The Faculty Lounge

Chapter Six

Six

Denise Baker, the most senior of Baldwin High’s eight assistant principals, sat down on the toilet first thing Monday morning and discovered that her period had started overnight even though it hadn’t made an appearance in almost two months.

“Fuck this shit,” she said to no one, and loudly, too, because Denise Baker lived alone without even a cat to hear her. After a few stops and starts in junior high, her cycle had always arrived politely on time. Until lately. The websites and books referred to it as perimenopause, but Denise just referred to it as hell. Still on the toilet, Denise cursed her ruined white cotton Fit for Her briefs and sank her head into her hands. There, she had a realization.

A woman’s late forties are the puberty of old age.

It was a clever bon mot, one she would have shared with Kathy had Kathy not died on her three years earlier of colon cancer, a scourge only discovered after Denise had personally made the doctor’s appointment and insisted Kathy try to figure out the source of her ever-worsening symptoms. But now Kathy was gone, their son was away at college, and Assistant Principal Baker was all alone on a Monday morning. She slipped off her underpants and tossed them directly into the bathroom trash can. She would waste no time trying to salvage the unsalvageable.

—

She hadn’t even pulled into the parking lot at Baldwin before her phone started pinging with the day’s business, and it was still well over an hour before the first bell.

Ms. Baker I’m sick with some sort of bug and the EducateMe portal isn’t working for me for some reason. I need coverage for my first period class!!! And I guess the rest of the day too? Any chance you know how I can reset the login? SO SORRY!!!!

Ms. Baker, I’m sorry to bother you first thing in the morning, but I just received a parent complaint because I mentioned Harvey Milk in a lesson last week. It wasn’t even the focus of the lesson, just a brief mention. The mother is saying it goes against her family’s religious beliefs. I know you recently had to deal with some upset parents and a text in the AP Language classes. I’ve forwarded you the email and wanted to give you a heads-up, but I’m too nervous to respond until you tell me what I should say. Sorry to bring this to you on a Monday. Let me know when you have a moment to discuss. Thank you.

Denise any chance you checked the cameras on the third floor by stairwell G? Re: incident from Friday with that ninth grader? Parents claiming he is being bullied but girl involved claims boy threw his Takis at her first before calling her a “fat fucking bitch.” As our friend Whitney always said…I believe the children are our future! :-/ Let me know about the cameras.

Denise, I also sent you an email about this but just a reminder that your first round of TDAF teacher observations and conference notes are due by the end of the week. Central Office has made it clear they will be breathing down our necks on this deadline and given the recent drama, we have to be really on top of it. Just a CYA reminder. Thank you for all that you do.

Department head meeting moved to Lori’s office because Kendricks’s office has some strange odor they can’t figure out???

Slinging her canvas tote bag over her shoulder as she winced at a particularly painful menstrual cramp, Denise walked toward the building, the late November weather cool and crisp. She responded to the last text, sent by her fellow AP Kitty Garcia.

Strange odor like what?! Feet? Farts? Weed? Jkjk on the last one.

Ms. Garcia’s quick response ( No clue but if it’s weed sure wish I knew his dealer ) made Denise smile for the first time all morning, and she quickly applied a HaHa react to the text. Then she shot off a note to Michael, a senior at UT. Her son was her shining star and her best achievement, a brilliant kid destined for greatness.

He also seemed allergic to the idea of calling his mother.

Hope you’re having a good day, sweetie. Heading into school. Had a meeting moved because Principal Kendricks’s office smells funny. The fun never stops. Give me a call soon if you can. Your mama misses you and can’t wait to see you soon for Christmas. Love you.

She was reaching, she knew. Her adult son would probably not even be briefly amused that the principal’s office at his former high school, which doubled as his mother’s place of employment, smelled strange. But ever since Kathy had died, it seemed Denise had struggled to find ways to connect with Michael. They’d both been gripped with grief, of course, but Denise’s answer to Kathy’s death had been to sink deeper into isolating sadness with each passing year. Michael’s solution had been to double down even harder on his commitment to overachievement: taking extra classes, racking up leadership positions on campus, committing to every volunteer and activist opportunity, even talking about running for office one day. Last summer he’d served as a congressional intern in Washington, D.C., and had come home for only one long weekend, which he’d mostly spent with his old high school buddies. Given their widely different reactions to their loss, it was no wonder they had a difficult time communicating.

As she let herself into the building and began climbing the steps to her second-floor office, the phone in her hand buzzed. She looked down hopefully. Michael had given her last text a thumbs-up react. In response he’d written:

Maybe you need to give Principal Kendricks some extra-strength deodorant for Xmas. Will try to call tonight or tomorrow .

Ms. Baker sent back of a GIF of a smiling dog she found amusing and hoped that “tonight or tomorrow” meant at least by the end of the week.

After unlocking her office door, Ms. Baker flipped on the fluorescent lights (one that worked, one that never did), turned on her walkie-talkie (which every AP referred to as their “radio”), set it to a low volume, and sat down with a sigh, taking a moment to curse the stuffing coming out of one of the chair’s armrests. If she went through the laborious paperwork necessary to start the process of requisitioning a new chair, it might appear on the eve of her retirement. If she was lucky.

Determined to start the week on the right track, Ms. Baker dealt first with her morning texts and then started clawing her way through the 128 emails in her inbox from teachers, parents, and students. Several were about her TDAF observations and conferences, the bane of every assistant principal’s existence. TDAF (which stood for Teacher Development and Feedback but was often referred to as Total Drivel and Foolishness or Totally Dumb as Fuck) was the time-consuming, utterly pointless, state-mandated system of rating teachers, wrapped in ribbons of red tape and consisting of three conferences and four observations over the course of a school year, each observation requiring the assistant principal to rank their teachers on a scale of 1 to 5 on everything from Dresses in a professional manner to Establishes a supportive culture of warmth where learning is the focus and all students can achieve .

Naturally, most Baldwin teachers expected to be rated a 5 on every category, even though the entire performance was meaningless, since nothing much could happen to a teacher as a result of their TDAF ratings, so long as they consistently scored a 3 overall on the rating system, which most sentient beings with half a brain could achieve. When faced with a teacher who wept over anything lower than a 5 on a particularly stupid category, Ms. Baker always wanted to shake them and say, “Look, it’s not like anyone is going to get a raise out of this!” But in a system that didn’t afford teachers much respect, several of them saw a string of 5’s as their birthright, something tangible that they could point to as evidence that they were not wasting their lives teaching restless, anxious, pimply teenagers day after day. As a former teacher herself, Ms. Baker understood this, so she tried to approach every TDAF teacher conference with compassion.

Because a colleague was on maternity leave that fall, Ms. Baker was tasked with observing not only the bulk of the English department, but also several math teachers. A double major in English and education, Ms. Baker was something of a mathphobe; she’d always let Kathy be the one to factor tips at restaurants, do their taxes, and balance their checkbook, just as she’d sought Kathy’s help back in college whenever an assignment involved numbers. (In those days she’d pay Kathy back in make-out sessions, which had made the entire process quite enjoyable.) The TDAF ratings system was not supposed to depend on an assessor understanding the subject matter so much as their understanding of the strategies and pedagogical choices of the teacher, but she sensed that many of the math teachers were particularly resentful of her presence in the classroom.

Mr. Fitzsimmons was perhaps the most resentful.

Ms. Baker grimaced at the thought of having to assess the math department’s most veteran teacher, a grizzled man close to retirement who never seemed to smile, whose classroom walls were devoid of any decorations, and who—for the ten years in which she’d worked at Baldwin—had griped in every faculty meeting about the new district mandates as if he were the only one to have to endure them. She had put him on the back burner of her mind long enough, and she knew she would have to work in an observation of him in the next few days.

Ms. Baker checked the time on her computer. She had a few minutes before she had to be on morning duty. Turning up the volume on her radio, she could hear more clearly now the back-and-forths of her colleagues, the chattering of requests and calls for assistance. The radio hummed like a living thing, a squalling baby that demanded her full attention at all times.

Sighing, she knew she needed to make a move. But before she left for her duty spot, there was one more thing she felt she had to do. First, she slid out from behind her desk to lock her office door. Then she opened the bottom right-hand corner of her district-issued desk, a behemoth of a thing that must have dated back to the mid-1970s. Its drawers were cavernous and many. Ms. Baker shifted aside some manila folders and small boxes of paper clips before she found the stash of mini pinot grigio bottles she purchased regularly at a Walgreens near her house. The plastic kind whose easy twist-off cap gave off a satisfying crack each time she opened one. Glancing up at the locked door, Ms. Baker quickly opened a full bottle and tipped the sweet and fruity contents down her throat before hiding the empty back where she’d gotten it from. She exhaled, briefly savoring the taste in her mouth, shoving the shame somewhere she could ignore it for a little bit longer.

Then she popped a mint from a stash she kept in her desk, grabbed her radio, and headed out.

—

Sitting in the cramped corner of the dean of instruction’s office, Ms. Baker shifted uncomfortably in her chair, trying to get situated before the meeting of APs and department chairs began. It was more crowded in here than in Principal Kendricks’s office; perhaps putting up with the noxious smell, whatever the source of it was, would have been worth it.

The pleasant warmth from the pinot had mostly faded during morning duty, which consisted of Ms. Baker roaming the hall near the auditorium and moving kids along, searching out dark corners where vaping and sexual acts were known to occur, all the while managing text after text on her phone.

Ms. Baker so sorry but EducateMe portal STILLLLL not working for me? This stomach bug is super bad. Ms. Brennan agreed to cover for me first but I will need coverage for rest of day. Ms. Brennan is writing my lesson plans on board kids just working on vocab today so sorry.

Ms. Baker sorry to bug but parent wants a meeting with you re: her daughter plagiarizing her last paper for me. Mom has sent a NASTY email and CCd you. This kid’s essay was flagged on the MyWork portal. She basically cut and pasted from something she found online. Should I respond to mom or let you handle? Email so nasty!!

Denise, any chance we can switch evening duties next week? You’re on the schedule for the varsity basketball game on Wed and I’m supposed to be here Thurs for volleyball but I have to take my dad to an appointment in the afternoon would be great to switch. Let me know and thanks.

Ms. Baker briefly imagined her job before cell phones and radios, back when schools operated by typed memos and good old-fashioned word of mouth. Surely there must have been fewer immediate requests, if only because people knew they did not have the means with which to communicate every thought and concern as an emergency. Every day was like this for Ms. Baker, fire after fire. Often after she’d made it to Friday, she gazed back on the week in wonder, amazed that she was still standing. This was her twenty-sixth year in education, and every single year the bureaucratic demands and constant sense of urgency seemed only to intensify, leaving her with little opportunity to spend time encouraging and developing teachers, which was the main reason she’d wanted to go into administration in the first place. The only upside was that at least during the day, it left little room to immerse herself in the grief over losing her wife.

The biggest downside, of course, was her growing drinking problem, something Ms. Baker continually shoved around in the recesses of her brain, forever trying to find an unused dark corner, a different hidey-hole where she could store what she knew was a serious concern but one she was apparently currently incapable of dealing with.

“All right, everyone, let’s get started,” said Principal Kendricks, sliding into a chair and turning down his radio. An avuncular man with a tall and lanky frame, he was right around Ms. Baker’s age, and Ms. Baker liked and appreciated his warm, open nature. Her sense of professional pride also appreciated that he depended on her so much, given that among all the assistant principals, she had the most experience. The two of them made a good team.

When Kathy had died, he and several of her fellow APs had attended the funeral, and a small donation had been taken up among them for the legal aid clinic where Kathy had given her time. But that had been several years ago now, before the pandemic even, and Principal Kendricks and the rest of them had all gone back to their lives, leaving Ms. Baker to linger alone in her unmanageable sadness.

It had occurred to Ms. Baker that for all the time she’d worked at Baldwin, she’d been the only out administrator at the school, but what had actually made her feel isolated and different in a significant way was the fact that now she was the only one who was a widow.

“I’d like to begin with a quick update on the Lehrer incident,” said Principal Kendricks. Those in the room eyed each other meaningfully, and Ms. Baker’s mind was briefly transported to that day in the courtyard, to the ashes of Mr. Lehrer flying into the face of PTO President Jessica Patterson, followed by Ms. Patterson’s screams of anger and humiliation.

“As some of you know because you were required to be there, the district held a mandatory counseling session in the library last month,” he informed the group. “I think it went fine. That said, I know that Ms. Patterson and some of the other parents are still”—he paused, searching for the right word—“ vocal about their concerns. I want to reassure you that I believe if we stay focused on our good work of meeting the needs of all our kids, this will blow over soon.”

There was a ripple of laughter at the phrase blow over soon , and Principal Kendricks winced as he realized what he’d said.

“Please, let’s keep that in this space,” he added, but he allowed himself a small grin.

Ms. Baker appreciated his ability to find humor in the situation, but inside she was worried about what the future held for him and, subsequently, for her. Principal Kendricks had a reputation for being smart and good at his job, but he was also something of a rebel, often incurring the wrath of his district superiors, and she often found herself running after him with a sort of metaphorical net. While she couldn’t help but admire his decision to shut down Ms. Harper’s toxic “counseling” session the month prior, she was one of the few who knew that his superiors at Central Office hadn’t been too pleased about it, and they had let him know. Although they had never discussed the possibility out loud, she knew he was worried that his position was at risk, and she didn’t think those worries were unfounded. Ms. Baker sighed, not for the first time, at the thought that she could have followed her instincts that day in the courtyard and prevented Mr. Kendricks from spreading the ashes at all, or at least stopped him from doing it in front of such an audience.

As the meeting dragged on and as she and her fellow assistant principals surreptitiously responded to the frantic, desperate messages and emails and texts on the phones they hid in their laps, Ms. Baker thought about why she’d chosen to join her colleagues in the courtyard on that day. Of course, as his right-hand woman, she’d thought Principal Kendricks would appreciate her presence. But it had been more than that. She’d interacted with Mr. Lehrer only a few times, usually when she’d been tasked with unlocking a classroom for him. (Substitutes didn’t receive classroom keys.) He’d always been polite and grateful, but Ms. Baker had been struck by his apparent frailness and advanced age.

Mr. Lehrer did not have much family , Principal Kendricks had shared in his email inviting faculty and staff to attend the memorial. If she had to be honest, those were the words that had really prompted Ms. Baker to show up. An only child, she had lost her reserved and emotionally distant father to a heart attack when she was in her teens, and her mother—a deeply religious woman who lived with her second husband in Oklahoma—was only superficially accepting of her daughter’s sexuality. They exchanged antiseptic Christmas and birthday cards, and Ms. Baker visited her mother for a long weekend about once a year. For the past several decades her family had been Michael and Kathy and all of Kathy’s loud, boisterous relatives, many of whom had recently started allowing for longer passages of time in between returning phone calls and texts. In the end, they had been mostly Kathy’s family, Ms. Baker realized.

When Principal Kendricks brought up the TDAF observations, she tried to sharpen her focus.

“Chairs, we need you to remind your teachers that TDAF is not a punitive thing, right?” he said. “In fact, this system was intended to be one that allows for growth and self-reflection. And APs, I know you understand the value in making sure each teacher conference is worth your time and the teacher’s time.” At this, Principal Kendricks smiled in that enigmatic way he had that made it clear that he was simultaneously fulfilling a district-mandated obligation and acknowledging that it was utter bullshit without actually saying so. His ability to pull this off was one of Ms. Baker’s favorite things about him.

But the TDAF. The goddamn TDAF. She decided she would make it to Mr. Fitzsimmons’s room by the end of the day. It had to get done, and, after all, she might as well double down on this miserable Monday. In an attempt to show goodwill, she shot off a quick email to Mr. Fitzsimmons, even though he was the type who failed to check his inbox throughout the day.

Mr. Fitzsimmons, as you know, it’s TDAF time again. I am looking forward to dropping by your classroom this afternoon for what I’m sure will be excellent instruction! Just a heads-up. Thank you.

Ms. Baker slipped her phone into her skirt pocket and considered the hours ahead of her. In a parallel universe—one where Kathy had listened to her earlier, gone to the doctor sooner, caught her cancer in time, lived— she would not be facing an evening in her house alone. In that parallel universe, she’d leave Baldwin High promptly at five, maybe stopping by their favorite Italian place for carryout. She’d have her stories and would be eager to share them, stories about everything from observing the cranky Mr. Fitzsimmons to the decaying animal in the walls of Mr. Kendricks’s office. Kathy, an attorney for the city, would be dressed in her sweatpants and one of her well-worn Rice University T-shirts, and she would pour Denise a glass of wine, interrupting her narratives with specific questions that revealed genuine interest in Denise’s life, not just spousal duty. She had always loved Denise’s “school drama,” as she’d referred to it, going all the way back to their younger days when Kathy was in law school and Denise taught English literature to ninth graders. How many nights they’d spent together in that kitchen, making dinner while drinking wine and singing along to Sarah McLachlan and the Indigo Girls, laughing as their son begged them to please turn down what he referred to as “vagina music.” How lovely it had all been, how warm and comforting and cozy. How na?ve she had been to believe that such goodness and pleasure were due to her for all the years of her life.

—

She gave Mr. Fitzsimmons a few minutes after the bell before she headed toward his classroom on the second floor. This would allow him time to get his students settled, manage tardies, and jump into the meat of the lesson. As she opened his classroom door (quietly, so she wouldn’t disturb the instruction) she felt her heart start to race. Why on earth was she worried about this man’s reaction? Perhaps because unlike every other teacher she observed, Mr. Fitzsimmons would almost certainly not mask his disdain for the process with a forced smile; in fact, she knew that when he finally noticed her, he might even roll his eyes.

But he didn’t see her right away, because when Ms. Baker entered, Mr. Fitzsimmons was at the chalkboard, scribbling an equation with his back to the students. Many years prior, the school had transitioned all the classrooms to whiteboards and Expo markers, but, legend had it, Mr. Fitzsimmons had refused this and had somehow gotten his way. The school had let him keep his green chalkboard, which dated back to the mid- twentieth century, back when the school district was still segregated by race and only white students went to Baldwin. The story was that Mr. Fitzsimmons was allowed to have the chalkboard, but he was responsible for keeping it clean and for buying his own chalk.

“So, if you follow this formula, you’ll find the answer pretty easily,” he was saying as Ms. Baker slid into an empty seat at the back of the room. The staccato sound of Mr. Fitzsimmons’s chalk on the board sparked a brief feeling of nostalgia in Ms. Baker for her own school years, and as she watched, she noticed how Mr. Fitzsimmons erased work with his hand, not wanting to pause long enough even to pick up the eraser. His tired red polo shirt, stretched out around the neck and tucked into a pair of worn-out khakis, was covered in little snowstorms of chalk.

Keeps back to class, isn’t turning to make sure students are engaged , Ms. Baker typed on the laptop she used to take notes during an observation. Learning to write on the board while monitoring the class was a skill Ms. Baker had tried to instill in many young teachers, but one Mr. Fitzsimmons had apparently neither bothered nor cared to learn. Still, she had to admit that the rows of tenth graders in this remedial algebra class were mostly engaged, following along with Mr. Fitzsimmons in their spiral notebooks. Of course, a handful of kids were fooling around with their phones or zoning out, but that could be found in even the most active of classrooms. One hundred percent engagement was something only a person who had never taught would expect.

Roughly 85 percent of class following lesson , she typed as Mr. Fitzsimmons continued to explain the formula on the board. At last, he turned to assess the class; he must have caught a glimpse of Ms. Baker, yet he delivered no acknowledgment of her presence. Instead, he snapped at one of the phone users.

“Rogelio, on my desk, now,” he barked. “Do it.”

The offender, a short, stoned-looking young man with a thatch of unruly dark curls, rolled his eyes but immediately complied, walking up the aisle to drop his phone on Mr. Fitzsimmons’s messy desk, which was covered in stacks of papers and Styrofoam coffee cups from various fast-food restaurants. The sound of Rogelio’s sneakers squeaking on and scuffing against the tiled floor as he made his way back to his seat was the only noise in the room as a few other phone users wisely chose to slide their devices back into their pockets or their backpacks.

Has command of the classroom and behavior , Ms. Baker typed.

“Okay, so I’ve shown you how to tackle a couple of problems like this,” Mr. Fitzsimmons said, picking up a stack of photocopies from his desk. “Now I want you to try to work on some yourself.”

Licking his thumb periodically as he counted out the papers, he passed worksheets to each aisle of students, sighing deeply as he did, as if perhaps he was pausing to consider how many times in his life he had performed this action. Ms. Baker’s eyes took in his old-man paunch, his unkempt shock of white hair, the smattering of white stubble on his ruddy face. She bit her lip as she wondered what rating she could give the man for Dresses in a professional manner . She also worried about the category Encourages collaboration and heterogenous grouping . Whereas younger teachers followed the newest, “best” practices and arranged the class’s desks into groups, got their students up and into pairs and triads, filled their classrooms with the busy chatter of group work (and, Ms. Baker had to admit, probably a lot of off-topic conversation, too), Mr. Fitzsimmons’s classroom was like a silent tomb as each child mulled over the paper in front of them. As they did so, Mr. Fitzsimmons walked up and down the aisles, pausing to check work over their shoulders. He stopped at the desk of a petite girl wearing pink cat-eye glasses that matched the pink beads in her braids.

“Maya, are you serious?” he bellowed. “Go back and look at the work on the board. You’re skipping a step, my dear. You know better than that!”

Ms. Baker frowned. Calling a student out like that was not a best practice, and she made a note of it on her laptop. But Maya seemed unbothered, as if perhaps she was used to this sort of routine in Mr. Fitzsimmons’s classroom. After briefly pausing to chew on her pencil’s eraser, she stared at her work, glanced at the board, then sent her eyebrows skyrocketing with understanding.

“Oh!” she whispered to herself, quickly scrubbing out the offending problem and reworking it. Ms. Baker recognized the look on the child’s face as the universal one for I’ve got it! When Maya raised her hand, Mr. Fitzsimmons meandered back to her desk.

“Yup, that’s it,” he bellowed. “Toldya you could do it.” Then he continued on, pausing frequently to correct work and encourage students to try again, each time in that voice that made him part disciplinarian, part cheerleader.

The week before, Ms. Baker had observed a third-year math teacher who had included during one class period a digital math game using the students’ phones, a YouTube video that somehow incorporated the day’s lesson into an explanation of why the Titanic had sunk at the angle it had, and some activity that involved students moving around the room with markers and Post-it notes. In the end, when the students accomplished everything on their task list, they received a Jolly Rancher. If Ms. Baker was being honest with herself, she hadn’t fully grasped the lesson, but she’d had to admit it had seemed like the students were learning. They’d certainly seemed to be having fun, anyway. She’d given the young and enthusiastic math teacher a 5 on almost every category, much to the young woman’s delight.

There were no such bells and whistles in Mr. Fitzsimmons’s classroom. He was clearly effective to a certain degree; the students were engaged and they were learning. But Ms. Baker also recognized the routine of a veteran marking time until he could finally retire. Deciding that she had enough to complete her observation, she made a few more notes on her laptop and ducked out of the room, shutting the door just as Mr. Fitzsimmons barked at another student to go back and redo their work.

—

The fires didn’t stop when she went home. In fact, Ms. Baker spent many an evening in a sort of cocoon she constructed for herself out of her recliner, blankets, and a TV tray, which usually held a frozen dinner, a wine glass, a bottle of pinot grigio, and her laptop. With the television playing some mind-numbing marathon of Law this she was smart enough to know. But she did not feel smart enough to know how to break out. The idea of quitting, of never drinking again? It was like trying to picture infinity.

So, like every other night, she drank and attended to her list of must-dos, which this evening involved tapping away at Mr. Fitzsimmons’s TDAF form, clicking and summarizing and trying to finish before it got too late. It was mind-numbing work, totally soulless and serving no purpose. Ms. Baker thought, not for the first time, that she might want to spend the last part of her career back in the classroom instead of on the administrative side; at least there she could still feel like she sometimes had a purpose. But she’d become accustomed to the higher salary, and Kathy’s early death had meant a loss of income, even if Kathy had been wise enough to purchase a modest life insurance policy for the both of them.

For a brief moment, she allowed herself to entertain the nightmare scenario: If Principal Kendricks was removed, even temporarily, there was a good chance that she would be burdened with additional responsibilities. The idea that in her current state she would be tasked with taking on even more sent her stomach into a spin.

Anxious to put that thought out of her mind and tired of the TDAF form, Denise decided to pour herself more wine and open another tab on her computer. She logged in to Facebook. Before Kathy died, Denise had been a frequent user of the site. In fact, she had loved it. Loved posting her wife’s silly quips, photos of their dinners out, snapshots of the two of them and Michael celebrating Christmas with Kathy’s family. Kathy had always gently made fun of her social media addiction, calling the site “Fakebook” and insisting that its popularity was an indicator of the apocalypse. “Why does everything have to be documented?” she’d asked, more than once. “There’s something sort of nice about doing something and knowing that only you know about it.” After she’d died, Denise’s desire to share her life plummeted, perhaps because she felt she had so little worth sharing. Unless she was bragging about one of Michael’s achievements, she was now more of a stalker on the platform.

Downing a few more swallows of wine, she searched for Mr. Fitzsimmons. Despite his common name, she found him easily because they shared mutual work friends. She was somewhat surprised that he had an account but not at all surprised by his profile picture: a shot of him sitting in his car wearing reflective sunglasses and not smiling even a little. It seemed to be the go-to photo for many older men.

Because they weren’t friends, Denise couldn’t glean many details from his profile. His likes included country music artists of the long-ago past and a group for fans of the television series Barney Miller . She couldn’t determine whether he was married or had children. She wondered briefly who he’d voted for in the last presidential election and hunted without success for clues, figuring perhaps it was best not to know the answer. There was a tagged photo of him from ten years earlier, posted by some young female relative who thanked many people by name for attending her college graduation. In the picture, next to a smiling young graduate in a black robe, a slightly thinner, younger version of Mr. Fitzsimmons peered out from the screen, but his hair—more of it back then, and not all of it white yet—was still as wild and unkempt as ever.

How odd this world was, Denise thought, where we could so easily find one another in this way. How we chose to distill ourselves down to these stupid profiles, these lists of likes and dislikes. How much we wanted to proclaim ourselves as something or someone to the world. To say that we exist and that we matter. Until Kathy had died, she’d had more than a profile pic or a job title or obligatory texts from her faraway son to prove that. Kathy had always made her feel like she mattered, in a way that was much more authentic.

And now she was gone.

Denise’s head was fuzzy, her body warm. She knew she’d had enough, that she was on the verge of tipping into something that would no longer feel even halfway good. But she could not stop herself. She gave up on appearances—who was there to see her anyway?—and drank what remained of the wine straight out of the bottle. She went back to finish Mr. Fitzsimmons’s TDAF. The next thing she knew, she was waking up in the middle of the night, still in the recliner and covered in a sheen of sweat. Her head was pounding and her mouth was dry; her teeth and tongue were covered in a rough, sour film. The television was still on at low volume, the Law she felt fragile and exposed, and while her headache had improved, a residual ache snaked through her brain. She paused to rub her temples with both hands and take a deep breath before she went back to the work of answering emails, responding to texts, all the while listening to her radio crackling from the corner of her desk.

Nights like the one before were becoming more frequent. She had to do something, but what, she wasn’t sure. Maybe she could quit for one month, like a Dry January, even though it wasn’t January. Maybe a reset would help her moderate more successfully next time. It was a lie and she knew it, even as she told it to herself. She had to quit.

Trying to respond to an email, she noticed her hands shaking ever so slightly, enough that she feared the tremor might be picked up by others. If she could just get through today, Ms. Baker told herself, if she could just get through today, she would go home tonight and dump out all the alcohol in her house. She would pour it straight down the sink. She would take a break. She would maybe quit for good.

She would get a handle on this.

She opened the bottom right-hand drawer of her desk and shoved the manila folders and boxes of paper clips out of the way and realized that this was as good a time as any to transfer the empties to her large tote bag to take home. She placed the three depleted mini bottles of wine on her desk, then cracked open a fresh one to try to cure her troubles.

As the first swallow of wine made it down her throat, the door to her office opened.

Standing there was Mr. Fitzsimmons.

In the following moment—a moment that could generously be estimated as lasting three to four seconds in total—it seemed several things happened almost at once. First, Ms. Baker realized she was drinking alcohol at her desk at work and, in her hangover haze, had not locked the door. Second, Mr. Fitzsimmons, whose face upon entry could only be described as “contorted in rage,” had to process the fact that his supervisor was sitting in front of him drinking alcohol at her desk at work. Third, Ms. Baker yanked the bottle from her lips and, after holding it uncertainly for a beat, tossed it into the open drawer from which she’d acquired it, even though it was still mostly full.

“Mr. Fitzsimmons, could you knock?” said Ms. Baker heatedly, breaking the silence. It was a pathetic move, she knew, but she was desperate. The damage was done. There were three empty bottles sitting in front of her, and a little trickle of pinot rested on her chin. She wiped it away with the back of her hand. She didn’t know what else to do or say.

Mr. Fitzsimmons still stood in the doorway, his rage transitioning into confusion. His brow furrowed, like he was trying to solve a math problem, one much more difficult than the algebraic equations he wrote on the board for his remedial tenth graders. Taking a deep breath, he squared himself and regained some of the earlier anger he’d clearly been carrying, but when he spoke, his words were clipped and measured and not as strong as Ms. Baker sensed they might have been.

“Ms. Baker, I came here this morning because of yesterday’s TDAF observation,” he said. “I have been a teacher at this school for almost forty years. I have lived through a lot of these absurd district things, and I have never, and I mean never, been so insulted in my life as I was by what you put on that form.” His voice was the same loud bellow she recognized from observing him in the classroom, but now it was laced with something new: indignation.

The TDAF form. Oh God . Ms. Baker realized she must have submitted it back to Mr. Fitzsimmons for his acknowledgment, which was customary. But she had no memory of doing so.

“Ms. Baker, I recognize I’m no spring chicken, and I don’t embrace all of the latest technology and all that touchy-feely group work and whatnot,” Mr. Fitzsimmons continued, his face reddening; she could tell he was trying to control himself. She also sensed his eyes every so often glancing at the empty wine bottles on her desk, as if he was trying to process that they were really there. She wanted to snatch them up and throw them in the drawer, along with the mostly full bottle that was currently draining pinot grigio everywhere, but she knew such a move would only draw more attention to the awfulness of their existence.

“I know I’m close to retirement and the administration probably can’t wait to replace me with a bright young thing who costs less and who loves computers, but what I came here to say,” Mr. Fitzsimmons went on, “is that to give me a 2 on my TDAF seems more than below the belt to me. It seems outright cruel. I don’t put a lot of stock in state and district horseshit, but when it comes to the T-SOAR, my pass rates are some of the highest in the department. I teach kids math and they learn math. I’m good at it. I’ve been good at it for almost forty years.” He was sputtering now, practically shaking.

Ms. Baker nodded, her mind racing, searching for what she might be able to offer Mr. Fitzsimmons to improve the situation in a way that wouldn’t spell doom for her, but there was nothing. She was his supervisor, but he was more than ten years her senior and a man. And she was drinking cheap drugstore wine at work.

At last, she opened her mouth to speak.

“Mr. Fitzsimmons, if you could give me a moment to review the TDAF form, I am sure we’ll be able to figure this out together, but I need time to go over it, please,” she said, her voice a tired croak. She assessed how bad she sounded. She decided pretty bad . “I will reach out by the end of the day, I promise,” she added.

Perhaps expecting a fight or some sort of defense of her actions, Ms. Fitzsimmons looked briefly surprised. At Ms. Baker’s words he nodded, but his face was still stern. The man was shaken, obviously. He said nothing more, just turned to leave.

“I know you are a good teacher, Mr. Fitzsimmons,” Ms. Baker muttered as he exited and shut the door behind himself, but whether or not he heard her, she couldn’t know.

Then, still trying to process what had just happened, she went to the TDAF portal and opened Mr. Fitzsimmons’s form, and a fresh new horror unfolded before her.

She had indeed given Mr. Fitzsimmons a 2, a totally unacceptable rating for a veteran teacher in good standing. In the large blank space for her narrative of the observation, a space that was supposed to include a lengthy and detailed summary of all she’d seen, complete with compliments for strong practice and encouraging mentions of opportunities for growth, Ms. Baker had typed the following:

Mr. Fitzsimmmon thank you for allowing me to visit your classroom today. I enjoyed your lesson. First of all, you need to work on your dress just a little bit, like maybe make sure your shirt is watshed. I could see chalk stains on it. Please try turning around once in a while!!! Kids needs to seee your face. Good job walking around the room. Good job taking the kids phone. Good job redirecting in a positive and professional way and creating an enviroment where kids are learning and growing in a dynamic way. Please consider incorporating technology!! Thank you for your time.

There were more spelling errors throughout the form, and one section that had been left blank entirely. It looked like the work of a madwoman or a grade schooler playing principal, not the work of an English major who, during happier times in her life, had often read upwards of forty novels a year. A 2 on a TDAF resulted in a teacher being put on a growth plan, a district-mandated hellscape of bureaucracy and paperwork that more than half the time ended in the removal of the teacher. She tried to imagine the shock Mr. Fitzsimmons had felt when he’d opened the document this morning.

Ms. Baker sank her head into her hands. No doubt Mr. Fitzsimmons was going to report her and was probably doing so as she sat here.

Not caring now that the door to her office was still unlocked or that it was almost time for morning duty or that her phone was buzzing and buzzing and buzzing in her pocket, Ms. Baker folded her arms in front of her, rested her head upon them, and wept.

—

She cried for about five minutes, and while it made her feel good in the moment, the physical act of it made her already drained body feel worse in the long run. More dehydrated, more depleted.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck , Denise, how could you be so fucking dumb!” she said to herself, her voice a whisper. She often told students in crisis to talk to themselves like they would a best friend. If she tried to follow that advice now, she could not come up with anything more than that.

In an effort to make herself feel even infinitesimally better, she tried to do some damage control. First, she went through Mr. Fitzsimmons’s TDAF form and deleted everything she had written, then recalled the observation through the portal, citing “administrator error” as the reason. She knew this would generate an email to Mr. Fitzsimmons alerting him to the fact that the observation was still pending. Knowing she had only a few more minutes before having to head out for morning duty, she sent an additional email to Mr. Fitzsimmons.

Mr. Fitzsimmons,

I have recalled your TDAF observation. What you received this morning was not at all reflective of your excellent teaching abilities, abilities I know are deserving of praise. I am at fault for submitting this form, and I can only apologize profusely. I do not expect you to accept this apology. I will be completing a new TDAF observation form by the end of the week.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,

Ms. Baker

She read it over thirty times before she sent it. She wondered if Mr. Fitzsimmons was already in Principal Kendricks’s office with a printout of the original observation. Shoving the bottles of wine on her desk into her tote bag, she imagined the maligned teacher describing them in detail to her boss. Did they have the legal right to search her bag? Was there not a part of Ms. Baker that almost hoped they would?

She carried out her day’s responsibilities in robotic fashion, her morning headache slowly starting to fade. But she was half- present, floating through lunch duty, administrative meetings, and a special ed conference, performing the routine of her job through a thin film that made her feel only partly there. She was empty, broken, sad, and ashamed, but most of all, she was lonelier than she had ever been in her entire life.

Each time she saw Principal Kendricks, she expected him to pull her aside, tell her they needed to speak privately in his office. She tried to sense if the other administrators were looking at her oddly, maybe even some of the teachers. But everyone seemed normal enough.

She avoided Mr. Fitzsimmons’s classroom entirely. He never responded to her email. She knew they would have to meet in person for a post-TDAF conference, which she supposed they would do after she resubmitted the form. She didn’t want to think about that at all.

At the end of the school day, Ms. Baker stayed in her office for a full hour after she was required to be on campus. This would allow her to walk mostly empty halls on the way to her car. Even the teachers who might have stayed to make copies, grade papers, or complete any of the other many tasks they hadn’t had time for during the hectic school day would have long since left. Ms. Baker locked her office door behind her and, stopping by a private bathroom reserved for faculty and staff, shut herself inside it, checked the lock several times, and then took the unopened bottles of wine and cracked them open.

She dumped the remaining wine down the sink, along with a rush of cold water from the tap, and wondered how this liquid that she’d purchased in a Walgreens off the freeway had become her best friend and her saboteur and her lover and her biggest enemy seemingly all at once.

With all the cheap plastic bottles in her tote now empty, Ms. Baker took the steps down to the exit that led to the administrative area of the faculty parking lot. One of the few perks afforded administrators was a parking spot close to the building. When she opened the door and headed outside, she saw Mr. Fitzsimmons standing by her little silver Toyota, just next to the front of the vehicle. There was no one else around.

Her heart started pounding immediately. Mr. Fitzsimmons turned to look at her. His face was no longer twisted in anger, but Ms. Baker couldn’t quite read it. Now that he had spotted her, she knew there was no turning back.

“Did you get my email, Mr. Fitzsimmons?” she asked while walking toward him, hoping she exuded confidence and sounded welcoming. Normal. Ms. Baker briefly recalled the moment she had walked in on the young social studies teacher Ms. Sanderson in one of the private faculty bathrooms: Ms. Sanderson’s pants were around her ankles, her bare behind on the toilet. They had both screamed and Ms. Baker had slammed the door, shouting apologies through it. Now, whenever they had cause to interact, the two pretended it had never happened, even though it was never far from either of their minds.

Was Ms. Baker crazy to hope that what had happened with Mr. Fitzsimmons could become something like that, perhaps? That they would just never speak of this morning’s interaction again?

“I got your email, yes, thank you,” he said as Ms. Baker reached where he stood. He shoved his hands into his pockets. She tried again to read his face and decided it was the same expression he’d worn when he was teaching. Not patient, exactly. More watchful, like he was searching for something that needed correcting.

Since he wasn’t moving or making clear the purpose of his standing there by her Toyota, Ms. Baker continued with the same tack. “As I wrote in my email, I apologize profusely for this morning,” she said, using her best and most polished professional voice.

“I accept your apology,” he said, not unkindly. He said it like it was easy. Like he had accepted it hours ago and even forgotten about it. Then, after pulling a beaten-up wallet that looked full to bursting from the back pocket of his well-worn pants, Mr. Fitzsimmons procured a bronze medallion of sorts, about the size of a dollar coin. “This is my twenty-year chip,” he added. “From AA, I mean.”

With the reason for Mr. Fitzsimmons’s presence now clearer, Ms. Baker froze. She stared for several moments at the coin, swallowed up by Mr. Fitzsimmons’s big, beefy hand.

“I didn’t know,” she said.

Mr. Fitzsimmons nodded. “Not too many people on campus do,” he said. “I’m sort of private about it, I guess. But part of AA is reaching out a hand to help others in need, so I guess that’s why I’m here.”

Ms. Baker considered her options.

She could thank Mr. Fitzsimmons for his concern and tell him he had misunderstood the situation this morning, then politely excuse herself and get into her car.

She could nod ambiguously and reassure him that she was fine and that his next TDAF form would be glowing, as promised, and then she could leave.

She could share with Mr. Fitzsimmons that she already had a plan in place and everything was under control, even though that would be a lie, and then she could take off with a confident wave and smile.

“I lost my wife a few years back,” Ms. Baker heard herself saying instead. Her voice cracked on the word years . She didn’t know if Mr. Fitzsimmons knew she was a lesbian. She also didn’t want to cry in front of him. She understood now that he was here out of kindness. An effort to help. But still, she did not want to cry in front of him. It was an act of vulnerability she could not manage yet, given the differences between them.

Mr. Fitzsimmons nodded as she spoke. He was simply listening. Something about his silence urged her to continue. As she did so, she realized Mr. Fitzsimmons was employing an old teacher trick: Always give the student plenty of time to respond. Resist the urge to speak.

“She died of cancer, and then there was the pandemic and lockdown and online school,” she continued, filling the space between them. “What started as a way to unwind just…I don’t know. It just got out of hand. The drinking at work started a few months ago. And lately, I can’t stop even though it makes me feel terrible. Even though I want to. But the idea of never drinking again? For some reason that terrifies me, too.” She couldn’t believe she had said so much, there in the faculty parking lot. It was the first time she had ever spoken about her drinking problem out loud to another human being, and the relief that coursed through her was the first good feeling she’d had all day. “I was drunk when I completed your form last night, Mr. Fitzsimmons,” she finished. “I have no real memory of filling it out.”

Mr. Fitzsimmons held up a hand, waved it back and forth.

“Forget the damn form,” he said. “You don’t have to mention it again.” He smiled just the smallest bit, the corners of his mouth briefly turning upward. “Toward the end, I kept a fifth of Cutty Sark in my desk,” he continued. “Ms. Jackson could tell you about the time I proctored midterms drunk. So…I got stories if you care to hear them.” He shrugged. “Anyway, it sounds like you’ve been through a lot lately, Ms. Baker.”

For some reason, these words—spoken plainly and bluntly—made the lump in Ms. Baker’s throat strain to the point of pain, made the hot tears pricking in her eyes threaten to spill. She took a deep breath.

“I sure could use a break, Mr. Fitzsimmons,” she said. On the word break , her voice cracked again.

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” he answered, sliding his AA chip back into his wallet and the wallet back into his pocket.

They stood there for a moment. It was fairly awkward. Ms. Baker wasn’t sure what to say or do next.

“Listen, that diner down the street is open,” Mr. Fitzsimmons said. “If you want to get a bite to eat or some coffee…we could talk.”

The sun was starting to sink. The only other car left in the administrative row was Principal Kendricks’s. It had been an extraordinarily long and miserable day, and Ms. Baker was very tired. She shifted her big canvas tote from one shoulder to the other. The plastic wine bottles inside it knocked against one another clumsily, and she wondered if Mr. Fitzsimmons could hear them. It struck her that even if he could, it wouldn’t matter.

“Yes, a bite to eat would be nice,” Ms. Baker said, nodding at Mr. Fitzsimmons. “Thank you for asking.”