The second his gaze landed on me, the smile disappeared, and he sat straighter.
“Oh, Gilly, have you met our newest teammate? Christopher is just wonderful. He taught at Canyon for five years up in the city.” Maggie reached over and patted his forearm, like she did with me.
“Yes, welcome to our team,” I said, keeping my voice polite even though I wanted to take scissors and cut off just one eyebrow.
Christopher didn’t answer. He crossed his legs so one ankle rested on the other, and he spoke to Marisa. “Who usually runs our meetings? Do we always have them in here?”
“Gilly. She’s the best. She writes all these grants and gets all these donations to get snacks for the staff and supplies for the students. It is wonderful, and we’re so thankful for her. Have you gotten something from her snack table? She always brings us stuff.”
“I bet she does,” he said, the insinuation making my spine straighten.
I bet she does? What the heck does that mean?
“Anyway, yes, I run the meetings, and since I like to bring food, we meet in here.” I grabbed my chair and rolled it to join their circle, and his left eye ticked again when I pushed a student desk along the floor, making a loud sound. “To start, we need to go over goals and expectations.” I passed out the folders to the group, and three of them started writing. Christopher did not.
“Is the wholecolor folder and stickerthing necessary? Can’t we just write our goals on a sheet of paper and call it a day? Kids should learn. End of goal.”
“I agree with you, Christopher,” Maggie said, nodding and clicking her tongue. “The paper work and hoop-jumping always grinds my gears. We’re here for children, why do all the song and dance?”
“Exactly.” His jaw clenched, and his stare penetrated me. “Is this a you thing or a school thing?”
“Well, I always thought it’d be great for us to track our goals each month and hold each other accountable. It’ll help us be honest with each other.”
His lip curled up before he blinked away the hate and looked at Marisa. He lowered his voice and spoke so softly and kindly, it almost gave me whiplash. “What if we just verbalize our goal and talk about it so we can avoid busy work?”
I gripped the pencil harder, and a part of the plastic broke off, landing on the floor by his foot. His lip curved up just a little when his gaze landed on the piece, and he dragged his attention back to my face. “Unless that’s not okay,Gilly. I wouldn’t want tostealanything from you.”
His nostrils flared, and for the third time that day, a weird sensation took root in my gut, churning and growing the longer he stared at me. My stomach bottomed out, like the elevator lurched and gravity had me thinking I’d crash.What don’t I know?
The question played on repeat in my mind.
He raised one dark eyebrow and tilted his head. “Well?”
“Sure, yeah. Let’s try it,” I said, my voice shaky and uncertain for the first time since I’d grown to love this team. This was my zone, my place, my people, and Christopher made me feel like an outsider. The other three nodded and shut the folders I’d spent hours making and shoved them to the side.
“I’d love to go first, if that’s okay. Be kind on the new guy, all right?” He smiled sheepishly at my teammates, and they ate it up.
How the heck did this happen?
Maggie and Marisa stated their goal to have ninety percent of their students to meet each standard, Maria opted for all students to score well on their literacy skills, and Christopher wanted every student to read at grade level. Maggie loved his goal and offered to help him get set up, and the two of them got up to leave our meeting as he joked around with her about the Chicago Cubs.
It grated my nerves seeing him joke around with everyonebutme.
“I just love your room, Gil. It’s straight out of Pinterest! I wish I had the eye, and wallet, for this,” Marisa said, her loud voice carrying into the hall.
Christopher stilled and looked back at me, his gaze moving toward my wall with cutouts I had spent all night creating with my Cricut, and he shook his head.
“Thanks, Marisa,” I said, swallowing down the unease. “I researched all summer.”
“The kiddos are going to love it!” She beamed at me and studied the behavior chart wall. “I’d love to try this. Care if I take a picture and make one myself?”
“No, of course, go ahead!” I gushed, somehow needing to defend myself and make sure my team still liked me. “Do you need any help getting set up, Marisa?”
“Oh, now that you mention it,” she said, her voice going low, “I could really use an extra set of hands cleaning out my library. My sister got a huge donation using a GoFundMe, so I’m going to donate these books to the library and replace them with a bunch of new ones.”
“How wonderful!” I smiled and followed her out of my door and across the hall to her room. She was in between Maggie and Maria, leaving Christopher and me on the opposite side.
Marisa winced when she bent down on her knees, and I joined her.
