What You Wish For (4 page)

“Dimple?” A head poked into the trailer. “They’re looking for First Team.”

“Two secs,” Justine said. She twirled me to face the mirror, using the curling iron to finish the last of my waves. “There you go. Fresh as a newborn opening your eyes for the first time. Promise me you’ll give me details after you see Julian Wales.”

I promised, and headed for the set.

Wyatt Waits

T
he back of Wyatt’s neck prickled. It was a sensory reaction, like cricket hairs. An ESP that specially qualified you to be a high school teacher. A youth was Up To No Good. Wyatt couldn’t tell how he knew, whether it was a hushed conversation, an imperceptible contraction of student clusters, a hasty look away, but his career had selected him because of this intuition.

Wyatt’s destination would be one of four places—the boys’ locker room, the girls’ locker room, behind the field house, or under the bleachers. From his window, he surveyed the grassy quad that was the heart of campus. Couples ate lunch on the grass. Boys were throwing Frisbees, playing hacky sack, or kicking a soccer ball. Girls were clumped in large knots rather than sprawled in twos and threes with T-shirts rolled up for midday sun on their stomachs. Girls, then.

Wyatt’s district was affluent and the students generally well behaved, but no high school was free of bullying. In his student days, it was always boys. A fist to the nose and it was done. Today, the girls were worse than the boys, and they did it insidiously, e-mailed words sliding a stiletto between the ribs of a classmate. Girls were the masters of cyberbullying. But on National Leave Your Car At Home Day, someone was bringing it to campus.

Wyatt left his office. The school was small enough that any prey would do. The perfect mark was scurrying down the hall.

“Hello, Lizzie.” Wyatt pounced on the eleventh-grader.

“Oh! Hi, Mr. Ozols.” She looked anxious.

“In a hurry?”

“No!” she answered too loud. Soon, then.

“Did you enjoy your visit to Duke?”

“I loved it!” She brightened. “Their gym was amazing!”

“Got time to escort me into the ladies’ locker room and show me what we might do to improve things here?” Wyatt had a hunch.

A look of horror came over her face. “Um. Well. I have a lot of homework before fourth period.”

As he’d thought. Girls took their fights inside.

“Perhaps after seventh period? Or tomorrow?”

“Sure, sure.” She looked relieved. “I’ll bring my brochures.”

She practically flew toward the library, far from the gym.

Coach Davis was at lunch and the girls’ locker room was deserted. Wyatt settled himself in the coach’s guest chair, concealed behind the door. He gestured Steff, next to him, to silence. He’d brought her to avoid any impropriety about being in the girls’ locker room. Before long they heard a shuffling of feet and a whispered “All clear.” He remained out of sight.

“Where is she?”

“Chickened out.”

“She’s scared of you, Harper.” Wyatt was unsurprised to hear Harper Dixon’s name.

“I’m here.” The high-pitched voice had a slight tremor. It was Tia Sanchez, a timid girl who commuted from Compton through an academic exchange program for underprivileged students. “What do you want?”

“I want to know why a skinny mongrel like you is panting after Troy Martin,” Harper menaced. “I want to know why you don’t take a lesson from the news and off yourself like other teenage losers.”

“I’m not a loser. Troy texted me first.”

“He only wants to screw you because you’re an easy wetback!” Rage frayed Harper’s voice.

“He dumped you.” Tia stood up to Harper. Wyatt was impressed.

“You skank! What’re you even doing here? You should only come to this part of town to clean my house, and I wouldn’t let you do that because I’d get lice!”

There was the distinct snick of scissors.

“What’s that?” Tia’s voice quavered.

“Lice removal. Let’s see how Troy likes you with no hair.”

“Better than he liked you.” Defiant.

Harper gave a snarl as Wyatt stepped neatly between the girls, easily disarming Harper’s swing. The scissors he prised from her hand would go in his pile of confiscated pocketknives, mace, blades, nunchakus, and one staple gun.

“Good work, sir,” said Steff. Wyatt nodded. One girl with scissors was easier than last month’s clash between senior boys staging a vanilla version of a gang fight.

“Steff, please escort these ladies to my office.” He gestured to the knot gathered around Harper and Tia. All would be sanctioned, even Tia—fighting was not allowed at school—and he had to start making calls if he wanted this situation addressed by three.

He held Harper back. “Walk with me.”

They took a different path, and he said, “I was sorry to hear about your brother’s death in Afghanistan. He served bravely and he will be missed.”

Harper jerked as if tasered.

“It must be especially difficult that Troy has moved on during a painful time.”

The girl’s jaw thrust forward and her face clamped. For just two seconds, Wyatt laid a hand on her shoulder, then said, “I can’t offer consolation that will diminish your pain, but I can assure you, it
will
get better.”

Her lip trembled, just a hair.

“Acting out won’t take away the pain, Harper, but it might take away opportunities to benefit yourself and honor your brother. We can talk more about that if you like. In the meantime, why don’t you wait in the conference room next to my office so you can have some privacy. I am going to have to suspend you, but hope the time will help you clear your perspective.”

Menacing only moments ago, the girl’s hunched back seemed fragile. Wyatt stared after her with mixed emotions. Babies evoked images of floppy bears and fluffy blankets, but he, more than anyone, had no illusions about what happened when the training wheels came off. Children grew up and had learning disabilities and illnesses and rumspringa and pain and loss. Wyatt had never been able to do more than briefly lay a hand on slumping shoulders. He wanted more. He couldn’t wait to become tangled in the complications of another life, even the messy bits.

At 2:55
PM
precisely, Harper and her cohorts had been dispatched on two-week suspension, with parental assurances of severe punishment. Wyatt was anxious for the last to leave. He had no idea when Ilana would arrive, and though 4:29
PM
wouldn’t be out of the question, he intended to be on the drop-off bench promptly at three. He brought employee evaluations to read while he waited.

The day was all the unfun side of his job. Wyatt was about to fire one of his science teachers. Terminating Jim Lang didn’t trouble Wyatt—in this circumstance of gross incompetence it was his personal pleasure. The man had failed to give a test all semester out of laziness, and nearly poisoned a study hall monitor through careless chemical storage.

What frustrated him was that in a time of severe budget shortfalls, where good teachers were laid off, Wyatt had to exhaust rigorous union-stipulated procedures to fire a dreadful one.

Particularly offensive was that, in addition to his ineptitude, Lang was having an affair with the school’s Summer Program Director. Wyatt didn’t mind dating among his staff—he himself had dated the college guidance counselor until she’d decided a plumber she’d met on eHarmony was better marriage material. What bothered Wyatt was that the Summer Program Director was married. Wyatt was no prude, but he held infidelity pretty low on his personal scale of evils. Or high. Whichever one was bad. Worse than men who fake-tanned, but not quite as sinister as world domination.

Wyatt found it repugnant that Lang had seduced a young and dumb girl into betraying her marriage, but that was outside of Wyatt’s business. It was squarely Wyatt’s business that the affair had prompted Lang to leave his lab class unattended long enough for Spencer Loveland to ignite his station. Wyatt had to act speedily to prevent Lang from torpedoing the school’s No Child Left Behind scores in science or burning down the whole institution. Wyatt was forced by protocol to complete an exhaustive peer evaluation. Blessedly, the majority of Wyatt’s teaching staff consisted of dedicated, clever instructors, and he was looking forward to their comments.

Jim Lang doesn’t strive to go the extra mile in the classroom.

Translation: Lang sets low personal standards and consistently fails to achieve them.

Jim struggles to adequately convey the currently accepted science curriculum to students.

Translation: Lang’s one-celled lab organisms would outscore him on an IQ test.

Jim Lang doesn’t always grasp the nuances of the material.

Translation: If Jim were any more stupid he’d have to be watered twice a week.

Lang has been inconsistent in his shared teacher responsibilities, failing to show up for his shift as detention supervisor.

Translation: That jackass made me miss my bowling league.

Wyatt smiled as he reached the bottom of his stack. He’d saved biology teacher Linda Wei’s for last. The evaluations were anonymous, of course, but he was so familiar with each teacher’s style and handwriting they might as well have submitted their thoughts on monogrammed paper. Linda held nothing back.

Jim Lang is a prime candidate for natural deselection. He has delusions of adequacy as a teacher. As a scientist, he would be out of his depth in a 3mm pipette. He works well when under constant supervision and cornered like a rat in a trap. He should go far, and the sooner he starts, the better.

He wouldn’t be able to include Linda’s comments in the final report, but they were amusing.

“Hooligans chase you from your office, Wyatt?”

Wyatt looked up to see Linda herself, a pretty, black-haired woman in her midforties. He straightened.

“Linda! I was just reading yo—er, evaluations of Jim.”

Linda cast her eyes down. “I’m afraid I was rather frank.” Originally from Hong Kong, her British accent surprised first-time listeners. “But honestly, I don’t know what irritates me more—his complete disregard for the education of his students, or that we have to expend all this time and money to replace him with someone who cares.” She fiddled with the brooch on her knit dress. Linda was the only high school teacher Wyatt knew who dressed each day as if she was going to a corner office on Madison Avenue. It was like spying a snapdragon among weeds.

“Please don’t apologize for being frank. Honesty makes evaluations useful. That’s why they’re anonymous.”

Linda gave him a look, and Wyatt chuckled.

“Hopefully we’ll resolve this mess soon. I have a stack of qualified resumés.” Wyatt didn’t believe in wasting time when something had to be done.

“Yo, Mr. O!” One of the Quinn brothers waved from across the quad and executed a tricky maneuver on his Rollerblades. He looked up triumphantly just as Cass Bernstein walked out of the library sporting a tight T-shirt, causing the wide-eyed freshman to skate right into the trash receptacle.

“Oh!” Linda gasped, and Wyatt half-rose. They heard the boy’s faint “I’m all right . . .” and saw his feeble wave.

“Speaking of summer school . . . ,” Linda grinned. Then she became serious. “What are you going to do about Amber Paley?”

Amber Paley was the married Summer Program Director. It pained Wyatt to pass her bovine gum-snapping face each day en route to his office. She made him sad.

“Nothing,” said Wyatt.

“You don’t think she could cause trouble?” Linda persisted. “She’s got quite a chip on that resentful shoulder, and for reasons unfathomable to me, she’s fond of Jim.”

Wyatt sighed. “Amber’s a dim girl with a history of romance paperbacks who has substituted a resolutely average eleventh-grade science teacher for the handsome hero. I hate to punish her for a personal mistake.”

“I’m happy for Jim to bear the consequences.” Linda smiled at Wyatt. “As long as we’re nattering on the street, do you want to grab a coffee?”

Wyatt looked at his watch: 4:16
PM
. Consternation settled in his chest.

“Unfortunately I can’t. I’m waiting for someone.” He couldn’t help looking past her to the entrance. No battered blue Camry.

Linda straightened. “Right then. I’m off to flag the bus.”

Of course Linda would observe his green transportation day. “Husband can’t pick you up?”

“Busy today. See you tomorrow!” She hurried off, a lilac bloom weaving among the black T-shirts swarming out of detention hall.

Wyatt extricated his phone. No missed calls.

“Mr. O, as a scholar and a gentleman, I swear to you I did not place the fecal matter in Coach Lugar’s backseat.” Seth Ames popped up in front of Wyatt, pimples shining in the sun. “This sentence to two weeks’ detention is fallacious. The musical musings of my band are suffering.”

“Seth, you posted a photo of yourself engaging in exactly that crime for all the world to see on Facebook.”

Seth looked crestfallen. “Dude. You’re on Facebook?”

“My grandmother is on Facebook, Seth. Count yourself lucky you aren’t in detention all semester. Coach Lugar had to fumigate the car.”

Wyatt tried to turn his attention to the latest issue of
Education Week
, but the article on algebra readiness couldn’t hold his attention. He kept peeking at his watch. He’d give it until 5:00
PM
before calling her home.