Falling for the Teacher

KATARINA GAZED AT THE brass knob, its surface marred by the sweaty palms of generations of eager young minds, and realized that the whole problem was she could imagine what might happen. Not with the mysterious biker. That was out of the realm of imagination. But with the class.

They’d hate her. She would bore them. They’d ask her questions she couldn’t answer. She’d run out of things to say. People would get up and leave early. And on and on.

And the really frustrating part about it all? She had absolutely no experience when it came to dealing with these kinds of anxieties. Up until the shooting, she had been fearless, some coworkers at Curtis Worldwide Home Products Inc., would have said even reckless, especially those she had passed by in her rapid rise to senior vice president for finance. But then, she had never had a reason to doubt herself.

From an early age, Katarina’s single mother had taught her to be independent. This was the same single mother whose own independent streak now took her to Antarctica to carry out geological research. And why should Katarina have doubted her word? After all, Katarina had been blessed with the two best qualities a single child could have: the ability to amuse herself with long hours of reading, and the self-confidence to believe she could do anything if she set her mind to it. She had succeeded in school, college and business school, graduating at the top of her class and sailing into a dream job out on the West Coast. If someone needed a report by midnight, she could produce it. A partner to climb Kilimanjaro? No problem.

But ever since a bullet had ripped though her right knee, that kind of fortitude, some might even say bravado, seemed to have vanished.

Still, the mantra “Zemanova women are tough” had been needlepointed into every pillow in the house in a figurative sense, and Katarina hadn’t dared tell her mother and grandmother about her anxieties. Instead, she had assured them that there was no need for either to fly out during her long convalescence. And it went without saying that she’d thrown herself into her postoperative physical therapy with the same overachieving ardor that had propelled her to accomplish so much already.

Despite the tedium and the pain, she had been all smiles for her doctors and therapists. Over the phone to her family, she had conveyed nothing but upbeat sentiments. When her company said, “Take as much time as you need before you come back,” she had said that she was sure she wouldn’t be long. Yet, deep down she knew it was a lie.

She was already drifting, unable to make decisions, even the simplest like whether to wear brown pants or black, to have coffee or tea, to do the crossword puzzle in pen or in pencil, or not to do it at all.

So after four months of physical recovery, she had gravitated back to the one place that had always felt safe no matter where life had taken her—Babička’s house in Grantham. Lena had never challenged her, didn’t ask her about her short or long-term plans, and didn’t question her feelings. Until this matter of the Adult School, that is.

So Katarina mustered the same family backbone that had gotten her grandmother through early widowhood as a recently arrived immigrant. It had also gotten her mother through college and graduate school raising a young child alone. Alone because she had insisted from the moment she’d discovered she was pregnant that the father was out of the picture, and refused to reveal his name. Likewise Katarina now took a deep breath and reached out, adding her own sweaty palm to those that had come before her. What was Franklin Roosevelt’s adage: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself?”

She pushed the heavy wooden door with so much conviction that it swung wildly and banged into the inside wall. Well, that got everyone’s attention, she thought before saying out loud in a forthright manner, “Good evening, everyone.”

She crossed the floor to the desk at the front of the classroom, listening to the distinctive squishing sound made by the crepe soles of her shoes. She unpeeled her raincoat, dropped it over the back of the chair and wiped aside her wet hair. Finally looking up—she could delay the inevitable no longer—she offered a tight-lipped smile to the students in her night school class. Why wasn’t she surprised at what she saw?

Clearly, Babička’s maneuverings had gone beyond securing her this part-time post. Among the eager faces looking to her for guidance and inspiration were several of her grandmother’s friends and aquaintances.

Katarina nodded hello, first to Carl Bedecker who sat front and center. Carl’s wine-colored V-neck sweater had a Kiawa Island logo stitched on the upper left, above his prominent bulging stomach that stretched the knit fabric below. He greeted her with a beaming smile showing somewhat yellowed teeth. The twinkle in his rheumy eyes brought to mind a kindhearted Norman Rockwell figure on a Saturday Evening Post cover until…

Until he winked at her with what was definitely not a Norman Rockwell kind of smile. Katarina sighed internally but tried to tell herself to be charitable. According to Lena, who had felt the need to catch her up on the local gossip in the first hour of her arrival, Carl’s wife, Trudy, had passed away two years ago. Since then he had let his two sons take over the family nursery, and with too much time on his hands, he was at something of a loss.

Carl is probably just lonely, Katarina told herself, possibly a little rusty when it comes to social interaction.

Carl winked again.

Forget rusty. Katarina pretended she didn’t see the gesture and shifted her attention to a woman on Carl’s left. She was well into her seventies, but talk about denial. Multiple hoop earrings dangled from her earlobes and her short, spiky hair had phosphorescent purple highlights. This could only be Wanda Garrity, no question about it.

Wanda was a member of her grandmother’s Thursday tennis doubles group. Babička had told her that Wanda always brought her Boston terrier, Tiger, to the tennis courts even though dogs were strictly forbidden. In fact, recreation department authorities had even posted a sign to that effect, expressly with Tiger in mind. Wanda had taken absolutely no notice, obviously considering herself a higher authority.

The rec department hadn’t dared to argue.

Katarina couldn’t help noticing the enormous tote taking up most of Wanda’s desk. Katarina didn’t need X-ray vision to hazard a guess as to what was inside. That the bag jiggled at random intervals confirmed her suspicions.

The door closed softly behind her and Katarina turned.

“Sorry I’m late,” came a gravelly voice. “I don’t move as swiftly as I used to.”

Katarina immediately recognized Rufus Treadway, moving slowly with the aid of a walker. As one of the vocal leaders of the black community, Rufus was an institution in Grantham. He also owned the Nighttime Bar whose decidedly downscale, painted cinder block exterior defied the gentrification of Grantham with a confident sense of reverse snobbery. The Nighttime Bar had been serving Rolling Rock on tap for more than sixty years, ever since Rufus’s late father decided to change his gas station into a watering hole. The dark wood stools with cracked faux leather seat covers had supported the weight of countless patrons. Everyone from governors residing in the local mansion, to garbage men sharing rooms in boardinghouses. They all came, drawn by the beer, camaraderie and quality of the live jazz.

Katarina smiled and held her hand out to an empty chair in the front. “The hip replacement still acting up? Lena told me you had had an operation not too long ago,” she said. She rested against the front of the teacher’s desk to take the weight off her own sore leg.

Rufus nodded. “Don’t you know it? The doctors tell you it only takes three months to recover, but they don’t tell you that those three months will be hell.”

“If you knew ahead of time, you’d never go through with it,” Katarina said. She knew only too well from personal experience. “Still, I know that my grandmother is expecting you to be out there for the summer seniors’ basketball league, so you’ve got to keep up with your rehab.” She reached around for her briefcase and pulled out the class list.

“For those of you who don’t know me—or my grandmother—” Carl chuckled a little too loudly “—my name’s Katarina Zemanova, and I’m your instructor for ‘Fundamentals of Personal Investing’. By way of an introduction, I recently moved back to Grantham from California where I was the financial officer for a major household products company. So, not only can I teach investing, but I also know more than most people about bleach.”

She saw Wanda rummage around in her enormous bag and lift what looked to be a white tennis skirt. Katarina cleared her throat. Wanda let it slide back in.

“Anyhow, why don’t I take the roll so I can put some names to faces for those of you I don’t already know?” As she worked through the list of about fifteen students, Katarina made small talk, putting people at ease. Finally she reached the last name on the list. “Worthington. Matthew Worthington.” She looked up. “Matthew Worthington?”

A pale hand rose from a back corner of the room. “Just Matt,” came the reed-thin voice.

Katarina slanted a few degrees to get a better view. She slanted a few more. “Just Matt” was maybe all of sixteen. The spray of pimples across his forehead confirmed that his adolescent hormones were making their presence felt. Unfortunately pimples weren’t the problem. His age was, at least as far as the rules were concerned.

Katarina worried her bottom lip before saying something to that effect.

“I know that…ah…this class is supposed to be for adults,” he said as if sensing her ambivalence. His voice cracked as painfully as chalk on the blackboard, and he halted in midstream, visibly gulping for air. “I thought that, though…you know…that maybe you might make an exception since what I want to do is…ah…maybe find out about saving for college? You know?”

“I do know,” Katarina said. “I went to college on a scholarship and worked jobs the whole time.” Zemanova women did not shrink from responsibilities or “Cry in their mlieko” as Babička was want to say.

“So, far be it from me to discourage your desire. Still, given the structure of the Adult School and the fact that you probably already have homework from earlier today, wouldn’t it be better if your mother or father attends the class instead?”

“That might be kind of hard. My mom’s dead.”

Katarina felt a little piece of her heart crack off. She rested her palm on the desk and gripped the corner hard with her fingers. “I’m so sorry,” she said, feeling inadequate with her clichéd response, even if the sentiment was genuine. “Not only for your loss but the fact that you’ll shouldering more responsibility than most young people your age.” She paused, groping for a solution.

“What about your father? Would that be possible?” she asked.

The boy cleared his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing painfully. “It’s not like we talk all that much.”

The door opened behind her, but Katarina didn’t turn around. She was trying to stay focused on the teenager. “I know how parents can be busy, especially single parents. Still…” She waited, trying to coax a reply.

Matt tucked his chin into his concave chest. The writing on his T-Shirt, Pirates Are Way Cooler Than Ninjas, cupped his jawbone like a cotton nest. She saw his lips move, but couldn’t hear his words. “What’s that? I didn’t quite get what you said.”

“What he said was that he doesn’t like to bother me, which may explain why he failed to let me know where he went this evening.” The voice, a deep baritone, came from behind.

Katarina watched as all the students shifted their eyes, and collectively held their breath. And for a fraction of a second, given the mean age of her students, she had this crazy hope that the Adult School kept a defibrillator on the premises. She glanced down at her watch. Not even fifteen minutes into her first class and already she was facing a crisis.

“Mr. Worthington, I presume?” she said, giving a pretty good imitation of an offended schoolteacher. She slowly turned around while heartily congratulating herself on being a better actress than she would have imag—

Holy mother of…

The darkness of night hadn’t done justice to the way his shoulders filled out the jacket. Nor had it allowed an onlooker to see how the angles of his face came together in a combination that wasn’t so much handsome as arresting. And now, without the helmet, Katarina could see how his inky-black hair tumbled over his brow and curled around the collar of his leather jacket. Lines fanned out from his dark green eyes, lines that didn’t seem to go with anything remotely resembling smiling. The grim line of his full lips and the determined set of his jaw confirmed that judgment.

Forget offended. Before her stood a smoldering Brontë hero. Heathcliff or Mr. Rochester. No, definitely Heathcliff.

“Actually it’s Mr. Brown,” he said, but he didn’t bother to shift his gaze from the back of the room.

Katarina pushed away from the desk, wincing with the sudden pressure on her bad leg. “Sorry. Mr. Brown. I just assumed that you and Matt had the same last name. My mistake.” She held out her hand. “I’m Katarina Zemanova, the teacher for this class, and even though these may not be the best of circumstances, I am delighted to welcome you here.” She might not feel brave inside, but Katarina could at least make a good show of it on the surface.