Chapter 1

Everyone’s warnings about my first year as a teacher were pretty wild. I was supposed to get traumatized daily and never get sleep and have only the protection of my teacher’s union at best. Then I remembered I worked in a rich desert town. We had a casino that I blew a lot of my first paycheck on. So my mean side only came out when the air conditioning broke.

How did people live here again before that?

But I had to throw a lot of expectations out the window too. We also served the downtrodden side of town, which surrounded a dry lake bed. Some of my best students lived there…I had to get addresses to send reports, I wasn’t being weird. They got free lunches but that wasn’t my job. Otherwise I felt like Lucky Palms had it all figured out, besides personal drama. A lot of my students had unexpected half-siblings too, which I also wasn’t weird knowing about. We tried to avoid having siblings in the same classes. Those scheduling sessions felt like they could go on for years.

If their parents had problems to reveal to us, then the parent-teacher conference was the place for it. And it was why my classroom looked so nice that one day. I hadn’t settled in as a history teacher yet, so my cool outdated maps were still in storage on the other side of the country. But I scraped gum off the tables for once. Maybe it was my job to do something to prevent that, but only after I could wear something more comfortable. So much for my plans of throwing away my “interview suit”.

We got the teacher gossip out of our systems. The Spanish teacher next to me warned me that the “core” subjects didn’t respect us and parents didn’t either. And hey, I was never good at math either and Mr. Veracruz showed off how much he remembered his calculus classes too much. But I had never heard any other teachers obsess over who’s work clothes didn’t fit right like Mrs. Pullman. And I said nothing because I hadn’t gotten tenure yet. First year teacher, lemme remind everyone.

At least the meetings would be fast. I hated how no one cared about history and how they really wanted to make it more of an elective than it already was. I was like every other history major who wasn’t worn down by the world. But I also wanted to watch hockey, the Walla Walla Wallabies were having a great season and no one really cared about hockey in the desert.

I liked my students’ parents as much as them…mostly. There was Anissa Lancaster’s rude mom. She wanted a reprieve for her bad grades because Anissa’s dad died and his huge million-dollar estate was so hard to manage. It was worth mentioning that it happened last year and that Ms. Lancaster was having a baby with her alive boyfriend. And Shasta Northop’s mom was cold and tired from work, but I thanked her for her service. She was on the news for coming back after two years deployed and divorced.

It went better with Francesca Claremont, Abner Shaw, and Rodger Diwan. And I always loved the Matlapin sisters…I’m sorry, I mean aunt and niece what the hell guys.

Aside from the personal baggage I had to learn about, this evening would pass by in an instant–

“Hey…uh…I’m trying not to waste anyone’s time but I have four of your kids and it’s probably best to cover them all at once.”

You know, I always wondered how they were related, with the different last names but same address. Tied by a mom, not unusual at all. I didn’t comment on how my students looked, to keep teen self-esteem high. But for once, I thought it: none of them looked like their mother, and none of them were as beautiful. Not to rag on them but it was a hard hurdle to jump. Sandria looked like my first desert sunset incarnated as a person and her skin glistened like a mirage.

She looked good, okay?

“Eh, I’m not gonna ask why,” I said. Single mothers could be touchy about a new history teacher trying to make them into a genealogy project. “Ms. Goldwasser, history teacher, hopefully someone’s favorite too.”

Walker, who let me describe him as fat and brown-skinned instead of something more poetic (thanks!) raised his hand and chuckled. I loved that guy too. I feared he would slack off or at least have a bad history opinion as uneducated teenagers tended to. But he initiated good debates all the time. We had debates at all because of him. I thought the lesson plan would be too crowded instead, but Walker was bull-headed in the best way.

And his other siblings were great too. They got A’s on every single paper and oral exam. Maybe they were related after all. They all had different last names, and none of them shared with Sandria. None of them looked like her either. For god’s sake, Winifred had red hair like me! Someone not evolved for the desert sun one bit. Sandria’s was dark and untrimmed instead, and pin-straight.

“Welp, nothing concerns me, I gotta admit,” I said, as we gathered in the circle of tables. All the seats were taken now. “Even my other best students get a B+ sometimes.”

“Yeah…no, I like getting their report cards,” said Sandria. “But they talk about all their teachers.”

“Even Mrs. Pullman?” The door was closed, I could stand to ask it once.

“I mean, in Spanish…I never learned Spanish.”

“Ah yeah, my cue cards.” I shuffled to a list of guiding questions I was provided. “Are you able to provide for your kids at home? Ask about food, bedding, and homework help and point to local and state services…oh snap that’s the quiet part.”

“I try my best,” she said. “It’s…it’s more complicated than the usual setup.” She gave her four kids a stern look. No one wanted to have the conversation that I was at least curious about.

“And don’t get her started on the services,” said Jacqueline beside me, who had come from her after school shop class right before this. I mean we were providing her and her siblings with a lot of services with after school programs and free lunch. But sometimes people liked to think those were different because they worked. Maybe that was the only distinction. Or I shouldn’t have nodded off during my political science elective.

“Yeah hopefully this meeting is short then. We don’t have standardized history testing and the curriculum stops well before any of us were born, so y’all have to learn about impeachment and cyber crimes on your own,” I said. “Though I know Walker and I have been talking about how cool an indigenous history elective would be. It’s my best shot at it but it’s all the dean’s choice.”

Sandria’s face lit up a little when I said that. Success! But it was something Walker wanted more than calculus.

“Not sure I have time for that one sorry,” she said, hastily. “I mean…I’m sure if the kids trust you, then I will too. They…they’ve learned to trust the right people. That’s all I can really say about it.”

I filled up the time by reviewing their research project ideas. We had a kind of “capstone” project about the Great Wars. It involved essays, presentations, and the whole shebang for warning kids about defending a Master’s thesis.

And I think the both of us got to know Noam, Winifred, Jacqueline, and Walker a little better that night.

Then it was off to Mr. Veracruz for them! Hopefully they were all good at math or else that meeting would take forever. He helped struggling students and reminisced about the older siblings some of these kids had. Which I didn’t think Sandria’s did. She was younger than most of the parents here.

But when my next student was a no-show (Samir get your act together!) I decided to press my ear against the door anyways. If I wouldn’t learn it that way, it would get spilled in the teacher’s lounge.

“…and how is Sheena doing?”

“Still at the bookstore and not even talking about babies. But it’s Shane’s first season with the Lucky Llamas and BettyJo got out on probation…”

Oh crap, adult children. But this also meant that Sandria looked incredible for her age. She looked like…well…probably someone I could have gone to college with. But the heart of an adult beat strong in her. What was another mystery to me anyways? Soon, she would have to say something that would get me to follow her home!

Around 9PM, the parents had cleared out and some teachers still lingered to grade papers they were behind on. That included me. I watched too much hockey. It still streamed on my computer because our municipal IT guys hadn’t blocked it yet.

“Dios mios, be more subtle next time,” said Mr. Veracruz, leaning against my open door. He was wearing his favorite bolo tie and I envied his self-expression. “Like…she could be a good chaperone instead.”

“Nah, they rejected the Grand Canyon trip, but good try Ernesto.”

“Well, you’ll find a way.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna follow her to her house one day until my conscience stops me,” I said. “So how many kids does Sandi have anyways?”

“I mean, they’re foster kids,” he said. “Or…it’s something complicated like that. I’m sorry I don’t know more than you for once. And there’s been eight of them.”

“That takes the sting off the math contest for sure.” I couldn’t think of a foster stipend large enough for eight kids. I guess the other four were here before me, sticking in my coworkers’ minds. They didn’t ask the same questions or settled for the same stupid answers.

“Two of them are around the stadium a lot,” he said.

“Oh, whatever could I do with that info…”

—

As the class valedictorian, Sheena Stone had a lot of pictures devoted to her in one of our yearbooks. We kept a copy of every year, even though that wasn’t the history I wanted to teach. She was another ginger child, but her foster brother Shane had lots of messy blond hair. I realized why he looked familiar, he was a baseball recruit! Not like I’d watch it but I was on a date with a woman who did. And his stepdaughter was one of my students. I guess even sports superstars had to join the carpool list.

Oh the things I thought about while on my motorcycle. Thoughts ring inside that helmet like crazy.

And so I had to wait for a game to be over outside, instead of watching it from the comfort of my home, but something about the crowd noise outside made it better. The announcer said that Shane Evans, number 91, moved up one base. The next batter hit and missed for three strikes and an out. It echoed through the nearby mesas, but that game may have been turning into a long wait.