Page 24 of One More Chapter
“Unfortunately, yes, he can. He held the job for at least a full contract year. He is well within his rights to retire, no matter how shitty it is to do it right before the school year starts.”
“He’s probably doing it to avoid this impending shit storm,” Aaron says, shaking his head between his hands. He pulls his baseball hat off his head and runs his fingers through his hair. Lucy, his fiancé, runs her hand up and down his back. I see Sam reach beneath the table and squeeze his wife’s thigh. My fingers itch to run that fire engine waterfall of red through my fingers and comfort Pen, but I know she’d bite them off before I even got the chance.
“So what happens next?” Lucy asks.
At this moment, Don taps the microphone, which squeals out of the speakers like a dying cat. Half the room ducks their heads and covers their ears.
“You’re probably all wondering what happens next.” Don lays both arms on the edges of the podium and leans closer to the mic. “At this point, Nathan Harding—River Valley’s assistant principal—will be taking over in my chair. Unfortunately, with Meadow Ridge’s assistant principal out on maternity leave, we have no one to slot into that position, at least until she returns after Thanksgiving break. The job has been posted both internally and wide. If any of you have your administrator’slicense and would like to step up to the plate, please let HR know as soon as possible so we can get the ball rolling. I’d like to say a few words…”
No one listens to a word of the man’s half-assed farewell. They’re either too pissed or too nervous to focus on anything other than the fact that we will effectively be starting the year with fifty-percent more students and with no formal principal.
“Why isn’t your principal stepping up?” Sam asks me.
“She’s over at the other building we were split between, and it sounds like most of our behaviors went over there. They’re going to need her more.”
“More than she’ll be needed here?” Lucy asks. “I’m sorry, but if we havenoprincipal, and they havetwo…”
I sigh. “I know. Hopefully they’ll pull their heads out of their asses and pull her over for the time being.”
And in the meantime…
Something in me buzzes. I went to school for this.Ihave my administrator license.Iam fit for the job. The job that I’ve been steadily working up the courage to pursue since I started teaching. Being an administrator has always been my goal. I’ve just been too timid to reach up and take it. Now, it’s as if the branch with the shiny apple has lowered right into the palm of my hand.
I don’t have much time to contemplate. We are ushered into a day’s worth of meetings. I daydream through an entire seminar about co-teaching. I could reach out and take the role as AP for the year to get my feet wet. But at the same time, taking it would be sacrificing a year in the same classroom with Penelope.
I bang through the garage door with my phone wedged between my shoulder and my ear.
“I just don’t want you putting too much pressure on yourself,” Mom says on the other line.
“I’ll be fine, Ma.” I grunt, struggling as the strap to my lunch bag tangles with my backpack, both now dragging to the crook of my elbow.
“You’re building a new house, and after the last two years you’ve had, starting in anewbuilding this year, I just don’t think taking on a leadership role is?—”
“Fuck.”
My shoe catches as the quick-closing door bats my ankle—the one with a purpling bruise thanks to my roommate—and my entire armload comes tumbling down. Backpack and all of its unzipped contents, lunchbox, water bottle with a straw that holds no mercy. It all becomes waterlogged in a span of three seconds flat. I am about ready to blow my top.
“Ma, let me call you back,” I grunt, interrupting her lecture about why I shouldn’t have stepped up to hang up the call.
I snag the dish towel from where it hangs on the bar to the oven door, and start fruitlessly mopping it up with my foot. It takes about five more seconds for me to give up, chuck the soppy towel into the laundry room, and extinguish an entire roll of paper towels cleaning up my mess. All the while, I try to make sense of what’s in my head.
Of course I did it.
They asked for someone to step up, and I’d felt a push on my insides driving me to do it—to be their assistant principal, if only until ours returns from maternity leave. The meeting was only for information, but still, leaving that office with a bunch of smiling faces like I could be “the guy” had me on a high.
Of course, it all came crashing down the second my old colleagues got wind of it. You know, the ones who always say I’m“doing too much.” It was likeIwas back in middle school, being teased and harassed for being the teacher’s pet. Their teasing hasn’t soured my motivation at all. I still really want to help. It did, however, really sour my attitude.
My funk of not being good enough was a storm cloud churning bigger and badder as the day dragged on. A cloud of Anthony and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad In-Service followed me home. Really, as I finish mopping up my mess and take my dripping backpack and lunch bag to the front porch to dry out, all I want is a Red Sox win with my leftover Bill’s Pizza. I brought home pizza last night for Pen and I to share, and honestly? I’ve been dreaming about that last chicken fajita slice since lunch.
But when I come back in through the front door and look through to the kitchen to see it half-eaten, dangling above Penelope’s wide open mouth?
Oh. The fumes coming out of my ears areunreal.
I storm over, ignoring the way that my socks squish with each step.
“Whatdo you think you’re doing?” I bark, fists clenched at my sides, shoulders hunched.
She pauses, jaw dropped, the last half of my happiness dangling mere centimeters from her lips.