Actually Invisible, page 8
- 19 -
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
The drive to work that morning was a blur. The night before was a constant struggle to not tell Cam about the whole situation with Kate because I didn’t want to worry her about something that could actually turn out to be nothing. With Kate’s parents not on board, she would probably lose steam on the GSA idea, and Dom Madden would take care of the issue with the essay.
… and yet I couldn’t help calling myself a hypocritical coward for so quickly dismissing the idea of the GSA. I had become a teacher to positively impact the lives of my students, and I couldn’t think of a downside when I framed it that way. Was it risky to put my own name on it? Depends on how you defined “risky.” Could it piss off some students and their parents? Maybe, but it had the more likely potential to bring people together. Would it further highlight my own sexuality? Yes, but that seemed to already be circulating among the masses, anyway. What actual harm could it do?
So I diverted my attention from researching slam poems to researching local school districts’ LGBTQ+-affirming extracurriculars. Benson High’s neighbor to the south is significantly more liberal as it’s closer to the city, so I started there.
Riverfront High School’s website listed all of its clubs in alphabetical order, and it didn’t take me long to skim from Art Club to the Gay Straight Alliance. I clicked on the link and was taken to a page that displayed a current calendar of events, a bright rainbow flag, and the following mission statement:
Join us each Wednesday afternoon in the RHS commons area for cookies and Harvey Milk! [wink emoji]
We are the Gay Straight Alliance, and we aim to be a safe space to bring together lesbian,
gay, bisexual, trans, and straight students in a positive environment where everyone can chat, learn, and express themselves.
Got questions? Ask Mr. Wise in Room 116!
I admired Mr. Wise’s puns and simultaneously ached for my adolescent self. What I would have given to be supported like that at school—to know that I wasn’t alone and that I was normal enough to have an actual school-sponsored activity just for kids like me?
While driving that morning, it occurred to me that I could look up Mr. Wise’s email address and reach out to him to get some ideas. But, first, I had to decide if I was truly giving the sponsorship serious consideration.
Even if the answer was yes, I had to talk to Cam about it first.
Walking into the school, my mind turned to poetry. I had decided to have all of my kids write identity poems to coincide with the beginning of our new novel, and some of them might want to turn those poems into something performable.
Not many people were at school yet so early in the still-dark morning, so I took advantage of the quiet by closing my classroom door, turning on the table lamp on my desk, and settling in to research some more videos to show to my classes. There is a website called Button Poetry that frequently posts videos of performance poems, so I made my way to their “classroom friendly” section of YouTube and started considering which videos to show that day.
I was just getting to the end of an electrifying poem by Tova Charles called “Dark Skin” when a notification popped up in the corner of my screen that I had received an email from Mr. Dunham. I decided to finish the video first before reading it, and then, still smiling about the poet’s metaphors and passionate delivery, I opened my inbox. The subject line of Mr. Dunham’s email read “Fwd: Kate’s essay.”
My stomach flipped, and I had to steady myself by grabbing a hold of my desk as a wave of nausea swept over me. I considered calling Cam and telling her everything, so I didn’t have to be alone when I read it, but I knew that would be selfish. She would still be getting Liesel ready to take to her parents’ house. My pulse was racing as I picked up the phone and dialed Dana’s classroom.
It rang twice before she picked up. “Wilson,” she stated.
“Dana? Do you have a minute? I … ”
“Josie? What’s wrong?”
“I … I got an email from Dunham that I don’t want to read alone. Can I read it to you?” My voice was shaking.
“No,” I could hear her typing. “Let me finish up this email to a parent, and I’ll be right over.”
She hung up, and I set the phone down hard. I had done exactly as I’d planned: I had emailed Dom Madden about Kate’s essay. I had put her grade in the online grade book (a B+ with points missing for lack of detail and commas) and written a polite “Thanks, Kate!” at the bottom of the paper. I had briefly acknowledged the essay when she approached me in the parking lot, but I made sure not to make a big deal of it, and no one knew about that, anyway … did they? Did Kate tell someone that she had spoken to me in the parking lot?
Dana opened the door and closed it behind her. “What happened? Didn’t you say he called you down to his office yesterday?”
“He did,” I confirmed, “and he was weird about the whole thing, telling me to stop talking about my private life in the classroom.”
“You don’t do that.”
“I know I don’t. I kind of stormed out after telling him off a little bit and haven’t spoken to him since. This email … I know what it’s about, and I am genuinely afraid to open it.” I couldn’t look at Dana, a sudden shame overtaking me.
“What?” She came to stand beside me. “What’s it about?” She leaned over my shoulder and read the subject line for herself. “Who’s Kate?”
I breathed audibly. “She’s a quiet girl in my fifth-period class who only very recently started speaking to me.” I glanced up at her face.
She raised her eyebrows. “And?”
“And she wrote her Women’s History Month essay about how I’ve had a positive impact on her.” I leaned forward and put my face into my hands, and Dana put a hand on my shoulder.
“What am I missing? What’s wrong with that?”
Shaking my head without taking my hands away from my face, I told her, “One of her reasons for idolizing me is because she and I are both gay.”
“Oh, shit,” Dana whispered.
“It gets worse.” I looked up at her. “Her essay mentioned that her parents are homophobic. Oh my God, what am I going to do?” I felt a lump forming in my throat.
“Stop,” Dana said firmly. “You don’t even know what the email says yet. Here,” she shooed me out of my chair. “Go sit at a student desk, and I’ll read it to you, so you don’t have to look at the words yet.”
Not in the right frame of mind to argue, I obeyed and thumped down on a cold, metal student chair as she slid into my office chair. Her finger double-clicked, and her eyes began moving across the screen.
“Do you want me to read the whole thing before I read it to you or just read it aloud as I go?” She looked at me.
I groaned. “Just get it over with and read it to me.”
“Okay,” she looked back at the screen. “The top is from Dunham to you and says, ‘What do you know about this?’ The attached message is from someone named Brian Anderson. Is that Kate’s dad?”
“I think so,” I said quietly.
“Okay,” she repeated. “That message says, ‘Mr. Dunham, My daughter, Kate Anderson, came home from school today with a headache and mentioned something about turning in an essay late for English class. She seemed very stressed about it, so I checked online for her grade and saw she received a B on the assignment. Please ensure that she did not lose any points for turning in the assignment late. She had the flu last week and should have been granted extra time. Thanks, Brian Anderson”
Dana smiled and looked at me as I breathed a sigh of relief. “See?” she asked. “The universe is smiling on you today.”
“Yeah, okay,” I slumped down in the chair and leaned my head back onto it. “This doesn’t change the fact that the essay is now on everyone’s radar when I had been hoping to ignore it for the rest of my life.”
“I don’t think this guy sounds like he actually cares what the essay says—just what the grade is on it.” She raised one eyebrow.
Standing up, I nodded slightly. “I hope you’re right. Thanks for coming so quickly. I thought I might have a heart attack.”
She sang, “That’s what friends are for!” as she walked out of the room.
I sat back down in my chair and hit the reply button, being sure to CC Mr. Anderson.
Good morning! Kate’s essay was not marked late, but she did lose a few points based on the state writing rubric. Thanks for reaching out, and let me know if you have any other questions or concerns!
Have a great day,
Mrs. Rein-Thompson
I hit send and was just about to close my inbox when an email from Dom Madden appeared. Blowing an enormous breath at my computer monitor, I reluctantly opened the message.
Re: student concern
Hey Josie! Yeah, time does fly. Our Dominic just turned six and is absolutely crushing kindergarten! Thanks for asking.
I read Kate’s essay and see why you’re concerned. I’m going to call her down to my office sometime in the next few days.
Happy almost spring!
Dom
Before I had a second to think about his words, the bell for first period rang, and a group of basketball players came pouring in the doorway, horsing around and laughing.
“Whoa, guys!” I stood up and put out my hands to prevent them from literally wrestling into me. “Save that for practice. I’d rather not sustain any injuries today.”
- 20 -
I lost my prep that day because I was asked to cover a class. It was a choir class, so I didn’t mind. They were expecting to have the day off because their teacher was absent, but I made them sing the latest song they’d been working on—a lovely a cappella version of Mariah Carey’s “Hero” that one of them called “an oldie” (Be still my 90s heart). For that short while, I let myself savor the warmth of the music and even sang with them once. One of them asked me why I wasn’t a choir teacher, and I told her I loved writing and grammar too much to be anything but an English teacher … but I did sometimes wonder the same thing myself.
All this to say that I didn’t have much time to think about Dom’s email or Kate or the GSA, so when Kate walked into my fifth period class wearing a literal rainbow on her shirt and another one pinned in her hair, I was … taken aback. I tried really hard not to show it or to look at her too much at all while I took the class through the day’s lesson on poetic devices, and I was managing okay until Jaiden interrupted me mid-sentence from the front row.
“Speaking of rhyming, have you seen Kate’s latest TikTok, Mrs. R.?” Both challenge and amusement were in his eyes. I quickly considered my deflection.
“Honey, I don’t even know what TikTok is. Let’s raise our hands if we have something to contribute, okay? Now, many poems that rhyme have what is called a rhyme scheme—”
Jaiden raised his hand.
“Yes, Jaiden?”
“You should seriously watch it.” He turned around to look at Kate in the back of the room and called, “When you rhymed ‘gay’ with ‘castaway’,” he showed her a chef’s kiss, “ … absolute bars.”
Kate blushed as she looked at me and then back down to her desk.
“Come on, Mrs. R.,” the student next to Kate—Alexis—added, “this is totally relevant. Kate did a TikTok about how we want to start a GSA here at Benson, and it’s, like, a whole poem.”
Kate’s hand went to her forehead as more students agreed that I should at least watch Kate’s TikTok. I raised my hands to calm them, for Kate’s sake as much as for the sake of order, and they eventually quieted down but not without many of them looking at me expectantly.
“You guys, I’m serious. I wouldn’t know the first thing about watching a TikTok video. Is that on Facebook? I don’t use Facebook.”
They erupted with laughter. Jaiden smiled and explained, “Just go home and download the TikTok app. We’ll help you find the video tomorrow.”
I glanced back at Kate who was now watching me shyly between fingers that covered her eyes. I shrugged. “Okay. You can show me tomorrow. Go ahead and clean up. The bell’s going to ring any second.”
While they chatted (mostly about TikTok) and got ready to leave, I walked over to my desk to check my email. I was pleased to see that there weren’t any other messages from Dom or Mr. Dunham, and everything else seemed uneventful enough—a reminder to submit calendar items to the office secretary, a bell schedule to include Friday’s pep rally, a response to a group message about an upcoming potluck lunch, and a subject-less message from a person whose name I didn’t recognize: I.C. You. I shook my head at what was probably a student’s attempt at a creative alias and clicked on it.
Dear snowflake,
Sorry to pull you away from your career in virtue signaling, but I thought you might want to know that I saw you yesterday. See attached video.
I.C. You
The bell rang, and it didn’t take long before my classroom was utterly silent. I read the words three or four more times before understanding them. My eyes traveled downward and landed on the attachment named IMG_1411.
One plus four is five.
Five plus one is six plus one is seven.
Click-click. And there I was, standing across from Kate, both of us within arm’s reach of my car—and arm’s reach of each other. As if in slow motion, she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around me. I hesitated with my arms in the air, looked around like a criminal, and brought my hands down to pat her on the back.
No. There wasn’t anyone there. I looked around several times. The marching band was practicing on the field, but we weren’t even close to the field. This angle is from … behind the school van that was parked in the lot? Like someone was hiding behind it, waiting to see something? Waiting for me?
I closed the video file, the email, and my inbox in quick succession. What could someone do with a video like that? What would someone want with a video like that? I wished I had never agreed to talk with Kate when I saw her standing at my car. I should have told her that whatever it was could wait until school today. She could have waited to say whatever she needed to say in class, in front of over twenty witnesses. For some reason, she wanted to speak to me alone.
Except we weren’t alone.
- 21 -
Monday, May 6, 1996
Mrs. Graham, our religion teacher, stood at the front of the classroom behind a worn wooden podium. The topic of the day, which had been written on the blackboard, was The Golden Rule. We were taking notes in preparation for our seventh-grade year-end final. I liked Mrs. Graham because she let us philosophize at a time in our lives when we were just learning how to do that. However, she was an incredibly boring speaker, so I found myself daydreaming frequently while she lectured us about this-or-that Bible verse.
The day before, Layla, Andrew, and I had stayed after school with Mrs. Graham to practice for the spelling bee, and Mrs. Graham had had a rough time keeping us from incessantly giggling. At one point, she had chided, “All right, you three, let’s get focused. Layla, it’s your turn. Miscalculations.” And then Layla had wrinkled her nose and said, “Miss who?” Andrew and I then fell into an absolute fit of laughter, and Layla’s brown eyes—usually wise beyond her thirteen years—had given away her embarrassment. I, through my tears, saw this and pulled Layla to me in an awkward side-hug.
While Mrs. Graham was reviewing for our religion final that day, I could not stop thinking about that hug and how soft her skin had felt—how warm my own body had felt after touching her. While I sat there in my itchy skirt, next to a boy named Raymond who was nice but smelled bad and had embarrassingly been my boyfriend for a few days the year before, I tried unsuccessfully to listen to Mrs. Graham but was expending much more energy stealing glances at Layla who was sitting three seats down the aisle from me.
After reminding our class what The Golden Rule was, Mrs. Graham asked for some examples. Layla raised her hand and said, “It’s like when you see someone homeless on a sidewalk, and you give them money because that’s how you would want someone to treat you.”
“Great example, Layla. Class, write in your notebooks: ‘Help the poor.’ Who else wants to give an example?”
I was still looking at Layla, admiring her intellect and her brown eyes. She was a quick thinker and could always come up with an answer the teacher wanted. She must have felt me looking at her because she turned to look at me and smiled. I smiled shyly and looked down at my notebook to write the notes.
I missed the next student’s response but heard Mrs. Graham tell the class to write down our next example: “Be kind to those who are sad.” I wrote it down and then looked back in Layla’s direction where I saw her quietly tearing off a piece of her notebook paper and folding it. She leaned over, handed it to Raymond while whispering something to him, and he handed the paper to me under my desk.
Looking down, I saw my name in Layla’s loopy handwriting on the outside of the folded paper. I opened it and read the words inside, “Your hair looks pretty. Love, Miss Calculations. ‘' I stifled a giggle and looked over at her. She was smiling at me, and I mouthed the words “thank you” as I felt my body temperature rise.
Mrs. Graham spoke sternly, “Josephine, will you please repeat the last example that you were to write down?”
Widening my eyes, I looked not-so-subtly at Raymond’s notebook, searching for the right answer, but he hadn’t written it down, either. Mrs. Graham shook her head scoldingly and said, “Please pay attention. You will need these examples to write your final essay.” She looked at the rest of the class. “Can someone please repeat the example for Josephine?”
Andrew raised his hand and half-smiled at me, “Love the sinner, but hate the sin, like if someone is a drug addict or a homosexual or something.”
I copied down the first part of the sentence and wondered if I was supposed to write the rest, but I was too afraid to ask.
