Julie’s, and I think Harlan is going to Fire Island. You’ll have the apartment to yourself.” That wasn’t entirely good news to Victoria, who was feeling lonely, homesick, and depressed. She missed Grace.
After Bunny left to catch her flight to Boston, Victoria ate the pizza and then called home to talk to Grace. Her mother answered and asked how she was. Victoria said she was fine, and then her father got on the phone.
“Ready to throw in the towel and come home?” he asked with a hearty laugh. She wouldn’t have admitted it to him, but she almost was. She had felt completely inadequate in the classroom and like an utter failure. What he said jolted her back into reality. She wasn’t about to give up.
“Not yet, Dad,” she said, trying to sound happier than she felt. And then Gracie got on the phone, and Victoria almost burst into tears. She really missed her and was suddenly lonely in the empty apartment in a new city with no friends.
They talked for a long time. Gracie told her what she was doing in school, they chatted about her teachers and her classes, and there was a new boy she said she liked. He was a junior. There was always a new boy in Gracie’s life, and never one in her sister’s. Victoria hadn’t felt this miserable in a long time, and she was feeling sorry for herself. But she didn’t say anything to Gracie about what a mess the week had been. After they hung up, Victoria took out the vanilla ice cream, opened it, walked into her room, turned on the TV, and got into her bed with her clothes on. She put on a movie channel, and finished the ice cream as she watched a movie, and then felt guilty when she looked at the empty ice cream carton next to her bed. It had been her dinner. And she could almost feel her hips growing as she lay there. She was utterly disgusted with herself. She put her pajamas on shortly after, got back in bed, and pulled the covers over her head. She didn’t wake up until the next morning.
To atone for her sins of the night before, she went for a long walk in Central Park on Saturday, and jogged partway around the reservoir. The weather was gorgeous, and she noticed couples strolling all around her, and she felt sad not to have a man in her life. Looking around, she felt as though everyone else did, and she was the odd person out, and always had been. She was crying when she jogged to the edge of the park, and then walked home in her T-shirt and gym shorts and running shoes. And she promised herself she wouldn’t eat any more ice cream that night. It was a promise she intended to keep. And as she sat home alone in the empty apartment and watched another movie, she didn’t eat the ice cream. She ate the bag of Oreo cookies instead.
She spent Sunday correcting the assignments that some of the seniors had done. She was surprised by how good they were, and how creative. A few of her students had real talent, and the essays they’d written were very sophisticated. She was impressed, and said so when she faced her first class on Monday morning. They had slouched in and sprawled in their seats with obvious uninterest. There were at least a dozen BlackBerrys evident on their desks. She walked around the room and picked them up one by one, and put them on her own desk. Their owners reacted immediately and she assured them they could have them back after class. Several of the BlackBerrys were already vibrating with messages on her desk.
She praised them then for their essays, and they were pleased, and then she collected the rest. All but two students had done them. The two who hadn’t were tall, good-looking boys, who appeared cocky and cynical when they said they hadn’t done the assignment, again.
“Is there a problem? The dog ate your homework?” Victoria asked calmly.
“No,” a boy named Mike MacDuff said to her. “We were out in the Hamptons and I played tennis all day Saturday, and golf with my dad on Sunday. And I had a date Saturday night.”
“I’m thrilled for you, Mike. I’ve never been to the Hamptons, but I hear it’s great out there. I’m glad you had such a nice weekend. That’ll be an F on your assignment.” And with that, she turned her attention to the rest of the class and handed out copies of a short story she wanted them to look at, while Mike scowled at her. The boy sitting next to him looked uncomfortable, and had figured out that he was getting an F too.
She helped them dissect the short story, and showed them why it worked. It was a good story, and they seemed to enjoy it, they paid closer attention to her this time, and she felt better about the class. Even Becki had contributed some remarks about the story. And Victoria asked them to write a short story as their assignment. Mike stopped at her desk on the way out, and in a gruff voice he asked whether, if he did the assignment he’d missed, she’d drop the F for his failure to write it.
“Not this time, Mike,” she said pleasantly, feeling like a monster, but she remembered Helen’s warning on Friday not to let them get away with anything. She had to make an example of Mike and the other boy who hadn’t bothered to do the first assignment.
“That sucks!” he said loudly as he strode out of the room and slammed the door on the way out. Victoria looked undisturbed, and got ready for the second class, which started a few minutes later.
They were tougher than the first group. And there was a girl in the class who was determined to take Victoria on and humiliate her. She made several comments about women who were overweight before Victoria started talking. She pretended not to have heard the girl’s remarks. Her name was Sally Fritz. She had dark red hair and freckles, and a tattoo of a star on the back of one hand.
“Where did you go to school anyway?” she asked Victoria rudely as she started to teach the class. She had totally interrupted what Victoria was saying.
“Northwestern. Are you thinking of applying?”
“Hell, no,” Sally said loudly. “It’s too cold there.”
“Yes, it is, but I loved it. It’s a good school, once you get used to the weather.”
“I’m applying to California and Texas.”
Victoria nodded. “I’m from L.A. There are some terrific schools in California,” she said pleasantly.
“My brother went to Stanford,” Sally volunteered as though they weren’t in class, and she didn’t care if they were. She was very brash. Victoria went on with the class then, and shared the same short story with them that she had gone over with the first class that morning. This group was livelier and more critical of the piece, which made for some interesting discussions around the room, and they got into it, in spite of their intention of torturing her and being difficult. She swept them all into the analysis of the story and a lively exchange, and some of them were still talking about it when they left the room, and Victoria looked pleased. She didn’t mind being challenged by her students, or even argued with if they had valid points. The goal of her teaching was to make them question what they knew and thought they believed in. The short story she had exposed them to had done that. It had been a victory for her. And she stopped in to see Helen on her way to the teachers’ lounge to correct papers.
“Thanks for the tip the other day,” she said shyly. “It helped.”
“To kick their asses?”
Victoria laughed in answer. “I don’t think I did that. But I gave two F’s in my first class for failure to hand in the assignment.” It was a lot tougher than she thought she would be in the second week of school.
“That’s a start.” Helen grinned at her. “I’m proud of you. It’ll wake up the others.”
“I think it did. And I’m confiscating iPods and BlackBerrys whenever I see them.”
“They hate that,” Helen confirmed. “They’d much rather send text messages to their friends than listen to you, or me, for that matter.” The two women laughed. “Did you have a nice weekend?”
“Nice enough. I went to the park on Saturday, and corrected papers on Sunday.” And ate two pints of ice cream, pizza, and an entire bag of cookies. But she didn’t say it. She knew it was a measure of how discouraged she was. She always ate more when she was unhappy, even though she promised herself she wouldn’t. She could see an imminent return to her size fourteen and sixteen wardrobe in her future. She had brought all four sizes with her. She wanted to avoid winding up a sixteen, which could easily happen at the rate she was eating. She knew she had to start dieting again. It was a constant merry-go-round she could never seem to get off. With no friends, no boyfriend, and no social life, feeling unsure of herself in her job, she was at high risk for putting on weight in New York, despite her good resolutions not to. They never lasted. At the first sign of a crisis, she dove into a pint of ice cream, a bag of cookies, or a pizza. And she had done all three that weekend, which had set off an alarm in her head to be careful before it got out of hand.
Helen could sense that she was lonely, and she seemed very young and innocent to her, and like a nice girl. “Maybe we can go to a movie next weekend. Or a concert in the park,” she offered.
“I’d like that,” Victoria said, looking happy. She felt like the new kid on the block, and she was. And she was the youngest teacher in the school. Helen was twice her age, but she liked Victoria. She thought she was bright, and Helen could tell she was trying, and was dedicated to teaching. She was naive, but Helen thought she would learn the ropes in time. It was challenging for everyone in the beginning, especially teaching older kids. High school students were the toughest. But Victoria looked like she could handle it if she kept the kids in control. “Are you going to the lounge?” she asked Helen hopefully.
