all in a day's work

Today I feel a little like Lucy, playing at know-it-all therapist, though surely with more empathy and better hair. But I may as well chuck the pretense of teaching, set up a couch and a clock and a listening ear. Oh, and a big pile of answers, even just variations of, "no, I don't think so" and some facts about how the world works. I'll be set forever, or as long as I can stand it. One guaranteed to come first.

"So, did I tell you I'm going to have open heart surgery?"

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Yeah, my dad don't want me to do it because he found on the internet that I can still live until 60."

"Does that sound long enough to you?" My own opinion evident, my mind racing through all the episodes this revelation explains-- the clinic passes, the mood swings, the teachers that she's alienated. Do I tell? Am I allowed?

"As long as I don't exercise too hard, they say I'll probably be okay for now," she says, at the conclusion of her mind-boggling story, sketching misaligned blood vessels on the top of her geometry test, "but I want to fix it." Oh, yes, oh please fix it. Oh yes, oh don't we all.

Of course, the only answers she was fishing for, this Filipina accustomed to the world around her finger, were to numbers 3 and 27, probably 29, but also the chance to recite scary phrases just to see how they feel, to talk about her parents, talk maybe just to talk. I see little of her these days. And hey, hospital stories, side effects and pills, I can match ya, sister, come back, any time. But still, oh my goodness, no thanks for no fair warning. This is not my expertise.

Closer to that is the e-mailed plea that arrived with the subject line, "bad news!!!" and concluded, "but i hope you can find an anwwer or simply just an advice!!!???" It seemed the wrong time to point out that punctuation doesn't necessarily--or ever-- come in triplicate, but I can't blame the multiple emotion. After reading the story, I felt like exclaiming myself, three times. It seems some administrator had used the wrong GPA to calculate this kid's entrance into the Missouri program that provides $3500 worth of college tuition--actual free money--when we'd asked and then celebrated, back in December. Whoops, so sorry, said the letter my correspondent received. Please return your golden ticket under separate cover. !!!??? !!!??? !!!??? Sons of bitches. . . I did not reply, but could have. He would not flinch, but nod, and await my further instruction, whatever in the world it would be.

And honestly, he's lucky, despite that real and unfortunate disappointment, the loss of the sure thing. He has the magic green card, an adoptive citizen step-father, a real opportunity within paperwork's reach. Get a job, get a loan, get whatever you can and do it. All is not lost. It will happen. Mourn the loss, and then move on.

Just like the other two who passed through today--yes two! goodbye lunch, goodbye plan--moving on, almost of their own volition, because they have to, because this is the way. One just spent six months and thousands of miles getting a driver's license, making it right under Oregon's wire.

"You know you can still get a ticket for your license and your plates being from different states," I say, knowing he doesn't, informing and also playing.

"Are you serious?"

"Uh huh."

He shrugs, smiling,"it's my dad's plates."

"Well, it's a better ticket. And I am glad you got it," I say, talking about the license, and I mean it. At least he had to learn somebody's rules of the road!

After a good thirty minutes, he gets down to business, asks the question that has brought him by. I answer with one word and he accepts it, immediately. Heaven forbid that I don't know, or that I'm wrong. I give him all my phone numbers, the ones that his friend already has--why do boys never talk to each other?--but I know that the next time he has a question he's as likely to come by as pick up the phone. What are we to each other? I can't even describe. His mother's a border away; maybe that means something. I barely taught the boy English; he's the failure I keep close to my heart, a reminder, and now he visits and asks my advice. We are both glad for the connection, and I'm grateful that he understood that I tried.

And finally, I'm baffled that the principals didn't automatically think to tell me that my teen mother was in the building a week ago, taking the step I'd told her was next. Oh, she didn't show up to Guidance in time, to see what could be salvaged, and if I'd talked to her, nothing would have changed, in the end. She was there again today, drop letter in hand, the idea of "tomorrow" officially quashed, and turns out she ducked me again. I am not unaffected by that, to be honest, I wonder and probably I'll call. But first, to those who didn't tell me until she was gone--after all this, are you kidding? am I just a random classroom teacher, with no influence, nothing invested? I'm sorry, have we met?