Within a few minutes, my salad, wine and queen of sarcasm had arrived. “You look deep in thought, Win,” she began. “Tough day saving the minds of our city’s youth?”
“Oh yeah,” I told her.
“What happened? Someone not do their homework, or was it an adolescent crisis like ‘Oh my Gawd, graduation’s only eight months away, and I don’t have a dress yet’?”
“More along the lines of the latter, but on a somewhat grander scale.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Unfortunately, it’s an actual legal matter, so I can’t go into it.”
“You just can’t give up, can you?”
“I know. I kind of just opened my mouth and said ‘yes’ before I realized what was happening.”
She smiled knowingly at me. “Look. Cheer up. You’ve never had a problem doing the right thing before. I can list all kinds of right things you’ve done: defending the defenceless, entering the teaching profession, dumping the Dragon Lady...”
“She dumped me,” I corrected.
“Details. Eat your dinner. Finish your wine. Go for your walk and listen to your heart. You’ll figure out what to do.” Teri walked away to serve the less glum pasta diners.
But she was right. I’d already decided that tomorrow I’d tell Carl I would defend him as best as I could. But if Tricia’s story was true, I wouldn’t try to get him off, only see he received due process.
That much I felt I could offer in clear conscience.
Six
The cold, crisp, sunny November morning of the previous day did not repeat itself. That’s not unusual. I couldn’t say how infrequent sunny November days are—I’m not a weatherman—but I know how much I celebrate the few we have.
Wednesday morning, I did not need my alarm clock to wake me. The sound of sheets of rain slapping against the sliding glass patio door was enough to jolt me awake. Unfortunately, it was only 3:47 am. One of my many flaws, according to my ex-wife, is my remarkable inability to return to slumber once the gods of awakedom have shown even the slightest interest in me. I’ve tried reading, late night/early morning TV, praying, cursing. It doesn’t matter. Once I’m up, I’m up.
When you get up that early, not even the newspaper is there to keep you company. Despite contributing to the demise of my marriage, insomnia did do me some physical good. For a lack of anything better to do, my long-term lack of slumber had led me to a nearly six-year career of early morning running. The previous year, I had celebrated the finality of my divorce by running my first marathon. I hadn’t won, but it hadn’t killed me either. It also hadn’t helped me sleep any better.
The bitter, icy rain this November morning effectively countered the sweat I built up as I finished my traipse out past the Jericho yacht club, along Spanish Banks to the edge of the university lands and back. There was almost no need to shower after the wicked pre-dawn downpour, but I still had all this time to kill. Generally, after showering and dressing, I read the two daily newspapers to fill the hours before a teacher can reasonably be expected to arrive at school in the morning.
One of the many advantages of living down by the beach and working at Sir John A. was that my morning commute was against traffic. In Vancouver’s Lower Mainland, the bulk of traffic traditionally heads west from the outer suburbs into the downtown core. When you already live West, at least getting to work in the morning isn’t inordinately stressful.
Of course, it also doesn’t afford you much time to prepare mentally for unpleasant tasks on your to-do lists, like asking your colleague if he’s been sleeping with his seventeen-year-old biology student. Unfortunately, reporting back to Carl was job number one of the day.
It may have potentially made it more difficult for Carl to start his day with an unpleasant visit from me, but I knew I would probably be ineffective in the classroom if I didn’t get this off my chest. Coincidentally, it was on my lesson plan to discuss the criminal definition of sexual harassment with my Law Twelve class, but I was planning to steer the conversation away from relationships between students and their teachers as an example of what could be classed as a criminally inappropriate relationship.
In my three months of teaching experience, I had found that arriving at the school around seven thirty in the morning afforded me some quiet time to mentally prepare for the day. I admire those teachers who can run in at the last minute as the bell is ringing and begin their day without any panic kicking in. I need to coast into my teaching duties. Get a feel for the room. Anticipate what might lie ahead. I was always like that in court too, which wasn’t easy as a Legal Aid lawyer: I had spent as much of my time travelling between courtrooms as I had inside them. At least as a high school teacher, I pretty much got to stay in the same room all day. For less pay. With fewer breaks.
By the time I reached the entrance closest to the staff parking lot, I was already nearly soaked through. No sooner did I pass through the doorway than I literally crashed into Carl. Damn the proximity of the science wing. It was going to be that kind of day.
“Winston!” he practically shouted as I entered dripping through the doorway.
“Good morning, Carl. Beautiful day, isn’t it?” I am a master of small talk.
“Listen, what’s happening?” he asked a little too loudly. Though we were alone, one lesson I had quickly learned in a high school was that the walls have ears. I had learned that in my second week, when I had called the photocopier a piece of shit while I thought I was alone with it. I’m now known as a technophobe with a hot temper.
“Not much. Let’s go into your classroom.” I gave my best surreptitious nod towards the door to remind him we needed privacy.
“Right.” Unlocking the classroom door—if it isn’t locked down, it won’t be there in the morning is a general rule—Carl ushered me inside the science lab.
I had managed to avoid taking a single science class since eleventh grade biology myself. By the last month of school, when it became apparent that even if I scored 100% on the final exam, I could not possibly hope to pass the course, I had left the class, dumping my textbook and notebook in the garbage can by the door, vowing never to return. Thus far, I had been successful. Completing my undergraduate degree at a university that did not require science for admission, I had managed to go from the age of seventeen right through university and law school without ever having to light another Bunsen burner. Being in Carl’s classroom was bringing it all back.
Sir John A. Macdonald isn’t the oldest school in Vancouver, not by a long shot, but despite being Canada’s third largest city, Vancouver has built a new high school for years, probably decades. J. Mac, as the school was known throughout the district, was really beginning to show its age. The room was long and narrow, with counters running along three walls. In the middle of the room, students would sit at banged up old pairs of tables, joined in the middle by a counter with a sink and one of those ridiculously long, tall faucets that were suddenly in fashion with studio loft apartment builders. It was depressing to think we were training future cancer researchers in this decrepit old facility.
“How you holding up this morning?” I asked him, looking for a stool on which to park my butt.
“I’m fine,” he replied. “How did it go with Trish yesterday? You talked to her, right?”
“Yeah. I did.” I could barely raise my head to look him in the eye. Carl wasn’t helping by being unexpectedly cheerful.
“And? Did she come clean? Did she tell you why she’s suddenly trying to wreck my life?”
“Not exactly, no.” Bracing myself for the storm that was no doubt to follow, I put myself into lawyer mode and pressed on. “Basically, she confirmed for me the...uh...the story she came to you with.”
“What? I