I take the empty seat next to Howard and smile at the other teachers at the table. We’ve all had the same lunch schedule for the past school year and know quite a bit about each other’s personal lives.
Sometimes things become a little creepy with the TMI. Like for instance, the oversharing of Howard and his wife, Jasmine’s, new “pony” position. It sounded an awful lot like regular doggie style, but apparently when you add in a crop and a saddle, it’s like horses gone wild.
I smile at the teacher seated across from me, her mousy blond hair pulled back into her usual ponytail. “Hey, April. How was the fieldtrip to the capital yesterday? I see you’re still standing, so that’s a good sign.”
April Mullins is about ten years older than me and is probably the nicest woman I know. We’ve become friends outside of work, as we’re both avid readers of Jane Austen, and attend a lot of literary functions. What I admire about April, and where she differs greatly from me, is that she really loves teaching and doesn’t seem jaded yet by the system.
Me, on the other hand, could be sold in an Asian market as fine jewelry. Get it? Jaded?
April rubs her eyebrow nervously. She’s a little quirky in her own nervous-tick kind of way. But that didn’t stop her from finally meeting the man of her dreams, an even quirkier fellow named Tanner.
“The good news is that I came back with all twenty-eight students. The bad news is that Demarcus Lange was caught making out in a hallway with his girl du jour.”
She continues to pluck at her bushy eyebrows, a small grin touching the corners of her mouth.
We all nod along at the story, knowing full well it could have happened to any one of us. Demarcus was in my English class last year and he’s definitely a kid who will try to get away with anything.
Shelle Collins, the arts teacher, heaves a heavy sigh next to me. I turn and give her a wide-eyed stare.
“That boy,” she groans, shaking her head. “He’s trouble just like his older brother Deshawn was two years ago. You know I caught him stealing some paint thinners and aerosols from my classroom a few months ago?”
Call me dumb, but it doesn’t even click with me why in the world he’d want to steal that.
I swallow my bite of sandwich and ask, “Maybe he was working on an art project and couldn’t afford the supplies.”
Shelle pats my hand patronizingly. “Oh, my sweet lil’ angel,” she says with a bit of a southern drawl. “Demarcus was going to use them to get high, honey. He was caught with three other boys behind the school with the bags and cans in hand.”
Oh my God. Maybe I’m too sheltered for this job. Do kids really think it’s a good idea to mess with toxic chemicals?
“Wow. That’s awful. I had no idea they did that.”
To say I grew up in a sheltered mid-West home is to say the Cubbies only had a “little bad luck” winning the series allthose years.[SH1]
Howard pipes in, shaking his head. “These kids.”
He noshes on his sandwich, his mustache looking like a caterpillar wiggling on his face. Howard is so nonchalant about the whole thing, as is Shelle.
The topic of conversation changes to April’s upcoming wedding. She’s getting married this summer to the guy she just met six months ago. If there were ever a couple that was meant to be, it would be these two. They met at a cosplay event at the Chicago ComiCom when their swords got tangled together on the escalator.
Ah, true love.
I try to tune back in to the happier discussion about the floral arrangements and colors she’s selected, and how there will be a sci-fi themed photo booth but my mind is now too far away.
Only twelve more days and then I can take a break. Get away from this teen-filled world and figure out what I want to do for the rest of my life. Because I know I’m not there right now.
***
I’ve been in the Chicago area for the last six years. After graduating from the University of Illinois, I was lucky to be offered a job right out of school in Chicago.
Well, if you ask my mother, she wouldn’t consider it luck. More like shit luck. She can’t possibly comprehend why I’d want to remain in Chicago, that “dirty, filthy city” instead of coming back home to South Bend, Indiana. Where in her mind, I’d find a good teaching gig and marry as soon as reasonably possible, popping out a few grandchildren along the way.
Somedays, her voice chimes in my head like a broken record and I do wonder why I chose to remain in Chicago. Granted, being five hundred miles away from my mother isdefinitelya benefit, but this city can be harsh on a single girl. And not just the heat of the summers or the chill factor of the winters.
I’m already exhausted from teaching in the system only two years. I’m in one of the largest school districts in the U.S., where nearly four-hundred-thousand students walk through our classrooms on an annual basis. In schools that are run-down, in need of repair, and have little to no funding for any proper supplies or learning materials.
Yet for the one-hundred and twenty kids I work with each day, there’s something gratifying about it, too. When I see that lightbulb click on for the student who was struggling and I helped them find their answer, it’s absolutely brilliant. But even with those one in a hundred students, I still know in my heart-of-hearts that it’s not my true passion.
I only went into teaching because of my parents. Am I happy about being a teacher? I’ve yet to have the same level of excitement that some of my friends have in their teaching roles. There are days when I do feel that sense of reward.
