Georgia Baker stomps in behind them, wavy hair huge and extra frizzy from the Brooklyn-in-September humidity. “I judge you for your classroom environment choices.”
“That’s because your room is a literal explosion,” Tamika, our stunning and fearless grade team leader, says to her.
Georgia shrugs. “Hey, as long as the kids are learning.”
“SEE,” Elias yells at me, like a five-year-old.
Georgia hands me an iced coffee, saying, “Second day of school treat,” and I realize the entire team is sipping on one. She eyes Elias. “I got one for Lina, but I just saw her, and she said she’s already too hopped up on caffeine. I guess you can have hers.” She hands it to him. “Just don’t tell Oliver I gave this to you,” she says, referring to her boyfriend and our ex-principal.
“Hey,” Elias says, after taking a sip, “youwere the one hitting onmeat that one happy hour.”
Georgia shrugs, nonplussed. “It was a dark time. Oliver is hotter than you, anyway.”
Elias thinks about it for a moment. “Yeah, true. In a different way.”
“Oliver is like half-Filipino Superman,” Emmanuel chimes in. “You’re giving…” He looks Elias up and down. “Lax Bro Captain America.”
Elias beams. “I’ll take it.”
“Did I use that correctly in a sentence? ‘Lax Bro’?” Emmanuel asks us earnestly.
Tamika shrugs. Georgia, Elias, and I nod.
I take a giant gulp of coffee and stand to hang up the bulletin board backing paper. I pick up the giant roll, and Elias moves to take the end, stretching it out.
“Can two of you do that wall?” I ask the rest of the team.
Georgia puts her hands up in surrender. “No way. Last time I hung something up for you, you got all pissed that there was a wrinkle, took it down, and did it yourself. All passive aggressively.”
Tamika and Emmanuel stand. “We got you, girl, but then I gotta go,” Tamika says.
We catch one another up on our summers, with Elias and I avoiding the mention of the State of New Jersey as a whole. We then predict the future of our upcoming school year based on what we saw in last year’s second graders. Elias turns out to be a particularly useful resource, since he’s the only one who saw them regularly all last year.
“There’s one kid who’s obsessed with the subway… like he knows the routes of every single train line in the city. If you give him a starting point and a destination, he can tell you the most efficient way to get there,” Elias tells us.
“Ooo, yes, he’s one of ours,” Chaya, the special education teacher in the Integrated Co-Teaching classroom, says. “I’ve met him before. He rocks.”
Elias looks up at the ceiling, thinking. “Then there’s the little boy who won’t keep his hand out of his pants, the little girl who wears a smart watch and uses it to text her mom all day, and the kid with the extremely severe peanut allergy. Make sure he always has his Epi-Pen in his pocket. Otherwise, typical stuff for those kids. Behind two years on social skills. Have meltdowns when they’re asked to share or take turns. But you all are used to that.”
We nod gravely. Those two years of remote and hybrid learning really did a number.
The team slowly trickles out after that, going to continue working on their own classrooms. Elias steps out to get a snack from Ms. Barbara.
I’m sticking the labels on the bins of my classroom library when Lina knocks and walks in.
“Hey, Mia,” she says. I smile at her, but it drops when I take her in. Her riotous curly hair is in a topknot that lays limp like a half-filled water balloon down the back of her head. She’s not wearing any makeup, has huge dark bags under her eyes. Her posture is defeated, so different from the calm, cool confidence she usually portrays.
“Are you… okay?” I ask her, worried.
“I’m fine,” she says, waving her hand. “Just a lot going on.” She smiles at me warmly. “How are you doing? How was your summer? I hope you got to relax.”
“It was okay,” I say. “Tried to chill. Failed, mostly.”
She nods sympathetically. “Same. I did summer school.” We both cringe. Summer school sucks.
“So, I have something to ask you,” she tells me.
“What’s that?”
