Page 21 of September Lessons
“…But I’ve had a lot of time to digest it.”
“Indeed.” Ms. Tichenor looked up from her stitchwork again. “I’m not complaining, by the way. I think it’s admirable you’re such a well-read girl.”
“It helps when you don’t have a lot going on. Might as well read, right?”
“Yes, but I get a feeling you’d read a lot less if you had a few friends.”
Leigh-Ann scoffed. “Everyone’s on my case about that today.”
“People worry about you. It can’t be helped.”
“Kinda annoying. I can take care of myself.”
“Just because you can take care of yourself,” Ms. Tichenor said, “doesn’t mean you have to. Part of being human is searching for social interaction. While there are a lot of kids your age who have one or two friends, not having any is kinda odd.”
“Can’t be helped sometimes. Besides,” Leigh-Ann opened the screen door to the house, “maybe I’m here because I need social interaction.”
Ms. Tichenor didn’t say anything, but her smirk followed Leigh-Ann into Waterlily House.
There wasn’t a lot for her to do on a day when she wasn’t scheduled to come in. Sunny suggested she dust some of the furniture, but that wasn’t as bad as either of them anticipated.Give me something, anything to do.Leigh-Ann knew she was desperate when she grabbed a scrubber and locked herself up in the bathroom. The bathroom had been cleaned the week before, though, and there simply hadn’t been enough guests to gunk it up again. Not enough for Leigh-Ann to spend more than twenty minutes in there running wet wipes along the base of the toilet and cleaning out the hair traps.
That’s what she knew she was too desperate for her own, poor good.
“You’ve been working so hard,” Ms. Tichenor said at the end of the hour, when Leigh-Ann emerged from the bathroom. She met a pitcher of freshly made lemonade and a cup the size of her fist. “Come take a break with me on the porch. Come on. I can tell it’s going to be one of the last days like this of the year. You won’t get this kind of warmth and breeze before May of next year.” Leigh-Ann almost took a glass when her teacher winked at her. “By then you’ll be graduating from high school and going off to live a brand-new life.”
Leigh-Ann still took the glass, but she wasn’t in a hurry to join her teacher on the porch. Sunny wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Two guests Leigh-Ann didn’t recognize returned in a rental car. Ms. Tichenor nodded to them as they helped themselves into the house.
“I think they’ll be quite grateful about that super-clean bathroom.” Ms. Tichenor poured Leigh-Ann a glass of lemonade. “Would you sit, already?”
Leigh-Ann flopped down into the seat next to Ms. Tichenor, who rocked on the bench as she gazed out at the front yard. Her sewing material had returned to her basket. The only thing missing was her keychain, although Leigh-Ann had a feeling her teacher had left it in her car.
“Something’s on your mind, isn’t it?”
Leigh-Ann knew her teacher was about to pry, but she hoped it wouldn’t come so hard and heavy. “I want to keep busy,” she said, hands chilling around the cup of iced lemonade. “Don’t have much else to do on the weekends.”
Was that a knowing look coming from her observant teacher? Great. “I thought you and Carrie were friends now?”
“I guess so. You really so sure?”
“If it’s a topic of conversation in the teachers’ room, then it must be true.”
“Why are teachers talking aboutthat?”
“Trust me, hon, teachers get into the gossip about who’s dating who and who had a fight with their best friend as much as other students do. It’s a tiny school in a tiny town. You thinkwehave anything better to do?”
“You could like… make lesson plans and grade homework and stuff.”
“We sure could!”
Leigh-Ann bowed her head. “Things don’t really change when you’re an adult, huh?”
“Technically, you’re an adult now.” Ms. Tichenor chuckled, “but I get your point. No, things don’t really change. You still don’t know what you’re doing, or you’re faking it ‘til you make it. That’s what being on your own and without anyone to fall back on is like.” She shrugged. “I will say, though, you care a lot less about what people think about you. You also don’t give a damn if people can see through your façade and realize you don’t know what the hell you’re doing.”
“Did you know you wanted to be a teacher when you graduated high school?”
Ms. Tichenor brushed her fingers behind her ear. “Nope. I didn’t figure that out until I went off to college to get my English degree. I realized toward the end of my undergrad that I liked tutoring. Someone suggested I go into teaching, but whenever I thought aboutteachers,I thought of kindergarten and third grade.” She made an exaggerated face. Of course, the woman who had made it to her late 30s without any kids probably didn’t want any, let alone teach any. “It was one of my professors who told me I could go straight into high school and or community college, depending on what I did after undergrad. I’ve always gotten along much better with older kids. I like people I can have intellectual conversations with, although sometimes teenagers look at you like you’re severely testing their patience…”
“Do you think it’s worse for us in the morning, or the afternoon?”
