Paper Covers Rock by Jenny Hubbard Read Free Book Online

1982.
    On her desk: a photograph of a man and woman (her parents?) standing in front of a barn; a carved wooden box (inside, rubber bands and paper clips); stacks of homework to grade; her notes for English 500.
    Her notes for English 500. My name in the top-right corner:
Alex
. The x trails down, begins the circle that loops around my name. My name is a bull’s-eye. X marks the spot.
    Hide-and-Seek
    I smell her all over the classroom, she smells like baby powder. I leave her a note, her name on top, mine on the bottom, to let her know I have reported in as she oh-so-subtly suggested I do.
    Miss Dovecott strikes me as the type who could never have enough fresh flowers in her house. If I brought her flowers—which I will not do, don’t worry—she would probably remember them for the rest of her life. I believe that Iwill publish a poem one day in Miss Dovecott’s secret voice, her non-lilting, non-teaching voice. It might go like this:
    I nip them at night from the bed
    outside the dining hall—daffodils
,
    hyacinths. In the morning I cradle
    them to class in a vase. My students
    ask where I got them, they know
    I don’t have a yard of my own
.
    I say I got them from the place
    inside me that has to bloom
    then die to make room for more green
.
    They call me a thief, but they smile
.
    —Alex Stromm (1966–)
    Gingerbread Night
    Suddenly, like daffodils in spring, Miss Dovecott is everywhere in my life. Including at seated dinner, a boarding school staple: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday. We make polite conversation regarding stuff no one cares anything about. Birch students take turns being waiters, and whether you are waiting or eating (waiters eat last, after everyone else), you rotate to a new table each week. Sometimes you get a good table, but sometimes you get stuck. There’s a faculty member at each table, and the object is to sit as far away from them as possible. The faculty member serves the meat, and then you pass around the side dishes. I never eat the cooked carrots or the steamed broccoli, which have all of the color sucked right out of them. There is always dessert.
    This week, I am assigned to Mr. McGreavey’s table, but Mr. McGreavey has just been nabbed to drive an injured soccer player to the hospital in Asheville, so Miss Dovecott is filling in for him because new teachers share tables with the veterans. (She usually sits with Mr. Henley, the head of her department.) For once, guys are scrambling to sit next to the teacher, but the only seat left when I arrive is three seats down from her on the same side of the table. Miss Dovecott is doing her duty to initiate interesting dinnertime conversation, but her voice is low, and I can’t hear what she’s saying.
    All conversation stops when the waiter serves the dessert, and Ted Ferenhardt, a senior, starts up with the noises. He pours thick white sauce over the square of gingerbread; we watch the liquid slink from its silver pitcher. Miss Dovecott’s face goes to stone as Ted moans softly, once. Nathan Brummels, a buddy of Ted’s, picks up where Ted leaves off and moans again. Then back to Ted, who adds facial expressions. Moan, moan. Then Nathan. They are quiet about it, but make no mistake, they are enjoying themselves.
    Miss Dovecott rises from her chair. “Stop. Right now.” Everyone does. I am looking down at my plate, fumbling with my dessert fork. “That is what’s known in the real world as sexual harassment. You could get fired from a job for it. Some of you men—and I use that term ironically—are in for a rude awakening when you leave these hallowed halls.” She does not look at anyone when she lowers herself back into her chair and says, with no inflection, “Please pass the sauce.”
    I want to smile, I want to cheer, not the kind of stupid cheer Ted leads us in at the pep rallies. I want to give her a big pat on the back, but just then a wadded-up napkin hits me inthe head. I turn and see Glenn at the next table.