Standing Too Close

STANDING TOO CLOSE



The clothes I’d so carefully chosen, were a mistake. The skirt was too short and tight, my blouse too sheer. Too late to change anything, I pretended not to notice the stares as I strode through the school entrance and across the scarred green linoleum to room 4A, my heels making a satisfying echo with each step.



Twenty kids lounged behind desks, talking, doodling, playing with their hair, all the things I remembered doing myself when I was at high school, only six years ago.

“Hello,” I began, setting my bag down on the wooden desk, scarred by years in this classroom. “I’m Ms. Barton, and I’m your English teacher this year.”

***********

She was hot. That’s the first thing I noticed about Ms. Barton. I’d never had such a young teacher before. Mrs. Edwards, last year’s English teacher, must’ve been close to ninety. So you’d better believe Ms. Barton made an impression. She seemed nervous, kept twisting a strand of blonde hair around her finger. I didn’t blame her. I don’t think I was the only guy in the room who was glad to be sitting behind a desk, if you know what I mean.



She dressed differently to the other teachers too. Not even Miss Fournier, the French teacher, wore heels that high. I stared at her, couldn’t help it. I could see the outline of her bra under her white blouse and for some reason that made me want to blush.

“Anthony DeMarco?” My name sounded weird coming from her red lip-sticked mouth.

“Uh… Here,” I managed, eyes dropping from hers to the desk in front of me, ears burning.

***********

It took me a week to learn their names. Twenty-two in my first period class alone, over seventy in total. But one name I learned right away, will never forget: Anthony DeMarco. Anthony- or Tone as I soon learned he preferred- sat in the third row of my first period class. I noticed his size first. He was huge, dwarfed the desk he sat behind, blushing whenever I called his name. When he finally worked up the nerve to meet my gaze, I was startled by how handsome he was with his thick dark hair and green eyes. My heart started pounding in my chest and my palms grew so sweaty that I had to wipe them on my skirt before picking up the chalk to write on the board.



I knew I had to get myself under control. He was a student and I was a teacher. Even if he did have beautiful green eyes, it was no reason to go off half-cocked. We’d had lectures at teachers’ college about this, but I had assumed those lectures were for male teachers, not for someone like me.

***********

I was smitten. That’s one of the great words I learned in her class. Smitten. It’s the only word I can think of that really captures how I felt though. I knew it was stupid, knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t help myself. Ms. Barton, Amy, was gorgeous. Even once she traded the short skirts and heels for pants and flats, she was the sexiest woman I’d ever seen. When she leaned over me in class to check my work, her perfume filled my nostrils, and I almost fainted when her breast brushed my left arm.



“Ms. Barton?” I hung out in the classroom as everyone else banged and crashed their way out.

“Yes, Anthony?” She looked up, blue eyes like the lake in summer, reflecting the sky.

“I was just wondering…. Um… If you’re settling in here okay. You know, it’s kinda hard being new and all….” It sounded stupid even to me. My face burned. Again.

She smiled. “Thank you, Anthony. Yes, I am settling in. But you’re the first person to ask me that. It’s very thoughtful of you.” She touched me then. Just a light touch to the shoulder, but it sent heat running right through me, settling somewhere towards my stomach like a burning ember.

“You can call me Tone,” I mumbled. “If you like.”

“All right, Tone. You can call me Amy. Just maybe not in class, okay?”

***********

I don’t know what I was thinking! Those cool green eyes made me crazy. There’s no good explanation, nothing that can defend my actions. Love makes you do strange things, and whether I admitted it or not, I was in love with Tone. I lay awake nights, telling myself it was criminal. But I payed no attention, ignoring the words screaming inside my head. I preferred the fantasies that spun there: pictures and words and phrases, flitting ghost-like behind my closed eyelids.



I took to wandering the halls between classes, searching out his tall, rangy frame so that our eyes could meet for just a second, hands raised in a casual wave.

“Hi,” we’d say, the word holding deeper meaning for both of us, other people in the hallway unaware of the significance, the power that one syllable held for us.



Three weeks into the school year, I’d settled into a routine. I spent my lunch hour in the classroom, picking at a sandwich while I marked assignments.

“Ms. Barton?” Tone’s voice at my shoulder startled me.

“Uh… Yes, Tone?” I glanced up at him; the way the light caught his face made him look like a painting.

He held out a brown paper package. “I brought you this.”

“What is it?”

“Lunch,” he said, giving me a shy smile. “Those sandwiches you’ve been eating don’t look great. This’ll be better.”

I glanced at the half-eaten sandwich beside me. “Oh really?”

“Yeah.” His confidence surprised me. He opened the package with a flourish and a grin, his forearm brushing my shoulder, surprisingly muscular, hard. A thrill ran through me, hair rising on the back of my neck. Before he saw how flustered he’d made me, I turned to examine the muffaletta displayed before me, oozing olives, zucchini and other delicacies.

“Delicious!” I whispered, but I wasn’t talking about the food.

***********

Look, I admit it. Telling Jake Potter about Ms. Barton was stupid. But it was too thrilling not to share with somebody. I trusted Jake. We’d been best friends since we were five and he knew pretty much everything about me. He figured out something was up when we went to Gianni’s on Friday night.

“What’s goin’ on Cassanova?” Jake asked as we climbed into his rusty old station wagon. “It’s not like you to leave alone on a Friday night.”

I slammed the door, hoping it wouldn’t fall off the hinges again. “I know.”

“So, what’s up? You got some hottie in the background? You’ve turned gay?”

“The former.”

“Okay, so who is she?”

“If I tell you, you gotta promise you won’t tell.”

“Tone! C’mon…” Jake turned the key in the ignition and the car wheezed into life. “You know I can keep a secret.”

“Yeah, but this is a biggie.”

“Cross my heart. Swear on Momma’s grave.”



So I told him. He almost crashed the car into a power pole after. All the way home he stared at me. Three times I reminded him to look at the road, not at me.

“Damn!” he said over and over. “She’s so hot!”

I regretted telling him already. “Yeah, yeah. Just keep it quiet, okay? We could get into trouble over this.”

***********

The weather changed suddenly that year. One day it was still warm enough to wear t-shirts, the next so cold I had to unpack the extra blankets in my attic. And then the rain started. For three days it fell, cold and heavy. Pulling out of the car park in front of the school building, I saw a figure huddled at the bus stop, wrapped in a jacket not thick enough for the chill air. I slowed the car, stopping when I realised the figure was Tone. I only fought with myself for a second before throwing open the passenger door, beckoning him in.

“Thanks,” he said through chattering teeth. “I missed the bus.”

I turned up the heat, letting it blast through the car. “You’re freezing! Tell me, where do you live? I’ll drop you off.”



But I didn’t. As the car’s heater warmed him, he peeled off his wet jacket. His sweatshirt underneath was wet too, and began to smell as the hot air blasted through. He wrinkled his nose, a gesture that I found both endearing and incredibly sexy, then pulled that off too. He wasn’t wearing anything underneath and I couldn’t concentrate on driving with that expanse of bare flesh next to me, hard ridges of muscle rippling with his every move. I turned at the next secluded side-street, parking at the curb.

***********

“Why are we stopping here?” I asked mildly, aware of how my nakedness was affecting her. She turned to me, eyes wild with something almost animal. Her lips were parted as she leaned towards me, allowing one hand to trace the thin line of hair on my chest.

“Oh my God!” she moaned. “You’re just a child…”

I pulled her roughly towards me, wanting to prove her wrong. “Oh yeah? Would a child do this?”



And I kissed her.



Hard. My mouth pressed down on hers, crushing her lips against mine as our tongues met. She trembled against me, but I didn’t care. I had been wanting to do this since I first laid eyes on her, had dreamed about it every night. Stupid adolescent fantasies really. The reality erased anything I had ever imagined. As rain pounded the roof of the car, our bodies took over, and all thought ceased.

***********

I wish I could say it was only one time. I wish it had been only one time. But it wasn’t. Tone and I carried on for weeks, in my car, at my house, in his back yard and one memorable night, under the stage in the assembly hall, the school dance band playing above us while kids and teachers strolled around only inches from us, anonymous in Halloween costumes. I knew I was doing something wrong, but couldn’t stop myself. At night I spent hours promising myself I’d end it. But in daylight, with him in front of me, those thoughts flitted away, as ephemeral as ghosts and just as difficult to catch or chastise. Some thoughts just don't want to be spoken to, don't want to be understood.



It couldn’t last.



I became aware of whispers and snickers in the classroom, kids elbowing each other as they made gestures towards me. I read their lips, seeing Tone’s name there alongside another word, a hurtful, awful word that I knew was meant for me. Whore.



The childish gossip reached the staffroom. Mr. Georgiou, gave me a poisonous look as I passed him to get some coffee. Mrs. Edwards clucked her tongue disapprovingly.

“We know what you’re doing,” said Mr. Falconer. “You’ll never teach again!”

***********

It was on the front page of Tuesday’s paper.



First year teacher dismissed in student sex scandal.



         They didn’t use our names thankfully, but everyone knew it was me. Kids stared at me, teachers averted their eyes, even Jake gave me a wide berth. I was ostracised- another of Amy’s great words- by all. Seeing the hatchet-faced substitute in her place, butchering Charles Dickens, brought a lump to my throat that I couldn’t swallow.



         I stared out the window at the empty bus stop. Despite the sunshine beating down, I saw rain, saw puddles dimpling under the downfall, the water rush up over the curb as she slowed the car to pick me up, desire burning in her eyes.



         Charles Dickens said: “an idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself.” Yet another thing Amy taught me. It’s only fourteen months ‘til I’m eighteen. That’s not an eternity when you’re in love. That’s the idea I’ll hold onto. I’ll speak to it and encourage it.



Until it becomes the truth.



1996 words

October 2009