peered out into the hallway, making sure no other teachers were lurking around the corner to witness my bending of school rules.
A few students grabbed one as they fled, their young minds not yet cynical enough to question the shameless self-promotion of our family business.
My stomach growled. I tucked the remaining cards in my desk drawer and closed the door to my classroom, heading around the corner to the teacher’s lounge. Elena strolled in the same direction.
“How’s it going?” I asked as we entered the atrium-like lounge, beams of sunlight and the smell of old coffee attacking us. There were three similar adult sanctuaries placed throughout the school, but this one was the closest to my classroom. I preferred to eat lunch here instead of in the teachers’ cafeteria, which bordered the student cafeteria.
Elena lowered her long eyelashes for slightly longer than a blink and tossed her wavy hair behind her shoulder. “Great. I’m really getting to know them today.” Her straight white teeth formed a satisfied smile as she sat in a chair at an empty table.
“How’d you swing teaching outside? I mean, with Albright.”
Elena shrugged. “I just did it.”
“You didn’t ask?” A prickling chill displaced the warmth in my cheeks.
She opened her flowered lunch bag, ignoring my question.
“What about your department chair?”
Elena made a face. “Jefferson? I think his head would explode if I moved my desk three inches to the left.”
Jefferson Sebold, the English and Language Arts Department Chair, had the immediate task of overseeing Elena. I only knew him in passing, a skeletal man in his late fifties. He operated in a constant state of nervous jitters, as if he’d downed five cups too many of coffee while standing on the edge of a cliff. Elena was right. Taking her students outside might have been more than he could handle.