She seemed like a normal teacher. Normal, I suppose, for someone like her. Not like we hadn't had good looking teachers before, but, it wasn't common – and teasing the boys who got caught up in staring at her skirt in class instead of what she was putting on the board became a new sort of game. Slapping jaws and kicking feet to cause a rouse of giggles and teasing in the halls.
"I'd pay for her to not wear the tights," became the mantra in the boy's locker room; or so the girls had heard, and, of course, none of us told her. "Just to see those legs."
She probably caused more midday stiffies than she ever wanted to hear about. She certainly didn't want to know what went on in the boy's bathroom on account of that smile and that giggle. Or what some of the guys would do to her if they were older, and what some agreed they'd try for when they were.
So it wasn't surprising that she had a bloke; but the bloke was quite surprising.
Bursting in the room in the middle of class and exclaiming something about crystals and psychic energy in a place none of us could even pronounce, or a new creature he described in a way that left us all exchanging glances of confusion as she'd tried to whisper at him, eager smile on her anxious face, that she was in the middle of class. But he was gesturing outside and she'd sighed. Lifting a finger, she'd ask us to read and then they'd dash into the hallway.
"Doctor, I'm teaching… can this wait?" It's an odd thing, to get the impression from her voice that she's more annoyed she has to continue teaching than she has to deal with his interruption, but that's exactly what it sounds like. Like she'd love nothing more than to dash out on us.
"Teaching? That's… you're, ah, the job!" The more he storms in, the more we come to understand he's simply one of those people with too many things on his mind, too many things that get in the way of linear thought and, often we joke that he has one line of thought – get the teacher. It's amusing because we can peer out through the window sometimes and see the look on his face, the one to match the excitement in each step and we sometimes joke that the boys would never be a match for the teacher simply because they were too lazy to bound about that often, that energetic.
"Yes, Doctor, the job – the one I can't lose." I imagine he's got one of those jobs, the sort one doesn't get paid much for doing. Seems like he travels, like he's always out on a safari trying to find something new and we take bets, trying to figure out his profession. Most of us think he's a freelance writer, the boys just think he's rubbish and unstable. Either way, it seems she's the one who pays the bills; she's the one who holds the responsibility.
"Job, yes, sorry. After class then, meet at the usual?" He's always deflated when she reminds him she has to work and she always steps closer to him to finish their conversation in private. An exchange of information, a small peck of a kiss to his cheek before she waves him off as we rush to our desks and try to look busy.
She always re-enters with a smile on her face, a blush to her cheeks, a lost look in her eye, and excitedly glances to the clock. As though she's now just as happy to reach the end of the day as we are and when the bell rings, she's working the eraser over her words quickly, grabbing hold of her jacket and her helmet to dash out between students towards the parking lot where her bike stands.
Of course, there are also the times he's outside tapping on the window, hands cupped to his face as he peers in and she smiles, instantly. The day we ask about him, she ducks her head shyly and when someone shouts, "Is he your boyfriend?" She looks to the side; smirk stuck on her face as she orders us to continue reading.
She doesn't deny it.
It's just after Christmas when he stops coming and there's a noticeable lack of pep to her step on that first day back, as though she were missing something and we just didn't know what it was yet. She absently scribbles on the board and it takes a few minutes for her to offer a smile and the girls know before the boys have to be told – she's been dumped.
Of course, it's also not long before the new bloke starts showing up. And just like the one before, this one is a surprise. He's an older man who interrupts with a quick knock, swinging his head in to wave her out of the class to talk privately in the hall. There's no explanation, just a hawkeyed look over us, as though any one of us could pull a gun from our bags. The first few times we think maybe he's another teacher and we search him out, but then we realize he's another… boyfriend?
No one asks this time.
The boys aren't comfortable thinking it, making jokes about his old balls and how he probably needs medication to get it up in bed, but then he strides up to the window on a white horse one day and when he smiles in and taps on the glass, she releases a burst of laughter that shocks us all. She's herself again and it's because of whoever this man is.
She rushes to the window to crank one pane open, telling him quickly, "I'm teaching," and it's with the same urgency as before – as though she'd much rather simply lift herself up on to the shelf there and twist out of the window with a wave to us all.
The man looks over the class, again, with enough of a scowl to make us squirm in our seats and he nods, "Ah, yes, the job," and he smirks at her, a silent disdain for her continued need to work while he's rushing about. He slips off the horse and ducks his head into the window to whisper in her ear and she's caught like a school girl herself, shoulders shrugging on a giggle reserved just for him.
"Meet you later?" She says the words hurriedly and he smiles, the severity of his brow softening to nod just before she absently leans forward to give him a small peck on the lips and the class remains deadly silent as he remounts the horse and swaggers off with a quick chuckle as she turns back to us, cheeks stained, mind somewhere entirely different.
And it's in that moment I always have a strange thought… because the man on the horse turns and he gives her one final look, a look of adoration so clear in his eyes just as she moves away from the window or from the door. So familiar. Just like the first bloke. The one who always looked in one last time as she skidded to a stop in front of the board, just before she turned to the class.
Almost as if they're the same man.