Just Another Kid: Each was a child no one could reach – until one amazing teacher embraced them all

Mariana began to cry again. “That’s not fair. My mommy bought them for me.”

“I can appreciate how you feel. You like your candy and you want to keep it. But it also isn’t fair to give a piece just to Geraldine. Geraldine was right to be concerned about her sister, although perhaps she needn’t have snatched the candy in quite that way.”

Mariana begrudgingly handed out a Life Saver to Dirkie and then returned to her seat to count how many were left. She squirreled the rest of them away in the pocket of her jumper. “What are you gonna give me now?” she asked Geraldine.

Geraldine shrugged. “Haven’t anything.”

Glumly, Mariana kicked the leg of the table. “Some best friend you’ve turned out to be.”

Dirkie was mesmerized by the two girls. He spent much of the morning simply watching them. Then after lunch he took to circling the table, and it occurred to me what was so fascinating to him: It was Shemona’s hair. Leslie’s hair was longer and even Mariana’s hair was quite long, and as I had never noticed Dirkie showing interest in either of them, I had assumed he was only preoccupied with adult hair. So I was a bit surprised and certainly dismayed to discover he was attracted to Shemona’s. The only thing I could reckon was that Shemona, like me, was blond, while both Mariana and Leslie were dark. This lent a new dimension to Dirkie’s obsession. Whatever was behind it, he could not leave Shemona’s hair alone. Around and around and around the table he went, his body slightly crouched, his muscles tense with excitement. When he would get in back of her, he’d pause, quivering. If either Shemona or Geraldine turned to look at him, he would jump and then begin circling again. “Hoo-hoo-hoo,” he was whispering under his breath.

“Dirkie, sit down,” I said. I was holding Leslie on my lap and trying to work with her, so it was inconvenient to have to keep getting up to reseat him. And his circling was nerve-racking.

Dirkie moved off, but within moments he was back, once again circling like a hyena with its quarry.

“Miss,” Geraldine said, “Shemona doesn’t like this. This boy is bothering her.” “Miss” was the only thing Geraldine would call me.

“Dirkie,” I said, “sit down. Now sit. You’ve got plenty of work in your folder, so please come here, sit down and get busy.”

I pulled his folder closer to where I was sitting, and when he came over, I sat him next to me. Geraldine, farther down and across the table from us, raised her head to watch us.

“You’re a girl,” Dirkie said to her, his voice low.

“So?”

“She’s a girl too,” he said, indicating Shemona.

Geraldine rolled her eyes in an expression of incredulity and went back to her work.

“And she’s a girl and she’s a girl,” Dirkie continued, pointing to Mariana and Leslie. “And you’re a girl!” he said to me. “You know what that means?”

“Girls’ pussies,” Mariana supplied. She giggled.

Geraldine looked scandalized.

“Girls, girls, girls!” Dirkie said excitedly.

“Dirkie, time to settle down. Here, let’s get on with your work.” I took a paper from his folder.

He studied Shemona, bent over her work. “And that girl,” he said pointedly, “that girl there, that girl with the yellow hair, with the long yellow hair, she’s a girl. She’s got a girl’s pisser, that girl with the long yellow hair.”

“Dirkie, I mean it, settle down.”

The excitement proved too much for him, and Dirkie was up once more, mincing around the table to Shemona.

“Mii-iissss!” squealed Geraldine in exasperation. “We’re trying to work. Make that boy stop.”

Putting Leslie off my lap, I rose and went to catch Dirkie. Taking him by the shoulder, I physically returned him to his chair and pushed him into it.

“That girl has long yellow hair. You have long hair. You have long yellow hair too. Are you going to cut your long yellow hair?”

“No, Dirkie.”

“That girl, is she going to cut her hair? Is that girl going to cut her long yellow hair?”

“She might,” Geraldine said waspishly.

“No, Dirkie, she isn’t going to cut her hair either. Now come on. Here’s today’s math. Let’s see if you can get it finished before recess. I’ll help you get started.”

But he couldn’t reorient. “Hey, girl,” he said, “girl with the long yellow hair, do you have a cat?”

Geraldine came over to me toward the end of the afternoon. “Shemona doesn’t like that boy, Miss.”

“Yes, he can be annoying, that’s for certain. But if Shemona doesn’t like him, all she needs to do is tell him to go away. And he will. He doesn’t mean any harm.”

Geraldine frowned.

“What about you? I asked. “What do you think of him?”

“Shemona thinks he’s silly. So do I.”

I was grateful to see that particular day done. While nothing major happened, it had been hard work. I’d been nervous about these two girls with all their tragic fame, and it had left me on edge. The others were unsettled by the change. Dirkie, especially, had remained impossible all day long, and I was ready to skewer him by the last hour. In an effort to hasten the end, I agreed to let everyone out on the playground five minutes early to wait for their rides. It was a clear, sharp September day, and I knew the tensions would evaporate more quickly in the brisk air.

Mariana’s and Dirkie’s buses came. Then Shemona and Geraldine’s aunt arrived to collect them. That left just Leslie, holding my hand.

“Where’s your mama?” I asked. “It’s not like her to be late.” I scanned the length of the street for Dr. Taylor’s dark blue Mercedes. Normally, she was extremely punctual, waiting at the wheel of the car when I brought the children down. She even occasionally came up to the classroom to get Leslie, if I ran a minute or two late.

We waited for a few moments longer, and then I took Leslie around the corner of the building to the playground and pushed her on the swing. She adored swinging. It was the single activity to evoke any kind of genuine response from her. She would close her eyes and let her head fall back, her long, dark hair fanning out behind her. While swinging, Leslie came the closest I had seen her come to smiling.

No doubt Leslie would have been happy to stay on the swing until dark, but I had a special ed. meeting at 4:45 in a nearby school, so my time wasn’t totally my own. Ten, fifteen, twenty minutes slipped by, and still no Dr. Taylor. By four o’clock, I decided things had gone on long enough. I let the swing come to a stop and took Leslie inside to the office, where I telephoned the Considynes’ home.

No answer. I wasn’t sure what to do. Could I leave Leslie down here? Should I take her to her house myself and trust someone would be there by then? Or should I just keep waiting? I dialed the Considynes’ number once more and let the phone ring and ring.

Upstairs in the classroom again, I got Leslie settled with some toys while I sat down at the table and looked over my notes for the meeting. As 4:20 approached, tension returned. The Considynes lived at the opposite end of town from where I was going; if I left with Leslie now, I wouldn’t get back in time for the start of the meeting. And what if no one was there? What then?

Where the hell had Dr. Taylor gotten to? I went out in the hallway and down to the end, where I could see the street in front of the building from the stairwell window. I searched up and down the tree-lined road for some sign of the Mercedes. This was definitely atypical of her. I had previously been impressed with her Colditz-style precision. Leslie appeared and disappeared each day at exactly the right moment. She was always clean, neat and supplied with all the necessary accoutrements, which was no mean feat, considering the number of disposable diapers, needles, syringes, blood-sugar tapes and such that Leslie required. Dr. Taylor never troubled me with any discussion over things. Leslie and her paraphernalia were brought and collected without my ever exchanging so much as a “hello” with Dr. Taylor. It was formal, but efficient. So this unexpected lateness concerned me.

Leslie trailed into the hallway after me.

“Come here, sweetheart,” I said, and extended an arm. “I’m not sure where your mama’s gotten to, but I know she’ll come. You’ll get home all right.” I hugged her against me.

In desperation, I took Leslie down to Carolyn’s room. She was due at the same meeting I was and so was just preparing to leave. I explained what was happening and asked if she’d pass on the information. I’d try to get over as soon as I could.

I was also worried about Leslie’s diabetes. She had a very strict regimen of snacks and meals, and I knew she was going to need to eat soon to keep her insulin level in line. Carolyn provided some crackers and milk left over from her pupil’s snack time.

“Are you coming to the spa tonight?”

I nodded.

“If you don’t make it to the meeting,” she said, “I’ll see you there. You can tell me all about this.” And she gave me a demonic grin.

Back I went to the office and tried the Considynes’ number. Still no answer. Was Mr. Considyne home and not answering? Or was no one there at all?

I returned to the classroom. Leaning against the radiator, I stared out the window. The door opened behind me, and my heart rose in anticipation. I turned to get Leslie’s coat. But before I could, the footsteps disappeared into the library. Two voices muttered quietly to one another, the sound filtering indistinctly out to Leslie and me. I looked at her; she looked at me. I think she was disappointed too.

Pulling a chair out from the table, I sat down. Leslie, standing beside me, moved to get onto my lap. I closed my arms around her.

“Don’t worry, lovey. Your mama wouldn’t forget about a lovely girl like you. I’m sure it’s probably just some little thing that’s held her up. We just need to be patient.”

Leslie relaxed against me. She was a snuggly child and burrowed in against my breasts. Her hair smelled of herbal shampoo. I rested my cheek against it.

The people using the library left, and all went quiet again. Five o’clock came and then 5:15. I decided I would wait until 5:30 and then ring Frank. I listened to each minute being ticked noisily away by the clock over the blackboard, and they all seemed to last forever. I gazed at the clouds in the sky beyond the window as they turned pink with the approaching sunset. Silent and motionless, Leslie remained in my lap.

Then, slam, bang went the classroom door and there was Dr. Taylor. I glanced at my watch. It was 5:25, nearly two hours since school had ended.

“I’m late,” she said and that was all the explanation she offered. She had stopped at the corner of the shelving units and came no closer. Holding out her hand toward Leslie, she gave a slight jerk of her head. Leslie responded immediately, sliding off my lap and running to her mother.

What I noticed was that Dr. Taylor looked wonderful. She always dressed casually, but in a very fashionable way, the way I would have liked to dress if I’d had the money and the fashion sense. This afternoon it was all wool and denim and leather boots. Her complexion was ruddy, as if she had been out a while in the brisk autumn air, and it suited her. She had very fair skin, and normally she looked unhealthy to me. Momentarily mesmerized by her appearance, I forgot my irritation. But as I rose and came abreast of her, while she was bent, doing up the buttons of Leslie’s coat, I realized abruptly that her ruddy glow was not due to health.

Dr. Taylor was drunk.

I was too shocked to react immediately. I just stood there, watching her fumble with the buttons, as the dark, oaky smell of whiskey wafted around us. The arrival of an inebriated parent wasn’t a wholly novel experience for me, but this had been so unexpected that I was speechless.

Without so much as an acknowledgment of my presence, she finished the buttons, stood, turned and ushered Leslie toward the door.

“Dr. Taylor?”

She was at the door but paused to look back at me.

I didn’t know quite what to say next, and the pause grew overlong. She turned away again and went on out.

“Dr. Taylor, are you alone?”

She was into the hallway.

“Wait,” I said and went after her. “Dr. Taylor? Wait a minute.”

No response.

She was a tall woman with a long stride, and I had to skip to get in front of her. “Dr. Taylor, stop.”

“What do you want?”

“Are you driving?”

She pushed around me.

I quickly reached for Leslie’s free hand. Both of them came to an abrupt halt. Leslie whimpered.

“I could drive you home,” I said.

“No. Thank you,” she replied and reached down, deftly disengaging my fingers from Leslie’s hand. The smell of whiskey as she leaned forward was strong enough to make me step back.

She shoved Leslie ahead of her and approached the stairwell.

“Dr. Taylor, please.”

No response.

I could negotiate the stairs faster. Stepping forward, I grabbed hold of the collar of Leslie’s coat.

This brought a ferocious glare from Dr. Taylor. She was still a step above me, so she towered over me physically. In fact, she felt about eight feet tall at that precise moment. I moved a little to the side.

“I don’t need your help, thank you,” she said through gritted teeth. Her tone left nothing to the imagination.

I kept hold of Leslie’s coat. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea for you to be driving.”

Her eyes widened into an expression of utter incredulity. It made me feel small, to be stared at like that, as if I’d said something so dumb as to beggar belief. But I kept my fingers around Leslie’s collar.

“Leslie is my responsibility at this point,” I said. “And I don’t think I’d feel comfortable if she went with you.”

Dr. Taylor said nothing but continued to fix me with that stare. She really was a remarkably beautiful woman. It was unsettling to me, because I couldn’t keep from noticing it, even at a moment like this, when she made obvious the old adage about beauty being only skin deep. But ignoring her appearance was like trying to ignore a drastic deformity.

And she wasn’t giving in. She had eyes like a reptile’s. They didn’t blink.

“Please, let’s be sensible about this,” I said.

“Let go.”

“Please? Come on now, Dr. Taylor. Be reasonable.”

“I said, let go.”

“Let me drive Leslie then. You go as you want, but let me take Leslie.”

“Can’t you hear me?” she asked.

“Come on now.”

“Let go,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Please?”

Her eyes narrowed, and in a very calculated manner, she reached her hand toward mine. Ruefully, I uncurled my fingers from Leslie’s coat collar and let go before Dr. Taylor’s hand touched me.

The moment I did, Dr. Taylor and her daughter disappeared down the stairwell and were gone.

Carolyn laughed. She threw back her head and really howled. We were the only two in the whirlpool, but I slid down into the water until it was up around my neck so that the people over by the swimming pool couldn’t see me.

“It’s not that funny, Carolyn.”

“She really laid it on you, didn’t she? Well, it serves you right. It does, Torey,” she said and leaned forward. “You think because you’re new here, you’re classless. You think you can mess with small-town politics.”

“I wasn’t messing with politics. The woman was stone drunk.”

Carolyn closed her eyes and relaxed back against the side of the whirlpool. “You’re better off leaving her alone. They’re different from us.”

“Oh, that’s silly, Carolyn. What rubbish.” I pulled myself up out of the deeper water and sat back beside her on the bench.

Carolyn remained in her relaxed pose. “It’s not. They’re rich. They’ve got a different kind of lifestyle than the rest of us. Different kinds of friends.” She opened her eyes and looked over. “You know what happened to Carly Johnston, you know, the girl who runs the gallery on Rosten Street? She got invited out to one of Tom Considyne’s big bashes a couple of years ago. It was a Christmas party, I think. Anyway, you know what they gave for party favors?”

I shook my head.

“Coke. Cocaine. Half a gram of coke.”

I said nothing.

“I’m not kidding, Tor.”

“I didn’t think you were, but she wasn’t high, Carolyn. She was drunk. Plain old booze, like you buy over the counter in the supermarket. And I’m not thinking of busting into her jet-set lifestyle. I’m thinking of Leslie.” Carolyn didn’t respond. She closed her eyes again and stretched out to let the whirlpool jets run against her arms.

Brooding, I remained upright on the bench. I looked over. “Did Dr. Taylor come to the school drunk like this last year?”

“Yeah,” Carolyn said without opening her eyes. “I didn’t see much of her. My room was on the far side of the building, and Leslie was in Rita Ashworth’s room. But she was drunk quite a lot. She drove Rita bonkers more than a few times with it. She’d be sober for ages and then come in absolutely blotto two or three times a week for a while. Rita never knew what to expect. It was worst in midwinter. It got to be a joke among us. You know how you get about things like that.”

“Didn’t anybody do anything about it?” I asked.

“Like what, precisely?” Carolyn half-opened her eyes and looked over at me.

“I don’t know. But she’s got to be doing herself a fair amount of harm. She’s young. What age is she? Thirty? Thirty-five?”

“I mean really, Torey, who cares? She isn’t exactly the poor-and-dying of Calcutta, is she? She’s such an arrogant so-and-so. She couldn’t give a fuck about you or me, if you’ll forgive my French. So I’m not about to play Mother Teresa for her benefit. Nobody is.”

I didn’t respond.

Carolyn looked over. “Has she ever said more than two words to you?”

“No. Not really.”

“See what I mean? Besides, we’re schoolteachers, not social workers. Or psychiatrists, which is what I suspect the woman really needs.”

“I’m thinking of Leslie.”

“Leslie seems pretty unbothered. Lots of kids have alcoholic parents, Tor. I did myself. You survive.”

Sighing, I leaned back and stared up at the open girders supporting the ceiling.

“Don’t sound so defeated. She’s not going to cause any trouble. She’s one of those drunks who really doesn’t do much more than just get snockered. When I said she drove Rita wild, I didn’t mean to say she was trouble. She wasn’t. Half the time I didn’t even realize she was drunk. Just leave her alone. That was what Rita did in the end, and it worked out best all around. She wants no truck with us mortal folk anyhow. If you don’t talk to her, you can be plenty sure she’ll never talk to you.”

“Still seems to me like she should have help.”

Carolyn rose up out of the whirlpool. “To be honest with you, Tor, I really couldn’t care less. I mean, what has she got to drown her sorrows over anyway? She’s beautiful. She’s rich. She’s smart. She has a fantastic husband. She has the whole formula for happiness and look what she does with it. Parents of most of the kids in my room, what have they got? Welfare. Prison terms. No education. No money. No chance. No hope. Nothing. And she’s got it all and goes around making a real horse’s behind out of herself. No sirree. Don’t look here for sympathy.”

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