Second Chances
Chapter One
Beginnings
With the last desk in place, Diantha stood at the front of her classroom, assessing her work. Every so often, she would walk to a desk to adjust its position, taking care to align it with the grain of the tile.
Her work would surly be destroyed within the next hour when her first class of the year arrived, but for now, appearances were everything.
"You've adjusted that desk five times now."
She laughed in response, not bothering to look at the man in her doorway. She didn't need to look up to know exactly who it was.
"Mr. Sycamore, surly you of everyone will know I will adjust it another five times before I am satisfied," she teased.
His laugh rumbled in his chest, finally drawing in her blue eyes. The extra cup of coffee in his hands particularly attracted her attention.
"The kids are just going to mess it up," he reminded her.
"I can always hope that they won't," she told him, adjusting the desk one last time.
Looking around her room, and deciding that it was finally to her liking, she walked to her desk to sit in its chair. "I've probably already asked, but how are your class lists looking this year?"
Placing the extra coffee in front of her, he sat in the chair closest to her desk. "You did, but things changed!" He began, taking a long sip of his coffee. "They ended up hiring that extra science teacher, and so now my class loads are down to twenty. For now my max is my fourth block with twenty one, I believe."
"I was wondering about that. That must be nice. My largest class is still at twenty eight. Second block, if I remember correctly."
He sighed in response, stretching his legs out. "One of these days they'll figure out that they need to hire more literature teachers."
She responded by nodding as she took a sip of her coffee. It was incredibly sweet, to her liking. "One day maybe, but definitely not this year."
"How many of your students you think will recognize you?" He asked, looking at her with a smile.
She rolled her eyes. "I pray that I have another year like last year. Nobody recognized me. Not their parents. Not even my new homeroom kids." It had been a blessing. For the first four years of her teaching career, it was usually the parents of students who ended up recognizing her. Sometimes her students would, too, but it was usually parents who would remember the release of her movies.
Last year, nobody had recognized her. It was the peace she had been searching for since leaving her movie career six years prior to it. However, whether or not it was meant to last was yet to be seen. Her last film had only been released ten years ago.
"I can't say that I know what it's like, but I'm sure that must have been nice," he sympathized.
They sat in silence, enjoying the calm before the day started.
"Excuse me," came a quiet voice.
Looking over, a student she hadn't met stood in her doorway, a small spread of papers in her hands. "Yes?" Diantha answered, turning in her chair to face her.
"Are you…" she paused, looking down at what was likely her schedule. "Are you Mrs. Gardner?" She asked, brushing her bangs away from her glasses.
Diantha nodded. "Yes."
"Okay, cool! I just moved here, and so I'm trying to figure out where all my classes are. I have you for," again, she looked to her paper, "for homeroom and second block!"
"Oh, excellent! So glad to have you. You know to come here first thing when the bell rings, correct?"
The blonde nodded. "Yeah! That, and that we have free reign of the halls until the bell rings, and that there's a one hour lunch period?"
Augustine nodded. "That would be correct. Though, it's more like…forty five minutes."
"Ms. O'Neal said something like that," she responded, while continuing to look at Diantha.
It was an expression she knew all too well. The expression of, "I recognize you." Dread crept its way into her stomach. Thankfully, to her acting career no less, she was able to mask it.
"Has anyone told you you look really familiar?"
Diantha forced a laugh. "Yes, I get that a lot."
She continued looking at her, but then shook her head. "I can't remember who you look like." Thankfully, she wasn't willing to press it any further. "Could you tell me where Mr.-" she looked to her paper "-Crouch is? He's my first block teacher."
"To your right, and at the very end of the hallway on the left, right before the stairwell," Augustine answered.
"Awesome! Thank you!" With that, she was off, nose buried in her papers.
Diantha laughed at the situation, watching as Augustine rose from the too-small desk. "Well, that makes one," he told her.
She shook her head, resting her cheek in her hand. "Unfortunately."
"Well," he began, heading for the door, "I'm going to make sure my teaching assistant is printing off enough copies of this semester's syllabus." He put his hand on her shoulder, offering her as much support as he could in the moment. "Hopefully, she'll be the only one."
"Hopefully," she echoed, even though she already lost hope.
Once he had left, Diantha leaned back in her chair, looking over her room. The chair that Augustine had been sitting in was now just crooked enough to bother her.
The hallways were still quiet enough to tell her that she still had plenty of time to do any last minute adjustments to her room.
Holding onto her coffee cup, she sipped it while contemplating actually moving it. It bothered her to no end to see it out of line with the rest, but she wondered if she would be able to fight against the need to fix it.
Minutes passed. Just before she could finally cave, the sound of approaching students distracted her.
She greeted the pair that walked in, watching as the taller girl sat in the seat she had wanted to fix.
It was going to be a long day.
Staring at the large display that showcased the earth's rock cycle, Cynthia rubbed her neck in thought. She would forever be mad that the colors hadn't come out just right. The magma was a few shades too bright, and the brown in some of the rocks was on the orange side.
Walking around it, she made sure all the interactive parts were in order before moving on to the next section in the geology ward. All the video displays worked correctly, and nothing seemed to be missing.
Yet.
How children managed to get away with taking things from interactive displays, on accident or not, was beyond her.
With everything in its place, she headed for the main entrance of the center.
"Alright. We have you booked for the twentieth and the twenty third." A pause. "Thank you!"
Taking a detour into her bosses office, she stood in the doorframe, watching him hastily write things down in a planner.
"Another school I take it?" She asked.
She was met with silence.
"Steven?"
"Oh!" He looked up from his planner, flinging his pen out of his hand. "Yes, a school. Hazleton Elementary is making a trip with their third and fourth graders later this month," he told her, swiveling in his chair to pick up the pen.
She nodded, making a mental note of it. "We're still good to open the planetarium in two weeks, right?" She asked.
He gave a noncommittal gesture with his hands. "Should be. Pre-sale tickets start this weekend," he reminded her. "Though, I might have promised the schools access ahead of that." He returned his attention to the planner.
She laughed at him, taking a seat in the chair across from him. "It's probably a good thing you're now officially the owner. I doubt Mason would have approved of that in the past."
He responded with a small laugh. "Probably not."
"Anyways, I wanted to talk to you about something," she started, clasping her hands together. "It's something I think would benefit the museum greatly."
He stopped writing, looking up at her again, no longer smiling. "If it's about an archaeology section, for the millionth time, no."
She crossed her legs, sighing as over-dramatically as possible. "You and I both know very well an archaeology section would do wonders for this place. While I'm thrilled with the planetarium and new display in the geology wing, I think-"
He raised his hand up, stopping her. "Cynthia, look, trust me. I would love an archaeology section just as much as you would, it's…I'm still," he paused, unsure whether or not to share the information with her.
"The whole wing leading up to the planetarium is empty!" She reasoned.
"Yes, because we're still finalizing things in the planetarium, and it wouldn't even fit there, thematically. Archaeology is history, and the planetarium is now," he countered.
She leaned forward, having anticipated the response. "I thought of a tie-in, actually. We could showcase what the stars would have looked like during the times of the displays! They weren't in the same position as most of the creatures I could get."
He shook his head, trying not to laugh. "While that is a good idea, no."
"Steven," she grumbled, dragging out the vowels.
It was not the first time they had this debate. It wasn't even the tenth time. For four months now, she had greeted him every Monday and Friday morning with the subject. She promised him that she wouldn't stop until she got an archaeology section.
"Look, okay, fine," he lamented, "I shouldn't be sharing this with you because I don't want to get your hopes up, but fine!"
She sat back in her chair, looking on expectantly.
"I…I might have gotten approval from the city to…work on an addition to the museum once everything with the planetarium is finished. They're still waiting on my final budget, not just my tentative budget, but…things are looking good for a new building. I pitched to them that it would be, primarily, for archaeology."
Her eyes went wide, not expecting to finally hear the words. "Really?" She asked.
"Like I said! Might! It would be a year, minimum, before we could even begin to think about working on it."
Her face broke into a smile. "Steven, that's incredible!"
He returned the smile, shrugging his shoulders. "I wanted to wait and tell you, but the thought of not having this dumb discussion again on Friday outweighed everything."
"You've probably just made my year, honestly."
He laughed. "Always looking to please, Cynthia," he told her, folding his arms across his chest.
"Well, now that we've got this morning ritual out of the way, what's on the agenda for today?" She asked.
He turned to his computer, bringing it to life with one click. Pulling up the main calendar, he looked it over. "No large tour groups until Thursday, so I'll probably put Ila with you today. I want you to assess her speaking skills. She's a talker, that's for sure, but I want you to make sure she has the needed professionalism."
She gave him a confused look. "Did David say something?" She asked, thinking of who had supervised her last.
Steven shook his head. "No, no. I just want to make sure she's just as good as you are with groups."
"I have, what, ten years experience on her, though?"
He shrugged again. "Doesn't mean I don't have high expectations."
She nodded, standing from her spot.
Thanking him before she left, she went on her way to do one last check of everything before they opened to the public. With a slight spring in her step, the day was sure to go by quickly.
Having her best friend also be her boss had its perks.
With the end of the day finally brought on by the sound of the bell, Diantha said goodbye to her students and sat at her desk. Slumping her shoulders, she let the tension ease out of her with a few deep breaths.
The first day was never her favorite. Getting her classes to introduce themselves to one another was never all that fun for many students, and there was only so much she could do to hold their attention while going over the syllabus.
Thankfully, with that out of the way, she could finally put all her focus into the main parts of her lesson plans.
However, first things first, she had to straighten up her room. All day it had bothered her, and it took everything in her to not straighten it too much up during her planning period.
When Augustine had appeared at her door again, she had just finished her last row of chairs.
"So, how badly was that killing you, today?" He asked.
"You have no idea," she answered from across the room.
He laughed in response, leaning against the doorway. When she approached him, she realized he looked far more tired than he had seven hours ago.
"How was your first day, Augustine?" She asked, grabbing for her planner and side bag.
"Long," he answered with a yawn. "Syllabus day is always long, and I can't get a read of how many kids will actually pay their lab fees."
That was the one good thing about the literature department, Diantha mused. That her students didn't have to pay a lab fee. While it wasn't a steep price to her, she knew that to some students, it would be hardly payable.
"What about you?" He asked, stepping aside to let her out of her room.
"Long as well," she told him while closing the door behind her. "But!" She added, walking down the hall with him. "Do you remember that student from this morning?" She asked.
He nodded a yes, but truth be told, after a flow of new students all day, he couldn't actually remember.
"He name is Avery Beecher, and she's from Wevok, Wisteria!"
"Small world," he replied.
The two teachers were both originally from the Wisteria region of the country. Augustine had moved to Easton, Cordova over twenty years prior, and Diantha not long after her last film. It wasn't often that the two had students from Wisteria.
Once signed out, the two headed for the staff parking lot, taking in the afternoon air. It was a warm reprieve after being in the school all day.
"What do you say to dinner, tonight? My treat," Augustine offered, standing with her at her car.
She smiled at him. "Considering neither of us have assigned anything major at this point, I think that would be a lovely idea," she told him.
With the promise to pick her up around six, the two headed off in separate ways. While the day was long, and the semester uncertain in how smoothly it would or wouldn't go, at least having one of her closest friends to work with made things much easier.