Luckily for me, Agent Waters’ eyes seem unfocused, like she is looking through me, or behind me, or just can’t see me at all. She is still warm when she says, “I see. You quite late for school, young man! Go’on and go up to class.”
“I—” I try, but give a “—yes. Thank you so much,”instead. She nods her head, and I walk towards the back of the lobby, where a minuscule sign shows the door leads to the main office. I open the door, and…
…a small moan escapes my lips. Cold. It’s cold in here. And not the “I’ll save some money on my electricity bill if I keep the AC at 71” cold. It’s the “I give no fucks; 55 degrees, bitches!” cold. I am standing there with my eyes closed, relishing, appreciating, thanking all the gods in the universe for hearing my pleas, when someone clears their throat.
“Hey! HEY! Close the damn door! How long do you think it’ll stay like this in here for, with you letting all the cold air out?” I open my eyes. A stout woman is glaring at me, standing with her hands on her hips. Her bright orange t-shirt says, “Live. Laugh. Leave me alone.” The words stretch tight over her chest, fading the letters and making them more wide than tall.
“I’m so sorry,” I start, closing the door behind me. “It’s just so hot outside, and I’m late, and wet, and it’s so nice in here, and…” I stop when she holds her hand up.
“Don’t worry, I’m already over it,” she says, sitting back down with a smalloomph, her bleached blond blow-out not moving a centimeter out of place. “How can I help you?”
“Hi, my name is Georgia Baker?” I clear my throat. “I’m Georgia Baker. I’m here for an interview. I arranged it with the assistant principal, Ms. Sanchez,” I say brightly.
“Hi Ms. Baker. I’m Madge Hughes, school secretary. Everyone calls me Ms. Madge. Have a seat,” she says, gesturing at the two stained and torn upholstered chairs next to me. “I’ll text Ms. Sanchez and let her know you’re here.”
I murmur my thanks and take a seat, sitting on my hands to hide their tremble. Any amount of time sitting before a big interview is too long of a time for someone like me to be alone with her thoughts. I’m cold now, almost shivering, as thedamp spots on my shirt (read: my entire shirt) are now freezer packs on my back.
“Can I use the bathroom while I wait?” I blurt out.
“Sure,” answers Ms. Madge. She gestures at a door in the corner of the main office. “That’s an adult bathroom.”
I try to channel Ms. Madge’s calm as I walk to the door. The knob on the door is an old one, an original to this building I assume, one of the oval brass ones, cast with “PUBLIC SCHOOL CITY OF NEW YORK” and filigree.
Once in the bathroom, I look in the mirror and take a deep breath, PAP-ping once more (“You know, it makes me profoundly uncomfortable when you call it PAP-ping,” I imagine Eloise saying).You deserve everything you want. You are beautiful. You are smart. You are a hard worker. You are a creative teacher. You can do this.I attempt to smooth some of the frizz of my wavy, mousy brown hair, an impossible task considering my morning. My blue eyes are bright, excited, with bags slightly dark underneath. I have my mom’s small, straight nose, a smattering of freckles over the top, and my dad’s full mouth. I slip into an unhealthy version of PAP, one in which I imagine in my parents’ voices.You are wondrous. You are brilliant. You are brave. We’re so proud of you.
I wrench the faucet open and splash my face. I pull out some paper towel, the sad, brown ones that are somehow even less absorbent than the bodega napkins, and blot my face. I watch myself inhale, exhale. Let’s do this, then.
Fifteen minutes come and go. I rifle through my backpack, now mostly devoid of coins and crumbs and paper bits and also slightly stinky, and begin cataloguing my damp demo lesson materials and reviewing my lesson plan in my head.
Parents come in and out of the office periodically, bringing theirkids in late, feeling the need to apologize to Ms. Madge for whatever their reasons are, as if being solely responsible for the health and well-being of a living, breathing human isn’t enough.
A tall, willowy woman with a curly top knot walks through the door. She smiles at me. “Hey! Georgia, I presume?”
I nod. “That’s me.”
“I’m Lina Sanchez. I really apologize for being late. How was your trip over?”
“It was… fine,” I concede. “I don’t live too far away.” I force my voice down at the end of my sentence, affected by her cool, calm confidence. Something about her makes me relax. She has an easy smile, warm brown eyes, and a mop of curly hair tied up. She’s not dressed in the bureaucratic, stiff way some administrators are, the ones in suits who use their school-based positions to climb up to the Department of Education’s Central Office, Chancellor’s Office, whatever. She’s wearing skinny jeans and sneakers and looks like she’s prepared towork, not play the game.
“That’s great to hear. I think—” she begins, but I don’t get to hear what she thinks, because we are interrupted by the door to the main office opening again.
Here we go.
TWO
Georgia
He stridesthrough the door as if it’s personally wronged him, and I take this handful of moments to really take in this man. Mr. Oliver Flores. I try to convince myself that the asshole isn’t Very Attractive after all.
Because talk about stiff, bureaucratic suits—he stands towering and confident in a navy one, his body filling it out, no tie, top button unbuttoned. His hair is wavy and thick, a deep brown, almost black, slightly mussed, as if he had had a stressful morning, too, and spent it running his hands through his hair. His eyes are light; the color of honey when it is held up to the sun, even under the unnatural illumination of the florescent lights. Bracketed between his brows is a furrowed “11”, as if his frown is a permanent fixture. His jaw is square and strong, almost a perfect right angle, covered in dark stubble and accentuating his wide mouth and full lips.
I’m doing a terrible job of convincing myself. Because I decide instead that his true beauty lies in the little imperfections, his nose a touch too wide, freckles punctuating his otherwise unmarred brown skin. I notice his front tooth is a little crooked, overlapping the next one, as his mouth formshis next words. “Unfortunately for us, the DOE doesn’t drug test,” he tells me, and suddenly this guy is ugly as fuck.
To her credit, Lina’s face reflects the horror in mine. “Oliver; what the hell?” She turns to me. “Please ignore him, Georgia, he doesn’t get out much?—”
“I believe I already explained to you that I was having a rough morning, Principal Flores, not doing drugs.”
Lina jumps in. “No one,” she says, glaring at Mr. Flores, “is accusing you of doing drugs. We all have difficult mornings. In fact, Oliver and I,” she continues, staring daggers at Mr. Flores again, “are both late to this interview because we were each having a difficult morning. So please excuse him, Georgia. Believe me when I say that we are happy to have you.”
