Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating(2)

After two years spent student-teaching fifth grade, I felt constantly sticky and harried. Another year in transitional kindergarten and I knew I didn’t have the endurance for so much potty training. But third felt like the perfect balance of fart jokes without the sometimes-disastrous intentional farting, hugs from kids who think I’m the smartest person alive, and having enough authority to get everyone’s attention simply by clapping my hands once.

Unfortunately, today is the last day of school, and as I take down the many, many inspirational pages, calendars, sticker charts, and art masterpieces from my classroom walls, I register that this is also the last day I’m going to see this particular third grade classroom. A tiny ball of grief materializes in my throat.

“You have Sad Hazel posture.”

I turn, surprised to find Emily Goldrich behind me. She’s not only my best gal, she’s also a teacher—though not here at Merion—and she looks tidy and recently showered because she’s a week ahead of me into summer break. Em is also holding what I pray is a bag full of Thai takeout. I am hungry enough to eat the little jeweled apple clip in her hair. I look like a filthy mop head covered in the fading glitter eight-year-old Lucy Nguyen decided would be a fun last-day surprise.

“I am, a little.” I point around the room, at three out of four empty walls. “Though there’s something cathartic about it, too.”

Emily and I met about nine months ago in an online political forum, where it was clear we were both childless because of all the time we spent there ranting into the void. We met up in person for venting over coffee and became immediate fast friends. Or, maybe more accurately, I decided she was amazing and invited her to coffee again and again until she agreed. The way Emily describes it: when I meet someone I love, I become an octopus and wind my tentacles around their heart, tighter and tighter until they can’t deny they love me just the same.

Emily works at Riverview teaching fifth (a true warrior among us), and when a position opened for a third grade teacher there, I sprinted down to the district with my application in hand. So desperate was I for the coveted spot in a top-ten school that only once I got out of my car and started the march up the steps to HR did I register that I was (1) braless and (2) still wearing my Homer Simpson slippers.

No matter. I was properly attired for the interview two weeks later. And guess who got the job?

I think it’s me!

(As in, it isn’t confirmed but Emily is married to the principal so I’m pretty sure I’m in.)

“Are you coming tonight?”

Em’s question pulls me out of the mental and physical war I’m waging with a particularly stubborn staple in the wall. “Tonight?”

“Tonight.”

I glance at her patiently over my shoulder. “More clues.”

“My house.”

“More specific clues?” I’ve spent many a Friday night at Em’s, playing Mexican Train dominoes with her and Dave and eating whatever meat Dave has grilled that night.

She sighs and walks to my desk, retrieving a hammer from my dalmatian-print box of tools so I can more easily pry the metal from the plaster. “The barbecue.”

“Right!” I brandish the hammer in victory. That little asshole staple is mine to destroy! (Or recycle responsibly.) “The work party.”

“It’s not officially work. But a few of the cool teachers will be there, and you might want to meet them.”

I eye her with faint trepidation; we all remember Hazel Point Number Two. “You promise you’ll monitor my booze intake?”

For some reason, this makes her laugh, and it causes a silver pulse of anticipation to flash through my blood when she tells me, “You’ll be just fine with the Riverview crowd.”

..........

I get the sense Emily wasn’t yanking my chain. I hear music all the way to the curb when I climb out of Giuseppe, my trusty 2009 Saturn. The music is by one of the Spanish singers that Dave loves, layered with the irregular sound of glass clinking, voices, and Dave’s awesome braying laugh. My nose tells me he’s grilling carne asada, which means that he’s also making margaritas, which means I’ll need to stay focused to keep my shirt on tonight.

Wish me luck.

With a deep, bracing breath, I do one more check of my outfit. I swear it’s not a vanity thing; more often than not, something is unbuttoned, a hem is tucked into underwear, or I’ve got an important garment on inside out. This characteristic might explain, in part, why third graders feel so at home in my classroom.

Emily and Dave’s house is a late Victorian with a shock of independently minded ivy invading the side that leads to the backyard. A winding flower bed points the way to the gate; I follow it around to where the sound of music floats up and over the fence.

Emily really went all out for this “Welcome, Summer!” barbecue. A garland of paper lanterns is strung over the walkway. Her sign even has the correct comma placement. Dinner parties at my apartment consist of paper plates, boxed wine, and the last three minutes before serving featuring me running around like a maniac because I burned the lasagna, insisting I DON’T NEED ANY HELP JUST SIT DOWN AND RELAX.

I shouldn’t really get into the comparison game with Emily, of all people. I love the woman but she makes the rest of us look like limp vegetation. She gardens, knits, reads at least a book a week, and has the enviable ability to eat like a frat boy without ever gaining weight. She also has Dave, who, aside from being my new boss (fingers crossed!), is progressive in an effortless way that makes me feel like he’s a better feminist than I am. He’s also almost seven feet tall (I measured him with uncooked spaghetti one night) and good-looking in an Are you sure he isn’t a fireman? kind of way. I bet they have amazing sex.