Tex’s Angel (Savage Legion MC #11)
Chapter 1
Clara
A bigail enters my classroom as I unpack my suitcase-sized briefcase. She’s my one source of support in this school full of wildly out of control teens. Catching sight of the extra-large Styrofoam cup of coffee in each hand, a smile jumps onto my face.
“I thank God for you every single day, Abby. I don’t know what I would do without you.” Quickly grabbing the cup she offers, I take a sip. It’s so good, my eyes practically roll back in my head. “I really needed something to give me a little boost this morning.”
My best friend smiles at my dramatics and takes a sip of her pumpkin spiced latte. “Even you can’t have anything to complain about this early in the morning, Clara,” she responds with a sigh.
“Wanna bet? I busted three students vaping and a broke up one fight on my way from the car to my classroom.”
Abby gestures with her coffee, “I don’t know why you bother redirecting vapers. It’s not like if you make them stop, they’re going to give up vaping forever.”
Sitting on the edge of my desk, I take a few more sips of the warm brew, trying to get as much of it into my body as possible before the bell rings and I get swarmed with students.
After thinking it over, I explain my train of thought, “Vaping on school property is against the rules. If I let them get away with breaking the rules in front of me, they’ll just spiral more and more out of control as the weeks roll by. By the end of the school year, they’ll end up the ones in charge of my classroom instead of me.”
My best friend in the whole world just shrugs carelessly with one shoulder. “You’ve gotten too used to teaching younger kids who need more guidance, I believe letting them get away with small things maintains some semblance of a balance, where they feel like they have control over their lives. It keeps them from turning every situation into a power struggle.”
“Ha,” I tell her. I don’t mind that my friend is trying to tell me how to do my job, she’s only trying to help. I’ve been teaching at Las Salinas High School for three months, but so far, my methods are working, “I’m not afraid of a conflict, as long we can all settle down and learn something afterwards.”
“Yeah, she responds, sounding a little miffed. “That’s easy for you to say. You teach world history, which is filled with kings, queens, and action-packed adventures. Try teaching math for a few years. My biggest problem isn’t the students making mischief or challenging my authority, it’s them constantly falling asleep in my class.” The disgruntled tone of Abby’s voice tells me she’s not joking, even a little bit.
“You could always dress up like an eight or something to liven the mood,” I suggest lightheartedly. “Or teach them to calculate the square footage of your classroom. I used to teach my nephew to do addition and subtraction using jellybeans.”
Abigail gives me a dead-eyed stare. “I know you think you’re funny but trust me on this, you’re totally not.”
I open my mouth to plead my case, but the morning bell sounds off, long and loud, calling everyone to homeroom. “Sorry Abby. You should have picked a more entertaining major if you were planning to teach.”
Students come rushing into my classroom and scrambling to find their seats. Abby turns and fights her way through the throng of teenage bodies to make it to her own classroom. I have to admit as I stand there drinking the last of my coffee, that my students look really motivated, eager even.
What no one knows is that I reassign their seats every afternoon before I leave, so they have to find the desk with their name on it. If they return the tape with their name on it to me at the end of the day, they get a bonus point on their weekly quiz. Yeah, generous, I know. My success as a teacher is all just carrots and sticks. That’s what kids respond to until their frontal lobe develops fully.
The twenty-eight students in my homeroom move around the building in one homogenous group. They have me for world history, Abby for mathematics, Darren Scott for English, Belinda St. Clair for literature, Coach Johnson for physical education, Deshawn Jackson for computer science and our oldest colleague, Sofia Alvarez for science. Seven, forty-five minute classes and an hour for lunch. They’re the core classes, but the school also offers foreign languages, arts, business studies, social studies, performing arts, and vocational education. In total, we have two-hundred and nine kids, and I teach approximately around a hundred and seventeen of them throughout the day, which keeps me blissfully busy. Prior to this position becoming available I was teaching at an elementary school. I enjoyed it, but high school teaching had been my specialty at college, and since I got this job three months ago I couldn’t be happier.
I’m just about to take roll when my phone rings. It’s my soon to be ex-husband. I reject the call and wait a few seconds. Of course it rings again, only this time it’s my sister, Gina. I reject that call as well. It pisses me off that they call in tandem. Since I can’t do anything about my cheating husband or the woman he cheated with, I put my phone on silent and announce, “Put your cell phones on silent. If I can go without my phone for forty-five minutes, so can you. Anything urgent and your parents can contact the principal.”
I give them a couple of minutes to settle down, take roll and head right into today’s lesson. “Please open your books to chapter thirteen. Today we’re going to discuss the Kyoto Protocol. I hope everyone completed their reading assignment last night because today is going to a class discussion of the material.”
I hear several groans as they open their books.
“What can you tell me about the historical significance of the Kyoto Protocol?”
Shelly’s hand shoots up. “I know.”
I nod in her direction. “Go ahead, Shelly.’
“The Kyoto Protocol was formally presented on December 11, 1997, at the UN conference on climate change in Kyoto, Japan. It was an international treaty to limit greenhouse gasses.”
“Good work, Shelly. That’s exactly right. The Kyoto Protocol was open for signatures for nearly two years following the presentation. Can anyone tell me what happened after President Clinton signed the agreement?”
Sam raises his hand, albeit it reluctantly, “The United States senate never ratified the treaty because…”
I listen as my students explained the material that most of them clearly read last night. I always assign the chapter reading the night before so we can have a more spirited discussion during class. For a full forty-five minutes my students talk about not only the Kyoto Protocol but about environmental issues in general and eventually began to argue about global warming when the bell rings for them to change classes.
As the day rolled on, every class went pretty much the same way throughout. Shaping young minds and teaching them to think for themselves is every bit as gratifying as I thought it would be during college. At twenty-seven, I received teacher of year for Salinas County. That was last year and never one to rest on my laurels, I’m still surging forward, opening inroads with students and collaborating with my peers, eager to forge a career I can be proud of.
By the end of the day I’m more exhausted than usual. And my phone has blown up with a bunch of texts from the dynamic duo. I just shove it back into my pocket, I really can’t be bothered with their shit right now.
After packing up everything into my pull-along briefcase, I head out to my car. I’ve got papers to grade and lessons to plan, so I decide to scoot on home without any side stops. I glance up as I pull out of the parking lot to see Abby in my rear-view mirror. I honk and wave before pulling out onto the street.
***
On the way home I mull over the situation with my sister and soon to be ex-husband in my mind. Finding him in bed with my older sister had been a huge shock, since they’d both been pretending to hate each other for years.
I can still remember every detail of that day three months ago like it was yesterday. Neither of them had shown up to the awards ceremony where I was named teacher of the year. My parents were there, but not my sister or my husband.
It’s weird that it never occurred to me to wonder if they were together. I had just assumed my sister likely couldn’t find a sitter and that my husband was sick. That’s why I rushed home from the ceremony to check on him, when I otherwise would have stayed for dinner. Finding her car there didn’t even set off any warning bells in my head. It wasn’t until I walked in and found a pile of her clothes in front of my sofa that I realized something was up. Before I could even process that, I heard unmistakable sounds coming from our bedroom. I threw her clothes out on the lawn leaving the door open to give her an easy way out for what came next.
Call me old fashioned but I was enraged. Instead of walking in and cursing them out, I pulled my water hose from under the kitchen sink, attached it to the faucet, walked into the bedroom and turned it on them. To say they were shocked would be an understatement. When my sister climbed out of bed and ran for her clothing, I let her escape. Hearing her freaking out was gratifying, but not as gratifying as squirting my husband in the freaking face every time he opened his mouth to speak. It was even worth having to sleep on the sofa for a week until the bed dried out.
My sister saw her clothing on the front lawn and like the crazy whack job she is, she thought she could sneak out in broad daylight, stark naked and grab them without anyone noticing.
My husband eventually got tired of being sprayed so he locked himself in the bathroom, long enough for me to pack a bag and leave for the night. That was the shittiest day of my entire life bar none. Going no contact with them both after throwing him out the next day was the best decision of my life. Filing for divorce was surely the second-best decision though.
***
When I get home this afternoon, I notice my next-door neighbor is giving his teenage son another stern talking too. I can tell because when I pull in, his handsome mouth is moving a mile a minute and he’s waving his arms around. I don’t know much about him, other than he and his son moved in just over a year ago, and they’re renting the place from Mr. Bernardi. He’s good looking to be sure, but the man looks like he’s never smiled a day in his life and last time I tried to give him a friendly hello, he just grunted in my direction. Hearing him berate his son, I sometimes think parents just don’t know how to parent their teens. At that age they want to defy authority and assert their independence, and yelling just goes in one ear and out the other. Heaving my briefcase out of the passenger side, I bump the door closed with my hip before pulling it along behind me, up the sidewalk to my front door.
After turning on some music, I warm myself up some leftovers and get right on grading my latest round of pop quizzes. The other teachers say the older you get, the more you hate grading tests. I can see that happening in my future. I used to enjoy it, as it was gratifying to see that the students were retaining what I taught, but the novelty is starting to wear off. By the time I’m finished, my hand is cramping and all I want to do is chill out, watch an episode of my favorite crime show, and hit the sack. Maybe I should have been a detective or a crime scene investigator rather than a teacher? I love mysteries, psychological thrillers, detective shows, and listening to real crime podcasts. Putting the pieces of the puzzle together to solve a mystery or crime is way more satisfying than working on a boring puzzle.
I don’t even pick up my phone to see what my sister and ex have to say. It’s been vibrating off and on all night. Gina’s birthday is tomorrow and she’s stupid if she thinks I’m going to wish her a happy birthday, much less come to the party our folks are throwing for her ungrateful ass.
My life might be complicated and a bit chaotic, but at least my job is going okay.