Matt & Zoe (4 page)

Inside the backpack I have construction paper, printouts, posters and other materials. I begin taping up the posters. I like teaching, and I like the kids to have fun and be engaged in class. I’m looking forward to taking on third graders this year. They’re high energy and interested in school, and they’re not jaded yet like the older kids. I treasure the enthusiasm.

It’s a little after lunchtime and I have my back to the door, taping up a poster in the back of the room, when I hear a knock on the door. I look back—it’s Sarah Higgins, the school secretary. She’s a sweet lady of indeterminate years, somewhere between forty and sixty. Laugh lines around her mouth and eyes, and graying hair.

“Hey, Miss Higgins—what can I do for you?”

“Intercom’s out,” she says. “They’re working on it. In the meantime, I wanted to let you know that you’ve got an appointment later on. Jasmine Welch and her older sister.”

“Oh Jasmine! I saw she was in my class this year. Why her sister?”

Her face clouds immediately. “Oh, my. You didn’t hear?”

How would I know if I heard? “Heard what?”

She sighs. “Jasmine’s parents were killed in an accident last week.”

Oh, no.
Poor Jasmine. I remember her parents well from our parent-teacher meeting’s last year. Doctor Welch was a bear of a man who lumbered into my classroom in a way that made it seem like he had to stoop to enter the room. My overall impression of Jasmine’s parents was kindness,
aliveness
… they were people who loved their daughter, loved their lives. It’s hard to imagine them dead.

And Jasmine’s coming back to school right away? “Last week? And she’s coming back to school already?”

“I wondered the same thing—I can’t imagine what her family is thinking, putting her sister in charge. They must have grandparents or something. Her sister hasn’t even lived in South Hadley in years, she went off to be in the Army or something. Anyway, she called wanting to talk with Jasmine’s teacher, so they’ll be here in about twenty minutes.”

I mutter a little under my breath as she leaves. Twenty minutes. Fine. I finish taping up the poster and walk to the desk. I still have a significant amount of paperwork to complete—lesson plans and timetables—but I barely have time to even get started. Five minutes later, there is another knock on my door.

My eyes widen a little and I feel my fists clench when I see a woman standing in my doorway.

Her hair is blonde, almost white, cut just shy of shoulder length. I’d guess she’s five foot six inches, and instead of jeans and a t-shirt, today she’s wearing a blue knee-length skirt and a black tank top. I’m male and human and heterosexual, so my eyes drop to her well shaped breasts, but I force them back up to her eyes. She has intense blue eyes.

Angry looking eyes.
And I don’t have time to deal with her crap today, I have an appointment in just a few minutes with a student who lost her parents. I can’t remember the woman’s name… Chloe? I’ve always been terrible with names.

“I’m sorry, I’ve got an appointment in a few minutes. I don’t know how you found me at work, but you need to go through your insurance company—”

“Stop.”

“I don’t have time to—”

“Mister P!” The voice comes from behind the blonde woman. A four foot tall blur races into the room—eight-year-old Jasmine Welch.

Jasmine
Welch
.

Oh, dear God. The woman who wrecked my car is Jasmine’s older sister?

Jasmine flies into me, head-butting my stomach. I’m caught by surprise, and I gasp, suddenly winded. “Jasmine,” I croak. I lift her up and hug her.

“Mister P, I missed you so much.”

This little girl lost her parents? Just a few days ago? She was the kindest girl in my second grade class last year. Ahh, crap. I have to blink my eyes to keep them from watering and spilling over. I look up at the blonde girl—Chloe?—and meet her eyes.

She looks mortified.

Chapter Four

Mabel Stark (Zoe)

Mister P.

I should have realized. But how would I? The signs said Mister Paladino and that's his name, of course, but I just didn’t make the connection. But there he is.

Matt Paladino is about twenty-eight. He’s just shy of six feet, with dark brown, almost black hair, and his tanned face has a neatly trimmed beard along a square jaw. It’s a teacher workday, I realize, so maybe he’s dressed more casually than usual, or maybe he just doesn’t care about looking professional. Right now he’s wearing blue jeans and a dark gray t-shirt tight enough to see that he’s an athlete of some kind. Not a weight lifter—he has more the look of a gymnast or dancer, with powerful biceps. I look away, almost as annoyed with myself as I am with him.

He stands the moment he sees me, his face just a little red. “I’m sorry, I’ve got an appointment in a few minutes. I don’t know how you found me at work, but you need to go through your insurance company—”

What the hell? The moment the self-important bastard starts to brush me off, I reach for Jasmine’s hand. We can go straight to the office and demand a different teacher. Jasmine doesn’t need this—

I don’t get a chance. She evades my hand, shouts, “Mister P!” and runs right around me and into the classroom. He throws his arms out and hugs her as she buries her face in his shoulder.

I sag, confused and—well this is crazy—jealous. Except for the brief hug she gave me when I got her out of the emergency shelter, Jasmine has been pretty standoffish. She looks at me a little sideways, as if she doesn’t think I’m going to stick around—or that I might do something dangerous and unexpected.

It sticks in my throat a little bit that she runs to this guy.

When he looks at me, I can see that however much of a prick he might have been to me, he feels for her. His eyes are glassy, not running with tears but definitely a little watery.

He eases her to the floor. He coughs, covering his mouth with a fist, then says, “I’m Matt Paladino. I guess you—” Damned if he doesn’t get this self-effacing grin on his face. “I guess you knew that.”

I reach out and shake his hand. “This is a little awkward,” I say.

“Hey Jasmine,” he says. “You remember Mabel Stark?”

Her eyes widen. “Is—is—is she here? Can I f—f—feed her?” As she stumbles over the word, her face scrunches up in frustration.

He points to the back of the room. “She just ate a little while ago, but you can see her. I bet she’s on her wheel right now.”

Jasmine runs to the back of the room.

“Mabel Stark?” I ask.

“White dwarf hamster,” he says. “She was sort of a mascot last year.”

I swallow. I roll my eyes up toward the ceiling and say, “Maybe we need to start over.”

He raises an eyebrow.

I’m a little tongue-tied. “I mean—”

“Pretend like yesterday never happened?” he asks. Maddening.

I grit my teeth. Then I say in as calm a voice as I can muster, “For Jasmine’s sake.”

“Look,” he says. “We don’t have to pretend anything. It was my fault, and I was an ass. I apologize.”

I blink. In my experience, men don’t apologize for anything. “I accept.”

“Have a seat,” he says, gesturing to a chair. He sits down at the desk across from me, and I relax enough to get a look at the room.

It’s cozy in here. A little stuffy, if you want the truth. Mister Paladino has started to decorate the room with an assortment of school stuff—maps and books. A row of computers are arrayed along one wall, and posters are above that—cats on a flying trapeze, motivational posters, and one huge, colorful poster from the Ringling Brother’s Circus that looks like it was printed fifty years ago. Other materials are piled on his desk, ready to go up on the walls.

Jasmine is still in the back of the room, her face jammed up against the glass of an aquarium turned hamster cage. She’s cooing to the hamster, a half smile on her face for the first time since I’ve been home. Well, except when she was riding Mono.

I wish I had some idea how to help her have a full smile again. I don’t even know where to begin.

“I have to ask you one thing right up front, Chloe,” he says. Chloe?
What
?

“Zoe,” I say, unable to hide the annoyance in my voice. It’s not like he hasn’t had a chance to learn my name, since we spent all that time exchanging insurance information yesterday.

He flushes. Well, at least he has enough self-consciousness to be embarrassed about not remembering my name.

“My apologies. Zoe. What I wanted to ask you was… are you sure it’s a good idea for her to come back to school so quickly? She … well, you both… have had a horrible shock.”

I find myself blinking my eyes to force back tears. “We have,” I say. “Sitting at home moping isn’t going to help Jasmine. Look at her. This is the first time I’ve seen her smile. She needs some routine… some normality.”

He nods. “Okay. Got it. Normal. I’ll do the best I can. And please, can I offer my condolences? And my apologies, again?”

I nod. “Of course.” I glance back at Jasmine. She’s wandering the classroom now. Looking at books on the shelves. She picks a wooden puzzle off a shelf, and I start to say something to her, but Mister P reaches out and touches my hand to stop me.

I jerk my hand back.

“Sorry,” he says. “I was just…maybe let her look.”

I nod, taking a deep breath. “Yes. Yes, you’re right. I guess I don’t know her very well.” I don’t mean to sound wistful as I say the words, but I guess it’s unavoidable. And it kills me to say it to him, but I need an ally here.

“I don’t understand—”

“Mister P, I was in Tokyo until a few days ago. When our parents were killed they rushed me out of the Army and sent me home.”

His eyes widen. “You were in the Army?”

I’m instantly defensive. I get so tired of people looking at me—blonde haired, blue eyed, I must either be an airhead or a slut. “You find that difficult to believe?”

He gives his head a slight shake. “I find few things difficult to believe. But… I had assumed you were a student at UMASS.”

“I’m hoping to become one,” I say. “I haven’t even had a chance to get my feet under me yet, but I can’t sit around and do nothing. So I was thinking I’d at least try to get enrolled in school. Or find a job… or … or … something.”

The more I talk, the more I want someone to gag me. For the moment I just keep vomiting words. “The thing is… I wasn’t in love with my career. But I loved the travel. I loved Tokyo. I never expected to come home on such short notice. I never expected—”

I stop talking. Because I was about to say I never expected them to go and die. I can’t say that because Jasmine is walking back toward me, and for her, I have to keep my strength up. I need to show her strength, and compassion, and let her know that I can carry her too.

“All right,” he says quietly. “Do me a favor. Let’s talk via email over the next few days and weeks. A lot. I want to know how she’s doing and how I can help support her, okay? Do you guys have any other relatives in the area? Grandparents? Cousins?”

I shake my head. “No one. That’s why the Army sent me home so quickly. When the county couldn't find the next of kin, they sent Jasmine to an emergency shelter for abused kids until I could get home.”

He winces and begins scribbling on a loose piece of yellow construction paper. “All right. Here’s my number and email address. Call or text any time. I’ll do whatever I can. Are you all sorted for the school bus and everything else? This must be all new for you.”

I close my eyes. Despite myself, I feel relief. “I was planning to drive her to school.”

“I want to take the bus!” Jasmine says, an edge to her voice.

My eyes pop open. She has an annoyed expression on her face, and one of her feet is set slightly in front of the other and turned out to the side. I feel a laugh start to burble up, because I do the same thing when I’m annoyed.

“You sure, Jasmine? It’s up to you. If you want to take the school bus, you can.”

“I did last year,” she says.

“Okay. Bus it is.”

I stand, and so does Mister P.

“Thanks,” I say.

He nods toward Jasmine. “I’m happy to do anything I can to help.”

Let’s get to business (Matt)

At one in the afternoon, Tyler shows up at my door.

He chuckles as he walks in. “Man, you got screwed with this move. Look at that.” He’s referring to my window-wall of brick.

Perversely, I want to argue with him. “It’s fine,” I say.

He laughs and coughs out a garbled version of the word
bullshit.
“You got stuck with this room because you’re representing the union. I guarantee it.”

I shake my head. “It was the only third grade room open.”

He smirks. “You ready to go?”

“Yeah. Is Peggy meeting us there?”

He nods. “If she’s still alive.”

I shake my head. Peggy Young is the head of the English Department at the high school, my high school counterpart with the South Hadley Education Association. In truth, the high school teachers have more to lose than we do if the contract negotiations fail. The school committee wants to eliminate extra pay for coaches and phase out department heads in favor of
curriculum coordinators
who will do the job of a department head but with no extra pay. That, along with increases to the cost of our health insurance and a freeze on pay raises for another year have pitted the teachers union against the school board.

Tyler and I step out of the room and I close and lock the door, then we head for the parking lot. Of course I have to get a ride. My car insurance doesn’t cover rentals, which may be the dumbest decision I’ve made lately.

I get in the passenger seat of Tyler’s Hummer. I can’t imagine how he affords to drive it, unless it’s fueled by surplus testosterone. He drives us out of the parking lot, crushing lesser vehicles under his wheels—well, that’s not true—as he turns out of the school and toward Newton Street. I find myself thinking back to this morning’s meeting with Zoe and Jasmine Welch. Zoe is nothing like I assumed when we had the accident. My first assessment was irresponsible college student. I couldn’t have been more wrong—she was stepping into the role of mother after her parents were killed. Which makes me … a jerk.