She ignores me. “Let me guess. She doesn’t fit into the neat little boxes of your teacher evaluation rubric, so you’ve spent the last few weeks trying to shove her into one of those boxes,” Tala says pointedly.
“I—”
“Ollie, as someone who has been teaching in the New York City public school system for almost twenty years, I feel very confident when I tell you that rubric is trash. The evaluation system the Powers That Be have come up with is highly subjective and limiting.”
“But—”
“I know that for someone like you, those numbers and boxes make you feel safe and secure. And it probably feels real uncomfortable for you to have to supervise a teacher who doesn’t fit.”
“No—”
“Stop trying to interrupt me,” she says, in her Teacher Voice. “So during the several weeks of your bullshit, trying to get her to comply, this Georgia woman has been standing up for herself. And you’ve been calling her ‘rude’ and ‘disrespectful.’ And today, she finally snapped.”
I am struck speechless. Tala has always had an eerie ability to read me. I scratch my head, silent.
Tala fills the space, something she’s been doing ever since we were young. “You’re doing the thing, Ollie.”
“What thing?”
“The thing,” she repeats annoyingly.
“Tal—”
“The thing where you try to ‘fix’ things that don’t need fixing. The thing where you need to ‘control’ things that shouldn’t be controlled.”
“I—”
“Stop interrupting me. You’ve done this our whole lives, Ollie. To me, to Iz… Ma and Dad. Can you just relax? It’s going to beokay. It’sokayif it’s not exactly the way you want it. Are you meeting your goals or whatever?”
I grimace. “How do you know about my goals?”
“You always have goals. And lists of steps you need to take to meet them. Are you on track to meet your goals?”
I think about it for a moment, sifting through the chaotic debris of the mess that Georgia has left my lists, trying to recover the key points. Fix the school. Hire a competent teacher. Get 302’s test scores up. Get a promotion. “I… maybe.”
“Well, then,” she says smugly, in the tone that only an older sister can take.
I blow out a breath.
“It’s your turn to talk, now, Ollie,” Tala says. I imagine her standing with her arms crossed, tapping one foot. “Well, am I missing anything else?”
Silence from my end.
“Wait a second.”
I resume my pacing.
“Oliver.”
“Hm…”
“How old is she, Ollie?”
“Um. Latetwentiesmaybe,” I mumble incoherently.
“Oliver… Ollie, is she hot, too?”
I sputter, making nonsensical noises of unknown origin.
