Waist Deep

14

I hobbled down the empty school hallway, my knee stiff after sitting in Jenkins’s office.Battered orange lockers stood like silent sentries along the walls.Posters announcing fundraisers and school dances were taped above the lockers.I smiled slightly at the inanity of high school.

“What’s so funny?” asked the man to my right.He gave me what he probably thought was a hard stare.His large belly strained the tan polo shirt he wore.The words District 17 and Bill were embroidered on the left breast.He carried a digital telephone and wore black slacks and black boots to round out the ensemble.I wondered briefly if the school district had given any thought to how much this outfit resembled the uniform Nazis wore.

“Nothing,” I said.“Just happy to be alive.”

Bill grunted disapprovingly.He came to a stop and pointed to a door.“Teacher’s lounge,” he said.

I nodded my thanks, but he didn’t leave.It was apparent that Jenkins was going to take me up on my offer of having an escort.We went in together.

When I was a kid, the Teacher’s Lounge held some mythical quality.It was a forbidden zone for students.Not even the teacher’s aides or those with most-favored status were allowed in.When I got a little older, I imagined it to be a den of iniquity where my English teacher quickly gave his last four papers a ‘B’ grade in order to turn his attentions to the supple prize that was my French teacher.In spite of the historical irony of the French and English getting along, I figured it had to be true.There was no other explanation for how I passed English in high school.Mr. Henderson was too busy trying to bang Miss Couture.It had to be.

In reality, the lounge looked like any other break room in the country.It could have been lifted whole and dropped in any office building in River City and it would’ve fit right in.Coffee pot, sink, a lunch table and a couple of easy chairs, along with a TV in the corner.

Another image of childhood crushed, I thought sarcastically.

A woman in her fifties sat at the lunch table with a cup of tea and a newspaper.She wore a shawl made of light blue yarn and half a dozen bracelets on each wrist.She didn’t look up as we entered.

“Mrs. Byrnes?”Bill said.

The woman lifted her head, adjusted her glasses and took us both in.Her eyes quickly registered recognition of Bill and turned to me.“Yes?”

“This is-“

“Stefan Kopriva,” I interrupted him and stepped forward.I offered my hand and she shook it lightly.Her touch was warm and her face open.We exchanged pleasantries.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Kopriva?”

“Stefan,” I said and smiled at her.“Or just Stef.”

“Very well.Stef.”

“I’m looking into the disappearance of one of your students.Kris Sinderling?”

Her face paled.“Disappearance?I knew she’d run away, but has something…else happened to her?”

I shook my head.“Her father’s worried and has asked me to try to find her.”

“Are you a private detective, then?”

“No.Just a friend.”

Mrs. Byrnes studied me closely then.Her eyes bore into mine.Surprisingly, it wasn’t an unpleasant feeling, until I began to wonder what she saw there.“So her father knows you’re here?”

I nodded.

She looked past my shoulder at Bill.When her eyes returned to me, she sipped her tea and flashed me a warm smile.“Okay, then,” Mrs. Byrnes said.“What can I do to help?”

I sat down opposite her.

“Tea?” she asked.“I have almost a full box of peppermint.”

“No, thanks.”

She looked up at Bill and her lips pressed together briefly.“We’ll be fine, Bill.Thank you for showing him the way.”

There was a long pause. I imagined Bill struggling with what to do.In the end, he sighed.“I’ll be in the hall,” he said.

“That’s not necessary,” Mrs. Byrnes said.

“Principal’s orders,” Bill said, a touch self-important.

Mrs. Byrnes shrugged and her eyes followed him as he left the room.When the door closed, she turned her eyes to me.“They have to keep us liberals in line, I guess.”

I smiled.I voted Republican in two of the last three elections, but I liked her anyway.

“What can I do to help?” she asked.

“Did you know Kris?”

She nodded.“Of course.Everyone does.All the girls want to be her and all the boys…well, you know what most of the boys want.”

“She’s popular then?”

“Oh yes,” Mrs. Byrnes said.“Very popular.Though I don’t think that is any surprise to you.She is very beautiful and in this society, that is an automatic ticket to popularity.Particularly in high school, where maturity is a rare commodity.”

“You sound a little…”

“Bitter?”

I nodded and she laughed lightly.“No, I’m not bitter.I am resigned, though.”

“Resigned?”

“Yes.I am resigned to the fact the world is what it is.”

“And what is that?”

“Superficial, for one thing.And, in my darker moments, I suppose I would say it can be ugly.”

I thought of my time on the job.I recalled the sharp pain of bullets slamming into my shoulder and through the back of my knee.I saw the crazy eyes of the old woman who dared me to search her home.And I saw the eyes of that little girl later on, still and fixed, on the silver table.Staring up.Silent.Accusing.

I shuddered.Ugly was right.

She didn’t notice my reaction and went on, “I can never change it completely.None of us can.We can only try to make our trip through this world more bearable.”

“How do you mean?”

“With art,” she answered wistfully.“Compassion.Mercy.Any of those will do.”

I wondered if that were true.

“Forgive me,” she said with a warm smile.“You’re not here for philosophy.”

“It’s all right,” I told her. “My grandmother used to say something similar.”

“What did she say?”

“That we can’t control other people, only how we react to them.”

She gave me a slightly puzzled look.

“She usually added that if we react in a positive way, we might change the world just a little bit at a time.”

“One deed at a time,” Mrs. Byrnes mused. “Or one person at a time.”

“That was the gist of it, yeah.”

“Your grandmother was a smart woman,” Mrs. Byrnes said. “For my part, it seems the older I get, the more my thoughts tumble out before I have a good look at them.And being a teacher, I frequently have a captive audience, so I become self-indulgent.”

“It’s all right,” I repeated.“Really.How about the teachers?How’d she get along with them?”

Mrs. Byrnes chuckled and sipped her tea again.“Ah, yes.The teachers.Well, we are a strange lot, Stef.”She looked at me again.“You appear to be in your thirties.Do you still remember high school?”

“Sort of,” I said.

“Oh, come now.You don’t remember how strange your teachers were?How they didn’t even seem human at times?In fact, for many of my students, it is a shock to their systems to discover that I am very human.That I get ill, that I have emotions and get sad or angry, or that I eat dinner, go to the movies, make love…”She smiled mischievously.“It never occurs to them that I do any of those things.That I live.”

I remembered those feelings.A teacher was a symbol, not a person.In the egocentric world of a teenager, teachers were just bit players who sat all night at their desks, eagerly waiting for their students to return.

She watched me.“You do remember.”

“Yes,” I said.

“So then, there is the answer to your question.”

The answer.The answer was that the geometry instructor saw nothing but the pentagon and rhombus and the C²=A²+B² equation.The English teacher was too busy chasing the French teacher.The history teacher had a year’s worth of chalk dust on the sleeves of his wool coat and cared more for the glory that was Rome and the genius that was Thomas Jefferson than the faces in front of him.The computer teachers saw bits and bytes and programming strings, but little else.

The teachers didn’t notice the students anymore than the students noticed them.High school was a microcosm of the real world.

Mrs. Byrnes stared at me, a curious smile playing on her lips.“Haven’t thought about high school in a while, have you?”

“No,” I answered truthfully.Hardly ever, until Matt Sinderling came along. I cleared my throat.“What do you teach, Mrs. Byrnes?”

“Marie,” she said.“Please.And I teach Spanish.All four years of it.And I am one of the drama advisers, as well.”

And drama is where her passion lies, I realized in a flash.I had a brief vision of Marie Byrnes thirty years ago.Her hair was a deeper black then, I was sure, and had none of the gray streaks in it today.I imagined her expectant eyes looking for a challenge, her teaching certificate in hand and the theater beckoning.Or had she tried her hand at acting first, and slipped into teaching because she hadn’t made the grade?I wasn’t sure.

“Are you close to Kris?” I asked.

She shook her head sadly.“No, not really.She’s in my Spanish class and received good marks, but she could have done much, much better.This absence will be difficult for her to overcome.”

“Is she outgoing?”

Marie Byrnes gave me a look that was partconspiratorial, partjesting and then said, “Outgoing?I suppose.Outwardly so, at least.But I don’t think many people really became too close with Kris.”

“Why not?”

“Have you ever met her, Stef?”

I shook my head.

“Well,” she said, “I think she is very much apart.”

“Apart?You mean different?”

“Yes and no.She has a different quality, a sense of overwhelming beauty, I think.But there is also a distance that she exudes.A distance in age and station.”

I thought of the glamour picture that Matt had given me and I knew what she meant.

“She is already an adult,”Marie said, “even though she is only a junior.Too adult for her classmates, even the seniors, including the boys who try to date her.And…”

“And what?”

Marie Byrnes smiled again.“She doesn’t really have a whole lot of time for us adults, either.That’s where the difference in station came in, I believe.”

“She told her dad she was going to be a star.”

Marie nodded.“In some ways, she probably thinks she already is.”

“Is she?”

Another nod.“In this very small pond, yes.”

I paused, thinking about what she’d told me.Kris was every bit of what I had thought she’d be.Perhaps even more than I thought.

Marie Byrnes watched me and drank her tea.

Finally, I asked, “What about drama?”

She nodded.“I believe Kris is taking drama this year.”

“I thought you taught it.”

She shook her head slowly.“No, here in District 17, drama is not a class.It’s an extra-curricular activity, just like athletics.In fact, our students are even able to letter in drama.”

“But I thought you said you were the coach.”

“I am.As is Mr. LeMond.We alternate years and this is his year.”

I heard the distaste in her voice and noted that she did not use LeMond’s first name.

“You don’t like him, do you?Or the arrangement of alternating years?”

She shrugged.“I would prefer to coach every year, if that’s what you mean.”

“But it’s more than that,” I said.“I can tell.You don’t like him.”

She glanced down at her cup of tea.“Perhaps I’ve said too much.Aside from teaching in the classroom, I don’t have many conversations anymore.I suppose I’m becoming exactly what the students think all of us are.Teach and go home.”She looked up.“And I don’t know you.”

“Sure you do,” I told her.“I’m Stefan Kopriva.”

Marie smiled again, but this one had less warmth.“Stefan.That’s not a very common first name.And that last name.Is it Polish?”

“Czech.”

She nodded her understanding.“Of course.These days we get every variation of common names.Daniel somehow spawns a Y, Christopher comes with a K, that sort of thing.And then there are some names which are just plain made up and not very original at all.”She shook her head.“It seems sad to just throw away tradition so glibly, doesn’t it?”

“Not a very liberal sentiment,” I observed, watching her.

Warmth touched her smile again.“Touche,” she whispered.