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JOEY
Ilove this place.
Chamberlain Academy has immediately stolen my heart.
The campus smells like mown grass and still water, warm stone and mosses, and there are trees everywhere. Everywhere. Like, whoever designed this place walked into the forest and said, “Go ahead and plant a building there, but mind that oak. Mind this beechwood. Mind those sugar maples.”
Of all the schools I interviewed with, this one felt the most comfortable, familiar, even from the online photos. This one whispered, “You’re mine.”
This campus, a hundred-and-fifty-year-old boarding school nestled into forested hills outside a picturesque Vermont town, is even prettier than it looked in the website photos. I’m in awe, if I’m being honest.
I love this place.
The charming teachers’ quarters, the stone dormitories where the students will live starting next week, gorgeous brick classroom buildings, and a gothic-style library that makes my breath catch. The main building, perched on a hill, its clocktower stretching above a stand of trees, looking picturesque and welcoming. I can totally see myself fitting in here, making contributions. Carving a place for however long I can stay.
Maybe it’s the architecture—these mismatched buildings, in every conceivable style from neoclassical to your standard east-coast boarding school stone to glass-and-steel modern, the old and new, blend together in an unexpected comfort. Like an elegant sheath dress paired with worn-in Vans. It feels right. Like everyone can fit somewhere on campus.
And it didn’t hurt that this one was the first school that made me the job offer. After seven years of professional status as an artist, I did it: I fell back.
Not that I referred to my teaching credential as a fallback in my interview. For all the Chamberlain Academy board knew, teaching was all I’d ever wanted to do, and my photography had just been a time killer until this job opened.
And I did want to teach, I remind myself. I do. I love the idea of teaching art, especially photography. Here on this idyllic campus, a camera in my hand and another slung around my neck, teaching eager young artists about aperture and angle and composition? What’s not to love?
But mostly, I need something stable. Doing the same work every day is the very definition of stability. Something regular. Usual. Expected. Something that doesn’t depend on my artistic vision.
When I step off the shuttle, the driver lets me know that my bags will be delivered to my apartment. He calls it my “residence,” which sounds either very official or slightly institutional.
I head toward the sounds of gathering, and after a few forest-lined steps, I round a little stand of trees and come to what must be the campus’s main quad. I can’t help looking at it as though I was going to photograph it for the website: warm, golden sunlight filtering through lush trees, hills rolling beyond the rooflines of ivy-covered buildings, grass as manicured as a golf course.
Chamberlain Academy, unfolding in front of me like an open hand of welcome.
I love this place.
I make my way across the pathway cut through the lawns toward the gathering of teachers, the smells of sizzling meat on grills beckoning me. A line has formed, and I add myself to it, hoping to quell my carsickness with a cheeseburger. That shuttle was an experience I’m not eager to replicate. Winding roads on an empty stomach have always been a recipe for wooziness. But the back seat of a long shuttle van might be even worse.
Someone bumps me from behind. “Oh, so sorry.” A warm voice, saturated with laughter, flows over me. I turn to see a tall woman with ropes of auburn braids and a huge smile. She waves her phone at me. “Distracted.” The woman takes half a step back. “Let me guess. New art teacher?” she asks, eyeing me with a squint. Why is she squinting? Do I look weird? I touch the end of my nose just to make sure nothing’s there. I think nothing’s there. I rub it casually three or four times to be sure.
I nod. “Joey Harker. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
It’s a pleasure to meet you? Could I sound more like a robot? I have never said those words together before.
She points to herself. “Ginger. Rogers.”
Oh, I love this place.
At the precise moment I realize I shouldn’t say it, I say, “Your name is Ginger Rogers? Really?”
The woman shrugs, so she must be used to that reaction. “I cannot be held responsible for the whims of my parents.” Her smile seems perfectly sincere, so I decide I haven’t been rude enough to alienate the first person who has spoken to me since I arrived. And she’s still squinting, so maybe it’s just the sun.
“Are we close to the food? I’m ready to fall over,” I say, partly to have something to say that’s not about her being named after a dancing movie star, but mostly because I really am ready to fall over.
“You won’t have far to fall,” Ginger says, that same sincere smile on her face. Touché. If I can’t filter out my surprise about her name, she doesn’t need to pretend not to notice how short I am. And if we are both unaffected by notice of the obvious, maybe we’re on the road to being friends. I’d love a friend here.
But priorities: a girl has got to eat.
There are people already eating, and others walking around on the quad. I hear a sharp burst of laughter, and then another laugh—one that sounds very like the laugh that caught my attention at the airport. That rolling, wavelike sound. I look around, not even sure what I think I’m going to find.
