The Proposal by R.R. Banks

Author:R.R. Banks [Banks, R.R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-04-20T05:00:00+00:00

"What's that smile all about?"

I looked up and saw one of my co-workers reaching for a paper cup beside the coffee maker in the teachers’ lounge. I shook my head, trying to get the grin off my face, but knowing that it was futile.

"I was just thinking about a show that I watched last night," I said. "It was really funny."

She looked at me as though she didn't believe a single word that I said.

"That's not the smile of someone who spent the evening watching comedy," she said.

I looked at her with as much wide-eyed innocence as I could muster.

"What do you mean?" I asked. "It was that show. You know the one. The one that everybody loves so much. The one with the family name and the husband and the wife and the kids and they're always getting into stuff and they don't really get along, but they do, and they have that neighbor."

She stared at me.

"Mmmmm-hmmmmm," she said. "I appreciate that vague and completely non-specific description of approximately eighty percent of the TV shows that have ever come on. I'm sure that episode with the people doing the stuff and with the things that were funny was hilarious."

I knew that I had been caught, but I wasn't about to give up my charade. I didn't really know her well enough to get into the details of my own personal grown-up field trip to the firehouse. Instead, I finished swirling my hazelnut creamer and sugar into my cup of coffee, smiled at her, and headed out of the lounge toward my classroom. Homeroom didn't start for another forty-five minutes, but I appreciated the quiet and calm of the new day. It gave me the opportunity to think about my plans for the day's classes and to figure out a way that I could explain that I hadn't even started grading the projects.

I had finished my coffee and was contemplating heading back to the lounge for another when the first few students came into the room. They grinned at me and I wondered if they could see the same giddiness on my face that the other teacher had. They all took their seats and I knew that my chances of grabbing another coffee or having a few more minutes to myself were over. One thing that I had learned during my time teaching was that you never left a classroom with teenagers in it without supervision. I watched the students come in and fill the desks. It didn't come as a surprise when one desk was left empty.

"Has anyone seen Jason this morning?" I asked.

The students looked around at each other, some of them looking as though they weren't even sure who I was talking about. I couldn't really blame them. He had only shown up for one homeroom class and he hadn't spoken to anybody during it. Teenagers weren't exactly known for being particularly detail-oriented and if I were one of them I probably wouldn't even realize that he was there, either.

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