“Got a minute?” Tracey Hunter asked sticking her head into Ann Truman’s office on her way out of the Millridge Adult Education Centre one late-October Friday afternoon.
“Of course,” said Ann, looking up from the binders she was trying to squeeze into a grocery store bag without tearing it. She knew few students realized teachers could be as anxious for the start of the weekend as they themselves were, but she willingly put aside her packing. She continued, “I always have time for one of my favourite students.”
The seemingly flattering statement did not have as much impact on Tracey as a remote observer might have assumed it would. Tracey knew all the students fell into the category ‘favourite’ for Mrs. Truman. She made everyone feel special, even the would-be Romeos Tracey found really annoying. So Tracey knew the comment was not personally aimed at her, simply one of Mrs. Truman’s ways of relating positively to her students. She didn’t realize Mrs. Truman had reacted defensively on more than one occasion when teachers from the regular high school were being critical of her students on the basis of past behaviour, saying, “Some of them might be jerks, but they’re MY jerks.”
Tracey slid through the open door, nudging the pile of books propping it open so it closed behind her. “This won’t take long,” she said to alleviate any concern that closing the door promised a lengthy session.
The act of closing the door was something few of the Learning Centre students would have done. ‘Discretion’ was a foreign concept to most of them, on a par with pension plans and vacations in Hawaii. Tracey frequently overheard classroom conversations held in a normal tone and volume that most people would have considered quite private. And some students thought nothing of using the classroom phone during lunch break when the teacher was absent, only a few students still there. She had heard calls to parole officers, social workers, and family members, many of them embarrassingly personal conversations. – At least, she thought they should be personal. Once, she had listened to a guy discussing a positive test for gonorrhoea. No doubt the medical person on the other end would have been appalled to know he was in a classroom with other listeners, but he didn’t seem to care.
So when Tracey closed the door, Ann truly focussed on her, putting aside the mental check-list of things to accomplish on her way home so she could get an early start on her drive to Toronto for a weekend of galleries and museums. It wasn’t that Tracey was one of the indiscrete students. She was always very private, but she wasn’t genuinely assertive about it. In fact, she was never truly assertive, alternating between passive, letting others control things, and aggressive. Like many people, she didn’t seem to realize ‘assertive’ was not the same as ‘aggressive’, thinking asserting herself meant forcefully insisting on her own way with no consideration for others. It was almost as if she submissively accepted things which annoyed her until they built up to a breaking point. Then she would let the built-up resentment boil over. So while closing the door was not totally out of character for her, it was a signal to Ann that Tracey had something on her mind more serious than clarification of an assignment.
So Ann wasn’t sure what to expect. She knew Tracey wasn’t timid and withdrawn like a few of the students, but she knew Tracey wasn’t as confident as she pretended either. Ann was certain the hard-edged mantle Tracey put on to deal with men attracted by her apparent naivety and obvious good looks was an act. Also, she herself seemed to be the only one who noted Tracey’s sighs of relief when assignments were returned with good grades, or was aware of Tracey’s slight trembling after she made a sarcastic comment to discourage male attention. Even though Tracey had begun her second year in the program in September, Ann didn’t feel she knew her well, recognizing the conscientious, capable student, but feeling there was much more to her.
Ann knew many students showed a different face to the world than the one they owned up to when they looked in a mirror. With others, she could eventually see underneath that mask to that real person, but Tracey presented a challenge. On the surface, she could be aggressively confident. Seeing past that to the somewhat uncertain inner person had not been overly difficult for Ann; however, she thought there might be yet another layer under that. The young woman showed flashes of qualities that Ann thought perhaps Tracey herself wasn’t even aware of.
In front of her, she saw a very pretty, petite young woman. Short blond hair framed a flawless complexion, perfectly bowed lips, a pert nose, and intense blue eyes that seemed much older than the twenty years indicated by Tracey’s birth certificate. They were a sharp contrast to her otherwise youthful appearance; she looked younger than twenty, except for the eyes. Sometimes suspicious, often cynical, always wary, they seemed much older.
Tracey said, “I saw Tony Wamberg coming out of your office when I got back from lunch. I hope that doesn’t mean he’s starting here. If he’s coming, I’m going.”
Stalling for time, Ann answered, “You know I don’t talk about one student with another.” She didn’t realize including Tony as a student answered Tracey’s question. After a brief pause, she continued, “Anyway, if that was the case, I don’t know why someone new would upset you. Students can start here any time. You’ve seen them come and go before. What makes it different this time?”
Tracey wasn’t about to tell her Tony was the reason she had had to have an abortion when she was fourteen, nor how he had abandoned her to deal with her overbearing father by herself. The smooth-talking twenty-year-old had disappeared, not just from her life, but Millridge itself. He had been known to her friends to have a ‘love ‘em and leave ‘em’ attitude, but Tracey had assumed she was different than the others; she had learned otherwise. Now six years later, it looked like he was back in town, a most unwelcome surprise.
But instead of revealing that secret, Tracey twisted the story. “I dated him when I was in high school,” she began truthfully, but then fictionalized, “but then he stopped calling. Turned out he was going out with somebody I thought was my friend. The weasel didn’t even have the nerve to tell me himself. I thought I was past all that ‘til I saw his slimy face here.”
“No wonder that upset you,” Ann sympathized. “That’s a hard thing to deal with at any age, but must have been devastating to a teenager.”
Tracey was wise enough to know the more details a person adds to a lie, the more likely she is to trip herself up, so she simply said, “I don’t want to discuss it. I just want to know if he’s coming here. If he is, I’m quitting.”
Ann answered, “I can’t deny people the right to enrol. They have to actually do something here that gets them expelled. Once, we even took a guy on parole after he did time for sexual assault. We just made sure he was never alone with a woman, and were always certain we knew where he was. He knew we were watching him, so he was on his best behaviour. We took him though.” She couldn’t come right out and ask if there was anything like that she should know about Tony, but knew one of the gossipy students would let everyone know if there was.
She continued, “I don’t want to lose you. You’ve come so far in the last year. You only have a few more credits to go to get your diploma. You might even be done by Christmas. You’re a good influence on the others too. They see you working hard and making progress. If he messed up your life before, don’t let him do it again. Let me tell you a story. I was once teaching a lesson about personal space, and on the board, drew a rectangle to represent a cafeteria table, with three chairs on each side. Then I asked students where they would sit if there was only one person at that table, in a corner seat, but all the other chairs in the entire cafeteria were occupied. When I said the person was someone they dated once and had a terrible time with, everyone sat as far away as possible, except one girl who sat directly across. She said, ‘He’s not ruining my lunch; I’m ruining his.’ Not that I want you to ruin Tony’s time here, but don’t let him ruin yours either.”
Tracey had worked hard to get her life on a new track. The story hit home. He screwed me up once, she thought to herself. He’s not doing it again. To Ann, she said, “Matt’s waiting for me in the parking lot. I have to go. See you Monday.” Then she turned to leave.
“Have a good weekend,” said Ann. “And don’t let this worry you. It’s really small stuff.”
Tracey’s back was turned, so Ann couldn’t see the look of horror triggered by those words. Gritting her teeth but managing to keep her voice sounding normal, Tracey responded, without turning, “You too.”