History Lesson

And so, the moment I've dreaded has come: my eighth grade students are writing research papers.

It's a painful experience, full of blonde hairs in the shower drain and nagging headaches. Sometimes I feel like the personal cheerleader of all 105 of them; on those days, my throat is hoarse by second period. The rest of the time I'm a doomsday prophet, warning them that the end (Rough!Draft!Due!Friday!) is coming and that right soon.

Don't, I remind them for the 100th time, write this paper like you're texting your BFF. I don't want '&' or 'UR' or 'cuz. I also refuse on moral grounds to read any paper that begins "My essay is about..."

When they leave the room, I clear a head-sized hole in the debris on my desk and wait for a sign.

But we press on, through hooks and transitions and thesis statements and supporting details. There are private moments of victory: A student who has rewritten his thesis statement seven times gets my blessing to move ahead. There are staggering moments of defeat: Suddenly, a girl in my fifth period gets teary-eyed when I suggest that it's probably best to mention historical facts in chronological order. What's this? I want to tell her, Tom Hanks-style: There's no crying!

After school, the students in my English-learner tutorial continue slogging through their drafts. I can help them one-on-one in this setting, so it's a slow but ultimately more rewarding process. Their topics all somehow connect to World War II: Iwo Jima, Pearl Harbor, the Manhattan Project, Kristallnacht. Half the struggle is getting them to understand and/or care about something that happened sixty-five years ago, before even their grandparents were born.

I shudder when one asks, "What's the big deal about an atomic bomb?"

He might not mean anything by this; eighth graders often say things just to be saying things. Witness the thirty-five voices that scream, "Telephone! Telephone!" even after I've answered. "Yes, thank you," I always say, dismissing them. But I can't dismiss this boy.

Well, it is a big deal, I say. It's an incredibly big deal. Thousands of people died instantly. Others died later, sick in all sorts of ways from the radiation. Those who survived were susceptible to cancers, leukemia, horrible tumors. Even today, nothing grows on that land.

Suddenly, I realize it's deathly quiet. The boy writing about the Treaty of Versailles is watching me. The girl who has misspelled "Kristallnacht" ten different ways in her essay has turned around completely in her seat.

"What's radiation?" someone asks.

I'm no Einstein, but I try my best.

"So, is that all the stuff in the mushroom cloud?"

Basically, yes, I tell them.

We're all quiet for a minute.

"I saw a picture online of a girl with all her skin burned off," one of the boys says, reverently.

"I don't understand it," says the Kristallnacht girl, her pencil point digging stubbornly in a hole on her desk. "Who does it help that that girl died?"

For this I don't have an answer. Or I do, but it's one of those "in the wider scope of history" answers that doesn't really explain anything.

It's 3:50 and officially time to go, but everyone lingers. The moment feels so real, that for just a second, I want to grab them by their t-shirts and tell them everything I know, every single thing, every crazy fact and bit of trivia and "book knowledge" I've been accumulating for thirty-odd years.

But instead, I smile. "See you tomorrow," I say, and with a wave, I release them.

Sickboy, Redux

"Hey, come here a minute. Look at this," Will says. Fresh out of the shower, he stands in front of me.

"Um..." I say, frowning. His entire body seems to be glowing, like he just performed some serious exfoliation. "Come into the light."

He stands in front of the floor lamp, and in a sharper light I see that his entire body is red, bad sunburn red.

"Any chance that's from golfing?"

"NO!"

A quick check of WebM.D. (never, never look at this site) convinces Will that he's come down with a vicious case of scarlet fever.

Scarlet fever? This rings a bell, but in my mind it's in the same category as the plague - as in, something that died out years ago. "I think that's what the little boy in The Velveteen Rabbit had," I tell Will.

"What happened to him?"

I grin. "They had to burn all his toys."

Fifteen minutes later we're at the urgent care center, signing in. I've packed a bag of goodies - sudoku, two books, some knitting and a journal, the basic necessities for a minimum two-hour wait. We settle into chairs in the reception area, trying to gauge the various complaints and syndromes of our fellow occupants. Safer to sit by the person with an ice pack on his head than the woman with a ferocious cough, for instance.

In the triage center, Will fails to impress the nurse with stories of a rash that went away and an unwarranted sunburn. "So, other than the rash, you have basically no symptoms?" she says, her pen poised over an NCR form. It's possible she has just a hint of a smirk in her voice. Can she not see Lobster Boy??

With nothing better to do, I tag along when Will is called in to see the doctor. Dressed in a paper-thin smock, his "sun"burn is shocking -- his skin blotched red and purple. When he puts his hands on his knees, he leaves white palm prints that linger for several seconds.

We get Dr. M -- our lucky day, the nurse proclaims, since Dr. M. is an expert on rashes -- and several possible diagnoses. One possibility is scarletina, which results from strep. (This is not -- Dr. M stresses -- scarlet fever, although he does chuckle at my Velveteen Rabbit anecdote.) Another is erythema infectiosum (aka Fifth Disease or "slapface syndrome"), although this is most commonly found in children. Or it could be a case of roseola - another disease more common to infants. Is it possible this is related to a person's level of maturity?

Dr. M runs the tests, and Will is cleared for strep. Unfortunately, if it's Fifth Disease it's simply viral, and will just have to run its course. There's no telling how long Will is going to look like a burn victim. Dr. M orders a blood draw, just in case, and tells us he'll call with the results.

Sometime during this conversation, my sister in Washington calls, frantic for news of Will's scarlet fever. Sigh. My mother -- who has no cell phone and has forgotten her Facebook password -- still finds ways to communicate.

At home, we order a pizza. I'm thinking of Will, sure, and the fact that he hasn't eaten anything more than two pieces of toast in the last 24 hours, but also, frankly, of me. It's been seven hours since breakfast at this point, and I'm ready to nibble on my pinky finger.

Dr. M calls with good news -- the bloodwork was normal, meaning he found nothing bacterial like scarletina and Will's kidneys appear to be functioning. His official diagnosis: slapface syndrome. He'll be contagious for a couple of days and it's possible that if his temperature rises, he'll break out in a rash again. Will grins, pocketing this get-out-of-all-physical-labor-free card. In other news, he does have a "basically harmless" genetic condition called Gilbert's syndrome (French: gil-bears), which means his body doesn't process bilirubin.

This wait-and-it-will-get-better approach is somewhat comforting, but also somewhat of a drain on Will's sole caregiver, I must admit. When the pizza comes, I almost cry from its comfort. I even convince Will to eat a bite or two.

Sickboy

Will is sick.

Driving home from work on Tuesday, he called to say that he wasn't feeling well. He was weak... he was tired... he was, I judged, basically incoherent.

"Use the Zicam," I ordered. And then I dosed myself - a few spritzes to the tongue, the gums, the teeth -- just in case. Immediate sensation = awful. Aftertaste? Not too bad, as long as you don't mind the deadened taste buds.

It seemed to do the trick for me, but Will is a tough bugger. When he's sick (18 hour days on the couch sick), he's really sick. None of this cough and sniffle business, oh no.

"Let me check your throat," I ordered, taking up the Mag light. "Lay your tongue flat. No, flat. Flatter. Your tongue is in the way. Nope, still in the way. Would you like me to report on the status of your tongue instead?"

Wednesday, after drifting in and out of a Bones marathon, he pronounced himself, grudgingly, a fan. I whooped with joy. Usually I have to ration my Bones intake when he's around, flipping quietly from ESPN when he leaves the room.

Thursday he decided he was feeling better and therefore golfing 18 holes was simply unavoidable. I objected: You'll be tired. You can barely stand up as it is. You probably need one more day of re-runs.

Thursday night, he pronounced that I was probably right. He felt miserable, but managed to cook Chicken Parmesan nonetheless, while I ran circles around him with the mashed potatoes and garlic bread.

Friday, he called me into the bedroom. "Look at this -- what is this?" he demanded, thrusting his arm in front of my face. His skin was spotted with a million red dots, like someone had taken a fine-point red Sharpie to his body while he slept.

"Flea bites?" I suggested hopefully. No, not flea bites - our pets are flea-free, and besides, I'd be covered with them too.

"Hives," he said grimly.

"Probably a rash," I soothed, but checked the cupboards anyway for Benadryl. All I could find was a generic children's version, which I'd been prescribed for a canker sore. (Liquid Benadryl +liquid Kaopectate = canker sore magic.)

"I'll go to the store and get it," he offered, which I took as a good sign.

The rest of the day I stood by for hourly hives reports (Bigger! About the same! Going down a little!), temperature checks (108! No, I guess it's 100.8!), toast and orange juice runs, and general CNA duties. I listened to his snores, shifted him regularly to avoid couchsores, plied him with offers of a drive to the clinic, and in general played the role of long-suffering wife.

"I'm feeling better," he announced this morning, rolling up his flannel PJ pants for a shot of pale, hive-free legs.

"Oh, good! Maybe we can..." I consider my unfinished vacation to-do list, a sad reminder of my high expectations. "Well..."

But when I looked over, he was snoring again.

The Undead

We're morbid people, Will and me.

It might bear mentioning again that when our relationship became serious (book-collection-merging serious), we were amused to see that we each had a copy of the atrociously-written and endlessly fascinating Helter Skelter. We watched The Bridge when it came out on Netflix; over the years, I've converted him to SVU.

We've become rather callous people.

On Wednesday night, we were taking the beloved B on his evening (and only) walk, first in pleasant near-darkness through the streets in our neighborhood and then through sudden crushing darkness in the park. It might have been midnight and not daylight-savings-induced 5:30, the way everything was so quiet. You know what I mean, I'm sure -- the kind of odd inner-city quiet where you fear you might have missed the rapture, although you don't believe in it.

We performed our customary scan of the park -- no potentially dangerous people lurking near the public restrooms, no off-leash pit bulls, no solitary cars parked in leafy shadow. But when we were halfway through the park (a slow journey, with the sky growing darker by the second as the lovely B sniffed each blade of grass excitedly and, at least a dozen times, lifted a back leg delicately), I spotted something strange in the newly mown grass of the softball field. Right field, to be exact.

"What's that?" Will and I asked at the same time.

"Not a dog," I confirmed, coming closer. It was difficult to make out the shape; maybe if I had the night-vision goggles I've requested for the past thirty Christmases... but with ordinary human limitations, I could only see so much. "Maybe a person?"

We were within a hundred yards. Seventy-five. Fifty. It could have been a person, I decided. A small person, without a head. I cleared my throat, whistled, called, "Here, boy." The lump in right field remained completely still. "It's just a coat left behind," I said finally. We kept walking, leaving a trail of disintegrated leaves in our wake.

On Thursday, home early, we decided to give the long-suffering B a proper, leisurely walk, and this time we ended up in the park with plenty of daylight left. There were a few people by the swingsets and a few more in the infield, pitching, batting, fielding and in general displaying more energy than I've had in months. And there was also, most definitely, a face-down person in right field.

We looked at each other. "Is that the same...?"

It was a man wearing dark clothes, except for a jacket with a thick cream-colored stripe across its back. That's what I'd seen the night before, the stripe almost iridescent in the darkness, the rest of his body only vaguely suggested in the dusk. We inched closer to investigate. It's difficult to "inch" with a beagle lunging five feet ahead, but we needed a closer look. There was definitely a head, although the jacket collar was pulled up past his ears. One arm was wrapped around the back of his neck in a quite unnatural position. I know; I tried it right there on the spot. My mind raced: No one would lie down that way on his own. He must have been... posed.

"Call 911," I gasped to the man with the ubiquitous cell phone.

Will chuckled. "And say what? 'Come quickly, there's a man lying in the park'?"

"He's been there for two days, he's not moving, he's face-down..."

Will considered. "I'll call the non-emergency number."

I waited anxiously while he dialed. The man had not moved.

"Hmm. Busy," Will reported.

Wasn't this always how it went in the movies? Danger at hand and no one home?

"I'll tell you what," Will said. "I'll come back in a little while, when it's dark. If he's still here, I'll call 911."

Fair enough. Twenty minutes later, Will left our house in my car. I sat paralyzed, too dazed to even pick up the remote. I was imagining myself at the edge of the park, wrapped in a cashmere shawl, my hair wind-tussled. "He was just lying there," I would say to the detective with the tiny notepad. "We were so worried."

I snapped back to reality when Will's key turned in the lock. "Well," he shrugged, "no one there. So I guess..."

"... he wasn't dead," I finished. Why did this feel like such a disappointment?

We stared at each other for a long moment.

And then we laughed hysterically.

Put Your Right Foot In

Let me just say: I love to dance.

This doesn't mean that I have a natural sense of rhythm or movement, that I can bust any decent moves, or even that other people like to watch me dance.

I do most of my dancing while I clean, dustcloth in hand, or while I cook, sampling from a wooden spoon. Think of it as a less graceful version of Julia Roberts' love-interest-neighbor in Sleeping With the Enemy, who sang and leapt to "When You're a Jet, You're a Jet" with his garden hose as a prop.

But dance in public? Not so much. I need a bottle or so of chardonnay to boost my confidence first.

On Wednesday, I attended my first ever junior high dance, not as a chaperone, but as the event coordinator. It was my job to make sure the DJ arrived on time, the kids had fun, and all the stepped-on Skittles were pried off the floor at the end of the night.

While the other adults hovered near the snack table or stuck to the doors, as far from the speakers as possible, I drifted around ther periphery of the mob -- 100 or so 12- to 14-year-olds who had crammed themselves into a tight, sweaty circle of approximately twenty square feet. Around the edges of the circle, kids were standing, barely moving to the beat. The real dancers were in the middle, their faces slick and shiny.

A boy from my second period class was sitting with his back against the back wall. "'C'mon, get out there," I motioned, trying to encourage him. He shook his head, but later I saw him ask a girl to slow dance -- no doubt the moment he'd been anticipating/dreading since dance posters went up the week before.

As I wandered the periphery, I kept bumping into one tiny dark-haired girl, who was busy spinning in dizzying solo circles. Whenever I passed, she would call, "Come dance with me!" And I laughed, smiling, thinking, No way, sweetheart. But I admired her guts. She didn't care that the cool kids were in a tight, grinding bunch -- she was dancing her heart out and having the sugar-fueled time of her life. She reminded me of myself, doing the Charleston in my kitchen or jitterbugging my way down the hallway, terrified pets scattering at my approach.

I took a break during a slow song and pulled up a folding chair to the snack table. "Who's that girl out there?" I asked, gesturing. Although the floor had cleared except for about twenty couples, the girl was still out there, swaying with her arms hugged to her chest, as if her partner was a slim, invisible boy.

"Seventh grader," one of my colleagues replied. "She's in special ed."

Hmm.

I kept watching her, noticing how she kept dancing even after the music stopped. You go, girl, I thought. Put that whole body in.

Mayhem

This morning I went out to get the paper and was struck by how plain our front porch looked - barren, even. But why? There was the porch swing, the horseshoe chair... and then I realized: my flowerpots were gone.

I peeked around the corner -- still two cars in the driveway. Hmm. I was hit by a moment of deja vu. Two years ago, also on a Sunday morning, I'd stepped out to find Will's car gone although he was most definitely at home, mummified by layers of sheets and blankets. I'd interrupted his sleep to ask him, casually, "Did you park somewhere different last night?"

He'd rolled over, instantly awake. "WHAT?"

Today, I wiped my feet on the mat, calmly walked down the hall, and located Will beneath tufts of the comforter. "Um, hey, Will... did you move anything off the porch last night? Maybe because of the rain?"

He rolled over and groaned. Not again.

He pulled on clothes and we stood together on the porch, which was decidedly bare at second glance, and I allowed myself a few minutes to morn the loss of my flower pots.

Not that they contained actual flowers (or any plants really; I lack the commitment and responsibility needed to keep either alive). But they had beautiful, filigreed metal stands and last spring, in a spurt of renovation fever, I painted the terra cotta pots a glossy shade of chocolate brown, then sponge-painted over them in black so they looked antigue and, well, cool. Martha Stewart, eat your heart out. Then I "planted" them with willow branches in a mixture of potting soil and landscape bark. They were beautiful; they made me happy every time I stepped onto my porch -- happier, I was suddenly convinced, than a car could ever make me.

Inside, Will and I studied Baxter gravely. How could a dog with a ferocious howl that alerts us to everything else in the neighborhood (passing cats, neighbors watering their lawns) and sleeps a mere five feet from the front porch have missed this entire occasion? Perhaps out of guilt, Baxter declined his morning scoop of food.

Later, I went online to fill out a police report. THESE REPORTS ARE NOT INVESTIGATED, a pop-up window reminded me.

No problem. I don't expect a manhunt or anything.

I just want it on record for when I spot the planters on someone else's porch, park my SUV down the street in modern Nancy Drew fashion, and insist to the police dispatcher that I've got the "perps" in my "sights".

Down Time

Yesterday, I left school after two periods and made it home just in time to enjoy the stomach flu in the privacy of my own bathroom.

Monday, I taught six classes, stopped at Walmart after school to pick up supplies for a school event on Friday, attended a neighborhood association steering committee meeting, took B for a walk, shopped for a suit for Will, typed out committee minutes and fell into an exhausted sleep.

Sunday was Mom's birthday party.

Saturday was the wedding.

Friday was an all-day event with 400 first to fourth graders in blistering heat. I was home by 3:30 and asleep by 4.

The last few weeks have been spent planning for the event, guiding twenty-three seventh and eighth graders to make posters, bring materials and arrive at the assigned place at the assigned time.

Then there's teaching my Language Arts classes, including some literature I've never read before, much less taught. There's grading and grading and grading.

There are the weekends where I sit at Borders with my laptop and hate myself for not being able to write a word. There are queries sent out and library books returned because I didn't even have time to crack the cover.

Then two funerals, two weeks apart.

There was August 16, when I started teaching full-time for the first time since 2007.

There was August 9, putting on my new suit and telling myself I could do this, I could be bright and well-spoken and as impressive in person as the resume I'd turned in a week ago.

There was my graduation party - the last time I remember relaxing. And four days before that, three weeks of traveling in New York and Boston -- and Maine, where I workshopped part of my novel, gave a reading and presentation and walked across the stage.

From June 8 to July 8 I taught summer school/dodged bullets/graded crappy half-assed papers/tried to hold it all together. Then packing, delivering a disappointed B to my sister's house, driving to the airport, dozing fitfully on a red-eye flight to Maine.

On May 27, I finished my novel, sighed, breathed, felt happy and empty all at once.

STOP. Is it possible that this was the last time I was happy, the last time that life wasn't pushing in on me from all sides? Is it any wonder I've been exhausted, disconnected from my friends and colleagues, unable to read a book from start to finish (well, I did read The Corrections in a listless five-week span), barely able to construct a sentence? There must be a way to find balance -- to find equal parts down time and "on" time, to be goofy, word-loving private me as well as the busy, polite public me.

If only I could split myself into two people and do everything well. And then maybe the real me could just walk away from the other, imposter, Paula. Walk or run.