Page 13 of Teacher of the Year

At lunch, Jill and I gather around a small table in her classroom to eat. The teacher’s room, one of the least inviting rooms in the school, mostly gets used for the microwave. And why people think reheating leftover fish in the public teacher’s room microwave falls into the acceptable category eludes me. We typically retreat to one of our classrooms to eat, which allows some respite from the general school population and, with the classroom door shut, more adult conversations. Jill’s low-calorie frozen meal appears about as appetizing as a cardboard sandwich. I poke at my dry leftover spaghetti with a fork.

“So, where’s the date? What time? What are you going to wear? Tell me.”

“You’re clearly more excited about this date than me. Maybe you should go instead?”

Jill rolls her eyes and puts her hands out in a “so, tell me” pose.

“We’re going to The Purple Giraffe for dinner at six o’clock because I hope to be home in my pajamas by eight, and I’m wearing this.” I gesture to my outfit.

“Marvin, you’re wearing a T-shirt that says Book Nerd, jeans, and sneakers. Ratty sneakers. Even I know this does not qualify as a date outfit.”

“Well, this is what he’s getting.”

My phone, which sits on the table, dings with a message alert.

Olan: Hello Mr. Block. Illona’s nanny Cindy Rodriguez will pick her up today. If you need anything else from me please let me know. Thank you!

Swallowing hard, I quickly give his message a thumbs-up and put my phone in my pocket.

“Who was that? Vincent? Excited for the date?”

“No, it was Illona’s dad letting me know the nanny will pick her up today.”

“Oh, of course, he has a nanny. I bet she’s young, gorgeous, and they’re all over each other when Illona’s at school.”

My chest tightens at the thought of Olan canoodling with his nanny. Why the hell do I care?

“First, you had him flirting with me, and now he’s having a torrid affair with his female nanny?”

“No, you’re marrying this Vincent guy. Olan can have the nanny.”

“Lord help me.” I scoop my plastic container up and bring it over to the classroom sink to rinse. I slosh water around the container, give it a few sturdy shakes, and use a paper towel to dry it off. My mind wanders to Olan. He’s texting slightly more than I’d expect. Are we becoming friends? Being friends with an attractive single straight man is so out of my wheelhouse I’m not sure I’d know how to handle it. Literally, the only straight man I consider a friend is Nick, and that’s because he’s attached to Jill. Why does he keep sending me those damn winky face emojis? What’s that about?

* * *

“All right, friends, we have a few minutes before the buses are called; let’s share our weekend plans!”

You learn to start early when you have to wrangle twenty kindergarteners into full winter gear and backpacks and have them ready to go on time. On the flip side, sometimes, not often, miracles do happen; they actually focus and finish quicker than you anticipated and planned for, leaving you a few extra minutes. I instruct them to make a circle on our brightly colored rug so we can share a little about our weekend plans.

Here’s what you need to know about asking five-year-olds to share their thoughts, ideas, or plans. You simply never know what you’re going to get, but it will most likely be random, confusing, inappropriate, or some combination of the three.

To help move things along, I give a sentence stem and example.

“Who would like to go first? If you have plans, you can share that, and if you don’t have any plans, you can share something you hope to do. It might sound something like this… this weekend, I hope to have fun with friends.”

I nod at Ricky, sitting next to me, to begin.

“This weekend, I’m hoping the tooth fairy comes!” He whistles through his missing front tooth.

“This weekend, I’m going to the park with my cousins.” Kevin lives next door to his cousins, who are often part of his outings.

“This weekend, I’m going to Disney.” Jessica, a sweet girl with brunette pigtails, wants desperately to go to Disney and shares this often, sometimes telling us on Monday mornings that she’d been to Disney over the weekend. There’s an unspoken understanding among the class to simply smile and nod at Jessica.

“This weekend, I’m going to play with my puppy.”

“This weekend, I’m going to make a snowman.”

“This weekend, Cindy is taking me shopping,” Illona shares.

---