Page 1 of Crossing the Brooklyn Briggs
Chapter One
Brooklyn
October 10
There’s something about grading teststhat is just so peaceful. At least, that’s what I tell myself, but month after month I go through my students’ work and wonder if I’m really that bad of a teacher or if they’re somehow messing with me. As if failing a midterm is a great way to prank their teacher.
In the quiet after-school stillness of a Thursday afternoon, I hum along to the song playing on my phone—I can’t remember the last time I was able to connect to the Bluetooth speaker I bought specifically for moments like this—and remind myself that three failed tests out of forty-eight isn’t bad. I’m not an awful teacher. Most of my students are right where they should be. There’s no need to panic.
“Hey, Briggs.”
I scream, sending a few tests flying toward the door, and it takes me a second to recognize the figure looming in my doorway. “Mark! Hi. You scared me.”
He chuckles, folding his arms as he leans against the frame of my office door and looks far too attractive for a high school math teacher. They’re supposed to be old, balding, sporting walrus mustaches. (I kid you not I had three different math teachers growing up who looked nearly identical. I’m not making this up.) But no. Mark DeNiro is like a mix between Milo Thatch from the cartoon movieAtlantisand Matt Damon, wrapped up in stylish sweaters and cardigans that always make me a little itchy when I look at them. But he wears them well and often, even though the weather here in Sun City rarely warrants the need for a sweater.
“I’m easily spooked,” I add when he still looks like he might laugh. I sound breathless—Iambreathless—but not because he scared me. I’m over that already. No, I can’t breathe right now because in the few years we’ve been working at Sky View High School together, he’s never once been in my chemistry classroom. I would know, considering I’ve been drooling over this man throughout each of those years, simping like a fool for a man who has never given me the time of day and always has a woman on his arm. (That’s what social media says, anyway.)
Okay, did I really just think the wordsimp? Gag me. I am way too old to be using student lingo, especially a word that will go out of style more quickly than it took me to learn it in the first place.
Let me start over. I have had acrushon Mark DeNiro since the first time he introduced himself in our weekly staff meeting. Mark DeNiro has never once acknowledged he knows my name.
Until today, apparently.
“So, Briggs,” he says, bending down to pick up a couple of stray tests. He looks at one and chuckles, probably catching the terrible math my student used to get to the wrong answer. “I just heard you’re up for STEM Teacher of the Year.”
How does he know about that? I just got the email earlier today. Tucking some hair behind my ear, I hope I don’t come across as completely flustered. “Oh. Yeah, it’s pretty crazy. I don’t know why anyone would nominate me.” Not that I’m mad about it. Each school in the district nominates a teacher from the STEM division. The district chooses one of those nominees to send to the state level, and then the state chooses their official “STEM Teacher of the Year” and awards them with a grant or some other high-level prize, which varies from year to year. This year, the University of Sun City is giving the winner a summer fellowship in whichever field they choose.
I amdesperateto win that fellowship.
Mark leans back against the doorframe, taking in my office with his hazel eyes. “I think you’d be a great candidate,” he says eventually.
I laugh. I can’t help it. Put me in an awkward situation, and I’m going to make it more awkward. And of course Mark frowns, probably regretting coming in here because I am the weirdest person he’s ever met.
“Well, I need to head out,” he says, his eyebrows pulled together as he backs up. “Good luck, Briggs.”
“Thank.” Did I seriously just saythank?
Mark chuckles. “May the best of us win.”
Wait, what?
The instant he’s gone, I scramble to turn on my computer and pull up the email Principal Cheng sent me this morning. I accidentally delete it at first, search Google to figure out how to bring back deleted emails, and then scan through the body again until I find the phrase ‘one of our nominees.’
“Oh,” I breathe, feeling the excitement leave my body along with my breath. I thought for sure I had a chance, but clearly it’s not as much of a done deal as I thought. “That’s okay, though. Right?” I cringe at my own sad attempt at positivity. I’ll probably need my sister, Micah, to convince me that this isn’t as lame as it feels.
Luckily for me, I don’t have much time to wallow because it suddenly hits me: Mark DeNiro just spoke to me.To me. For pretty much the first time since the day I met him years ago.
And I was a total dunce.
I groan and drop my head onto my test-strewn desk. Apparently the years of conversations I’ve had with the man in my head were nothing like the real thing. He didn’t grin at me and praise my intellect. He didn’t brush hair from my face. He didn’t even call me by the cute little nickname he gave me after he realized we both like combining brownies with cookie dough. NoBrookiefor me.
Nope. In real life, Mark looked at me like he made a mistake in coming all the way down the hall to tell me I would be a great candidate even though he’s clearly going to beat me.
When I’m sure Mark has left his classroom for the day, I scurry to the biology lab next door and am so glad when I find Jaydin in her classroom. “Jay!”
She barely has time to hold out her arms before I’m in her lap, fake-sobbing as I mourn the days I might have been normal and cool. (Not sure they ever actually existed, but I’m good at pretending.)
“Okay, what’s happened?”
