Things That Go Hump In The Night (59 page)

Chapter Three
- Gabby and the Primary School

The alarm sat silent as 6 a.m. came and went. Somehow Gabby’s sleeping subconscious realized this and bolted awake. Her eyes slowly focused on the blinking “PF” on the alarm clock.
Power failure
. Last night’s late storm had knocked out the power obliterating her morning wake-up alarm
. Damn, I bet this means the auto-pour on the coffee pot will be screwed too. Damn.
She now had only twenty minutes to shower, dress and be gone to start yet another season of substitute teaching. It started as a means to stay afloat after Tim died, and now Gabby found solace in the comfort of the children’s faces.

Freshly showered, she walked naked into the closet and tried to find something that fell into both the comfortable and the school-appropriate category. Most of Gabby’s comfortable clothes couldn’t be worn in public, and most of her public clothes weren’t comfortable. Over the course of her weight gain, she now filled out all her clothes. Gone were her days of size 4’s, instead needing to move past the juniors department into the missus section. These days she was spending her time in double digit sizes, a barren sea of despair for Gabby. By the end of today’s classes, the fastener to her pants would be imprinted on her stomach long after their removal.

She finally remembered it was a Friday.
Bless whoever came up with casual Fridays
. She pulled on jeans and a heather gray henley, checked to make sure her shoes matched and turned to make her way to her car. Her foot caught the edge of the vacation bags, and they toppled over, tripping her. “What the hell?”  The journal flew out and landed near her nightstand. She had completely forgotten about it with all she had to do after her return from Florida and Tim's funeral. She carefully picked it back up, placed it on top of the nightstand, and realized she would have had to leave the house ten minutes ago to be on time.

“I’ll start in on that diary when I get back."

At the school, the trees swayed in rhythm to the gentle breeze blowing throughout the playground. Swings gently rocked. Leaves began to pile along the steps. It was the saddest time of the year for Gabriella. Everything looked as if it were dying, not just slumbering before its spring renewal. There was no sun, just a persistent grayness over the land. It was hard not to think of Tim and the other loss in her life.

Slowly a drop fell, so isolated in its descent that Gabby wondered if it fell at all. Then a few moments later, another. Then another. Then finally an onslaught of big thick water droplets. She was barely inside the schoolhouse when the bottom fell out.

She preferred summer storms. The power and the fury of the darkening sky against the bright blue abyss. There was something magical about a full on storm while the sun was streaming through thick full trees. The electric charged air and natural chaos soothed the private storm that brewed in her mind. This, however, was no passionate summer storm; it was just cold bitter raindrops against a colder skyline. Persistent gray rain falling from gray skies onto the flooded gray asphalt. It was a downward spiral; the more days there were of this weather, the grayer her soul became.

Substitute teaching, while it provided much needed added income, proved bittersweet. She tried not to see her own phantom child in the eyes of her students. While she looked forward to interacting and sharing such precious little time with them, she still went home to a childless home.

In college, young and stupid she'd like to say, she'd had a little too much to drink one night and threw caution to the wind with her boyfriend, Alex. While she had been afraid of what would happen, she was excited about the possibilities. She thought she and Alex were a solid pairing, but she was soon to find out the truth. He was cold and distant the first two months of her pregnancy, rarely even coming around. When she was rushed to the college nurse with bleeding and cramps, he wasn't even there for her.

After losing Alex’s baby in the first trimester, she’d ceased to think of being pregnant again. Alex was a stubborn and moody man, blaming her for the loss of their child even though he was the one who didn’t even want the child to begin with.

“It’s how you spend your days, Gabriella. The sloth of you, the way your mind works reading those crap thriller novels... you are the cause of our child’s death.”

Gabby knew it to be untrue; still the words had stung her to her soul. She never attempted a child again with him.

With Timothy, they had tried all they knew and still were childless so many years later. It had been twelve years of trying; her cycle being as reliable and predictable as always. She had tried ovulation calendars, basal temperature thermometers, charts, special diets, even dipping into just plain superstitions to try to get pregnant and still nothing. Tim had broached the subject of adoption one evening, leaving her to cry, “But I want to be pregnant again, Tim. To feel a child develop longer than just a few months.” He never brought it up again. And now, she felt the guilt sting for not being more open to that opportunity while he was alive.

Today was providing her much needed time alone. She had debated even taking the assignment, a local primary school’s music department, due to looming deadlines and a book proposal project. Writing hadn’t yet become her sole means of income, and the teaching was a pleasant side paycheck until her books could sustain her full time. Her editor was riding her like Sea Biscuit, with chapters due at every turn. She needed the time to write more than she needed the extra paycheck. However, it was her first choice of schools to teach at, and the class was right next door to her favorite class in the school, so in the late night hours she had said “yes” to the school and a firm “not now” to the editor. Today made that trade off completely be in her favor.

After reading the lesson plan, she saw that she was scheduled to work from 7:30-3:30. Studying the plan further, however, revealed that there were only three hours of actual work broken up into four 45 minute classes. The other five hours were delegated as “planning periods”. Planning periods were little havens of time alone that she used for her writing time. Knowing that she would have so much free time in the day meant that she would be even further along in her novel than had she stayed home. Thus, lest for those three little hours, she was getting paid to do her writing and research. Not a bad trade at all. The only thing missing from a normal writing jag were her comfy flannel pajamas.

Ah well, can’t have everything
, she thought.
At least, I’m not in heels.

She was halfway through writing her novel; breaking free from her usual genre. Instead of her normal mainstream literary book, she was testing the waters with a new psychological thriller. Her main character was a talented but mentally unstable man who chooses patients he is supposed to anesthetize for surgery to be permanently put to sleep with a bit more drug than normal. Add a splash of color with his over the top fetish sex life, and this was a main character that she was interested in knowing more about. A character so flawed that she hoped readers would pay to find out why he was so damaged. The story poured out of her without the need for an outline or plot summaries, something that was unheard of in her previous manuscripts. It took her on strange, exotic trips and never failed to captivate her far longer into her writing sessions. Soon she’d reveal it to her editor and hope for the best. It was unlike anything she’d ever written, and for that she loved it.

She sat in the tiny chair propped over an even tinier desk in an undersized classroom. She could feel the pressing in of her jeans.  It was only 8:30 and already she was thinking about eating. The school lunch menu gave her a choice of deli ham and cheese or a chicken salad plate. She could deal with the chicken salad. She could also deal with losing twenty pounds. She knew she wasn’t fat…yet. The weight she was gaining, however, startled her. She had always been a fit 100 pounds. Always. Even throughout a marriage, a failed pregnancy, bitter divorce, and most of her thirties. Now being near double in weight felt clumsy to her.

Oafish
, she thought. As if she left little footprint indents in the ground as she walked. Yes, she would definitely get the chicken salad over the nitrate-laden deli meats.

The creak of her chair echoed through the empty room. For a music room, it wasn’t very acoustic. Soon she’d have 34 kindergarten through 3
rd
-grade children to see the first of her four showings of “Peter and the Wolf”. Until then, she had one more murder and a police investigation to write. If she was lucky, she could wrap up the scene, without an edit, in the hour she had left before her class began.

She wondered if she could leave at 2:10 and still get paid for the whole day. The last hour of class was designated as a planning period, and therefore she’d be just sitting there anyway. She needed to go to the grocery store and get the rest of the little Thanksgiving necessities instead of waiting until the last minute. Her cupboard was in dire need of some sustenance.

Gabby looked at her seating charts for possible future character names. She didn’t have kids it appeared, but a roadmap.  There were two Dakota’s (three if you counted “Dakoda”), a Brooklyn, a Montana, a Savannah, and a London. She wondered if hip Brooklyn and cultured London felt out of place in a class filled with Western fields. Perhaps young Harley could ride these pint-sized cowboys over for a field trip to the city to see how Brooklyn lives. Or perhaps 2
nd
grader Jet could fly them to London’s domain for some tea and scones. She was wasting what was left of her hour, but she was too wrapped up now in make believe backgrounds and storylines for these children she hadn’t yet met. Would they even be close to the grandiose personas she had created or would they walk in mere kindergarteners?

She stepped out of her classroom for a second to see how the day was unraveling. It was then she saw them. The class she subbed for last Friday coming toward her. Seven of them quickly surrounded her chanting “Miss Gabby” over and over.  One screeched. She beamed at them, seeing how happy they were to see her. Each of the seven wrapped around her, hugging her in tight. They told her she was nice, which she knew was code for being thankful for being allowed to run all over her during the class. Her class had see-sawed from out of control to utter quiet after being threatened with more math assignments. Finally, she ushered them off before the final bell to begin class. Slowly, she was able to go back inside and gently shut the door. She looked around the sea of small faces, wondering if any of them looked like the child she lost.

In a semi-burst of responsibility to her job, she got to the media center and tried out the VCR. Without the videos, she’d be left to deal with worksheets. She had to make sure that the TV and the VCR both worked and make notes of where the tapes were she was supposed to watch. She would much rather sit through four showings of “Peter and the Wolf” than deal with bored kids doing word search worksheets. She hit “Play” and saw nothing. No light, no sound, no picture, nothing. It was then she noticed the dangling cord. She plugged it in, and Sesame Street came on at a frightening volume. She adjusted it and finally the VCR began showing the narrator starting the tale of “Peter and the Wolf”. She breathed a bit easier. Now her entire day could be devoted to writing.

She noticed the guest on Sesame Street was Harvey Firestein, and this made her smile. She almost hated to turn it off for the video. One thing she loved about teaching primary school was that she enjoyed the same things. She especially was a fan of arts & crafts. Any time that glue and glitter were called for was a good time for her. She silently wished for Fraggle Rock to come on but realized that it was probably off the air by now. It had been nearly ten years since she had seen it. Not since she and Tim first started to try for a family.

A rush of chattering boisterous kids barely reaching above her hip bone burst through the previously closed door allowing Gabby to drift into a memory that would have only caused pain if allowed to continue. But now there were children to attend to. She checked her lesson plan to refresh her memory as to the age group she had in this go around. For the next hour and thirty-five minutes, she’d have to do what she was actually getting paid for- teaching. She finally got them quieted and realized she couldn’t get the lights to dim. After five minutes of fiddling with the light and the ten minutes it took to get all her kids back from the bathroom breaks, she barely had time to squeeze the whole video in. She was always so organized subbing until the kids appeared, then it all seemed to go to hell.

In the room, the children whispered and laughed throughout the video. Two other teachers came in the room with her, choosing to stay with their kids instead of taking their own free period. While this surely seemed like help to them, assisting the sub with her hectic day, it was more like a hindrance. The children waited for one of their two “normal” teachers to lead them; and, whenever Gabby tried to discipline them, she was outgunned by the other two teachers present. It did nothing but undermine what little authority she had. She also noted the hypocrisy of yelling at 34 children to be quiet and yet carrying on conversations themselves at normal volume. At least when Gabby requested them to quiet down, she was silent afterward. She hoped the other three classes were not like this one and that she would be able to be more at ease. Defeated this hour, she peered out the window to see that it had stopped raining. There was a hint of sun shining through the charcoal skies. Leaves left on branches were stuck against the wood in the heavy dampness. The gentle breeze had begun to pick up into a real wind. At least if the weather held out, she wouldn’t have to drive home in the rain.