A Terrible Beauty: What Teachers Know but Seldom Tell outside the Staff Room (14 page)

Solange squeezed her way into the cramped cafeteria
bench beside him, and he could feel her there as he might feel the
radiant heat from an open oven. She opened her computer, took out a
pencil and pad. Mouth set, she kept her eyes on her hands—a girl’s
hands, short nails unpainted. He wanted to drag them under the
table and press them to his stomach, entwine his fingers with hers,
feel the pulse at her wrists.

Mrs. Fleming, Elk River’s Principal, clapped her
hands for attention.

A big-boned redhead barely five feet tall in her
heels, she offered them a big-toothed smile. She had taught
kindergarten for ten years and always seemed to be talking to a
child. Head tilted at an angle when she spoke, like a dog puzzled
by a strange sound, she’d always made O’Connel vaguely
uncomfortable.

“Come on everybody, let’s form a circle, big circle,
now. Come on, let’s go. “

With as much grumbling as any school kids, at last
they made something like a circle in the middle of the
cafeteria.

“Now we’re all going to give the person on our right
a back rub,” she said. “Doesn’t that sound fun? Oh, I know it
does.” Karl raised his hand. “Which right, this one?”

“No, dummy,” Helvey said, “the other one.”

“Oh.”

“I remember this,” Lott said, loud enough for all to
hear. “We did something like this at college in the sixties.”

“Oh, an encounter group!” Helvey said. “What if I get
head lice?”

“We used to catch something else in college,” Lott
said.

Calandra giggled. “Is this safe sex?”

Fleming took their ribbing with a tired smile. A
first-time principal, her skin was still too thin for the job. Lott
commonly returned her memos red-penciled for punctuation and
spelling. O’Connel was sure that had to hurt.

“Okay, now, don’t be bashful,” Mrs. Fleming said.
“Let’s get started.” Lott tried to cut in behind a cute aide, but
Calandra shouldered him out of line, and he went back behind
Helvey, making a big show of his disappointment.

Solange stood in front of O’Connel, hair hanging
straight and heavy. She gathered it gently into a satiny bundle and
lay it over her shoulder. Soft as suede, it tingled cascading over
the back of his hand.

She turned to look at him, eyes reproving. “Thanks
for leaving me out there.”

A gold hoop earring lay against her downy neck. An
intimate view, a lover’s view, it sparked a burning in his belly, a
weakness in arms and legs. “Thought you might be gone by now.” She
looked over her shoulder. “I thought you might.” He worked his
thumbs along her spine up to her neck. Thin silk did little to
disguise the feel of muscles taut as roots beneath.

She flinched.

“Too hard?”

“Just tight, I guess.” Lott moaned in the ecstasy of
an overacted climax, setting the room off in nervous laughter.

“Oh, come on now, guys. Let’s take this seriously.”
Fleming clapped her hands. “Okay, time to change.” They turned.

She touched him hesitantly with icy hands, and he
jumped. “Ho, ho, helpless feeling, huh?”

He nodded, giving himself up to her strong fingers as
she worked her way up his back, discovering the sore place inside
his shoulder blade. His head fell forward. He shivered as her nails
went up the nape of his neck. She grabbled a handful of his hair,
drawing his head back.

“Hey,” she whispered, mouth close, “don’t fall asleep
on me.”

Nothing to worry about there. “I’ll try not to.”

Fleming clapped her big hands again. “Okay, guys,
time’s up, that’s all for now!”

“Ooooh,” Sid said, moaning with exaggerated
disappointment. “Can’t we play just a little longer?” They worked
themselves back into the small benches and the speaker, a
horse-faced woman in her forties, came to the lectern.

Lott leaned near. “Wasn’t she the county filmstrip
coordinator or something?”

“Oh, yeah!” Helvey said. “I knew I’d seen her before.
Maybe she’ll tell us how to get those old movie projectors to stop
eating films.”

O’Connel noticed it was still snowing. Why were they
sitting here being snowed in? Six inches was already on the ground,
and more was dropping every second. He wasn’t worried. The old
buggy would get him home however bad it got.

The woman’s talk started out well enough; he’d sat
through worse. It was stock stuff, uplifting drivel about teaching
being the noblest profession and the like. He wasn’t surprised to
hear her talk about how much she’d loved the classroom. They always
said that. It was just the usual inanity.

No one asked her why she’d left. That was one of
those questions you just didn’t ask. They all loved kids so much
that they couldn’t wait to get away from them to give motivational
talks about how wonderful it was to be a teacher. It all made a
wonderful sort of sense—if you didn’t think too much.

She went on to reveal great insights into what she
called their failures as educators. It was simple—they were going
about it the wrong way. Catching her stride, she went on, “As
educators, we’ve got a problem; our students aren’t learning. Now,
why is that? It’s because we’re boring them, that’s why. If a child
hasn’t memorized his times tables, we keep drilling him on it. Over
and over again! if a student hasn’t learned to do long division or
multiplication we keep them at it. Wouldn’t you be bored? I would.
We must challenge them, teach them algebra, geometry, give them
something that will turn them back on to learning.” O’Connel
frowned, looking up from his doodling. Had he heard that right? He
looked over at Lott who shook his head, face red. He must have.

“We’re boring our kids, and they’re tuning us out.
It’s that simple.” Lott’s hand went up, head hanging low. “How am I
supposed to teach kids who can’t divide two digits to factor
polynomials?”

She was quick to reply. “The same way you’d teach
anyone else.”

He asked her if she didn’t think a little thing like
not knowing how to multiply or divide would interfere with them
learning algebra.

She said she had studies backing her up. Lott,
tenacious as always, asked to see them. She said she’d speak with
him after her presentation. It was no use challenging a speaker.
They held all the cards. It was their show. You were expected to
sit and nod like a dashboard Jesus.

She forged ahead. “If test scores are low, it’s our
fault as teachers.

If you were paid one hundred dollars for each student
that scored on grade level and nothing for each that didn’t, all
your students would be there. It’s that simple.”

A burning warmth crept up O’Connel’s neck. He’d had
it, now.

Test scores at Elk River weren’t among the lowest in
Oregon be cause a fourth of the kids didn’t speak English when they
started, or because so many of the parents were uneducated, but
because the teachers didn’t teach.

He looked over to find Celia smiling. She knew him,
knew what was coming, looked forward to it. O’Connel raised a hand
and she pointed to him. “Is anybody listening? The district pays
this woman $1,500 to come here and tell you that you don’t try to
teach, and you sit and listen?”

Waiting, he glanced from face to face. Some corrected
papers, some wrote. Few met his eye. “Anybody offended by
that?”

Nothing.

“Nobody?” He laughed, suddenly tired. “Well, in case
you don’t know it, folks, you’ve been insulted. I’ve seen what you
do. I’ve seen you give your hearts and souls to these kids. I’ve
seen you take them home with you, give them clothes, food, toys,
books. I’ve seen you go home after school dragging your behinds
like you worked the plywood line all day. I know how hard you try.
I’ve seen the kids when they come in through those doors at five
years old speaking no English, never having been read to, never
having even seen anyone read.

“I know where you start, and I know where the kids
are when you send them upstairs. They speak English—at least the
ones that aren’t in bilingual education can. They read—even the
dumbest can read a little. That’s a miracle! Nothing we do upstairs
compares with that. You teach them to sit in a desk, not to hit and
push to get what they want, to wait in a straight line, to be
quiet. You teach them all the things they should learn at home, but
don’t.” He turned to the woman at the lectern. “And she, a woman
who couldn’t do what you do—”

She came around the lectern. “Just a minute—”

He raised a hand to her. “I’m not finished.”

Cowed for the moment, she waited, arms akimbo.

“She comes here and insults you, and your profession—
And you sit there. Do you wonder why we make less money than
garbage collectors? You know,” he said, voice low, “If you really
think that little of yourselves, and what you do— Then I don’t want
to be one of you.” He grabbed his case, and turned to the woman at
the lectern.

“Go ahead, it’s all yours.” The door banged behind
him.

• • •

Snow a foot deep shrouded the cab of his truck.

From the inside, it was the blue-green of the inside
of a glacier— and as cold. The engine caught and he eased the choke
back in to slow the idle. Heart pounding, he waited for the
thermostat to open and send warmth to the defroster. He slammed a
hand down on the wheel. An ass, he was such an ass! He didn’t
belong here; maybe he never had. Then where did he belong? He had
no idea.

He remembered an old owl of a history teacher,
probably long dead. “Just play the game,” she’d said. Years later
he’d understood, but never learned to do it. For years he bit his
tongue. Now, jaws unclamped, he couldn’t stop them.

He got out to lock in the hubs and found Solange
waiting by her car. “You’re missing the show,” he said.

She surprised him with her answer. “I don’t like her
any better than you do.”

Sure she didn’t. He watched her standing in the
falling snow, hair and coat dusted white. Damn it, that hair. “What
are you waiting for?”

She shook powder from her hair, stomped her feet.
“I’m stuck.”

“You are?” He cleared snow from his windows with his
arm. “Got chains?”

She shook her head. “Is there a tow truck in this
berg?” He wiped powder from his sleeve, dusted it from his hands,
warming them.

“Closest one’s Crow.” He looked up. It was coming
down harder, now, if anything. “Might take them a couple hours to
get here if they’re busy.” She looked down at the highway. “If I
could just get out of the parking lot—” O’Connel peered down the
hill to the road, weighing her chances. “They won’t get the roads
out here plowed before dark.”

She frowned. “Well, I’ve got to get home
somehow.”

So much for his big exit. He got out, squatting down
to look at her tires. He flicked snow from the tread with a nail.
“These radials won’t be worth a dime in this stuff.”

They stood in silence, exhaust billowing behind them.
“Where do you live?” he said.

Her eyes turned suspicious. “Eugene, why?”

“I’m going to the bakery on eighth to pick up rolls
for tomorrow.” He shrugged. “I could drop you.” She shook her head,
smiling warily. “I don’t think so.”

Okay. Fine. He’d be damned if he’d argue. He got in,
slamming the door. “See you tomorrow, then.” He trudged back to his
car, leaving her where she stood.

She could go to hell. She could freeze out there
while she waited for a tow, for all he cared. He slammed the brake
in under the dash and jockeyed the rig forward a couple inches to
lock the transfer case into four-wheel drive.

A tap at the fogged glass. He rolled it down a crack
and saw it was she.

“I’ll take you up on that ride. Give me a sec to get
my bag.” He waited in the warming cab, defroster roaring. When
would he learn to keep his mouth shut? Dreading the long, tense
ride ahead of him, he reached over to unlock the passenger
door.

She got in and he set her bag behind the seats as she
ran her hands through her hair, shaking out the snow. “Thanks.” His
tires weren’t new, but they still had some good meat. They got out
to the highway with no problem. Solange settled demurely against
the passenger door in the bucket seat, lean legs tightly crossed,
skirt riding up her thighs.

O’Connel kept eyes on the tracks ahead, clearing fog
off the window with an old tee shirt. Wipers thunked. Tires
crunched dry powder. Her scent filled the musty cab. Was it her
perfume, or just her? Whatever it was, he couldn’t get enough.
Feeling her eyes on him, he wondered if he could stand an hour of
frigid silence.

“That was quite a performance.”

Here it came. “I told you I don’t go to staff
meetings.”

They came to a section of plowed road, tires
singing.

She shook her head, regarding him through narrowed
eyes. “What are you trying to prove? That you’re better than
everyone else? That you’re the only one with any integrity? You’re
not. Those teachers back there are tougher than you could ever hope
to be.”

“Then why do they take that from somebody like
her?”

“They take it because they need their jobs! They’ve
got house payments to make, families…”

He pulled hard onto the shoulder, killing the engine,
getting out fast. The footing was slick and he had to slow down. He
squatted to take out the hubs, forcing himself to breathe deep. She
was right, of course, and he knew it.

She leaned out the window. “You’re not throwing me
out here? How would I…”

He had to smile. “What?” He got up from his crouch by
the wheel.

“Why did you stop?”

She was really scared he was going to dump her. “I’m
unlocking the hubs, we’re on pavement, now.”

She glared at him as he pulled back on the road.
“That wasn’t very nice, I thought you were going to dump me.”

He shook his head as he drove. “Now why would I do
that?”

“Because I was giving you a hard time—maybe because
of everything.”