11. Anthony
eleven
anthony
With no applicants for the assistant principal position this close to the start of the school year, and no one from the building willing to step up, Nathan contacted me about lending him a hand as interim assistant principal in the meantime. I intend to make the most of the meantime.
I’m excited, but I’m nervous. Why am I so nervous? This is all I’ve ever wanted, right? Teaching for me has nothing to do with the power and authority, and everything to do with the teachers I had growing up.
Having ADHD is a label that always put me on the troublemaker shit list, and boy did I just lean into it. I was the class clown, the jokester, and the guy leading the charge on the senior pranks. Despite that, I always did well in school. I just can’t sit still for shit, and have a hell of a time keeping my tasks organized. It’s one of the reasons I have seventeen different alarms set on my watch. What helped me figure all of it out—aside from two loving and supportive parents—were the teachers who saw through all the bullshit and didn’t let it define me.
When some saw hyperactivity as a nuisance, a select few saw to the kid underneath who just wanted to do well. They were the teachers I wrote about in my college admittance essays, the classroom management I modeled mine after. They are the reason I’ve done my best to make math interactive, even in the middle school setting. But as I worked on my administrator’s license, I started to realize how much more I could be doing for students on the behavior end of things if given the position. Now, with the opportunity sitting at my fingertips, I might just have the chance to make it a reality.
“I have to say, despite the fact that this is technically my third year in the position, I’m kind of in uncharted territory right now.”
Nathan takes off his glasses and swipes at his brow before replacing them. Poor guy looks flustered.
“Hey man, we all are. I’m sure you didn’t expect to absorb half of another building, same as we didn’t anticipate having to combine schools for a year. Hell, did Don even give you a head’s up that he’d be retiring this year?”
“No.” He shakes his head. I expect him to say more, but he leaves it at that.
“So…” I tap my pen against my padfolio to the beat of the song stuck in my head and lift my eyes to Nathan. “We have a large population of new people in an unknown building…”
“I thought of that,” he nods. “I’m not much for team building activities or ice breakers. When I was in the classroom, I often found that my students hated them just as much as I did, which was a bonus.”
“Sure,” I nod, then point my pen. “ But , I feel like this year might go a lot more smoothly if we all know each other on some level. You know what I’m saying? Sure, I know a group of your guys, and my classroom partner is…”
I rub the back of my neck, where a tingle starts, same as it always does when Pen’s name rolls off my tongue like I stole it. I shake my head, knowing that it won’t do me any good to get rid of her, because she’s as constant in my mind as the unconsciousness it takes to keep breathing.
“I think it might be beneficial to get the staff together somehow. Something informal so we at least know faces and names…”
“But not something that would feel like a waste of everyone’s time.”
“Exactly!” I point my pen at him again. “Food would probably be a smart idea.”
“Food is always good.”
Nate starts jotting some things down, spit-balling different times during in-service where we could make something informal work.
“What about a cookout potluck type deal out by the baseball fields? There’s plenty of space,” he says.
And that’s when my wheels start turning.
“We’re doing what? ”
“Wiffle ball!”
If I didn’t already know about Penelope Barker’s secret life as a romance author, I’d say her calling in the arts was acting. Her facial expressions could rival Jim Carrey’s. Her eyes turn to slits, the deadpan expression something out of a cartoon. I can see every single intention written without her having to utter another word.
And all of those intentions say Really, Ant? and Fat chance, and I will kill you if so much as a hair on my pretty head is touched.
I sigh, deflating like a balloon, melting into the chair behind my desk in our shared classroom. I want this to work out so badly . Stepping into the role of pseudo-AP and failing would be the final nail in the coffin of my shitstorm year.
“It’s for staff team building,” I gripe. I scrub my hands over my face, then lift the bill of my Red Sox hat up so I can tousle my hair, and turn it backwards on my head. Clasping my hands together, I rest my chin on them, and bat my tired eyes up at her. “Nate and I thought that if we could get everyone together for some food and a little bit of fun before the year starts, maybe it’ll ease a little of the tension in this shitty situation.”
I stare at the white speckled tabletop in front of me, because I can’t manage to look into Pen’s eyes. Shitty situation could be the chapter title for her year and mine. I don’t realize how much silence has gone by until she breaks it.
“Does ‘Nate and I’ mean that you’re helping out with the AP position?”
“Yeah,” I nod, scrubbing my hand anxiously through my hair again. “Yeah, I uh… have the licensure. Figured I’d step up and do some good.”
She runs her tongue over her teeth, and I can see a million unsaid words passing over her eyes like credits in a movie screen. What I wouldn’t give to know them all.
“Do I have to play?”
I flick my gaze up, and see the tiniest crack in the surface. I’ve tried my best not to imagine anything with Penelope. Little signs or signals that she might just be letting me in, or ready to forgive me. I don’t want to— can’t —get my hopes up. Not when it comes to her.
But something is trying to crackle its way through her rock hard exterior. Her brows betray the deadpan of her eyes as they lift, and I can see the strain of her facial muscles as she tries to hold in her scowl. Despite all my best efforts not to read into everything, my eyes light up.
“Everyone has to play to earn their hot dog, but I promise, we won’t stack the teams. It’ll be totally fair.”
“Seriously?”
“C’mon, PJ, it’ll be fun !”
She rolls her eyes, and then her gaze narrows, if that’s even possible.
“If you suddenly find your toothbrush in the toilet, it’ll have that stupid nickname written on the back of it, Anthony Ellis.”
She just threatened to drop my toothbrush in the toilet, and all I got out of the interaction was that she full-named me, and it may have made my dick hard.
Suddenly, I have no mission other than to make sure that Penelope Barker has the best wiffle ball game of her life.