I glanced at my phone again, wondering if this meeting would go an hour past its scheduled end, or only half an hour. An hour was looking more likely. An hour at least.
Mr. Davidson was talking about the new district policies, still. His voice had a sort of nasal drone that I'd successfully tuned out about twenty minutes earlier. Mrs. Collins still had to go over assigments for the first day of school. The library was hot, and the hard plastic chairs were becoming extremely uncomfortable.
I ran my hands through my hair. I daydreamed about the hike I was planning for tomorrow, the last hike of summer vacation. By the time Mrs. Collins was wrapping up, I was itching to leave. But before this torture could end, Mrs. Haynes decided she needed to introduce the new teachers. Thankfully there were only two.
Mr. Bates was a transfer from Eastside, a forty-something in wire glasses. He stood and waved to us awkwardly before sitting back down. Finally, we were introduced to the new art teacher, Miss Baxter.
She was a brand new teacher, fresh out of college. As she stood, it was obvious she was young. Miss Baxter looked like she could still be starting college, rather than having just finished. I wondered if she knew what she was in for, spending all day every day with a bunch of either rowdy or sullen seventh and eighth graders. She waved cheerily, an adorable smile on her face. Miss Baxter was cute. Pale faced, light blonde hair, a little chubby. Maybe more than a little chubby, but in a cute way. And she looked familiar. Really familiar. I wondered where I'd seen her.
"Miss Baxter is also a former student here!"
No wonder. I must have had her as a student at some point. It couldn't have been that long ago. Several teachers reacted, seeming to remember her. Finally, mercifully, Mrs. Collins brought the meeting to a close.
I stood quickly, my legs stiff from sitting in the low chair for so long. I wanted to get home. I spoke briefly with Mr. Bates, then with Mrs. Jackson. Then I headed toward the door, where the new art teacher spotted me.
"Oh my god! Mr. Schraeder! How are you?"
She seemed excited to see me. I wish I remembered her the way she seemed to remember me.
"Hey! it's great to have you here Miss Baxter. Welcome to South Middle."
"MISS Baxter! Oh my god that still sounds so weird." She was beaming, excited for her new adventure, eager and ready to influence young minds. It would have been inspiring if the rest of us hadn't been ground down by the reality over so many years. This new teacher was studying my face. "You...don't remember me, do you?"
I felt awful. At least she was still smiling.
"You...you look VERY familiar. I'm just trying to..."
"Piper! I'm Piper Baxter!"
I suddenly remembered. I think I smiled a bit as she realized I remembered her. She smiled at me smiling at her, and then laughed.
"You remember me. Of all the teachers, I knew you would!"
"Oh my god, yes I do remember you. It's been a few years."
"Too many!" She smiled wide, and giggled.
"Well I guess I'll be seeing you."
Late that night, lying awake in bed, Jennifer snoring beside me, the memories came flooding back. Piper sitting in my seventh grade history class, first class of the day. She sat in the center desk in the front row. Serious, studious, eager to learn. She seemed to follow me with her very light blue eyes and pale, slightly chubby cheeks. She usually wore a hair band, pink or light blue or purple, arched over her scalp holding back her light hair. She was likely the only girl in her grade still wearing them.
Piper had been the quintessential good girl. She never caused any trouble. If I had to raise my voice to get the entire class to quiet down, Piper seemed mortified, even if she hadn't been loud. Once when I had politey asked her to stop whispering to a friend, she looked so devastated I thought she was going to cry.
I suddenly remembered. It was the end of her seventh grade year when I had made the comment. Piper had been so concerned that she got a B on a writing assignment that she came and talked to me about it. She was terrified that she wasn't doing good enough, so distraught, getting herself worked up, that I felt sorry for her. I'd tried to get her to calm down.
"Relax, Piper," I had said. "You're probably the best student I've ever had."
"Really?" Her eyes had grown wide. "I am? I mean seriously?"
"Of course you are."
I'd meant it too. Was she really? Maybe. It's not like I kept track of these things. But if I had, Piper would certainly be in the running. It disturbed me that I hadn't recognized her at that meeting. At one time, I had taken a sort of teacherly pride in how my students did after they left school, and in my ability to remember them. I was slipping.
But she was grown now, I thought, all grown up. She wasn't the girl I taught in seventh grade, or in eighth grade, when she had finally abandoned the hair bands. That year, she had come into my room every day a few minutes early, before whatever afternoon period she had my history class, paused next to the desk and smiled at me.
"Hi Mr. Schraeder!"
She would take out her gum, and make a show of dropping it in the trash. Even back then, I was the only teacher remaining that still forbade chewing gum in class. Then she had sat in that same desk, organizing her notebooks before anyone else arrived, just me and her in the classroom for a few minutes. Sometimes, I'm sure, I'd asked her how she was doing and she would tell me about it for awhile. We would chat, usually about nothing much. She really seemed happy that year.
What had she told me this evening? Of all the teachers, I was the one she was sure would remember her?
My best ever student. How had I not remembered? And why was I still lying awake at four AM, thinking about her?
Piper was all grown up now, that's why, I thought as I rolled over to my side. All grown up and really more cute than I would ever have expected. I took a deep breath. Don't start this now. Don't start a fantasy cycle with yet another woman that you can never have. You're married. And she's barely been a woman for long. And she's not your type. She's chubby, or at least plump, and you've never been into that. Your wife beside you, with the hard body from endless expensive spin classes, that's what you're into. Jennifer is hot, remember? Everybody thinks so. And Piper is, well, she was your student. It would be weird. So stop it.
Still, I couldn't help but think, she had looked soooo cute tonight.
I was hiking tomorrow, I reminded myself. Better fall asleep. But I knew it was hopeless.
The following Monday, a week before school started, I sat at my desk, empty smaller desks arrayed before me, as I reviewed lesson plans. Nothing had really changed from last year. History was still history.
"Hey you!"
Piper - or rather, Miss Baxter - had poked her head in my open door.
"Hey!"
"Mind if I join you? I'm just cutting out decorations for my room and it's so boring to do alone."
"Sure! Come on in."
"Thanks. Ohmygod I can't wait for next week!"
Piper sat down on the floor and spread her work out in front of her, cutting out pictures of artists, and famous works, and art terminology, gluing them to posters to hang in her room.
"So what made you want to become an art teacher?"
"Well, I have a passion for art, and a passion for kids, and I wanted to do something that involved both."
