The Faculty Lounge

Chapter Twelve

Twelve

Washing her hands at a sink in one of the faculty bathrooms, Ms. Lovie Jackson caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. How many times had she washed her hands at this very sink? she wondered. Certainly, the bathroom looked identical to how it had when she’d started at Baldwin, more than forty years ago. One more look in the mirror at her deepening crow’s-feet had her wishing she did, too.

Ms. Jackson’s knees and her heart had been in such top shape when she’d first started at Baldwin in the fall of 1977 that she could jog swiftly up the stairs to her third-floor classroom without trouble. Decades later, she’d had knee-replacement surgery on her right leg and took medication for high blood pressure, but her status as head counselor was legendary. The school was large, and she couldn’t always keep up with the names of all the younger teachers who hadn’t been at Baldwin long. But they all knew her name, usually within their first week, and she could sense the deference with which she was approached. The days of racing up to her very first classroom as a na?ve young math teacher simultaneously felt like yesterday and part of another lifetime.

She left the bathroom and headed for the library, where she was due for a meeting. The final bell of the day had rung not long ago, and even though the halls were growing empty, she swore she could feel the buzz of an impending summer. Graduation was looming, the end of the academic year rapidly approaching. Although she’d gone through this season dozens of times at Baldwin, the speed and fury with which it always arrived still surprised her. She likened the end of the school year to the sensation of running down a steep hill.

This year, it held an even more destabilizing sensation, one that she didn’t quite know what to do with whenever it gripped her, as it was doing now. She took a breath and tried to ignore it as she entered the empty library. She was the first one there, and she began to pull chairs into a circle in preparation for the important meeting that was about to take place. (She smiled when she thought of the meeting’s purpose and of the good secret she held.)

That she would have worked anywhere else but in a school had never been a consideration for her. To Ms. Jackson, education had always felt like the family business. In addition to an older sister who had taught geography for years, both her mother and her father had been teachers; in fact, they had met while teaching mathematics at what had once been the largest high school for Black students in the city, the same school Ms. Jackson herself had attended. Loath to let go of segregation even in the face of federal directives, Houston schools had started to integrate in a meaningful way only several years before Ms. Jackson began her teaching assignment at Baldwin. And back then, the school had still been mostly white, a fact she’d been well aware of when she had applied for the job. But Baldwin’s reputation as a learning institution was strong, and Ms. Jackson had been an overachiever and an excellent student all her life. She had wanted to work at one of the best schools in town, so when she was offered the position at Baldwin, she had accepted it immediately.

After switching out one chair that had a large, anatomically incorrect phallus carved into its seat and sliding an unmarked one into position in the circle, she checked her watch. It would be mere minutes until the courtyard crew (as she had come to think of them) made their way in. She smiled again at the news that was in store for them, and briefly shook her head at the thought of the wild year they had just endured. That it had all started because of Mr. Bob Lehrer still amused and confounded her. He had been the source of a story from early in her career that she still thought back on from time to time.

During her first year at Baldwin, Mr. Lehrer had found her in the faculty lounge during an off period, planning out a lesson. Back then she’d been a few years from meeting and marrying George and had been known as Ms. Washington. A type A person through and through, she had used every moment of her off periods to claw her way through an ever-increasing list of tasks and concerns, forever focused on trying to be the best first-year teacher she could possibly be. Not only was she naturally this sort of person; she felt the additional weight that came with knowing there were certainly members of the all-white administration who believed she should not have been hired in the first place.

“I believe it’s Ms. Washington, yes?” Mr. Lehrer had asked as he approached. At that time he had been in his late thirties, with a well-earned reputation as one of the most beloved teachers on campus. Not particularly handsome, but not awful-looking either, he was of average height, with a head of dark brown hair that gave the impression that it was not long for this world, and clear blue eyes.

“Yes, I’m Ms. Washington,” she answered, putting down her pencil and looking up at him. He was interrupting her work, but at least she didn’t have to correct him when he called her by the last name of one of the handful of other Black faculty members on campus. Predictably, that had happened to her more than once.

He didn’t sit. Rather, he sort of leaned on the table in an effort, perhaps, to appear thoughtful and casual.

“Not sure if you know, but I’m an English teacher here,” he said, “and I was wondering…” He paused, apparently trying to formulate a question. “Well, I was wondering if you could recommend any novels by Black authors? Works you might find compelling and important? I thought I might consider them for use in my classroom.”

An uncomfortable silence sat between them as she considered what to say next. It had been less than a year since the adaptation of Roots had aired on television, and white people were apparently suddenly very interested in books by Black authors.

Ms. Washington had recently finished the latest book in the Dragonriders of Pern series, and she was thinking about again cracking open her beloved, well-worn copy of The Lord of the Rings , if ever she could find a bit of free time amid her voluminous teacher prep. There was also a book she had heard good things about entitled Patternmaster by a new writer named Octavia Butler. The last had been written by a Black person, but Ms. Washington knew that high school English teachers often shied away from teaching fantasy and science fiction, which was what she read almost exclusively.

“Well, maybe Roots ?” she suggested, shrugging uncertainly.

Mr. Lehrer nodded sagely, as if she had named the most compelling book in the history of the entire written form. “Excellent choice, yes. Thank you very much, Ms. Washington.” And then he left the lounge.

During the early days of her relationship with George, she’d had cause to share the story of this interaction with him, and the entire thing had become something of decades-long inside joke between them, with George forever finding funny moments to ask if she had “any of those Black books” on hand.

She’d thought back on that moment with Mr. Lehrer when Mr. Williams had emailed her that fall about the incident involving The Autobiography of Malcolm X , even though the situation involving the angry mother was totally outside her purview on campus. Well-meaning white liberals like Mr. Lehrer and Mr. Williams were always so eager to seek validation that they were some of the Good Ones. Over the years at Baldwin, many things had changed. But some had not.

That said, she loved the work, and she enjoyed most of her fellow colleagues, even the earnest, left-leaning white people. They were all overwhelmed and underpaid. There was a sense of solidarity among them that was built around the noble goal of helping young people learn and thrive in the face of constant bureaucratic absurdity and nefarious external forces. Ms. Jackson wondered if group cohesion might be easier to achieve in a field like public education, which few respected anyway. Public school employees always felt like underdogs.

A knock on the open library door startled her into focus, and Ms. Jackson looked up to find Mr. Williams, of all people, standing in the doorway, along with several other teachers who had been part of the courtyard incident all those months ago.

“May we come in, Ms. Jackson?” Mr. Williams asked. “Or are we early?”

“No, no, please sit,” she said, stepping back and motioning to the circle of chairs.

“If I may, what exactly is this meeting about?” Ms. Brennan asked, taking her seat next to Mr. Williams. “The email was just to a few of us, and it said to report to the library right after the last bell.”

Ms. Jackson smiled. “I promise it’s good news,” she said. “I can say at least that much. But you’ll have to be patient.”

Just then, Ms. Jimenez walked in, her teacher tote bag full of papers.

“Thank God it’s not another meeting with that lady from Central Office,” she muttered as she took her seat. “What’s that old saying? When I go, I hope it’s during professional development because the transition to death would feel so seamless?”

The group laughed, including Ms. Jackson. People continued to trickle in, and soon the circle was nearly full. Nurse Honeycutt was there, as was Assistant Principal Garcia. There were the English teachers, as well as the two young instructors, still clearly very much enamored of each other. Mr. Fitzsimmons took his place next to Ms. Jimenez. They gazed around expectantly at one another, waiting for something to happen. Ms. Jackson continued to glance toward the door of the library.

Then, as if by magic, Principal Kendricks appeared. He walked in, in his calm and easy way, Assistant Principal Baker by his side.

“May we join you?” he asked. He was smiling widely, and so was Ms. Baker.

“Principal Kendricks?” asked Ms. Sanderson, sitting up straighter, her eyes wide with happy surprise. “You’re here!”

“Yes, I am,” he responded, and he took his seat in the circle, Ms. Baker pulling up a chair next to him. “And if you were to check your work email in a few minutes, you’d find an all-campus message letting you know about the district’s decision to reinstate me as principal of Baldwin.” He looked around the room as he spoke, taking in the familiar faces he had not seen in two months. “I confess that Ms. Baker and Ms. Jackson already knew about this, but we thought it might be nice to share this news with all of you in person first, since you were with me on the fateful day in the courtyard.”

There were murmurs of approval and wide grins, and Ms. Jimenez said, “I can’t believe I’ve finally worked here long enough to see Central Office make a smart decision.”

“First time for me, too,” agreed Mr. Fitzsimmons, and they all laughed.

“Thank goodness,” said Ms. Brennan, her voice filled with relief. “We needed this before heading into summer. There’s enough uncertainty in this life as it is.”

“Yes, the school needs you back,” said Ms. Garcia, her voice even, a soft smile on her face. “This is good news.” And Principal Kendricks nodded at her appreciatively.

“What a relief,” added Ms. Fletcher. “But what about Jessica Patterson?”

“It seems our PTO president’s concerns have been sufficiently addressed,” Mr. Kendricks continued. At this, Ms. Jackson noticed a small grin spreading over Nurse Honeycutt’s face, and she briefly wondered about its source. Principal Kendricks continued: “Ms. Patterson has also been asked to join the district’s parent advisory council, and I suspect such accolades have her focused on bigger fish. I also think the situation at Lanthrop might have factored into Central Office’s decision. They can only manage so many crisis situations at once, I guess.”

The group shared amused glances. Just last week it had emerged in the headlines that the rooftop garden club at their rival, Lanthrop High, had been tending to a robust crop of marijuana plants. Their sponsor, a well-meaning but admittedly na?ve older woman, had taken pictures to proudly share on the school’s social media, leading to the club’s downfall. It was later discovered that the students had been selling the marijuana to buy more gardening supplies, as well as Taylor Swift tickets.

“Well, I’m really glad it worked out,” said Mr. Rayfield, who then shared with the group that he’d recently taken a position as a lab technician and was thinking about graduate school. “Even though I won’t be returning next year,” he added, “I want to say that I’m glad for the school that you’ll be here.”

Principal Kendricks thanked him, and then told the remainder of the group that he didn’t want to keep them, that he knew the end of the school year was jam-packed with concerns and must-do tasks. Gathering their things, the Baldwin faculty and staff members made their exits, chattering excitedly with one another about the happy news.

“I think we managed to put them in good moods, right?” Principal Kendricks asked Ms. Jackson. Ms. Baker had taken her leave with everyone else, but Mr. Kendricks had hung back to speak with his head guidance counselor.

“I think we surely did,” Ms. Jackson answered.

Mr. Kendricks gazed at her curiously. “I admit I was surprised,” he said, “that when Mr. Rayfield shared his news about leaving Baldwin, you didn’t want to share yours?”

That destabilizing sensation that had held her in its grip just before the start of the meeting returned.

“Do you mean, why didn’t I share that I’m retiring?” she asked. There was the word. Retiring . It felt strange even to say it out loud.

“Yes,” said Mr. Kendricks. “I know you told me you didn’t want a big production, and I can respect that. But are you sure you don’t even want to tell people?”

Ms. Jackson shook her head no; her body language was firm.

“I’ve thought about this,” she said. In truth, she’d avoided thinking about it too much, because doing so made her feel so discombobulated. “I’ll be here over the summer to train my replacement, but then I’d just like to make a quiet exit. When they find out in the fall that I haven’t returned, they can reach out to me then, if they’d like.”

Principal Kendricks nodded, although his somewhat sad expression revealed that he didn’t fully understand. The two walked out of the library together, but Ms. Jackson said she needed to head in the opposite direction as Mr. Kendricks. She intended to drop by her office to gather some things.

“Well, I’ll let you go then,” he said. “Thank you for arranging this meeting today.”

“Of course,” she answered. “And I’m so glad you’re the principal under whom I’m leaving. I’ll sleep better at night knowing that’s the case.”

“Well, thank you,” answered Principal Kendricks. “Although it is hard for me to imagine what this school will look like without you.” At this he extended his hand. Ms. Jackson took it, and the two shared a warm, firm handshake. Then Ms. Jackson headed off.

—

Alone in her office off the courtyard, Lovie Jackson assessed (not for the first time) the papers and supplies and desktop tchotchkes she would soon have to pack or do away with. It was good that student files were digital now, of course. That made life a little easier. When she had started in this profession, she had spent countless hours in dusty, musty records rooms, sorting through boxes. As a young teacher she had used a mimeograph, once destroying a favorite blouse with spilled ink.

She was proud of her ability to keep up with the changing technology over the years, but she also knew that she was beginning to be outpaced by it. She had to ask for help from younger colleagues far too often, and she didn’t like how that made her feel. It was one of the reasons she had begrudgingly accepted that it was time to retire. She thought back on the teachers and staff members who had not managed to keep up, who had become burdens in many ways on their coworkers. Who had softened and decided to phone it in, running out a play clock. She knew that people talked about such colleagues behind their backs, whispering about how much better off the school would be when they left.

She had never wanted to be viewed in that way.

It was time to go. She knew that it was. She had grandchildren to visit, and George spoke longingly of traveling to countries they’d talked about but never seen. Still, as retirement loomed and she began to wonder what would come next, she couldn’t help but envy her husband, who had worked for forty years as an accountant and who had retired without any doubts or even much concern. The work had been solid and predictable and had supported their family. He had been good at it, but he had not loved it. Had not felt called to it. It had been so easy for him to let it go. To transition seamlessly into a life post-career, which he filled with watching news programs on television, trying out new recipes, and—in a move that still surprised her—a step aerobics class for seniors at the downtown YMCA.

Her time at Baldwin—from that first year as a young math teacher fielding Mr. Lehrer’s clumsy inquiry about books to this chaotic year filled with strife—had been so much more than a job or even a career for her. It had been something bigger than that. Her identity, perhaps.

She gazed around at her office, and as had become habit in recent months, she was pulled back into the past and into reflection.

—

By the early 1990s, after teaching for a decade and a half, Lovie Jackson had developed a reputation at Baldwin as a firm but fair math teacher who prepared her calculus students very well. She and George had welcomed two daughters, who would go on to attend and graduate from Baldwin themselves. Lovie enjoyed her work and knew she was good at it, and while there were times when it could feel slightly repetitive to run the same lesson multiple times in a day, she figured she would teach for ten or fifteen more years, retire, and collect her pension after a career well spent. Sometimes Lovie thought about the fact that her time at Baldwin could have ended that way, and that would have been fine. More than fine, really.

But in the fall of 1993, a young woman named Anh Dinh had appeared on her roster. The slight young woman went by the Americanized name Annie, wore her hair in a perpetual ponytail, and chose to sit in the first row. Lovie noticed how she had a curious habit of lining up her Ticonderoga No. 2’s at a forty-five-degree angle, sharpened points to the front right corner of the room. She asked excellent questions and worked through problems with an ease and fluency that was a joy to witness. Once, when Lovie paused after explaining a problem on the overhead projector and asked if there were any questions, Annie smiled and said, “Ms. Jackson, it’s just beautiful to watch you solve that equation. I mean, the way the numbers work like that. It’s just beautiful to me.”

This reaction was followed by a round of snickering from Annie’s classmates, something Lovie shut up with a single, pointed look.

“I agree, Annie,” she replied, offering the young woman an affirming nod. “Math can be beautiful.”

Teachers, when pressed by their students, would say they didn’t have favorites. But, of course, this was a lie. Within the first few weeks of that fall semester, Annie Dinh quickly became one of Lovie’s favorite students of all time.

During conversations she would sometimes have with Annie in the final moments of class as students packed up their things, Lovie learned the young woman’s parents were part of a wave of Vietnamese immigrants who had arrived in Houston in the 1970s. She also discovered that they worked in a Vietnamese restaurant and that their English was not very strong. Annie shouldered additional responsibilities at home because her parents worked late hours; she was often responsible for making sure her two younger brothers did their homework, ate dinner, and got ready for bed.

When Lovie asked her about her future plans, Annie admitted that she had thought about taking classes at the local community college while working part-time, maybe at the same restaurant where her parents were employed. Understanding Annie’s full potential and knowing how rare it was, Lovie decided, that fall, to help the young woman with applications for a four-year college and financial aid. She dived into the project with all of the drive and focus afforded to her by her naturally type A personality. But she was also driven by something else. She knew Annie deserved more.

It was the early ’90s and there was no accessible Internet. Nothing in the long, complicated college applications process was easy to figure out or understand, and things had changed since Lovie had applied to college, many moons prior. Still, although she had two children at home, papers to grade, and aging parents to fret over, she found the time to help Annie. She researched schools with good math programs and grappled with how to fill out a FAFSA. She marked up Annie’s college essay and monitored looming deadlines. She wrote her a glowing letter of recommendation.

It wasn’t that the counselors at Baldwin hadn’t wanted to help Annie themselves. But because Baldwin was a large public school, they had limited time to devote to each individual student, and they were often overwhelmed by the parents of more resourced children who hovered anxiously over their sons’ and daughters’ applications like nervous bugs. And even though Annie’s parents surely cared about her, there were barriers in their way when it came to advocating for her.

That year, George gently joked that Lovie was going to bring Annie home for Christmas dinner, she talked about her favorite student so much, and Lovie laughed. But she thought that even George didn’t understand how much it meant to her to help Annie Dinh.

One afternoon after the final bell when she and Annie were going over Annie’s college essay one more time, her student paused and, with a furrowed brow, said, “I don’t mean to sound rude or ungrateful, Ms. Jackson. But why are you helping me so much? I know you’ve got a lot to do.”

Lovie nodded. It was a good question. She did have a lot to do. But she answered Annie directly and honestly.

“I think you have a gift for math, Annie, and I believe that if I don’t step in and help you now, it might not be fully realized.”

Accepting this response, Annie got back to work. Lovie wondered briefly if her answer made her seem egotistical or like she had a savior complex. But the truth was, Lovie believed her answer was correct. How many more chances would a young woman like Annie get before being consumed by the arbitrary, fickle world? How many more opportunities would she have before she was forced to settle down with something good enough? Annie was at an inflection point in her life, and Lovie knew it.

But Annie’s question gave Lovie pause. It sparked an idea in her mind that she couldn’t quite let go of. The truth was that she was almost forty years old. She hadn’t been a student herself for a long time. She had one child who was still in elementary school. But that evening after the girls were in bed, she told George she was thinking about going back for her counseling degree. She could make it her mission to support Baldwin students like Annie. And Baldwin students who looked like herself. She could encourage the counseling department to find ways to prioritize and assist them.

Annie Dinh was now older than Lovie had been when they’d first met. She no longer went by Annie but by Anh. Actually, she went by Dr. Dinh, having earned her doctorate in computer science. She still sent Lovie Christmas cards and updated her every so often on her busy, successful life.

That her star pupil’s abilities in mathematics now surpassed her own was one of the singular joys of Lovie’s life.

—

A text from George caused her phone to buzz. He was working on a new recipe for dinner. Something Greek, he said, and he wanted to know when she would be heading home.

Leaving very soon , she responded, and she made a promise to herself to mean it.

Scanning her inbox one last time, she saw emails that could be dealt with the next day. There was one from Jim Fitzsimmons, probably some gruff diatribe over something that she could not control. She honestly didn’t mind that he sent her these sorts of messages. She liked him. He had once occupied the classroom across from hers, and she’d witnessed his descent into problematic drinking and his recovery. She’d observed his ability to work with kids who were resistant to math and needed extra help. She knew from experience that he was a good teacher. And while she was realistic enough to know that they would not keep in touch after she left (after all, could she really imagine getting a coffee with Jim Fitzsimmons?), she was glad that she had shared space with him in this building for decades, each making cameos in the other’s stories of work life. They had guided the same students for nearly forty years, an astonishing number when she really stopped to think about it. And now those days were coming to a close.

She shut her laptop and stood to pull down the blinds covering the window that opened out onto the courtyard, where Mr. Lehrer’s ashes now rested. Like Jim Fitzsimmons, Mr. Lehrer had understood what mattered in this job and what didn’t. And then he had retired. To what? To end up as an aged substitute whose death had become a campus fracas? The thought pained her.

She had spent so much of her life as Ms. Jackson, Baldwin High School institution. Mr. Lehrer had been an institution, too. What happened to institutions when they were no longer needed? What happened to legends when they retired? With each passing day, these questions haunted her more and more frequently.

There was only a matter of weeks left now, Ms. Jackson thought. A collection of days on a calendar. Summertime was calling, but what came after that, Ms. Jackson did not know. She prayed that whatever it was, it would be sweet.

Then she switched off the lights to her office and headed out.