Phoebe Berman's Gonna Lose It(61)
She looks up at the sound of the door opening. “Well, don’t you look sweet,” she says to me as I move forward to help her with the punch. She shoos me away. Anxious for a task, I busy myself by pacing across the room as, one by one, the rest of our colleagues begin to fill the small space. I find my heart rate increasing slightly each time the door opens.
“You okay?” Cheryl asks, a crease of worry lining her forehead.
“Yeah, totally. Why?”
“You’re going to burn a hole in the floor.” She chuckles, and then lowers her voice to a whisper. “Is Finn coming tonight?”
Unfortunately, to the prying ears of Sue, the seventh-grade teacher and notorious school gossip, no whisper will ever be quiet enough.
“I knew it!” From the other side of the room, I can see Sue’s eyes light up under her librarian-style glasses. “There’s something going on between the two of you, isn’t there? I’ve seen you on the playground. Gosh, I don’t think there’s been any teacher-on-teacher romance on these grounds since…” She pauses, deep in thought. “The nineties.”
Almost imperceptibly, her eyes flit over to the couch, where Teacher Rob mindlessly tunes his guitar in an attempt to hide his eavesdropping. She blushes. Cheryl and I share a brief, knowing look at the revelation. We’ll discuss this later, it says.
“Nothing is going on between anyone,” I say, loudly enough to make sure it falls on the ears of every busybody in this room.
“Why not?” Sue pouts. “You two would be so cute together.”
My curiosity gets the best of me. “What makes you so sure he would even be interested?”
At this, Teacher Rob, clad in the powder blue suit that he wears for every special occasion, chimes in. “He’s a guy. Guys are always interested.”
His point is one that I’ve heard countless times before. It’s what all the early 2000s rom-coms wanted me to believe. But after twenty-nine years of lived experience, and one brutal rejection in a janitor’s closet, I’ve gathered enough evidence to confidently say that guys are not, in fact, always interested.
“That’s what I’ve been telling her.”
I glare at Cheryl. “Whose side are you on?”
“Yours. That’s why—”
The creak of the opening door cuts Cheryl off, and every pair of eyes in the room turns toward the entrance, where Finn stands, looking completely gorgeous in a blue button-down, khakis, and surprisingly fashion-forward loafers.
The room goes completely silent. Everyone looks at him expectantly, waiting for him to tell us that we’re busted. He heard everything. We’ve been caught red-handed.
“Uh.” Finn hesitates before stepping forward and closing the door behind him. “Hi?”
“Hey!”
“Hi, Finn!”
“Lookin’ good, kid!
“Welcome!”
“Come on in, have some punch!”
Our high-pitched greetings come tumbling out all at once. Cheryl shoves a glass of punch into his hands.
“So,” he starts, taking a sip of his drink. “What are we all waiting here for, exactly?”
“Dan,” I tell him. “He usually makes a few announcements before the kids get here. And between you and me”—I lower my voice—“the last Fall Ball was a complete shit show. So Dan might really crack down on us this year.” Finn raises an eyebrow, an invitation for me to keep going. “You’ll see” is all I offer.
I fidget with my fingers anxiously, cracking my knuckles one by one as we wait. Tonight will be the first time I’ve seen Dan, our principal, since he asked me to interview for the assistant principal position last month. I wouldn’t say I’ve been avoiding him. Not at all. I’ve just been making a conscious effort to stay clear of spaces I know he’ll be in. And if I do happen to see him approaching, I’ll begin walking in the opposite direction.
It’s not that I don’t want the job. In fact, I think I’d be a good fit for the role. Shannon’s archaic filing system could use a massive overhaul, and the thought of reorganizing decades’ worth of paperwork makes my heart skip a beat. It’s just that it’s a big decision. A big change. And I don’t know if that’s what I need right now. Or even want.
Thankfully, the unease I was feeling about seeing Dan dissipates the second he walks through the door. He has the type of calming presence that reminds me of my dad, a slightly resigned air that comes from the desire to please everyone. “A few quick things to go over before we get the ball rolling tonight,” he announces. “First, no more than two glasses of punch per person. Two and a half if you spread them out appropriately. We don’t want…well.” Everyone goes out of their way to avoid looking at Jane, who, after finalizing her divorce just hours before, suffered a very public punch-induced breakdown at last year’s Fall Ball.
“You can’t trust anyone with your heart. Not even yourself,” she had ranted into the microphone as the kids slow danced to an Ed Sheeran song. The lyrics about eternal love and longing seemed to set her off further. “This man is lying to you. Ed Sheehan is a liar” was the last thing she said before dropping the microphone on the floor and storming out of the gym, leaving behind a room full of emotionally scarred teenagers.