You Deserve Nothing - Alexander Maksik [3]
“Thank God,” she says without opening her eyes. “I’m so tired. You?”
“Exhausted. But it was good and I’m sad. I’ll miss those kids. A lot of them.”
“They love you. You’re changing lives,” she laughs. “You’re a life changer.”
I shake my head
“You know it’s true. They love you. You’re a cult leader.”
Just then Mickey Gold lumbers over. Approaching seventy, red-faced, a wild cartoon—huge in body and gesture. The kind of man you’d expect behind a desk at a talent agency in Queens. But he’s been teaching Biology here for the last thirty years and as a result he’s gone slightly mad.
From ten yards out he calls, “Mia and Will! Want a refill?”
He says it again, working the rhyme, making it into a song. He comes carrying a bottle of champagne, snatched from the bar. Mia and I exchange quick glances. I like Mickey. He’s exotic here, so decidedly not French, lacking in subtlety and apparently unaware of himself. He is sloppy, unmannered, and loud. Yet he speaks French fluently, punctuates his English sentences with emphatic “ouis.” I’m impressed and embarrassed by him.
He eases himself down onto the grass across from us. It’s difficult work. He’s a tall man. Six foot two, a firm and significant belly. He pats Mia’s knee and says, “Another one down the shitter.”
* * *
She hasn’t spoken a word to Mickey since the Academic Achievement awards two weeks ago when he stood up, walked to the podium and said, “This year I’ll be giving the award to a young lady who, along with being an excellent writer and a gifted, budding biologist, also happens to smell like a rose.”
Mia, sitting next to me in the auditorium, let out a pained gasp and then covered her mouth with her hand.
He continued, “She’s a young woman whom I was happy to see every day and whose absence in class always made me a little sad. It isn’t every year that I teach a young woman whose talents are equaled by a lovely midriff. Beauty and brains. Personally, I can’t wait to see what she becomes. This year’s award goes to Colette Shriver.”
Colette, face flushed, walked to the podium. It was to her great dismay (and to Mia’s) that she was that day wearing a white T-shirt cut short enough to reveal her stomach, a small silver ring in her navel. Mickey stood at the podium smiling, arms outstretched, awaiting her with a hug and a kiss on the cheek, his nose cocked and ready for her rosy scent.
Poor Colette, mortified, momentarily swallowed up by Mickey’s mighty arms. Compelled to walk to the stage, ignoring the suggestive whispers of the boys on the aisle—yeah Colette, give him some tongue.
“To reduce academic achievement to her midriff? He’s a teacher! He’s disgusting.”
We were eating lunch together, whispering in a far corner of the cafeteria. I smiled.
“What? You think it was funny?”
“He doesn’t know. He’s oblivious.”
“That is not an excuse. Come on, Will. He’s a teacher. You know what he said was horrible. It isn’t funny. He’s a teacher. You shouldn’t take it so lightly.”
“How should I take it? He’ll never change, he’s been teaching for thirty years. He’s harmless, no one takes him seriously, the kids mostly love him. They think he’s hysterical. They also think he’s a good teacher. He isn’t a threat to anyone.”
Mia rolled her eyes. “Of course he’s a threat. Of course he’s harmful. You can’t just excuse him because he’s old or because he’s been doing the same thing for thirty years. He makes whatever good work Colette may have done unimportant. You don’t celebrate a teenager’s body in front of the entire school at a fucking academic achievement ceremony, O.K.?”
“You’re right, of course. Still.”
“No.”
She’d been raising her voice steadily and a group of girls a few tables away had begun to look over at us and whisper.
We often sat together in the cafeteria and argued. We leaned in and spoke intimately about one thing or another. We were young and both famously single. Conversations like these only furthered the rumors of a secret affair. It wasn’t uncommon for a brave tenth grader to raise her hand and ask, giggling, when Ms. Keller and I were getting