Jen clutches her roll of raffle tickets, her nostrils flared and white. Tears roll down her face.
“Lizette,” says Angel quietly. “Stop.” I don’t think Jen’s okay, she wants to say, but doesn’t want to embarrass Jen.
“Shut up,” Lizette tells her, and turns back to Brianna. “Some of us want to do our work and get our GEDs. So my point is, don’t have favorites, and make everyone follow the rules the same way. Please.” She clears her throat. “That’s all.” She sits at her desk and stares ahead of her at a spot on the carpet.
The girls swivel toward Brianna. Their teacher inhales shakily, but the breath seems to steady her. “That was way out of line, Lizette.” Her voice is rigid. She strides to the front of the classroom and faces them, legs apart, hands on hips, shoulders flung back: her power stance. “I do not have favorites, I absolutely do not. If you have issues you want to bring up about how I run this class, we can schedule a meeting. I am always available.”
“Right. You’re always so supportive of me.”
“Please stop fighting, guys,” Jen says.
“You held the classroom hostage with that little ‘Community Meeting’ stunt. You wanted to humiliate me publicly.”
“That’s not true! You claim this is a democracy. But you’re a dictator!”
“Um, okay. Let’s have a little perspective, shall we? Also, I never claimed this was a democracy. I claimed that the students should have some input, a limited stake in the running of the classroom. But I am the teacher. It is my job, a job for which I’m paid very badly, to ensure that this whole ship doesn’t sink.” Brianna has abandoned the power stance. She’s keyed up, hands flying here and there and chopping at the air. As her voice climbs, Angel hunches as if under a barrage. A deep embarrassment is welling in her: for Brianna, who should know better than to let Lizette get to her, and also for Lizette, who should know better than to behave this way. Both of them are being idiots. “I am the one with a degree and a shitty little salary and training in parent outreach.”
“This is our school!” says Lizette.
“If it weren’t for this school, you’d be dropouts.”
The girls turn shocked faces on their teacher. “I wouldn’t,” says Ysenia. I wouldn’t either, thinks Angel, but she isn’t at all sure that’s true. After all, she left EVHS.
Lizette’s eyes are a glint of green between thick lashes. “You don’t even got a kid. What do you know about what we go through?”
“Yeah, miss,” says Christy, as if genuinely curious. “Do you even got a stepkid? A baby brother?”
“Children are raised successfully every day.” Brianna enunciates each word.
“Just not by us,” says Angel quietly.
Brianna widens her eyes at Angel. Her hands fall to her sides, then she looks around the classroom helplessly. “Excuse me, please.” She makes for the door.
“Hey!” yells Lizette. Brianna stops, then turns. “You can’t walk out of Community Meeting.”
Angel is surprised at Lizette’s tone: the woundedness, the shock that Brianna would disrespect such an essential, esteemed institution.
“Yeah,” says Jen. “Let’s just work it out together.”
Brianna shakes her head and leaves. Behind her, the door falls quietly shut.
“Are you serious?” Jen demands of the shut door.
“Fucking bitch,” says Lizette. Her arms clutch her middle, as if she’s been punched.
“Stop, Lizette,” says Angel.
“You got the hots for her? You like a white girl? You like tiny little titties?”