You Deserve Nothing - Alexander Maksik [87]
“We won, Mr. Silver! We won!”
“It’s great,” I say. “Bye, Lydia. I’ll see you.”
She smiles at me. “See you, Silver.”
I climb down through the crowd, out of the bleachers and onto the gym floor. I slip through the doors, and toward the entrance where Mazin is standing with Steven Connor.
“Hey Mr. Silver,” Steven says.
“Hi, Steve. How are you, Maz?”
He shrugs and turns away.
I look at him until he faces me.
“Say what you have to say, Mazin.”
“Nothing to say.”
I wait a moment.
“O.K. I’ll see you guys.”
I squeeze Mazin’s shoulder and walk outside away from the fading roar.
I stop at the picnic table beneath the pine tree and sit with my feet on the bench. I feel very still.
I regret that I haven’t said some kind of good-bye.
I think of all those kids I’ve taught spread throughout the building.
I want to find Mazin again. I want to explain to him. To all of them. To Mike Chandler, to Jane and Lydia and Hala and Julia and Colin and Gilad.
But what’s the difference really? Whatever I’ve done for them, whatever I haven’t, all of it is finished. In the end, leaving them with an image of a small white dog limping across a field of snow isn’t so much worse than a grand good-bye.
I call Marie. She doesn’t answer. I leave a message.
“Marie, it’s me,” I say. “I don’t know what’s next for you exactly but the weeks ahead will be horrible. I’m sorry for that. You’re so much braver than I am. Anyway, Marie, it was coming. You knew that. So, here it is. And maybe, I don’t know, it’ll be a relief. Maybe, maybe. Please take care of yourself. We’ll see each other one day. But not for a while, I don’t think.”
I return to the English department where I collect my things—a file of personal letters from students and parents. A few books. My coffee mug.
After all that time, there isn’t much I can see keeping.
I lean against my desk and listen to voices fade in the halls as the school empties.
I leave most of it the way it is.
Red pens in the drawer alongside a box of staples, grade book on my desk for whoever will replace me.
Mia’s coat and scarf are draped across the back of her chair. Everyone else has left with the last bell, or is in the gym celebrating, but she’s working with the kids to prepare the winter issue of the literary magazine. She’ll be there late, hidden away in the computer lab, making final decisions about the latest round of submissions.
I imagine her in that low-lit room, monitors glowing, illuminating our small, faithful club.
She is at her best among those kids who love her. There she is the center of the world, arbiter of taste, patient reader, sharp critic, legislator of perfect moral order.
I sit at her desk and take one of her red ballpoint pens from the drawer and begin to write.
Dear Mia,
But I can’t muster it and leave it there, just those two words across a sheet of white paper: “Dear Mia,”
I get up. I touch her coat hanging from the back of the chair and leave the office.
* * *
From the hallway I can see Moore sitting in a chair facing an empty gray couch. On either end are two matching chairs. There’s Mr. Al Mady in one, left leg crossed over his bent right knee so that I can see the worn sole of his shoe. I walk through the door and my entrance freezes a smile on his face.
Paul Spencer is in the chair facing him.
Moore turns to me as if she too is surprised to find me there. I think I’ve made a mistake. Perhaps they’ve changed their minds. For a moment I feel relieved but before I can speak, before I relax, before I give in to it, she says stiffly, “Come in, Will.”
I take the place that’s been prepared for me on the low couch. I wonder if this suite of furniture is new. I don’t remember it.
Paul Spencer sits rubbing his hand against his beard. Moore faces me, dressed in a beige suit. She’s rigid, sitting with her legs crossed. Behind her I can see the parking lot through the window. The last buses are pulling away. Omar Al Mady, to my right, has shifted in his chair so that his body is turned slightly in my direction.
I’m breathing shallow breaths and sitting forward