“Ms. Gallagher, could I have a moment alone with you in my office?” Mr. Donato turns and doesn’t wait for my answer. Our badass guidance counselor, Elizabeth, steps into the room and her eyes are filled with apology when I roll by her. The students are silent, watching me like I’m being led to the gallows. I force a smile and wink to let them know it’s all going to be alright and I hear Lizzie’s too chipper voice as I shut the door behind me.
“So, how ‘bout those scatterplots?”
Sister, Sister
Devon: I’m going to kill you.
Tara: I guess that means you saw it. I swear to you. I DID NOT TAKE THAT VIDEO.
Devon: I’m still going to kill you.
Tara: Come on. It’s not that bad.
You look really HOT. And you still got it. Until—you don’t.
Devon: I’m glad you think it’s funny. My boss didn’t.
Tara: Who, the asshat with the Captain Hook stache? That man wouldn’t know funny if it sat on his face.
Devon: Tara, he wants me to take sick leave for the rest of the school year “to rest and recover.”
Tara: I’m sorry, Dev. But maybe it’ll be good to get some time off? I’ve gotta go. Michael’s coming into the conference room.
Devon: Ten years of teaching, T. Not once have I missed the last day of school.
How am I going to say goodbye to my kids?
Tara: Could you write them postcards? Or send something into school?
Good news is they can always watch the video when they miss you.
Devon: You are so dead.
Tara: BTW there might be a GIF out there, too. Just type in karaoke.
Or failure.
Or so embarrassing.
Devon: Oh. My. God!
Chapter Three
Devon
Lesson 4: The last day of school isn’t as fun when watching from your mom’s Toyota.
I’ve borrowed my mother’s car to make sure the school resource officer, Dante, doesn’t recognize me and come over for a chat through the car window. I’m ducked down, the brim of my Phillie-Phanatic-embossed baseball cap parallel to the top of the steering wheel, my eyes level with the pitifully low number on my mother’s odometer. The last thing I need right now is for the staff and students to see me parked out in the lot like some creep.
I see the related arts teachers come out of the school first. Mr. Wisneski with the ‘80s style boombox on the shoulder of his Hawaiian-print shirt. Ms. Simpson clasps along to the tinny music blaring from the speakers while Mr. J, our music teacher, uses his fingers to conduct. I hear the chorus of “School’s Outfor Summer” and the familiar tug of bittersweet anticipation courses through my chest. I should be out there. Smiling and fist bumping and hugging my students to send them off to high school with the feeling that there is a family here behind them, wishing them well.
My boot feels heavy against the floor of my mom’s old Toyota. The car is hot, my sock inside the boot sticking to my ankle with sweat, but I don’t dare to turn on the ignition and possibly draw attention to myself. I imagine the students catching sight of me and rushing the car with their phones, a pubescent paparazzi, dodging school buses like Regina George did not. I duck down lower.
I refocus on my building, tamp down the rising melancholy, and watch as the first homeroom of sixth graders skip, speed walk, and sprint out of the building hooting and hollering like maniacs. They are still so small. The babies of the middle school and I imagine them in two years, legs long and spindly, cheeks less round and cherub-like, sitting at the desks of my classroom. This first class has broken the flood gates. Now hundreds of children are rushing out the doors, a phone in almost every hand as they take selfies, Snap each other and film Tiktoks to the boombox beat.
The teachers are herding them onto the buses, their faces a mix of amusement and exasperation. They still need to get inside and clean their rooms, go through the tedious checkout process that awaits them. But not me. I’m on paid sick leave and obviously making the best of it as I adjust my shorts to avoid furthering my swamp ass.
Pathetic.
