Chapter 3
Andrew
My freshman Algebra kids surge into the room Thursday morning on a tide of whining.
“Are we doing anything today?”
“Can we just have a free period?”
“I don’t know why we have to come to school these last two days. We don’t do anything anyway.”
God, two more days—two more days—two more days.
It’s this way right before every long holiday. We intentionally schedule final due dates and tests a few days before a break or the end of a grading period so we have a couple of days for makeups or redos or whatever concessions we have to make to get those sixty-niners—those kids right on the border—over the hump. And there’s no point starting something new with a two-week break coming up.
And with boring regularity, some smart aleck argues that we should cancel those last two days. I remind this current smart aleck that no matter what day we end on before a break, there will always be a last two days.
I don’t think they really grasp that logic though.
Anyway, the best we teachers can hope for is to keep the kids contained until we can dismiss at two thirty on that last day (in this case, Friday).
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I say over their grumbling. As they settle in, I turn on my projector and a collective groan rises in the room.
“What?” I say, clicking Play on my tablet screen. “You’re going to love this movie.”
Stephen Newman picks up the DVD case as he passes by my computer cart in the front of the room. “Stand and Deliver?” He rolls his eyes and tosses it back on the cart.
“Why so cynical, Stephen? How do you know you’re not going to like it? You haven’t even seen it yet.”
“I saw it in Spanish last year. Lame.”
“Yeah, Mr. McNelis,” Kristyn Murrow says. “That movie’s like a million years old.”
“It was released in 1988,” I say in its defense.
“We weren’t even born. Can’t we watch Scream Three?”
“No. And don’t get on my nerves, or I will get on yours. And, Stephen, don’t get too comfortable. You won’t be watching the movie anyway, pal.”
He looks at me in disbelief.
I motion him to my desk. He sneers, and for a moment, I think he’s going to refuse, but then he slouches over.
I hold out his last test. “You didn’t do any test corrections yesterday. As I recall, you chose to use that time to entertain Kristyn. Yet, despite your fascinating performance, she managed to complete her corrections.”
“So? I didn’t want to do them.”
“You don’t do them, you fail the nine weeks, and that leaves you very, very borderline for the semester. Your choice, but you fail, you won’t be participating in athletics when we come back from the break.”
I open my hand and let his test drop to my desk, then turn my attention to the attendance screen on my computer.
After a moment, he snatches it up and makes his way over the kids stretched out on the floor to the hallway, intentionally nudging a few with his foot and sending up a chorus of heys.
“Let me know if you need some help,” I call after him. I can’t help smiling to myself. God bless coaches and their policies.
I open an e-mail from Jen. Showing a movie?
“Stand and Deliver,” I reply. You?
So you’re the one who rented it. All I could get was “Shrek the Third.”
Oh. I’m sure that has a strong correlation to our math standards.
Yes, in fact. Mathematical logic in sentences. Pinocchio and Prince Charming. Hold on.
A few minutes later she e-mails me a scene from the movie, a scene where Prince Charming pushes Pinocchio to tell him where Shrek is and Pinocchio answers with a bunch of rhetorical mumbo-jumbo: I’m possibly more or less not definitely rejecting the idea that in no way with any amount of uncertainty that I undeniably . . .
I chuckle at the exchange. Now that I read it, I remember it well. It’s a stretch, but I concede the point.
Is that your kid sitting in the hallway? she writes. He’s looking in my door window and mouthing something to one of my girls.
I sigh. I’ll get him.
I step over the kids and open my door, catching him red-handed.
“Stephen, what the L-M-N-O-P are you doing? Can I assume you’ve finished your test corrections already?”
“I’m working on them.”
“Looks to me like you’re working on something else entirely. Look through the window again. Go ahead.”
He looks suspicious but does what I say.
“You see Ms. Went over there at her desk? If I get another e-mail from her or anyone else in this building telling me your face has been anywhere other than hanging over that test, you will spend your last day sitting next to me. You will be teacher’s pet for the day, my friend. Me and you.” I give him my brightest smile.
Apparently the thought of sitting with me is so humiliating that he actually sits his butt back on the floor and finishes his test corrections.
I congratulate myself on winning another round.
The whining continues through fourth period. It’s a relief to get to fifth and my calculus kids, and a real pleasure to see my sixth-period AP Calculus class.
I’m especially pleased to see that Robert is more himself today. He gives me a shy smile when he enters the room, and I give him one back.
Robert
I half expect Mr. McNelis to show us Stand and Deliver the last two days before Christmas break. It’s this movie, a true story, about a California teacher who takes a bunch of low-achieving Latino kids in an equally low-performing high school and turns them into calculus superstars. I’ve already seen it four times—twice in eighth grade (Spanish I and Algebra), once in ninth grade (Spanish II), and once in tenth grade (with my testing group during state testing week). It’s actually the perfect movie for Calculus because it’s, well, about calculus, or cal-CUL-lus, as Lou Diamond Phillips calls it in the movie. But there’s no movie. Instead, he passes out pages of math puzzles.
Some of them are pretty challenging and they take my mind off the long Christmas holiday coming up. Others are easy, like this one:
A teacher writes the Roman numeral IX on the board and asks students how to make it into 6 by adding a single line, without lifting the dry erase marker.
I copy the IX, then add an S in front of it: SIX.
The next question involves matches.
Sixteen matches are arranged in the five-square pattern below. Reduce the number of squares to four by moving only two matches. You cannot remove any matches or leave any loose ends.
I study the figure a moment, then look up and see that Mr. McNelis has returned to his desk. He’s kicked back in his chair, his ankles crossed on his desk, and he’s looking at his phone. I let my eyes trail along his gray corduroys to his feet. He’s wearing loafers, these two-tone brown and gray leather things with a slot for a penny on top and a rubber outsole. I’m trying to guess his shoe size when he lifts his eyes and catches me.
I quickly return to the puzzle, but I’m thinking about all the things I like about Mr. McNelis, besides the shoes.
For one thing, he cusses in class. He doesn’t use real cuss words—you can’t do that in public school if you want to keep your job. Instead he says stuff like, What the L-M-N-O-P are you doing? Or Son of a bit-my-finger. Just sit down. If you’re chewing gum, he’ll say something like, Get rid of the gum, or I’m going to kick you, then I’m going to kick your dog. And if you get on his nerves, he’ll get on yours. He can be kind of weird, but he makes us laugh.
And he’s a super math nerd. Fridays are jeans days for teachers, and he always wears some funny math T-shirt. He must have a dozen or more. Last Friday it was a black T-shirt with this slogan:
π
IRRATIONAL
BUT WELL-ROUNDED
IRRATIONAL
BUT WELL-ROUNDED
And then there’s this—he’s gay. He thinks we don’t know; we do. And it’s not because he’s an impeccable dresser; he’s not, although he does look damn hot in those cords. It’s not because his nails are always clean and neatly trimmed; they are, but that’s not it either. And it’s not because he sashays around the classroom; he doesn’t.
It’s because he follows AfterElton on Twitter. It’s amazing what girls can dig up when they’re motivated. And when it comes to Mr. McNelis, some of them are pretty damn motivated.
The girls think they can change him; I know they can’t.
The solution to the puzzle suddenly presents itself in my mind. I use my pencil to scratch out then redraw two of the matches. Then I outline the new squares again with heavy lines.
Mr. McNelis gets up and moves down the side of the room. He’s allowed us to work in pairs or small groups, but I’ve chosen to work alone today. There’s something about being in this room with him that makes me feel good, normal, relevant, but that doesn’t mean I want to interact with any of my classmates. Not this week. He stops at a small group in the back—two girls and a guy in a football hoodie—and looks over their shoulders.
“Are there any days you can eliminate?” he asks.
They all look back at the question, then one of the girls offers up a Hail Mary answer. He smiles and tells them to keep working on it.
I scan the page and find the question they are on. It’s a logic question. I think about what Mr. McNelis just said to the group and begin working my way through the problem backward.
I’m writing out the explanation when I feel his hand grip my shoulder. I look up and he winks. Something inside me shifts.
On Friday he passes out strips of paper and another packet of puzzles. His T-shirt today reads:
ARE YOU CRYING?
THERE’S NO
CRYING IN
MATH CLASS!
THERE’S NO
CRYING IN
MATH CLASS!
But I do want to cry.
Unlike my classmates, I’m dreading the bell at two thirty. I don’t want to spend two weeks on death watch. I don’t want to open gifts under the fat, eight-foot noble fir Aunt Whitney had delivered yesterday. God, I hate that tree.
The noble is an upgrade. So are the shiny new beads and angels and snowflakes.
The Scotch pine Mom and I spent an hour decorating with the accumulated odds and ends of Christmases past just two nights ago is back in the garage, lying on its side on the concrete, still clinging to its humble adornments.
The noble is so tall that the delivery guy had to trim several inches off the tip of the tree so it could stand upright. Then last night, Aunt Whitney wheeled Dad into the living room and she and Aunt Olivia and all the cousins decorated the new tree themselves, the whole time pattering on about how beautiful the angels are, my aunts reminiscing for the kids about all the fun they had decorating Christmas trees together when they were younger. I can just picture it—Olivia and Whitney (six and eight years older than dad, respectively) doting on their baby brother, dressing him up in reindeer pajamas, guiding him through the gluttony of a Westfall Christmas.
Mom and I watched mutely from the kitchen as we threw together another prefab meal for the masses.
When they finally left, Mom disappeared into the garage and a moment later let loose a primal scream. I was sure she’d been cornered by a monstrous rat or a rabid raccoon that had slipped in unnoticed. I sprinted for the garage, but before I could get to her, she calmly walked back in and closed the door behind her.
“What?” she’d said to me. That was it. Just, “What?”
I pick up one of the strips of paper and read the first question.
Make a Möbius strip.
I give one end of the paper a half twist and secure it to the other end, using tape from one of the dispensers Mr. McNelis has placed around the room along with multiple pairs of scissors.
Question: What do you think will happen if you cut all the way along the strip in the middle?
I don’t bother to answer. I just cut the strip. The paper separates into one long strip, twice the length of the original.
I toss it aside and look at the next instruction.
Make another Möbius strip.
Done.
Question: What do you think will happen if you cut all the way along the strip a third of the way from the edge?
Answer: I don’t give a flip.
I pick up the scissors and make the cut. What I’m left with are two interlocking rings.
Normally I’d try to understand how that one loop of paper had become two, but today I’m just thinking about the loops. I place my fingers on the inside of each loop and apply pressure outward. How much pressure will it take before one of the loops snaps? I increase the pressure.
As it turns out, not much.
Andrew
From the back of the room, I study Robert. He’s playing with the second Möbius strip, now two interlocking loops. It’s a cool party trick, and one that I still find fascinating even though I understand the principle behind it.
I was disappointed that Robert chose to work by himself yesterday, but I think I understand it. At least he was engaged. I’d even caught him watching me during class a few times. I found his attention curious, and both a little uncomfortable and a little flattering.
I’ve grown accustomed to being stared at by the girls; after all, I’m only six or seven years older than the seniors and nine or ten years older than the freshmen. And male teachers my age are uncommon enough in high school that we stand out.
I think the girls get from me what they want from the boys in their classes, what the boys haven’t yet figured out that the girls need—attention. Just that simple. Only, the attention I’m giving them is just part of the job. If they see it as something else, if it makes them feel just a little better about themselves, then great.
I don’t mention the fact that they are barking up the wrong proverbial tree.
But today Robert seems distracted, less engaged, angry even. He’s doing the work, but his mind seems millions of miles away. I’d welcome one of those looks, if just to give him an encouraging smile, to let him know I understand.
But he doesn’t look. He spreads his hands and the larger ring snaps.
I scan the room. Some of the kids are just starting on the paperclip magic where you loop a strip of paper into a zigzag and use two paper clips to hold its shape. When you give the two ends of the paper a sharp tug, the paperclips link together. Another cool party trick. I notice that Robert has skipped over that one, as if he already knows what will happen, and has moved on to the maze.
The next thought comes to me completely unbidden: I wonder if Robert and Whore-Hay are sleeping together?
I try to wipe my mind of that inappropriate thought, but it is as permanent as Sharpie on a dry erase board.
When the bell rings, Robert stays behind to straighten the desks the other kids have left willy-nilly and pick up scraps of paper from the floor. This is not unusual.
When the room is empty and it’s only the two of us, I ask the same question I’ve asked the last two days in a row. “How are you holding up?”
He balls up the paper in his hands and takes a shot at the trashcan next to my desk. The paper bounces off the rim and onto the floor. I pick it up and drop it in.
“Did you know that some Christmas trees are evil?” he asks.
“No. I didn’t know that.”
He chews on his bottom lip, then says, “They are.”
He picks up his things and leaves me wondering what the heck he was talking about.
In seventh-period Algebra, the kids are watching the second half of Stand and Deliver. Jennifer e-mails: Choir practice tonight?
Three date requests in one week. A new record.
Choir practice is not literally choir practice. It’s code for beer and wings and nachos at Bubba’s—a big open-air barn with a bar at one end and a stage at the other. About half the tables are between the bar and the stage and the other half spill out onto a brick patio under an extension of the metal roof. It’s a place where teachers, admins, and other school staff go to let their hair down on Fridays, especially after test week or just before a holiday break or the last day of school. I’ve been once or twice.
It’s a dangerous place. When teachers drink, they start behaving in some pretty unprofessional ways. Secrets are revealed, unhealthy alliances are formed, and gossip flows in direct proportion to the beer.
I learned quickly to limit my visits there. But it’s Christmas break, and I don’t pick up Kiki until morning, so what the L-M-NO-P.
I e-mail an affirmative.
When the last bell rings at two fifteen, the kids rush the classroom door. I wrapped up things during the movie, so I’m planning to leave almost as quickly. I’m shutting down my computer when Robert sticks his head in.
“Hey,” he says. “Hope you have a nice Christmas.”
I want to say, “You too,” but that seems all kinds of wrong. Instead I nudge the chair next to my desk with my foot and say, “Come on in. Talk to me for a minute.”
He pulls the chair out a bit and drops into it, letting his backpack slide to the floor.
“A rough holiday ahead, huh?” I say.
“Yeah. Can’t say I’m looking forward to going home. Maybe I could just hang out with you for the next two weeks.”
I smile and he smiles back. “It’s going to be okay, Robert. I know it’s hard, but . . .” I stop and shrug.
“Hey, do you have a pencil and a piece of paper?”
“Um, sure.”
I scrounge around in my desk drawer for a Post-it pad and hand it over. He takes a pencil from the school mug on my desk and neatly writes a phone number on the Post-it and hands it to me. Then he says something that takes me by complete surprise:
“That’s my cell number. You can call me if you want.”
He gets up. I stand too. “Robert . . .” I’m not sure what I’m going to say, I just know that teachers don’t call students. Not this teacher. “I can’t call you. I’m sorry.” I hold the note out to him.
“Mr. Gorman calls me all the time,” he says. “It’s no big deal.”
I feel a little pang of something that I suspect might be jealousy. Stupid, really. Mr. Gorman is the band director. His relationship with kids is on an entirely different level. They spend long hours together on the practice field. I know he even drives the van to area and state solo and ensemble contests in Austin or Dallas or San Antonio. But still, I’m sure those calls are strictly band business.
“I’m sorry,” I say again.
He takes the note and shoves it in his pocket. He bites his lip again, the way I saw him do when he talked about the Christmas tree that I still don’t understand, and I think he looks embarrassed.
“It’s okay,” he says softly. He turns and leaves.
Shit.
If someone were to ask me what it’s like to be a high school teacher, I’d have to say it’s like having one foot on a banana peel. The potential is always there for a slip . . . or a push. Part of that slippery nature is knowing where to draw the line sometimes, the one between student and teacher, the one that delineates mentor from friend. The one that says, I can go this far for you, but no more. Since I started teaching, I’ve drawn that line repeatedly. And I’ve moved it, a little this way, a little that, more times than I can count.
But this is one of those immovable lines—teachers don’t call students to chat. They just don’t.
Still, I can’t help feeling like I’ve just cut him loose and he’s going under, maybe for the first time, maybe the second, maybe the third. I just don’t know. I only know that the look on his face when I said no was one of lost hope and maybe even deep hurt.
I scribble my number on another Post-it and catch up with him in the hallway.
He looks down at his athletic shoes, and I know—I know—that I’m doing the right thing. “Look, I can’t call you,” I say, “but if you need me, if you need to talk or just let off some steam, you can call me. Okay?”
I hand him the Post-it. He looks at my number for a moment, then meets my eyes with his. “Thanks, Mr. Mac.”
Robert
I enter Mr. Mac’s number in my phone as I cross the parking lot. I don’t know why he decided to give it to me, or whether or not I’ll use it, but it feels good to have all the same.
Nic is leaning against my car when I get there. I shove my phone back in my pocket.
“Hey, what took you so long?” he says and gives me a brief hug, leaving enough distance between us to drive a school bus through. “I’ve been waiting for hours.”
Apparently I’ve been forgiven for my lack of clairvoyance. “I thought you had plans tonight,” I say, tossing my backpack in the front seat.
“I do, but I wanted to see my guy for a few minutes first.”
His guy. Hmph. Nic talks about all his friends like they’re his personal possessions. My guy, my girls. Tonight he’s hanging out with his girls—cheerleaders, all of them. And I’m not invited. I imagine they’re going to do girly stuff like paint their faces and their nails and talk about boys.
He’s like their little mascot. I think it’s degrading; he doesn’t see it that way.
That last part—the talking-about-boys part—sticks in my craw a bit. Apparently having a boyfriend and lusting after hot guys is not mutually exclusive. Sometimes I wonder what I ever saw in Nic. He’s cute, he’s funny, he’s smart. All true. And he’s gay. A definite plus. Beyond that, though, we don’t have much in common.
He’s never even been to my house. He doesn’t do sick people, he told me once. But when I told him my dad was dying three days ago, he’d gushed and cried and carried on like someone had just run over his pet turtle.
Nic does do drama.
“Look, I made something for your dad,” he says. He pulls something out of his backpack and hands it to me. It’s a book, carved up with the pages glued together. Most of the cover and a good many pages have been cut away, framing the page beneath, which he’s painted over with something white that allows the words to seep through just a little. Some of the words are still completely exposed—a word here, a word there—and he’s circled them with a black Sharpie. My eyes trail across the page—you—are—loved. Off to the side he’s drawn a pink daisy with a yellow center and a green stem that weaves among the words. I turn the book over. On the back in red ink: B+.
“Do you think he’ll like it?” Nic asks excitedly.
Your B+ art project? “Yeah.”
“Oh, good!” He kisses me on the cheek. “I gotta go,” he says, already backing away. “Can’t keep my girls waiting.” Then, almost as an afterthought: “You want to hang out tomorrow? I don’t have anything else to do.”
He doesn’t wait for me to answer.
I pull my car up next to a Dumpster and toss the book in.
Andrew
“One beer,” I tell Jen.
She eyes me and nibbles on a tortilla chip. “Were you always this stuffy, Drew?”
“Not stuffy. Just not stupid,” I say in my defense. “This place is crawling with gossips. I’d just as soon not be one of their subjects.”
“Aaah, come on. We’ve been locked up with hormonal teenagers for four months now. It’s our turn to let it all hang out.”
I laugh. “Sorry, partner. I’m not lettin’ nothin’ hang out tonight.”
“You’re no fun.” She inches her chair closer to mine, then gathers her long blond hair and pulls it over one shoulder, twisting it in a move that I assume is intended to be alluring. I decide to change the subject.
“So, what are you going to do with that novel when you finish it?”
“I joined the Romance Writers of America. A hundred ten bucks, can you believe it? But they’ve got this special-interest chapter—Passionate Ink—for erotica writers. And I’m thinking . . . maybe my roommate had the right idea. She paid her way through college writing dirty novels. And, hey, I can write erotica. I’ve had sex.”
I try not to grin too broadly as she goes off into a long, animated monologue about her publishing plans and pen names and the steamy scenes she wants to write. The music is loud—Journey, I think—and I lose some of her words in the beat.
I find myself thinking again about Robert. Would he actually call? And why me? Maybe he gave his phone number to all his teachers. Don’t know, not going to ask. But I can’t help speculating. And I can’t help feeling that there’s something about me that’s more approachable than other teachers, some special quality that Robert intuits.
“Pride goeth before a fall,” Jen says.
Most of her chatter has fallen on deaf ears, but this little indictment somehow grabs my attention. I look at her, and she nods toward Philip, who’s making his way to our table.
“He thinks he’s got this so under control,” she says, snidely. She grins widely up at him as he approaches. I’d like to warn him, but I can see it’s too late.
“Hey, you two, what are you up to for the holidays?” he asks. He pulls out a chair across from us and sits.
“Just hanging out with the family,” Jen says brightly. “I bet your kids are excited about hanging out with their dad for two weeks straight.”
He smiles. “Actually, Diana’s got a honey-do list for me a mile long. It’s going to be a working holiday for me. What about you, Drew?”
“I’m headed to Oklahoma to see—”
“Hey, is Liz here?” Jen interrupts. “I wanted to ask her about her trip to Mexico.”
Philip looks uncomfortable. He glances around the room. “Don’t know. Haven’t seen her.” Then he gets up and tells us he’ll catch us later.
“You are shameless,” I say to Jen.
“He deserves it. He’s got four freaking kids at home.”
“He’s a nice guy.”
“He’s a douche.” Jen grins and drains her mug. “I’m gonna get another beer.”