Newbie (31 page)

Happiness bursts into millions of sparks, lighting me up throughout my chest, racing along my skin, and tingling through my muscles.

“Then when you explained your comment, I was embarrassed, because I’d thought about making love with you. I’m so sorry. I want you to trust me.” His hand holds the side of my face as he touches his cheek to mine. “I love you. I can’t lose you. Please forgive me.”

My whole body sags in relief and I lean against him. Two more tears escape as I close my eyes in thought. Both of his arms hold me again. “I want you to trust me, too. You can tell me anything and know I’ll love you. I’m glad you told me.” I hug him, pressing my cheek to his. “I thought we were breaking up.” I kiss his cheek. “I thought you might not love me.” He kisses mine. “I want to know everything about you, and I don’t want you to feel like you have to change who you are to be with me.” I look into his eyes, my finger tracing his ear. “I don’t need to forgive you—in a weird way, it feels like a compliment.” His arms tighten around me, and his lips turn into a relieved smile. “I think your mom got it right too.”

February 16, 2008

Newbie Blog:

Which Hat Am I Wearing Now?

Being a teacher borders on having a multiple personality disorder. After the students left the room yesterday, I sat at my desk. Just sat. The room was so heavy with quiet I didn’t want to disturb it. I sat at my desk and tried not to move, but I thought back on the last fifteen minutes of the day.

“Let’s make a big circle so everyone can sit together. Scoot back a bit. Make it bigger.” (social director)

“JP, would you move closer to Addy so Cashel can sit down?” “Addy, sit by Cashel.” “Thanks, JP.” (arbitrator)

“What could you do better next time, Erin?” (counselor)

“Zain, that needs a Band-Aid. Come over here. It doesn’t look too bad. It will be okay.” (nurse)

“No. You cannot get out of your seat yet, Erin.” (warden)

“Because I said so.” (mom)

“Erin and Zain, please come talk with me for a minute. You need to say sorry.” (mediator)

This happens all day, every day, all week, and it looks like all year. I’m crazy-busy flipping hats, not even noticing the time flying by, then suddenly the students are gone, taking the noise with them, leaving me with just myself.

Okay, I was feeling a little bit guilty and a lot sorry for Kyra over the Licki incident when she asked me if I wanted to buy some Girl Scout cookies.

“Of course. Can I show the order form to my roommate and see if she wants some, too?”

“Yes.” She smiles at me with her whole face.

“I’ll bring it back to you in a couple of days.”

After work, I hit up Liam to order a couple of boxes. When I ask Mina to order, she calls Stev. He offers to show it around his office at work, so we fax him a copy of the cookie brochure and order form. By Wednesday, I’ve combined everyone’s orders, and the grand total is forty-six boxes of cookies. It doesn’t bring Licki’s tail back, but it eases my guilt.

I return the order to Kyra on Thursday morning. At recess, Kyra brings Mindi up to talk to me before they leave the room.

Mindi begins. “I’m a Girl Scout too.”

Oh no.

“Would you order some cookies from me?”

Does she expect equal treatment? Duh, yes. I really should have thought this through. I mentally pen a question in my brain. Is this something I can do for all twenty-five students in my class? Brilliant.

Too late. “Sure. Can I give it back to you on Monday?” She nods and hands me her order envelope, then skips off to recess. I really can’t order forty-six boxes of cookies on my own, so I head down the hall to see if some of the teachers want some. I find they have all purchased from students in their classes (young teachers) or have a policy of not purchasing from students (veteran teachers). I decide to fax a copy to the real estate office, hoping some of the agents would like to buy.

I’ve been so busy after work and on the weekends with real estate appointments, I haven’t had a date with Liam since Valentine’s Day. And I’d kind of like a do-over. He’s coming over tomorrow to watch a movie. I guess that counts. I thought maybe next week, I’d have a little more personal time—until I went to our partnership meeting this morning. I’m booked all week with parent/teacher conferences on two evenings and listing appointments on the others.

Thirteen boxes of Thin Mints. That’s the number of cookies I have to purchase to make sure the same number of cookies are ordered from each student through my efforts. When I deliver the cookie order back to Mindi, she smiles and runs to her backpack to put the envelope inside, then she runs back to me and hugs me.

Too many times over the last six weeks, I’m only reminded which day it is by the dates I write on the bottom of the listing contracts. It has been a blur from working all day to doing listing appointments all night, every night, sometimes two. It has been productive though—four listings last week, and we submit at least one offer each week. We also have a closing for one of the offers we turned in at the beginning of December, with another one coming up in a few days. At least being this tired is beginning to pay off.

And by the way, while writing a listing contract tonight, I am reminded that tomorrow night and Wednesday night are parent/teacher conferences. Woohoo.

Ms. Proste is my first appointment, Chad’s mom. She enters the room practically bubbling and sits across the table from me. Her face typifies the phrase “The cat that ate the canary”.

The way this parent/teacher conference thing works is that I have samples of my students’ current work in reading, writing, math, and art. We talk about the progress their children are making and compare these samples to the samples I have from the beginning of the year. Then I let the parents know what our class will be doing for the rest of the year. Each conference lasts about ten minutes.

As she sits down, I pull out the folder with Chad’s name on it, and she pulls one out of her briefcase with my name on it, “Sophie Kanakaredes—First Grade.”

“Would you like to go first?” I ask, obviously curious.

“I thought you might like to see some of these,” she says, laying the papers between us and scooting her chair close to mine. “This was the first one he made.” The paper is a simple story with a drawing of a person and several brown squares. Letters are randomly scribbled on the page. “Chad told me it says, ‘I like school.’” I smile, and she moves this one to the bottom of the stack. The next one has two people on it and some high-frequency words we were learning at the time, “me” and “is.” “This one says, ‘Me teacher is nice.’”

Me, my, it’s easy to confuse those two words. I smile at Ms. Proste and place my hand on my folder, wondering if she would like me to show her his current samples now. Trying to spin this back toward schoolwork, I say, “It’s good to see he’s also writing at home.”

“Uh-huh, there’s more.” She keeps moving new ones to the top for me to scan. It’s like watching time-lapse photography of an emergent writer. “Look at this one. It’s my favorite.” She slides a new one to the top.

This one really shows how much his writing skills have grown. It’s easy to read now. “Oh!” The story on the top says “I luv my techr. She is booteeful.” It shows Chad holding my hand by something looking like a swing set. The next is obviously Chad and me again at recess. Is the whole folder Chad’s crush file? Yes.

“This is his latest.”

My eyes widen as I read the story. Maybe he read a little more into receiving a Valentine from me than I thought.

His mom laughs a little. “I know. I was so surprised. They’ve been so cute—I’ve kept each one. Good for future blackmail maybe.”

The words written on this page say, “I’m going to mary my techr. And giv her candy.” This page has more detail than the rest, showing, of course, me and Chad, but also other people, along with the familiar brown squares around the page that have decorated other pages. I point to one and look at his mom.

“They’re desks.” She chuckles.

Our wedding is in our classroom with our classmates. Too cute!

“So, it really isn’t a surprise why he’s having a great year. He’s almost like a different child. Last year, he was in trouble all the time, and this year, he’s just in love.” She smiles like she’s letting me in on a secret. “It seems to work better for him to want to please you.”

I don’t know what to say.

“So my guess is that his schoolwork looks fine. His progress is fine.” She looks in my eyes, nodding. “His behavior is fine. Everything’s fine, right?”

I nod mutely along with her.

“Okay. I was pretty sure it would be. Well, thanks for meeting with me,” she says, pushing her papers back into the folder and sliding her chair away from the table.

“It’s just a crush. I’m sure it will fade away.”

“Let’s hope it lasts through the end of the school year,” she replies, giving a wink.

On Friday morning, I wake with a headache and a cold. I could feel myself getting run down the last week or so, going to sleep tired, waking up still tired. Today, my nose is stuffy and my throat is scratchy. I stand in front of my class to welcome them, but after two days of talking all day and all night at conferences, now all I can manage is a whisper. I call on students during the lessons, and they all whisper back. The day progresses mildly. Everyone is quiet and subdued. If I’d known they’d react this way, I would have faked laryngitis weeks ago.

I have to cancel another date with Liam. Of course he lets me off—I’m sick, but the way he sounded was not just disappointed, but a little annoyed.

Partnership meeting is longer than usual today. We jump into our updates and talk non-stop for an hour.

“Have you been sick?” Kevin asks.

I nod to confirm. “Again.”

“It seems like you get something every couple of weeks. Teaching is a rough gig, isn’t it.”

“I can’t even count how many times kids sneeze or cough on me each week. It’s a miracle I’m not sick more.”

“Have you considered what you’ll do next year?”