I needed a latte. There were very few things that could help me make it through a day of unruly teenagers battling me tooth and nail for the deeper meaning of The Scarlet Letter. Caffeine was my only option now. I rubbed my eyes, trying to bring the focus of the menu overhead into sight while Ernie stared at me expectantly.
"What'll it be, Bells?"
"Vanilla….gah, Caramel. Is it raining?" I asked, turning to look out the windows of the coffee shop hesitantly. Rain meant Caramel. Caramel gave me a certain current of warmth that ran from my tongue to the very tips of my toes on even the coldest days. In London in the fall those were more common than not and I wasn't about to risk my day's happiness on the wrong flavor.
"Caramel," I said definitively with a nod. Ernie gazed at me over the edge of the counter, fingers braced on the glass top. I could make out the twenty different flavored muffins him and Emma offered throughout the week beneath, fresh from the oven.
"This is gonna be one of those days when I make your drink and you get half way down the sidewalk and come tearing back because it's just not right, ain't it?" he asks, one eyebrow cocked.
"Ernie, I'm going to be late. Please, please, please, for the love of all that is holy, make the latte. Save my soul," I pleaded. He smiled and turned to the back counter.
I turned back to my bag, digging for my change purse. Four highlighters, a handful of bobby pins and one chapstick later I came up with the note I was looking for and slid it across the counter as he handed me my steaming disposable cup.
"I need the"-
"Sleeve," he finished, popping the cup beneath the folds of the cardboard.
"And a"-
"Lid," he smiled, pressing it firmly in place.
"How do I make it through a day without you?" I asked to which his mustache played across his lips in a smile.
"You picking up the dogs are five thirty?" he asked as I pushed my way towards the door.
Walking backwards I struggled with my cups and bag, pulling the hood of my wool coat over my head. I felt the edge of my too big rubber boots catch on the edge of the chair and fell directly into it, my butt landing with a thud on it's hard wooden surface. I looked up in time to see Ernie shaking his head and wiping the counters as he walked away.
"I'll be here after school…promise!" I called. I detangled myself from the legs of the chair and pushed out the door, the familiar chime of the bell ringing out behind me.
Puddles were beginning to swell on the sidewalk and while the adult in me said to avoid them at all costs so that the hems of my pants wouldn't get caught in the sludge, there was the nagging in the back of my head to get crazy. I put one boot out tentatively, letting the splash hit my legs with an unexpected ripple. I was now wet up to my knees. Fantastic
"That's a good look for you," Alice called, coming up behind me. I hadn't heard her in my struggles as she danced her way across the street from our flat. She held the handle of a black umbrella smoothly in one hand overhead while in the other balanced her clutch. Tied snuggly at her waist was the red peacoat she loved so much, cinched with a belt and on her head, atop perfectly coifed and shiny hair sat the matching white beret. She was a picture of European elegance. I was the picture of "Got up late, had no clean socks, my cat slept on my sweater." Some things just weren't fair.
"I don't have time to change," I said, hesitating on the sidewalk.
"I have an extra skirt in my work locker," Alice offered to which I scoffed lovingly.
"Why thank you, size 0 and five foot nothing but I think, perhaps, that might not work out so well."
"So you show a little thigh. What's high school without the hot English teacher to liven things up?"
"It's not that noticeable, right?" I asked, kicking out my leg. Grey pants met brown liquid at my knee.
"Um…it's fine…" she answered, cocking her head to one side.
"Oh whatever. Who am I trying to impress?" I asked, taking a sip of my coffee. Something wasn't right. Maybe today wasn't a caramel day. Maybe I needed Hazelnut or Cinnamon…I'll bet Ernie wouldn't be THAT angry if I went back and just asked…
"Hello?" Alice called, snapping her delicate white fingers in front of my face. I focused as we walked, taking in her dark lined eyes and rose bud lips, staring at me harshly.
"Sorry, what?" I asked. She held the umbrella over our heads as we walked quickly past the grocers and the corner pub, Seville's.
"I asked if you had time to change before work tonight," she repeated herself, exasperated.
"Yeah…I have those classes after school today and then the dogs for about an hour but I go home for some dinner, which reminds me, there are some pork chops in the freezer that I need you to take out when you get back if you want them with that cream sauce"-
"Bella," she laughed, holding up a hand. We had reached the corner where she went in one direction towards her job and I walked the two more blocks towards the high school.
"Breathe," she smiled. I inhaled. Got a few water droplets from the rain up my nose, coughed, exhaled. Her teeth glistened as she shook her head.
"You're a wreck," she smiled and extended her hand to smooth the hair from my face.
"I'll take out the pork chops and iron your pants," she said before I could protest. Only Alice would think that black work pants that were only going to end up with pints of Guinness on them by the end of the night would need ironing. I knew better than to protest.
"You're my savior. Have a good day at work," I called, stepping out onto the street. I dodged a red car speeding along the cobble stone drive by a hair and when I turned back she was still there, watching, shaking her head at me.
I reached the school with a few minutes to spare before first bell. As a teacher I'm supposed to be here a good hour before the students to prepare lesson plans and organize the classroom but it never works out that way exactly. Not that it matters. At East End School there are approximately thirteen other teachers, all of which average in age around 65. That's the average. I won't even ask Mr. Poole how old he is because frankly, I think asking would jinx the situation. While they all spend the early morning hours huddled around the coffee pot and gas heater in the teacher's lounge due to the school's poor funding for better facilities throughout the building, I prefer to spend the time in my classroom.
After only a few weeks of realizing that getting to school super early straight up sucked, I opted for sleeping in and Ernie's coffee which works out better for everyone anyway. They don't have to pretend to be interested in the poorly dressed wrinkled girl who can't seem to find a hair brush and I don't have to watch the seven stages of my future loom before me, sipping weak brew. Old, older, moldy. Grey, greyer, Mrs. Heath is practically bald. I swear to God if I'm still a single English teacher when I'm 30, working in this run down building while Alice comes around every now and then to continue ironing my pants and see if I'm alive, I'm cut and running. Taking up scuba instructions in Australia. Leaving my life behind.
My classroom was busting by the time I threw my bags into the corner chair, the old seat I brought from home with the claw marks from a cat and pink throw pillows that didn't exactly match it's embroidered green covering. It's my favorite thing about the classroom, apart from the desks that are still screwed into the floor and have carvings of past students right into the tops. "Bridget was here" followed by a different hand that wrote "Bridget's a queer". Kids.
"Ms. Swann, I finished it," Ben called from the back of the classroom. His black locks flopped across his forehead from the rain as he held a paperback in the air. "Fantastic. What'd you think?" I asked, grabbing some chalk. I could hear the fumble of shoes and voices dulling as the students began to take their seats. I wrote The Scarlet Letter is big, child like handwriting across the board, tugging on my own wet hair as it stuck to my face. Invest in an umbrella, Bella. A rain slicker. A tarp, Christ, whatever.
"It was boring," he said, no holds barred and I couldn't help but chuckle.
"It wasn't boring, it was romantic," Jessica purred from the front row. She flipped her honey brown curls from her shoulder as she turned to face me, her hands placed delicately across the desk.
"What part was romantic, exactly?" I asked, pulling out my own worn copy and sliding across my desk top. "The part where they jail her for having a child out of wedlock or the part where Dimmesdale refuses to acknowledge that the child is his and allows her to suffer alone?" I asked, only the slightest trace of bitterness lacing my tongue. Jessica faltered, her lips turning down at the corners.
"She didn't want him to tell. She didn't want him to suffer. I think it's a very noble thing to do, especially for a man like Dimmesdale. He was a man of the church…people depended on him to make the right decisions."
"That's not a bad point…any rebuttals?" I called out. It was a rare day when anyone challenged the brains of Jessica Stanley and her combination of skimming the chapters assigned and finding what critics of the story had to say about it online through a study guide. I'd called her on it on more than one occasion in the past but just wasn't feeling up to it today.
The class waged their own war for the remainder of the hour, half finding the story romantic while the other half seethed about the unfairness that is womanhood. You can imagine on which side I stood during all this, though for the large part I try to remain unbiased.
As the day pushed on, I could see through my total of two classroom windows that the rain wasn't letting up anytime soon. Students slowed down in the afternoon and we settled for quiet reading and writing rather than lecture and group discussion. One of my favorite students, Angela sat curled up in the big green chair with my copy of The Time Traveler's Wife during AP level ten English. While it wasn't the assigned reading I knew she was already way ahead of the class and couldn't help but watch her. Feet curled beneath her, shoes strewn on the floor for the sake of being comfortable, I envied her for a moment.
Her boyfriend Ben would be waiting for her at the end of the day outside my room, like he was most everyday and they would leave hand in hand to do their homework and kiss in front of the television at home. Be happy, content kids while I fought a chocolate lab and german shepard in the rain over which places were appropriate or not to dookie on. Helped large, drunk men find their way to cabs at two in the morning after last call. Straighten up the mess that is Alice's wardrobe, stretching from her doorway to the very edges of our kitchen before I went to bed that night, only to wake up after five very short hours and do it all again. What I wouldn't give to curl up with a book if for only an hour a day, forgetting all of it. Forget that I was constantly wishing for something more without realizing what it was exactly I was missing.
Suddenly, the bell rang, snapping me back to reality. Angela slid her tiny feet back into the oversized boots she wore to face the weather that day and kids slapped their hands on my desk as they meandered out of the classroom, saying goodbyes to me. I hadn't remembered to tell them to update their journals over the weekend or begin the chapters on Beowulf in the text.
Sluggishly I gathered my books to my chest and wrapped my cream, hand knit scarf around my neck. A gift from my father's girlfriend, Sue Clearwater back home for the winter. It smelled like soap and sandalwood, the way my house started to smell ever since she had moved in with Charlie last spring. She began putting dishes of potpourri on the backs of toilet seats and folding the corners of the toilet paper on the holder in between uses. It was adorable. Charlie walked around, oblivious to all of it except the fact that his uniform was looking a little neater these days, what with being hung up in a closet rather than draped across the back of a chair most nights.
I took a deep whiff of the scarf again, holding it to my mouth. I missed home. I missed Forks and my room and the new smell of our house and the way Sue made fish fry taste more like chicken and less like fish and steamed vegetables with it so it was even the slightest bit healthier for my dad because she just cared that much. I missed a boy and his dark eyes and hair and the warm touch of his lips on mine at the end of a long day of school. I missed them so much I shook my head to stop the smells and sounds that could come rushing at me at a moments notice. I flipped the scarf around my neck once more, pulled my coat on tightly and picked up my belongings.
After school I volunteered in the afternoons to help with the enrichment classes for the lower level students. Most days that just involved helping pass out chalk and drawing pencils in Sketching classes or finding matching pairs of clogs for Step Dancing classes taught by Mrs. March. Let me be the first to say that a six year old boy in mismatched clogs is some funny shit but the enrichment teachers never find it as funny as you do and it's best just to help where needed. Today it was bird feeder making with peanut butter and pinecones.
Ah, old school science, how I missed you. I forgot how simply easy you could be and that with a handful of seeds in one palm I never had to recite the rules for conjunctions in a sentence or phrase. I helped a small girl named Lucy roll her seeded pine cone for the majority of the hour while she talked adorably without her two front teeth.
"Thith ith the way we do ith for the births."
Luthy's Lithp lit up my day.
I rounded the neighborhood for the dogs at four pm exactly and half walked, half ran with them in clenched fists around my neighborhood, pockets full of plastic bags for duty as we went. Butts were sniffed, people were barked at, I was embarrassed continually the entire hour it took. Still, it's worth it to me when Baxter and I are the only ones left at the end of the route. He's a beagle, almost eleven years old and much calmer than the rest. I save carrots for him in my pocket because whoever said dogs don't need their daily allotted vegetables quota met is just plain nuts. He loves him some carrots too, munches loudly the rest of the way to his house and doesn't try and lick my teeth when I plant a goodbye kiss on the top of his head, handing his leash back to his owner.
At home I grab a sandwich, toss Alice's delicates into the wash with the lavender fabric softener she likes so much and leave her a note on the fridge, thanking her for leaving out the chops after work. She'll be out with her boyfriend, Jazz, for the remainder of the night but we'll have them tomorrow night before my shift at Seville's. I find my pants, perfectly pressed across my comforter and slide into them as well as a green fitted button down long sleeve. I pull my hair, a wild crinkled mess from the rain today into four bobby pins on top my head and out of my eyes. Attractive? God, no. Functional? I will survive the night as long as The Big Boys from Knightsbridge aren't in tonight for a game. They're the rowdiest and while they tip well it almost isn't worth the hastle after a day like today.
I find my black flats and jacket, make sure the delicates have made it into the dryer and slip out the door, bag slung over my shoulder as I go.
Today, tonight, tomorrow. Today, tonight, tomorrow. Keep moving, Bella. Keep moving so your mind won't have to.