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Senior year orientation comes a few weeks after my eighteenth birthday. I’ve been on the Manhattan High School campus so often that it feels like my second home. I arrive earlier than the rest of the student body, but the office is a madhouse.
“Oh, hey, Dani,” one of the secretaries greets me. Her hair is askew, and there’s an ink splotch on the front of her blouse; she’s frazzled. “The printers aren’t working,” she explains before I ask. “We can’t print out schedules, and everyone is supposed to start arriving in forty-five minutes.”
I’m not a big tech girl, but printers especially stress me out. My father has one in his home office, and we’ve tried to troubleshoot that thing seven ways to Sunday. After buying new ink, reinstalling it, and smacking it around a few times, it still refuses to print anything in black. “If it helps, I can just write mine down. I’ve got two working hands.” I hold them up and shake them at the secretary. “I’d try to help with your printer problem, but I’m not good with technology.”
“You and me both,” she sighs. “Check with Peggy. She’ll probably have your class list for the year.”
I head to my guidance counselor’s office. Her door is wide open, and you can hear her frantically typing from a hallway away. But when I stand in the open doorway, she doesn’t look half as unnerved as the secretary.
“Hey, Dani,” she smiles at me. “Come in.” She makes a few more keystrokes before turning away from her computer to make eye contact with me. “Do we need to shut the door?”
I shake my head. “Nah, it’s okay. I just came to write down my schedule.”
She purses her lips together, trying not to laugh. “So you’ve heard about our little printer problem.”
“There can’t be justoneprinter on this campus,” I swear every teacher has their own.
Peggy nods in agreement. “The problem is we have to print 2,000 schedules, give or take. If we start sending them to teachers in the classroom, we’re going to get them back in God knows what order. The teachers are prepping today, so who knows if they’ll have time to bring them back to the office.” It sounds like a nightmare; I’m glad I’m not a part of it. “There’s just a lot of moving parts on orientation day,” she concludes.
I bob my head, making the appropriate sounds of affirmation. “Why not just send everyone to their homeroom to get their schedule? That limits the printing for each teacher to 20, maybe 25 students. You wouldn’t have to organize much.” Usually, a handful of teachers camped outside the office searching through stacks of paper anyway. If they were given a laptop and access to the system, they could quickly point students to their homerooms, where their schedules would be waiting for them.
“That’s not a bad idea.” Peggy grabs the phone and makes a call. I’m not sure who she speaks to, but in under three minutes, a plan is in place. I can hear people in the distance rerouting to their new destinations. “It could work. Especially since I’m not sure we have any other options.” She lowers her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “I think Nance broke the machine. We’ll have to call the company to come out and fix it.”
I wince at Peggy to show her my disapproval. Maybe my therapist is right; I’m too mature for my age. But I’m eighteen now, legally an adult. I think I’m supposed to be mature. “Anyway, mind if I grab my schedule?”
Peggy clucks her tongue. “Of course,” she says with a laugh. “I can probably print that out for you.Myprinter works just fine.” The dig at Nance is apparent, and I laugh alongside my guidance counselor. She looks at my schedule; her eyebrows knit together as she examines the courses I’m taking this year. “It looks like you have a couple of free periods,” she mumbles. “Makes sense, of course.” Peggy takes her eyes off the screen to smile at me. “You’ve been completing courses over the summer. But this means you’re really only here for a couple of morning classes and one in the afternoon.”
“I wanted to talk to you about that, actually.” I’ve been planning this for what feels like a lifetime. I’ve put in literal years worth of work to make this happen. “I want to be a TA this year. I have the space in my schedule, and it would look great on a college application.”
My guidance counselor raises her eyebrows in surprise. “Do you have an interest in teaching?”
I shrug my shoulders nonchalantly. “I think it’s an option, sure.”
Peggy swings a hand back to the keyboard and, with a couple of strokes, pulls up a new screen. “Do you have a preference for subject matter?”
“Math, preferably higher level, if any teachers are available.” I want one in particular, but I don’t want to seem too eager.
She looks at the list, squinting to study the list of teachers. “Alright. It looks like Mrs. Whiteside in calculus is available and Mr. Pelham in stats.”
I force my brows into a concentrated look before asking, “Do you mind if I speak to both first?” My heart pounds against my chest, beating rapidly out of control. “I took calc with Mrs. Whiteside last year and a stats course online over the summer, but sometimes working with someone is all about the vibes. You know?”
Peggy nods as if she knows what I’m talking about. “Of course. I can print out your schedule for you, and you can meet your teachers and speak to Whiteside and Pelham. Just get back to me before school starts next week, and I can get you a TA gig.”
I’m practicallygiddy. It’s tough to keep my face straight as I wait for that little white sheet to print out.
It’s all coming together.
2
DANIELLE
Iknow where my classes are located; I’ve been coming to MHS for years. I skip homeroom. I skip my AP Literature and Composition class. I skip Comparative Government and Politics. I skip Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism. I head straight for Mr. Pelham’s classroom on the third floor.
After wasting fifteen minutes before the onslaught of students begin to arrive, my time is limited. I enter Mr. Pelham’s class with a hope and a prayer.
He looks just as I remember from the last day of school. His broad shoulders fill out the white polo he wears, stretching the fabric thin. The undershirt beneath hides the tattoos that crawl from his wrist to his neck. Though I can see the dark ink staining his forearms and biceps, the image disappears beneath the shirt emblazoned with the school’s name. His beard is well-groomed, and his brunette locks are shorn close to the scalp. If you look closely enough, you can see the tattoo on his head. “Mr. Pelham.” Just saying his name makes me breathless.
