The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman (13 page)

She waited silently in the red glowing semidarkness, sipping her English breakfast tea and breathing the sour chemical tang that still haunted in the room.
Oh, Kevin,
she thought.
If only you knew.

After a moment, Tenny Boyer pushed open the door
of the darkroom, and he and Ms. Finkleman had the same brief introductory conversation they’d had every morning since preparations for the rock show began.

“Hey.”

“Did anyone see you?” “Nope.”

“All right. Quickly please. ”

“Okay,” Tenny began. “‘Livin’ on a Prayer.’ Carmine is playing sloppy, and he’s really gotta get it together. Push him, he’ll crack it.”

“Fine.”

“And for the Careless Errors, what’s up with Pamela? Tell her she can’t stand there holding her maracas and scowling. She’s gotta get into it.”

“Fine.”

Tenny flipped rapidly through his thick spiral notebook, checking off each item as he relayed it to Ms. Finkleman. “Oh, on ‘I Got You,’ Tucker and Bessie have to work on that dance step. Drill them until it’s in their bones.”

“Fine.”

“Braxton, on ‘Holiday,’ he’s got to stay out of the way. He’s trying out fills, but it sounds like a big mush, especially during the hush-hush part, the breakdown. Kevin can improvise, but not Braxton. He gets carried
away and knocks the keyboard off the stand.” “Fine.”

“Oh, and Chester is killing me. Tell him to loosen up on the backbeat. It’s James Brown, he’s not in the marching band anymore.”

Ms. Finkleman looked at her watch. “Anything else? ”

“Um, um …” Tenny flipped frantically through his book. “Yes! Oh! The best thing. The encore. They’re gonna want one, so we’ve gotta be ready. I say we call everybody back out on stage, all the kids, plus you, of course—and we do ‘Not So Complicated.’ By the Red Herrings. Perfect, right? ”

Ms. Finkleman drew a sharp breath.

No! No!

But what could she say? Of course Tenny was right—it only made sense. “Fine.”

“Great! ” Tenny pushed back the hood of his sweatshirt and beamed. “Oh my god. This show is going to be so wicked! Don’t you think?”

Ms. Finkleman managed a small smile. These surreptitious morning meetings were difficult for her. The truth was, she liked Tenny. His sloppy enthusiasm was really rather charming. But it was that very enthusiasm—
that anxious, excitable energy—that reminded Ms. Finkleman of every rock person she had ever known, and one rock person in particular. Face-to-face with Tenny Boyer in the red dark of the abandoned photo lab, Ms. Finkleman found herself wanting to engage seriously with him, to discuss the rock show. To get into it, as he would say. But she mustn’t.

Instead, she retreated into teacher mode. “Tennyson?” she asked suddenly. “How is the studying going? ”

There was a long pause.

“Uh. Fine.”

“Really, Tenny? You feel prepared for Mr. Melville’stest?”

“Oh, you know,” Tenny said with a half smile. “Getting there.”

“Good. Because my understanding is, he may announce the date at any moment.”

“Yeah, I know. No, it’s going great. Really great.”

“Good,” said Ms. Finkleman again.

Ms. Finkleman watched Tenny leave. She fervently hoped he wasn’t lying, that he was really learning something from his work with Bethesda. The fact that this academically challenged young man would benefit from the arrangement was the only thing that made
it acceptable to involve the children in her ongoing deception. That was her bargain with herself.

She turned down Hallway C, took a sip of tea, and walked into her classroom.

“Ah. Ms. Finkleman,” said a voice. “What an
unexpected
pleasure.”

Ms. Finkleman stopped just inside the door. This morning was certainly turning out to be full of surprises. “Pamela? What are you doing here?”

Pamela Preston sat in Ms. Finkleman’s chair, leaning way back, her fingers laced behind her head. Her feet, clad in strappy black sandals, rested confidently on the desk. “I might ask you the same thing,” she said with a cunning grin.

“What do you mean? This is my classroom.”

“Oh, right. That’s true,” said Pamela, momentarily confused. She quickly regained her composure and narrowed her eyes at Ms. Finkleman. “Now. You and I need to have a little chat.”

“Oh?”

Ms. Finkleman did not know exactly what to do next. She had never come into her own classroom at 8:45 to find a student sitting in her chair, feet propped up on her desk.

“Well, make it quick,” she said simply. “I’ve got a lot of work to do this morning.” Ms. Finkleman began to putter around her room, adjusting music stands, pulling up the blinds that covered the windows.

“I’ve discovered a secret about you,” Pamela said, her voice hardening. “Or, I should say, a secret about Little Miss Mystery.”

Ms. Finkleman stopped and looked carefully at Pamela Preston. “Everyone already knows that secret, Pamela.”

“Not
all
of it,” Pamela replied, in a husky, menacing tone that chillingly reminded Ms. Finkleman of Principal Van Vreeland. “Not the secret reason why you put your rock-star life behind you and kept it hidden for so long. Nobody knows that part except for me, Ms. Finkleman. And if you don’t want it revealed, I’d suggest we get back to rehearsing our traditional English folk ballads. Today.”

A cold shiver ran up Ms. Finkleman’s spine.

Is it true? Could this obnoxious little girl with the blond ringlets and the lilac perfume have found out the truth? The real truth?

And is she
blackmailing
me?

“Okay,” said Ms. Finkleman, trying to think clearly. “What’s the secret? ”

Pamela paused. “Um, what? ”

“You say you’ve found secret information about why I never told anyone I was a rock star. So what’s the secret information? ”

“But you already know what it is. So, um, it’s, like, not really necessary for me to tell you.”

Ms. Finkleman felt her heart unclench, and she worked hard to suppress a smile.

“Well, yes, I know it, and you say that you know it. So before we proceed, why don’t you tell me, so I know that you know it. You know? ”

Pamela grew red in the face. “I just do, okay?” she said stubbornly. “I know it.”

For a child so intent on blackmail, Pamela Preston was a terrible liar. “Do as I say! ” she insisted hotly, rising from Ms. Finkleman’s chair and staring at her. “Let’s go back to the folk ballads and I won’t tell everyone the truth! The—the
secret
truth! ”

By now it was painfully obvious that Pamela was bluffing. But Ms. Finkleman realized how much she wanted to
let
herself be bluffed. How easy it would be to just say, “Okay, Pamela, you got me,” and call off the whole thing. She could pull
Greensleeves and Other Traditional English Folk Ballads
back out of her drawer.

She would have to weather the class’s disappointment, and Principal Van Vreeland’s fury, but all of this rock unpleasantness would be over. This was it—this was her chance.

“Well, Pamela, what can I say? I suppose I’ve got no choice.”

Pamela tilted her blond head and crossed her arms. A victorious smile spread across her face.

But then Ms. Finkleman remembered her conversation with Tenny Boyer that morning, in the flickering red light of the darkroom. “Oh my god. This show is going to be so wicked,” he had said, half declaring it as fact, half asking for her reassurance. “Don’t you think?” She thought of Chester Hu, whacking away confidently at his drums; of Bessie Stringer and Tucker Wilson gleefully giggling as they stumbled through their dance moves; of Bethesda Fielding, earnest, goofy Bethesda, jumping around with the microphone, singing “Holiday,” her pigtails bouncing.

She remembered Kevin McKelvey. “Thank you,” he had said in the parking lot, and hugged her.

“Actually, Pamela,” Ms. Finkleman said, and then took a deep breath.
This is it, Little Miss Mystery. No turning back now.
“Get out.”

“What?”

“Go now, and we’ll both forget that this conversation ever took place.”

“But—”

“I am the teacher, and I decide on the material. If you have a problem with that, you can quit. Bear in mind, however, that the Choral Corral is a class requirement. If you want to receive a passing grade in Music Fundamentals, you will show up, and you will shake your maracas.”

Pamela stood there, stony faced.

“Oh, and Pamela? ”

“Yes?”

“Try to get into it a little, won’t you?”

Pamela Preston slunk miserably back down Hallway C, casting dirty looks at everyone she saw. Kevin McKelvey sat in the cafeteria, playing air piano on a bench, his blue blazer crumpled up beside him. Weird, spacey Tenny Boyer stood at his locker, humming that annoying Weezer song, smelling vaguely of chemicals for some reason. Bethesda Fielding sat thoughtfully at her desk in Mr. Melville’s room.

“Oh, hi, Pamela,” Bethesda bubbled. “Neat shoes.”

Ever since Pamela had called Bethesda out of nowhere and asked for her Special Project notes, Bethesda had been acting like they were best friends or something. Like they were seven years old again and swimming for the L’il Otters. Like Bethesda hadn’t ruthlessly stolen the spotlight away from her. “Hey, Pamela, I’m trying to figure out a way to teach someone something really fast. Any ideas?”

“Why don’t you figure it out yourself? ” Pamela snapped. “You’re so smart.”

Meanwhile, in the Band and Chorus room, Ms. Finkleman continued to prepare for her teaching day, pulling the cover off the piano and lining up the music stands before her first-period sixth graders arrived. She took a final sip of English breakfast tea and settled in behind her desk.

The truth was, there
was
one more secret, even if Pamela Preston had no idea what it was.

Ida Finkleman was not Little Miss Mystery.

She had never been a rock star in her life.

In the
basement of his father’s house, Chester Hu was practicing the drums. In the past several weeks, Chester had been practicing a lot. In the process he had broken seven pairs of drumsticks, fractured his toe, and somehow snapped the hi-hat shut on his left hand, badly bruising his knuckles—but he had kept right on practicing. Every night, and some mornings before school, he went over to his dad’s place, picked up the drumsticks, and practiced. Endlessly he hammered away, trying to coordinate his right foot on the bass drum with his left hand on the snare and his right hand on the cymbals. Trying and failing, trying and occasionally nailing it, then—finally—nailing it every time.

Chester roared back into the second chorus of “I Got You,” whacking away at the snare, rattling the cymbals within an inch of their lives. His bass pedaling was in
perfect sync with his snare hits and his hi-hat hand, all of them moving together like gears in a machine. He hollered out the lead vocal as he drummed.

“I feeeeel good!” he shouted, feeling very good indeed.

He looked up at Victor Glebe, who was playing his electric bass with eyes half closed, his face a picture of serene pleasure.

“This is awesome!” yelled Chester, his voice barely rising above the combined decibels of bass and drums. Victor nodded. Awesome.

It was like that all over town. It was Monday night, and the Choral Corral was on Friday—so close the kids of sixth-period Music Fundamentals could practically smell it.

Shelly Schwartz played guitar in her room while Susie Schwartz played bass in hers.

Little Bessie Stringer with her gigantic baritone sax and heavyset Tucker Wilson with his little trumpet practiced their four-step shuffling choreography and played their unison horn parts. Rory Daas, lead singer for Half-Eaten Almond Joy, preened and strutted across the floor with a mop for a microphone, singing “Livin’ on a Prayer” for his brother Declan (age three) and Declan’s
playdate, Sami (age two and three quarters). Outside the kitchen, Rory’s mother stood with arms crossed, deciding whether to call a pre-adolescent therapist she had heard good things about.

Kevin McKelvey, his navy blue blazer and red-striped tie balled up in a heap on the floor of his room, was exuberantly playing “Great Balls of Fire.” In two and a half hours, his father would be boarding an overnight flight to Perth for a month of performances with the Australian National Symphony. To avoid another screaming argument with his parents, all Kevin had to do was stay in here until he left for the airport. So he had wheeled the giant antique Steinway around 180 degrees to block the entrance to his room.

“Come out of there, young man,” his father called.

Kevin was passing the time with a Jerry Lee Lewis marathon. “You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain!” he sang as he played. “Too much love drives a man insane!”

Kevin’s mother banged on the door. “Enough, Kevin! Enough is enough! ”

Kevin sang louder. “You broke my will! But what a thrill! Goodness, gracious, great balls of fire! ” He stood
and kicked the bench away, sticking his butt up in the air as he pounded out the solo. He played it so hard the whole piano shook. The pedals squeaked as he leaned into them with the full weight of his body. Outside the bedroom, Kevin’s father’s eyes widened as he imagined the horrors being committed upon his grandfather’s Steinway.

“Kevin! ” he shouted. “If you don’t stop right now, we will get rid of that piano.” Mrs. McKelvey looked at her husband, shocked, but he repeated it. “So help me god, we will get rid of it! ”

The music stopped.

There was a long pause.

Mr. and Mrs. McKelvey looked at each other.

Standing at the piano, Kevin’s eyes widened. His heart thudded in his chest. There was a part of him that had been waiting to hear those words for his whole life.
Get rid of it?
That meant … normalcy. Afternoons free. A room where he could turn all the way around.

But that was before Ms. Finkleman.

And Bon Jovi. And Little Richard, and Tori Amos, and Elton John, and …

Outside the door, Kevin’s parents stood waiting.

Kevin looked at the door, then back to the book
propped up in front of him on the piano.
Jerry Lee Lewis: All the Number-One Hits.