Fat School Confidential (19 page)

    “
What good is that gonna do? He can’t take me out of that

class,” she said, a little finality in her voice. She was wrong, but it was going to take some time for me to work my magic with Frank Mills. In the meantime, I had to humor her.

   
November played out, with nary a peep from staff. Over the Thanksgiving Day holiday, she went home, along with a good third of the student body. But when she got back, she was standoffish with staff, and seemed to avoid me altogether. Bill briefed me on the particulars.

    “
You might want to give her a little space. She might not show up for your independent study courses for a few days.”

    “
What happened?”

    “
Apparently, she got involved with a man who ended up assaulting her.”

   
Surprise and shock went through me. Why would anyone do this to Wendy? After everything else she’d been through?

    “
Did she press charges?”

   
A smile crept over Bill’s face. Did he find it funny, did he think she was lying, or was he just uncomfortable sharing this with me?

    “
That’s the thing. She didn’t.”

   
I didn’t know how to react, or what to say. All I could manage was an anemic, “Oh.” Wendy had every reason to be standoffish. She was assaulted, possibly raped. There was no way I was going to get on her case with classes, or with anything else for that matter. She needed time to heal. I just hoped that none of the other staff continued bothering her. Maybe it was my own perception of things, but I was more than a little disturbed by Bill’s attitude about Wendy. Here was an instance where she was obviously victimized—no doubt by a much older man, and Bill treated it with a smug little smile. I didn’t like him before, and thanks to his flippant attitude towards my favorite student, I was beginning to hate him.

   
I thought it would be weeks before Wendy would come around to meeting with me. But, like in many of my assumptions, I was wrong. Two days after coming back from her Thanksgiving trip home, she dropped by my office. It was right before dinner, and I was getting ready to go home. She seemed normal—meaning, she seemed about the same as she did before her ill-fated journey home. She was concerned about her grades. At least that was her spin, anyway.

    “
How am I doing?”

   
Putting on my little used reading glasses and glancing at my computer screen, I replied, “The only grade that is up in the air is your Economics class with Starks.”

    “
Fuck,” she sighed, then, catching herself, she let out a “Sorry.”

   
I smiled. “Have I ever corrected you for language?”

   
She smiled back. “No. I guess not.” She gave a little laugh. “I was supposed to turn a paper in before Thanksgiving.”

   
I lowered my glasses over my nose, and peering above my monitor, I said, “Starks’s gonna be pissed.”

   
She burst out laughing. I wanted her to. I didn’t care if anyone could hear her. She needed to smile and laugh and be happy—even if it was for a brief moment. And I wanted to be the one to make her smile and laugh and be happy. It probably wasn’t behavior befitting a teacher, but at that moment, I didn’t think of myself as a teacher. Not Wendy’s at least. The fine line that divided friend from mentor was eroding—and maybe, just maybe, Wendy noticed it too.

    “
Don’t worry about the paper. I’ll fix it.”

   
And so it was. I was able to get Starks to accept a late paper and give Wendy full credit, thereby releasing her from his class. Mr. Mills gave me the go-ahead to advise Wendy on her Social Studies requirements. And with that, I was able to secure Wendy for most of my teaching day. Mr. Mills and I agreed that Wendy could use the one-on-one attention I was providing—especially in her present condition—and given she needed the extra credits to secure graduating with a diploma come the following June, I was the perfect academic linchpin for her. The only time Wendy wasn’t around me during the school day was when she had to meet with fitness coach Pete, or in the only class outside of my own: Lang’s math class.

   
Then there was the matter of handling the rest of my caseload. I was fortunate in this regard. Other than Wendy, there was only one other student who required more than a periodic meeting over grades and goals—and that was Ascender-turned-Belayer Sarah Fischer. Sarah—all three-hundred-plus-pounds of her—was desperate to get into an Ivy League college such as Vassar. Her recent SAT score was close to twenty-two hundred; a perfect score was twenty-four hundred.

   
She hated her score.

   
To say she was a perfectionist was putting it lightly. She was intelligent, well read, and respectful. She was book smart and hoped to stay that way. That is, she was perfectly content in the world of academia, and had no need—or desire—to enter, or—in the case of her eventual release from A.O.S.—reenter the cruel world. Weight-loss or no weight-loss, she was determined to bookworm her way into the hallowed halls of her dream school.

   
And therein posed a problem for me. Sarah was too damned smart for me. I hadn’t a clue how to help her get a higher SAT score, let alone direct her to the right material in order to boost her chances of attaining it. So I went to the one person on campus who actually had the Ivy League street cred: Frank Mills (of course, Bill also went to Yale, but I was determined to have as little contact with him as possible). But when I visited Frank, I was presented with yet another problem to add to the one I came to him in the first place with.

    “
Sarah’s parents are upset with us right now,” Frank said. Standing at his desk, he twirled his glasses in his hand.

    “
Is it the program?” I asked, thinking about her unusually slow weight loss. I didn’t think she was hoarding food, but I didn’t want to make any specific assumptions. This was not my territory. This was the realm of her B.C. and/or her fitness coach.

    “
No, nothing like that. They’re not happy with her education here. That it lacks rigor.”

   
I leaned close to Frank, and in a near whisper, responded with, “No shit. What do you expect from fat school?”

   
Letting out a chuckle, Frank mentioned that Sarah’s parents had an argument with Bill over the phone, and that Bill wanted me personally to give them a call and try to assuage their anxiety over the matter.

    “
Why didn’t Bill ask me himself?” I asked, but thought better of it as soon as the words flew out of my mouth. Frank smiled that little, thinking-man’s-smile of his, pursing his lips as if about to speak. But he didn’t. He told me everything without saying a word. Bill was “The Great Delegator,” and not one to handle things himself—or, in this case, handle things well.

    “
Want me to call them?” I asked.

    “
Actually, they’re going to call you. You’ve got time during your planning period, right?” Actually, I didn’t. That was “me” time. Of course, “me” time ideally meant “Wendy” time.

    “
Absolutely,” I said, without a hint of perceived irony.

   
After a couple classes, I was back in my office. Not ten minutes passed, when the phone rang. Sure enough, it was overachiever Sarah’s overachieving mom. After introducing ourselves (she insisted I call her Mimi, and I insisted she call me Joe—which she didn’t), she went into her spiel.

    “
I’m sure you’re aware of why I am calling you, Mr. Rourke.”

    “
Yes, Mimi, I am. But I want to assure you—“

   
Mimi cut me off. “Do you even understand the severity of Sarah’s situation?”

    “
Yes, I do. That’s why I wanted to let you know that we’ve not only arranged another date for her to retake the SAT, but I’ve also planned a set of curricula that will give her the edge in scoring higher.”

    “
Oh? Like what kind of curricula, Mr. Rourke?”

   
Here was where I had to improvise. I had no idea what to say to her. But if there was anything I was truly skilled in—especially of late, it was the Art of Bullshit. I gave Mimi a rundown of books I recently suggested to Sarah, telling her that for the time being, Sarah’s remaining class time was to be spent doing independent study. Save Tim Rodriguez and me, none of the teachers were qualified to instruct Sarah, so independent study made perfect sense. In addition, I told Mimi I planned to give Sarah extra study hall time in the evening to accomplish what she needed to to not only get a significantly higher SAT score (like that was possible), but to fill out college applications and work on her personal mission statement.

    “
Oh, Mr. Rourke. You are fabulous. Mr. Mills told me you were a miracle worker.”

    “
Mimi, trust me on this. You don’t need a miracle. Sarah is incredibly bright. She’ll get into whatever school she sets her mind and heart on.”

   
Now, if Sarah were in my office witnessing what had just happened, she may have caught on to my deception. But then again, she was one who’d be too caught up by her own academic agenda to notice. On the other hand, had Wendy been in the room, I wouldn’t have been able to keep a straight face.

   
With the conversation with Mama Fischer out of the way, I thought of the repercussions Sarah’s workload would have on her weight loss program. She wasn’t losing weight as rapidly as her peers, and my guess was, she wasn’t going to stick around for the summer program after she graduated. But that wasn’t Mimi’s concern. And as far as I was concerned, it wasn’t mine either. I was summoned to do damage control, and for the time being at least, I succeeded.

   
For the month of December, between and after classes, I was occupied with my caseload. Of the ten students on my caseload, only two needed my oversight—Sarah and Wendy. And of the two, one of them worked well independently—and that was Sarah. Wendy needed and/or wanted my constant handholding—as if that was a bad thing.

   
Right before the Christmas break, Wendy threw me another surprise—and it wasn’t even gift-wrapped.

    “
Did I tell you what happened over Thanksgiving?” she asked. It was late in the day, about an hour after class. We were in my office as always, with her sitting on the floor, a textbook and writing paper on her lap. I was at my desk, surfing the web for holiday-themed word searches for my restless teens.

    “
No, I don’t think you did,” I replied. I remembered what Bill told me. That she’d been assaulted by her boyfriend. I

never brought it up. It wasn’t my place. But Wendy’s cheerful demeanor belied whatever horrors she must have endured.

    “
I was dating this guy back home—“

    “
In Illinois, right?”

    “
Yeah. Anyway, we both got really fucked up and he started messing with me.”

   
Closing out my web browser and taking off my glasses, I gave Wendy my full attention.

    “
Messing with you?” I asked, trying to sound unaware.

    “
Fucking me. But I was either too out of it or asleep.”

    “
You mean…” Looking straight at me, she nodded. The smile was gone, but that was about it. I couldn’t tell if she was sad or angry about what happened to her. For the moment, I was going to let her lead this dance.

    “
He’s such an asshole,” she said with a smile. And then, she added, “Wanna see what he looks like?”

   
I didn’t know how to appropriately react. All I could elicit was an anemic, “Okay.”

   
Wendy placed her book and paper on a nearby chair and crept around my desk. I was getting nervous—not so much of her, but of any staff who would happen to pass by. She leaned ever so towards me, whispering, “Go to hotornot.com.” I opened up a new browser window, and voilà. I was surprised I was able to get onto the site, what with all the controls Bill had put in place to keep students from going onto MySpace, message boards, and chat rooms. But since I was staff, maybe I had allowances—why else would Wendy ask me to go there?

    “
Okay. In the search window, type this,” Wendy handed me a slip of paper, with the name “Todd Markum” written on it. I looked out towards the open doorway—a res staff jogged by.

    “
You sure you want me to do this?” I asked, hoping she’d change her mind. I was curious to see what Wendy found attractive in a man, but I also didn’t want to do anything that would bring up any misery for her. Gnashing her teeth, she nodded. I typed the name, finding a list of identical names and their corresponding but wholly different profile pictures. Wendy pointed to the top one. I navigated the cursor, and clicked on the picture.

   
Todd looked to be in his early-thirties, tall and bone-thin, his half-naked body lying back on a couch. His black, low-rise jeans matched his long, jet-black, throwaway hair. No doubt dyed. At first glance, Todd looked like a wannabe rock star. Upon closer inspection, though, he gave me the impression of a young man who did too many drugs, drank too much booze, and fucked too many girls—with nothing to show for it. Except, of course, his bad-boy image. I could see what Wendy saw in him. I couldn’t see what she saw in me. That was, if she saw anything in me.