Chapter Four
Emily
When the alarm went off early the next morning, I groaned as I hit the snooze button and then rolled back over and closed my eyes. The air in the bedroom felt colder than usual, and I knew that the furnace had most likely gone out during the night — again. I’d told my landlady about the problem, and she’d assured me, numerous times, that she had someone coming to take a look at it, but the problem persisted. This made getting up on a Monday morning even more unpleasant than usual.
“Oh Christ,” I groaned, as I slammed my hand down on the alarm button as it began beeping again. Howard purred softly as he shifted his position under the covers. I reached out and petted him as I grumbled, “You’re living the life of Riley, and you know that, don’t you?”
I slid out from under the covers, and as my feet hit the hardwood floor, I knew that my assessment of the furnace situation had been correct. I could see my breath hanging in the air as I made a break for the bathroom and cranked the hot water on. Then, I quickly padded into the kitchen where I flipped on the small space heater I’d bought just for mornings like these. Back in the bathroom, the small room had warmed up as it quickly filled with steam. I shed my pajamas and stepped under the stream of scalding water.
Once I’d showered and done everything I could possibly do to get ready in the small, warm bathroom, I wrapped myself in a thick, terry cloth robe and shoved my feet into a pair of sheepskin slippers before heading to the kitchen to make coffee. I found Howard sitting in his usual spot at the counter on the middle stool, slowly grooming himself as he waited for me to serve him breakfast.
“I’m not sure what Edith is going to do about the heat today, buddy,” I said, as I scooped coffee into the filter and then flicked on the machine. I grabbed Howard’s bowl off the floor and opened the cabinet where I kept his food. “You’re probably going to have to tough it out in bed today. I’ll stop and pick up another space heater on my way home because one way or another, we’re going to have heat in this damn place.”
As if ignoring me, Howard sat staring out the window until I placed his bowl on the floor. Only then did he hop down from the stool and wander over to head butt my leg. I flipped on the news and saw that they were just heading into the weather report.
“You’re welcome,” I said to my furry companion as I began making breakfast and packing my lunch.
“There’s a northeast storm heading our way this week, and it looks like we’re going to be dipping down into the sub-zero temps overnight,” the local meteorologist said a little too cheerfully. “If you’ve got drafty windows or doors, I’d recommend putting something along the cracks to keep the chill out!”
“As if you’d ever lived in a drafty house,” I muttered, as I flipped the toast onto a plate and buttered it quickly. I took my coffee and toast to the counter and sat down.
Howard and I ate in companionable silence as I mentally ran through my lesson plan for the day. I knew the sophomore class was going to be rough once I handed back the papers, so I decided to wait until we’d finished the day’s lesson to give them out. The kids would grumble, but in the end, I knew it was the only way to go.
An hour later, I was at my desk prepping the assignments I planned to hand back and the ones that would be given as homework. The school was chilly, and I decided that another cup of coffee was in order, so I headed down to the faculty lounge.
“Morning, Emily,” frowned 10th grade English teacher, Betty Paxton. She had a sour look on her face.
“Morning, Betty,” I said, as I tried to slide past her. Betty had a reputation for being difficult, and I found that staying out of her way lessened the chance that she’d bend my ear. Unfortunately, this morning I was the only other teacher in the lounge.
“Have you ever known a class of 10th graders to be so absolutely lazy as this one?” she asked, as I reached for the pot that had just finished brewing.
“Lazy, really?” I said, without looking up. “No, I haven’t found that to be true.”
“Oh please, you know that this group of students is so completely unmotivated and utterly slothful!” she protested, as she leaned against the counter and wound up to let loose with her list of student sins.
“Actually, I’ve found that all they really need is some gentle guidance,” I said, knowing full well that I was understating the problem. I’d actually had quite a bit of trouble keeping the 10th graders engaged in History lessons, but then, I was also able to recall what it felt like to actually be a 10th grader. I doubted that Betty was able to go that far back in her memory in order to conjure up some empathy for the hormonal drama that teenagers experienced on a daily basis.
“Gentle guidance, my ass,” she muttered, as she turned and grabbed the powdered cream, pouring it into her cup. “More like a slap on the ass and a good grounding.”
“Different strokes for different folks,” I said a little too cheerfully as I returned the pot to the warmer and grabbed my mug. I knew that I’d pay for this later when Betty began gossiping about how I was entirely too lenient with the students, but I also knew that, like me, most of the faculty found Betty’s assessment unkind, to say the least. She was two years away from retirement, and there was nothing anyone could do until then. I headed for the hallway calling, “Have a great day, Betty!”
Thankfully, the door closed behind me before I could hear her reply. Back in my classroom, I prepped for the first class of the day. As the students filtered in, I said good morning and reminded them to pull out the assignment so we could go over it. Several students groaned as they realized they’d forgotten the homework and a few others shrugged to indicate they’d never intended to do it to begin with. At the back of the room, a few students bent across the aisle whispering and laughing as Nina Gaston entered the room and slid behind her desk.
“All right, let’s get started on Massachusetts history!” I said, as enthusiastically as I could. The class let out a collective groan, and in a good-natured voice, I said, “Aww c’mon, this is some scintillating stuff, folks! You read it for homework, so I know you know what I’m talking about, but we still need to fill in some of the details.”
I launched into a short lecture about Irish immigration to Boston in the wake of the Great Potato Famine and talked about how Bostonians viewed the new immigrants as part of the servant class.
“Keep in mind that this allowed employers and landlords to exploit the fact that the Irish had no economic or social standing,” I said, as I used a handheld device to click through the PowerPoint slides I’d organized to show the dire conditions of the new immigrants. I quickly moved through a series of photos that showed newspaper headlines, flyers, and signs on businesses that all read “No Irish Need Apply,” and heard an audible gasp from the class as I stopped on the front page of the American Patriot, a mid-19th century newspaper devoted to the task of excluding all immigrants from participation in the labor force, schools, and social activities on the basis that they were depriving real Americans their rights as citizens.
“So, what do you think about this?” I asked. The class was silent. Students looked down at their desks as they tried to pretend that I couldn’t see them. I smiled a little as I waited. I knew I could out-wait them all.
“I think it’s weird,” a girl in the front finally muttered.
“Why is it weird?” I asked.
“Because it’s the Irish; I mean, what’s the big deal?” she said.
“But how did the city view them?” I pushed to get her and her classmates to further analyze what they’d learned.
“They saw them as totally different from everyone else who was already here,” a boy in the back said, without raising his hand.
“And what did that mean?” I asked, looking around the room. “Nina? What do you think?’
“Huh?” Nina said, as she looked up and then averted her eyes.
“I wanted to know what it meant that the residents of Boston saw the Irish as totally separate from them,” I said, repeating the question.
“I dunno,” she shrugged. I let it go and moved on asking questions until the class was almost over. I passed back the essays, saving Nina’s for last.
There were the requisite groans and muttered curses, but no one complained too loudly. I held Nina’s paper in my hand as the rest of the class filed out after the bell.
“Nina, can I see you for a moment?” I said. She walked up to my desk with a stubborn expression on her face. I knew that there had to be a little bit of worry mixed with the defiance, so I said, “Here’s your essay. You did very well in the introduction, but you didn’t back your argument up with evidence this time.”
“Okay,” she shrugged, as she took the paper from me and stuffed it into her backpack.
“Nina, you’re a smart girl. I’m concerned about the fact that you’re barely skating by in this class,” I said, as I studied her face. “I’m concerned that you’re going to get too far behind to catch up and that you’ll miss out on scholarships for college if you don’t bring your grade up.”
“Uh huh,” she said, looking past me out into the hallway.
“I’m going to have to schedule a conference with your parents so we can talk about how to motivate you to get your grades up,” I said, trying spark some kind of response.
“Okay,” she shrugged. “Anything else?”
“No, that’s all,” I said, shaking my head. Nina walked out of the room without so much as a backward glance. I watched her leave and then sighed as I pulled up my email and began composing a message to Nina’s parents, inviting them to meet with me.