All credit for the idea that powered this fic goes to the wonderful Laura (lieutenantlipton on Tumblr) and her amazing high-school teacher BoB headcanons post (link at the beginning of Chapter One).
Eugene Roe would probably need a few extra hands to count on his fingers the number of times he'd nearly tripped over his own shoelaces. But that'd been when he was a teenager, around fourteen, unbearably shy around girls and just about everyone else too. Now he was not just older but more confident, at least in front of his students anyways.
Most things for him had gotten easier with age, he'd found, like talking on the phone or asking questions, but approaching anyone he found attractive caused him to automatically turn a very unflattering shade of red and begin unconsciously ducking his head. Most people found it quite endearing, but Gene wished very much that he could grow out of it.
Because honestly, there was really no excuse for walking straight into a basketball pole because of a pretty girl when he was nearly twenty-four. To be fair, the pole and the court it belonged to were somewhat inconveniently placed in the middle of the school parking lot, but still. Not only had it hurt but it was the pure definition of middle-school level embarrassment, which Gene was fairly sure was universally acknowledged to be the worst kind.
The woman was beautiful, and he didn't recognize her at all. Her hair had been of light honey, her eyes a peaceful blue. Perhaps a new staff member? Toccoa had picked up at least a few a year since Gene had started worked at the school a little over two years ago, back when he'd been a student teacher.
Well. No use crying over spilt milk, he thought to himself, for lack of anything better. He was just thankful that Mysterious Attractive Person was out of sight, as he clung to some small shred of hope that she hadn't seen him. Squaring his shoulders, he took a deep breath, adjusted the strap of his shoulder bag, and began to walk briskly into the building. Time to act like an adult.
"You must be joking. He walked into a pole?" Augusta's dark brown eyes sparkled with a mixture of disbelief and awe, her pleasantly low voice a perfect match for the French rolling off her tongue.
"Mm-hm."
"Am I allowed to ask if this has happened before?"
Renée looks at the ground, suppressing a grin and leaving Augusta's mouth open.
"Renée LeMaire! 'Kisses the boy and makes them cry,'" she starts, trailing off.
"But it's a high school, Tati, it's teenage boys. It's kind of funny to be honest."
"Harsh! But this one wasn't."
"Yes, and it's the first time it's been an adult!"
Augusta shakes her head and smiles, pointing a finger at Renée. "Look, first bell is in ten minutes but we'll talk about this later, okay?"
"Okay." Renée gives her a two-finger salute and Augusta rolls her eyes.
"À tout à l'heure, mon ami." See you later.
"À tout à l'heure."
Augusta Chiwy – the nickname of Tati was reserved only for a select few – had been hired around the same time as Renée, and it had been pure coincidence that the two already knew each other; last year Augusta had moved into the apartment just above Renée's. They'd bonded over being French-speakers in an all-American Pennsylvania town, and over their desire to work at schools; Renée was now Toccoa High's new nurse and Augusta its new French teacher.
At twenty-eight Augusta had already seen more than most people twice that age. She'd grown up in a crime-ridden housing project in the Parisian suburb of La Courneuve, moved to Marseilles when she was ten, and joined the French army at eighteen. Her service as a medic in Afghanistan had left her with a firm desire to experience monotony; after five years she emigrated to the U.S. and the town of Toccoa and applied to teaching school. The town and the school were the complete opposite of anything she'd experienced beforehand: the discordant thrum of La Cournueve, the salt-sprayed beauty of Marseille, the universe of violence and adrenaline that was her time in the Middle East and in combat. Her new home was quiet and normal and boring and perfect.
She adjusted the hem of her herringbone jacket and walked down the hall with her heels clicking on the floor, taking a deep breath as she opened the door to her classroom.
"RULE ONE OF THE LIBRARY. WE DON'T TALK ABOUT THE LIBRARY."
Grant surveyed the group of about twenty listless freshmen, here at the library for their introduction to using the electronic catalog, finding sources for papers, and general book-borrowing etiquette. His (albeit lame) film reference had gone completely over their snapback-clad heads.
His eyes lit upon a student's can of Arizona Iced Tea, and he took the chance to strike.
"Rule number two: no food or drinks in the library." The student looked around nervously. "I'll let it slide this time, but it is a rule, okay, and a pretty important one at that. You spill something on a book or a computer, heaven forfend, you gotta pay for it, okay? You don't want that."
"All right then. I'd like to summarize the library rules into something I call 'The Three F's' – no food, no phones, no fun. And before you say that 'phones' doesn't start with an 'f', I'd also like to remind you of the last, most important library rule: don't argue with the librarian."
A boy sitting about as far back in his chair as he could without actually falling off of it raised his hand. "You just said like, six rules, and you said there were only three." A few students snickered.
"Okay, I lied. There's only one rule of the library that you need to remember. And that is, as I said before, don't argue with the librarian. We are the keepers of the knowledge, and if you are nice to us, we will share that knowledge with you. If you are not, we will not make your research papers or presentations very easy. You will have to look up sources – gasp – by hand, and not with the assistance of the handy-dandy online catalog, which is what I am here to show you today. Now, if you'll turn your attention to the PowerPoint I am now opening…"
By the time fifth period – the period that lunch revolved around – rolled around, Winters felt enough confidence to label this year's first day a success, even though Nixon probably would have just laughed at him. Nix hadn't managed to send him any AP World students in conniption fits about the workload though, and Lipton, physics teacher with the patience of Job and general force of calm for the science department, had managed to prevent any of Tab's inaugural first-day lab experiments/explosions, at least those of the apology-letter-home-to-the-parents magnitude. It had been a good morning.
Each year however, like clockwork, he did encounter a medium-sized group of students that requested (or tearfully begged, to be more accurate) course changes, more specifically out of classes taught by Speirs or Liebgott (classics and German, respectively). Each man was, to say the least, intimidating, but truly had a passion for their subjects. Winters usually managed to convince the students to stick it out, at least for a little bit, and told them they'd be happier in the long run if they stayed. He hadn't been proven wrong yet, but even he had to admit that Liebgott's extremely strict German-only rule in the classroom and Speirs' half-joking/half-serious threat that he'd set students on fire if they didn't read each essay question three times (complete with the brandishing of an actual working lighter and a maniacal grin) weren't helping things much.
Winters set his palms on his desk and took a deep breath. He wondered how Guarnere, Randleman, and Martin were doing on lunch duty.
"I'm tellin' you, Johnny, these kids are the real deal," Bill was saying, pulling his chair up to the table at the far corner of the cafeteria. As the school band teacher and director of the orchestra, jazz band, and wind ensemble, Guarnere was always excited to see the crop of new and talented kids that came up from the middle school each fall. "This kid Hashey, he's a beast on the tenor sax, just wait 'til you hear him. I swear, half the adults I know aren't even that good. Hell, I'm not even that good."
Johnny tapped his foot restlessly and glanced around the large, brightly-lit lunchroom. "You seen Bull? He's supposed to be here by now."
"Probably just answerin' extra questions or something, you know, 'hablo español' and all that. He'll be down soon." Bill looked to his right, eyes trailing upward to where the tall, broadly-built man stood. "Speak a' the devil!"
"How you fellas holdin' up?" Bull, the school Spanish teacher, asked.
"You know, the usual," replied Martin. "I don't even know why they need lunch monitors in high school."
"You know it's just Sobel tryin' to keep us in line," mused Bill. "I couldn't even get through that stupid morning meeting without him grillin' me about the jazz band's performance last year at regionals."
"Or my students' prizes in Latin." Martin shook his head. "I swear, that guy would've been better off as a drill sergeant or somethin'."
"The way he runs that track team, I think he is a drill sergeant." Bill took another bite of his sandwich. "It's outrageous, how hard he makes those kids work."
"Mmm." Bull and Martin nodded in agreement, both of their mouths full. They ate in companiable silence for the remaining ten minutes of lunch (out of twenty-three, a ridiculous allotment if they'd ever seen one), and headed of to their respective classrooms for the second half of the day.
Finally, impossibly, it was 1:50, the time that school let out. Time always seemed to drag after lunch, but they'd made it, both the teachers and the students. Most of them stayed to complete paperwork until after the last bus had left, and around 3:30 were walking to their cars in the back lot, the one reserved for a faculty but that a lot of students
tried to park in anyway (though, without the school permits having been sold yet, Sobel was more than happy to slap each and every car with a bright-red violation slip).
One of the last to leave was Renée, and as she walked towards her Toyota Camry she took a look behind her, only to see Eugene Roe (she guessed, she and Augusta had played process-by-elimination at lunch) closing the door behind him.
He walked quite briskly, and once he caught up with her he tapped lightly on her shoulder, as she was getting her keys out.
"Excuse me?"
She smiled politely, swallowing a soft laugh as she remembered her conversation with Augusta. "Yes?"
"I- I didn't get the chance to introduce myself earlier. I'm Eugene Roe." So she was right. He held out his hand, warm and strong, for her to shake, and she did so, surprised at how nice it felt.
"Renée Le Maire. I'm the new school nurse." He nodded in recognition, and at her accent.
"You're French?"
"Belgian."
"Ah. My grandparents, they're from Louisiana, French-Cajun. I studied it in high school and picked up what I could from them."
"Well, enchanté Monsieur Roe," she said, only half-seriously.
"Enchanté."
Renée was not the type of person to get butterflies in her stomach, but something was happening now that she didn't have complete control over. "You'll have to join me and Augusta for lunch some time. She's from Paris, has a lovely accent." Why did I just say that, she thought. Why?!
"I would be honored." Renée felt a sense of relief at how much his coordination had improved. She decided not to mention what had happened that morning, and of course he already knew full well what had happened. Best not to make things unnecessarily awkward. Besides, she rather liked talking to him, instead of seeing him walk into basketball poles. "Well, I'm sorry, but I have go," he starts, glancing at his watch with an apologetic expression."
"Oh, by all means, I'm sorry to have kept you waiting."
"It's all right." He smiled again, shyly almost, and gives her a nod of the head as he started off for his car.
As she unlocks the door and gets into the driver's seat, she turns on the radio that's preset to one of her favorite stations, a classical one now playing Clair de Lune. She thinks to herself, not quite giddily (a word almost never used to describe her) that she could very much like it here at Toccoa, Roe included. It had been a good day, a very good day indeed.
Many of the events from this chapter were taken from my own high school experiences and the experiences of friends, including Grant's "3 F's" speech and Speirs' unorthodox way of making sure students spend requisite time examing their essay questions (yes, that really happened).
I had a ton of fun writing this chapter, and look forward so much to introducing more of characters as we get underway and developing the relationships between them.
For all other stuff related to this fic, head on over to my Tumblr, arr0manches, and the tag "I'm looking for a place to start"