We reach my office, and I gesture her in.
She collapses in the chair with a small moan, kicking her sandals off and pulling her knees up to rest her chin on. I am staring at the chipped neon pink polish on her toes as she wiggles them when I catch the end of a sentence, “—where do I come in?”
I look up to meet her eyes.
She grins, eyes shining bright. “How can I help?”
I clear my throat and pull up my planning spreadsheet, turning my computer monitor so that Georgia can see it. “Lina and I have already divided the tasks that have to be completed. This column,” I point to my screen, “contains our tasks. We can assign tasks between the two of us using this drop down function I created.” I show her using my cursor. “Then, as we work through the tasks, we can color code them. Red will mean ‘not started.’ Yellow will mean ‘in progress.’ Green?—”
I am cut off from my speech by the feeling of a soft, warm hand resting atop the one I am using to navigate my mouse. She nudges my hand off, and, with a confidence born through expertise, begins working through the code and functions of my spreadsheet. I watch as she expertly changes the conditional formatting of my cells from red, yellow, and green to magenta, neon yellow, and teal. She is in the middle of changing the font from the default Calibri to… is that… Comic Sa… NO… when I finally regain my senses. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”
“Just jazzing it up,” she answers without missing a beat, eyebrows furrowed in concentration as she adds italicization to the conditional formatting. “It’s just so… boring. I fell asleep just looking at it. I’m also just making it better.”
I watch as she adds columns that do indeed make thespreadsheet more efficient and detailed. I watch, in awe, as she creates an incredibly useful pivot table in less than twenty seconds.
“Voila!” she sits back, picking her feet up and wiggling her toes once again. “This is a really great planning spreadsheet, even if it was a little… uninspired. I just added a few things. What do you think?”
I stare at the spreadsheet, speechless. “It’s… good.”
“Good?!” she shrieks. “It’s fucking amazing!”
My mouth twitches with the beginnings of a smile. It’s as if Georgia claws it out of my face. “Okay, it’s amazing. Although, I want to make everything the same font size, please. Also, I could do without the Comic Sans.”
“People who hate Comic Sans are just pretentious wannabe designers who think that having a strong opinion on typeface makes them superior to everyone else,” she tells me, as she expertly highlights and changes the entire document to reflect a practical size 12. “Did you know the most accomplished physicists in the world use Comic Sans for their presentations?” she says seriously. “My best friend Eloise told me that after attending a weird physics conference.”
“I did not know that, but I did actually know that Comic Sans is easier to read for people with dyslexia,” I respond.
“SEE!” she shouts, as if we are at a live sporting event. “We’re basically NASA scientists,andwe’re making the spreadsheet accessible.”
“Chaya and Emmanuel would be very proud of you,” I tell her.
“How about you?” she asks me, fluttering her eyelashes exaggeratedly.
“Well…” I look at her, try to really see her. I begin to notice the sharpness, the brilliance behind her blue eyes. “No. Maybe.”
I find myself speechless at the radiance beaming back at me.
FOURTEEN
Georgia
I really tryto ramp it up after that.
You are competent. You are skilled. You will keep this job.
I show up to our next coaching meeting armed with the Mother of All Rubrics to grade my final projects with, like Mr. Flores,Oliver, recommended. Busted out the big guns, even if it made me want to tear my hair out.
“This is good, Georgia,” he tells me, and it was worth it to see his smile, a beautiful thing, as rare as his praise. I find myself feeling annoyed with just how good it made me feel, at how I preen (shudder) under his compliments.
He pores over my work. “I think we make a pretty good team. Your…creativity?—”
“I can read the subtext behind that,” I shoot at his irritatingly square jaw. “Mychaos?—”
He smirks. “Your chaotic creativity, with my organization… it’s good.” He looks at me. “This is good,” he says, and I’m not entirely sure what he’s talking about, but I’m going to choose to ignore the warmth spreading through my veins.
“All right, 302. Are we ready to go? It’s Friday. Mama needs her juice.” I look around the room, then answer my own question. “Nope, we are not ready to go. Where are my classroom helpers? Dorothy, you missed those pencils. Get them to the sharpener, stat. Kyrie, your backpack is still open. If you can’t zip it over all of your books, then please carry some of your books in your hand. Where’s my librarian? Fix those books, please. Max, where’s the broom? Class sweeper, hello?”
Everyone moves into action, except for one. Max glares at me. “My dad said that sweeping is a girl’s job. I’m not sweeping anymore. Nevaeh can sweep.”
