3. The Alibi
Tiffin Paddock Dinner Service
Selection of homemade breads and rolls with parsley-lemon compound butter
SALAD BAR
Tonight’s additions: roasted candy-striped beets, rosemary-bacon pecans, creamy maple dressing
SOUP OF THE DAY
Summer squash bisque
ENTRéES
Roasted chicken with lemon-wine pan sauce, mussels in tomato-shallot broth, mushroom and goat cheese ravioli with mint pesto
SIDES
Crispy frites, sautéed spinach with garlic
DESSERTS
Apple crisp with amaretto whipped cream, German chocolate cupcakes
Rhode Rivera has heard the saying Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach, but he pays it no mind.
Didn’t the pandemic prove that along with first responders and everyone in the medical profession, teachers are our nation’s heroes?
He’s lucky to have secured this job: The salary is adequate, the benefits package is solid, it includes room and board, the setting is aesthetically pleasing, the work is meaningful.
Rhode imagines becoming the kind of teacher the kids will remember even after they head out into the world to do great things.
But there’s a small part of Rhode that worries his new situation is pathetic.
He’s not only teaching high school, he’s teaching at his own high school.
It’s as though his life is a game of Chutes and Ladders and he’s just slid down the longest chute, landing him back at Square One.
When he was a student sitting in the front row of his English classroom (Schoolhouse 108, which hasn’t changed), listening to Doc Bellamy expound on Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage, he dreamed of heading out into the world to do great things.
If someone had told him that, more than twenty years down the line, he would become the next Doc Bellamy, he would have told that person to fuck off.
How did he get here?
This past May, Rhode received the Thoroughbred Tribune, a biannual newsletter meant to keep alumni abreast of all Tiffin news, and to solicit donations.
As Rhode barely had enough money to keep himself afloat, he only ever gave the Tribune a cursory glance, checking the back pages where notable achievements of alumni were listed by class.
Any news from the Class of 2003? Oh sure—marriages, babies, political appointments, scientific discoveries, IPOs, gallery openings, promotions to chief of surgery.
Back in 2017, Rhode himself had submitted an announcement: His first novel, The Prince of Little Twelfth, was being published by Stonecastle.
Rhode’s novel was met with good reviews, and Rhode was hailed as the newest member of the New York literati.
He was invited to do a signing at McNally Jackson, Terry Gross interviewed him for NPR’s Fresh Air, and New York magazine ran a back-page profile asking him to name his favorite downtown hangouts as though he were the second coming of Norman Mailer.
Sales of The Prince of Little Twelfth were respectable enough that Rhode was offered a contract for a second novel entitled The Writers, about a group of students at a famous Midwestern graduate fiction workshop, all of whom want to birth the Great American Novel.
Rhode expected The Writers to be even bigger than Little Twelfth .
But The Writers was published in early 2020, just as the pandemic hit.
Rhode’s in-person tour pivoted to a series of virtual events that only a handful of people attended.
He tried to get his book noticed by Bookstagram, but he was immediately castigated because his female characters “lacked authenticity.”
Sales of The Writers didn’t earn out Rhode’s advance. In fact, the disappointing results—it wasn’t a flop, but maybe it was—led Rhode to face some tough professional and financial realities.
He took a job as an adjunct professor at Queens College and moved from his one-bedroom on East Eighty-Second Street in Manhattan, which he could no longer afford, to a studio in Astoria, Queens.
All was not lost because he started dating a woman named Lace Ann, who lived in his building.
Lace Ann was an artisanal baker—her specialty was savory stuffed croissants—and when they met in the elevator, Lace Ann had a smudge of flour on her nose.
It was like something straight out of a Hallmark movie.
They were together nearly three years—Rhode teaching and starting a third novel half a dozen times, to no avail, and Lace Ann trying to start her own bakery.
Lace Ann found an investor—a tech bro named Miller with an aggressive handshake and a talent for mentioning that he graduated from Yale in every conversation—who backed her with enough seed money that she could open a stylish storefront on the hottest block of Ludlow Street.
She called the place Atelier 2A, and with the help of New York’s key influencers, there was a line down the block.
The line then became the story—Atelier 2A routinely sold out of stuffed croissants by ten a.m.—and soon after, Williams Sonoma called.
They wanted to feature Atelier 2A’s croissants in their catalog.
Does Rhode need to explain how this story played out?
Lace Ann became “overwhelmed” by her success, she was the city’s new darling, she got the invites and the write-ups.
She told Rhode that they should “take a break” while she “adjusted to her new normal.” Part of this “new normal” was Lace Ann dating her investor, Yale-alumnus-Miller.
The job offer from Tiffin was a godsend.
There was also a certain pleasure on Move-In Day when Rhode received a text from Lace Ann. Wow! Tiffin ranked #2! Congratulations! A flurry of colored balloons floated up Rhode’s screen.
Now, a week and a half into the semester, Rhode has to manage the brass tacks of his new life.
He spent the first week of school on Getting-to-Know-You exercises, doing a read-and-response to Anne Sexton’s poem “The Kiss,” and tackling Herman Melville’s short story “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” which missed the mark with most of the kids.
Rhode wanted to dive right into Jonathan Escoffery’s collection of connected stories and talk about race and identity, but his reading list had yet to be approved.
What? How? Audre Robinson—the first woman and the first person of color to ever serve as Tiffin’s Head—had made it clear that she appreciated Rhode’s enthusiasm for creating a reading list that reflected the diversity of the country.
But on Friday afternoon, just as classes ended for the day and students were striding across the impossibly green, manicured grounds on their way to football, soccer, or field hockey practice, Rhode received an email from Audre entitled Reading List.
After much discussion … blah blah blah… it’s been determined … blah blah blah… you will need to retain certain texts from Dr. Bellamy’s syllabus, including the following …
“They’re making me teach Emerson and Thoreau!
” Rhode says to Simone Bergeron. It’s Friday evening and they’re sitting at the bar at the Alibi in nearby Haydensboro.
Although they have a half day of class tomorrow, they were granted permission to leave campus because the following night is First Dance and both Rhode and Simone have been enlisted to chaperone.
Even with permission, sitting at a bar, especially a dive like this, feels illicit.
The lights are low, the air redolent of cigarette smoke like it’s 1999, and Simone has fed the jukebox ten quarters for ten plays.
Her first three songs were by Fleetwood Mac, Metallica, and Chappell Roan, which is proof that not only is Simone beautiful but she has that elusive thing called range.
This is strictly an outing between “colleagues” who need to decompress. Even with the extraordinary news of the number two ranking and everyone subsequently on their best behavior, life at Tiffin is… a lot.
“Those old white men?” Simone says.
“It gets worse,” Rhode says. “I have to teach The Crucible. ”
Simone drops her forehead to the bar and, in the process, nearly topples her glass of sparkling wine. When they took their seats, Simone cheerfully ordered champagne from the grizzled bartender, who shook his head and said, “Nup.”
Simone said, “But we’re celebrating. We just survived our first full week of teaching at Tiffin.”
The bartender, Jefferson, sighed, then said, “Let me check the back.” He reappeared with a dusty, room-temperature bottle of something called Pour Deux, a rosé sparkling wine, and Simone squealed her delight while Jefferson poured two glasses, one for her and one (unfortunately) for Rhode, who quickly ordered a Budweiser as well.
“The Crucible,” Simone says now. “ Mon Dieu, I hated that play. It never made sense to me. I know it was Miller’s response to McCarthyism…”
“It’s turgid,” Rhode says. “The kids will resent me for making them read it. But Audre said it’s nonnegotiable. So now I can’t teach the Escoffery stories, though I might assign them as supplemental reading for anyone who’s interested.”
“I didn’t think we were allowed to give extra credit,” Simone says.
“It wouldn’t be extra credit,” Rhode says. “Just additional reading for anyone who wants to know what I would have assigned, were it not for the board of directors’ archaic mandates.”
“You really think any kid is going to do additional reading just because ?”