Page 6 of Wild About You
My cell phone buzzes on the desk in front of me.Dinner tonight?
Can’t. I have tutoring. Call you after.I tap out the quick response to my boyfriend and then put my phone away.
I toss the last stale chip left over from lunch in my mouth and chew as I watch Everly scrub at old paint stains. It’s been as clean as it’s going to get for five minutes, but I think she’s working out her own issues.
She doesn’t look like a kid who ruined a semester’s worth of theater backdrops in a single hour. Though she doesn’t look all that remorseful either. Still, there’s something in the way she holds herself—angry, jaded, with just a dash of insecurity that she hides under thick makeup and a glare at anyone who looks like they might be a threat. If Everly can make it through this week, then I can too.
“I think those are clean enough,” I say.
My stomach growls and I toss the empty chip bag in the trash. I check the clock on the wall for the time. Everyone else is gone for the day. The halls are quiet and the parking lot outside my window is mostly empty. My mentor teacher, Mrs. Aaron, had to run to a doctor’s appointment right after school so I volunteered to stay.
Everly takes a seat in front of my desk and stares at her fingernails, picking at the black polish.
She hasn’t even apologized, but the pout of her mouth tells me she feels something…even if it’s only rage at being stuck here with me. Oh, to be a teenager again. The days of writing off your wrongs so easily and letting your parents sweep in and fix everything. I’m not even joking. I’d love to call up Mom and Dad and have them save me. Adulting really sucks sometimes.
I tap my foot, anxious to get out of here. I have a tutoring job in thirty minutes, and I really don’t want to cancel. The Allens pay well, especially considering their nine-year-old daughter is whip smart, and I need the money. This student teaching gig does not pay, which feels like a crime. I worked my butt off this week.
“Are your parents coming from work?” I ask, trying not to sound like I’m sweating bullets hoping that they’ll arrive soon so I can leave.
Before she can answer, the phone on my/Mrs. Aaron’s desk rings.
“Hello?” I say as I put it to my ear.
“Hi there. Mrs. Best is ready for Everly in the office.” Kim, the office administrator, talks in a sweet, warm tone that always sounds like she’s smiling. And she has been every time I’ve seen her.
“On our way,” I say too eagerly, standing before I’ve even put the receiver down.
Everly gets to her feet without question and follows me, slowly putting one foot in front of the other.
Finally, I’m going to be able to get out of here. I might even have time to drive through somewhere and grab something to eat before I go to the Allens. I spent too much time this morning trying to decide what to wear (my closet needs a serious overhaul) and forgot to pack a lunch. I thought it’d be fine, and I could grab something from the cafeteria, but none of the other teachers eat lunch at the cafeteria so then I felt weird about going and had to eat vending machine food. I’m starving.
As we round the last corner toward the office, Everly speaks. “Are they going to suspend me?”
I pause and turn to face her. “I’m not sure.”
She clutches on to her backpack, eyes on her feet. “He’s going to send me back.”
A pang of sympathy hits me. I don’t ask back where. Wherever she means, she isn’t happy about it.
“It’s going to be okay,” I promise, having absolutely no right to say it and regretting it immediately. I have no idea what her home life is like or what situation brought her here the last semester of her senior year.
I wanted to be a teacher for two reasons, and I am going to repeat them to myself every day, probably multiple times a day. Number one, my grandmother was a teacher, and she was the most magnificent person that ever lived. I loved her more than anyone in the world. People adored her everywhere we went. Her students grew up, had kids, and hoped they’d have her as a teacher too. They invited her to weddings and christenings like she was a part of the family. It was incredible to go somewhere with her and run into an old student. What she did mattered to people on a real and personal level.
Number two—and this one is harder to put into words that don’t sound lofty and cliché—I want to make a difference. My life has been…easy. Not always, certainly not now, but for enough of my life that I feel like I owe it to the universe or something. I saw how much of a difference my grandmother made and I want to continue that. I don’t know how else to describe it other than to say it just feels like what I’m supposed to be doing.
Maybe I won’t be the teacher that my grandmother was, but if I make a difference for just one person, then I think it will have all been worth it. And I guess Everly Kent is as good of a place to start as any.
“I will do what I can,” I say to her as I place my hand on the doorknob for the school office.
“Thanks.” Her hazel eyes lift to mine, and I get the smallest of smiles.
Kim tips her head to the back of the office. “Everly, you can go right in.”
The girl next to me mumbles her thanks and heads toward Mrs. Best’s open door.
She walks in and takes the empty seat in front of the desk. I follow, then linger in the doorway unsure if I should be here for the meeting or not, but I can’t plead my case for Everly on the other side of the door.
“Miss Vaughn,” Principal Best says. One of her dark brows inches higher as if asking, what are you doing here?
