Saved by the bell. Story of my entire academic career.
Annie's classroom is ordered chaos—paintbrushes soaking in jars, fabric pinned to bulletin boards, set sketches taped to the whiteboard. A dozen students look up as we enter, boredom converting to curiosity at roughly the speed of gossip.
"Everyone, this is Mr. Bardot," Annie announces with game-show flair. "He's graciously volunteered to help with our set construction today."
Volunteered. Sure. The same way Evan volunteered for that leg cast.
Annie makes quick introductions and I nod to the group of students.
"Happy to help," I say. "What are we building?"
A senior with opinions written all over him steps up with a sketch. Ryan, by the name on his binder. "It's supposed to be a forest clearing with an ancient stone archway. But we've been struggling with the arch structure."
I study the drawing. It's ambitious in the way that only high school theater is ambitious. Which is to say, zero budget, total conviction. "This is for...?"
"A Midsummer Night's Dream," supplies a girl with paint on her sleeve. "I'm playing Titania."
"Nice." I cross to the materials piled in the corner. Plywood, PVC, a tool collection that's seen some things. "Have you considered using a geodesic support structure? It'll be stronger and require less material."
Twelve blank looks. One of them is Darcy's, except hers is doing something underneath, and I want very badly to know what.
"Forget I said that." I kneel and pick up a length of pipe, because working hands solve what vocabulary starts. "Ryan, hold this end. Zoe, grab that plywood sheet. See how this joint works? Now if we add support here..."
"Oh!" Ryan's eyes light up. "Like a triangle pattern?"
"Exactly. Nature's strongest shape. Here, try cutting this angle."
And just like that, I'm in my element. This is what I do, minus the lawyers. Take a thing that wants to fall down and argue it into standing up. Ryan saws like the saw insulted his family, so I reset his grip and slow him down. Two more kids crowd in with questions about measurements.
Somewhere behind me, I can feel Darcy leaning against Annie's desk, watching all of it—watching me—and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't building this arch for an audience of one.
There's a kid at the edge of all of it. Dark hair, hoodie, close enough to be near the work and far enough not to be asked anything. He's been orbiting for twenty minutes without landing.
I know that species of quiet. I ran the opposite play, made noise so nobody would look at me too closely, but it's the same game with the board flipped. We were both hiding. Mine just had better marketing.
"Ms. Gable?" the kid says, barely above a whisper. "Should we start painting the base pieces?"
"Hold off on paint for now," I say, looking up. "Let's get the structure solid first." Then, because Darcy's watching and her face is a test I haven't been given the rubric for, I add, "Unless your taskmaster has other ideas?"
"By all means." She waves a hand. "Continue engineering."
An hour later, the archway has bones, and the kids who started wary are crowding in like it's a pit crew. Even the quiet one, Joshua, has edged inside the perimeter, watching my hands like there's going to be a quiz later.
"See?" I hold out the power drill to him. "Try it yourself. Just keep steady pressure."
His hands shake a little. Everything in me wants to grab the drill and fix it—the way everyone always grabbed the page and read it for me—and I know exactly how that feels from the receiving end, so I keep my hands in my pockets and talk him through it instead. Bit seated. Steady. Let the tool do the work.
The pieces join clean. The smile that crosses his face is small and real and worth more than the arch.
"Pizza's here!" Annie calls from the doorway. "Everybody wash hands first!"
The stampede is immediate. "I ordered extra," I tell Darcy quietly as they thunder past. "Teenagers and manual labor. I remember being constantly starving."
She opens her mouth, closes it, and files something away without showing me the folder. Progress, possibly. Hard to score.
Darcy and Annie slip into the hallway while the kids descend on the pizzas, and through the door's window I catch the two of them in conference, Darcy's arms crossed, eyes on the room. On me.
I straighten a stack of plywood that doesn't need straightening, and then somewhere between Zoe's costume theories and Ryan's Shakespeare puns I forget to perform at all, which has not happened in approximately a decade and should probably concern me more than it does.
