Chapter Text
August
Ben
There were a million things he would rather be doing than sitting in a stuffy, half decorated science classroom a week before the start of the school year. Being in his own classroom was top on the list, not decorating it, no more like clearing it out. Because Ben Solo had inherited an classroom from a hoarder.
Classroom was a nice term; it was a portable. One that creaked beneath his heavy footsteps, that was worryingly too close to the road, that was far removed in isolation from the main building of his new school. The old specialist teacher island, he was familiar.
He wanted to be clearing out filing cabinets filled with copied off lyric sheets and concert programs from two decades ago. To get ride of the overhead projector sheets and the magazines filled with folk songs to teach that were no longer culturally tactful. At least he had learned his lesson about going slowly through the boxes that were tucked into every corner of the room. The fireworks he had found had been a shock.
But no, instead he was listening to a middle aged woman with greying hair talk about the teacher mentorship program. He was about to enter his tenth year of teaching but move to a new state and he had to begin most of the steps all over again.
Fun.
He let out a sigh, looking down at his Fitbit, they had twenty more minutes and then he would be free. He could drive back to his school, because of course this meeting had to be in person, at a location most of the new teachers to the district did not work at. He looked around the room at the other older teachers, they all knew this could be a Zoom as well.
“Okay we are going to break into groups based on subjects. Secondary teachers over here, elementary break into grade level bands as much as possible, special ed over here.” The largest group was special ed, he wasn’t surprised. It was a department with the largest staff and high turnover. Ben sat for a moment and then release his group had not been called.
He taught music. Elementary music.
Typical.
He was about to raise his large hand like a third grader and ask what he was supposed to do. He didn’t know anyone in the room, he was the only new new hire on his school staff. Then he saw her.
She had dark brown hair thrown up in three buns down the back of her head. She was wearing professional clothing, which none of the other teachers in the room were. They were still in shorts and flip flops, even a few risqué emblazoned t-shirts could be seen. But she had on a light cardigan over a few more layers, and dress slacks. She must have been new, fresh out of college new if she was dressing like that to the professional development days.
And she was looking straight at him.
She didn’t have a group either.
Ben found himself standing, not wanting to be lumped with the group of loud 5th grade teachers forming to his right. He walked towards her, she was wearing a name sticker, they all were. Another habit of district wide professional development that he was never fond of. He looked down at her neat handwriting. Rey Niima, Jakku Ridge Elementary, Art.
He put on a smile, the same one that he used to reassure kindergartners that everything was okay. “They never know what to do with us at these events.”
She blinked up at him, he was towering over her. A pale man dressed all in black, though it was his summer black, lighter materials, with long hair that brushed past his shoulders and a deep gouging scar across his face. “Sorry?”
He sat down in the chair next to her, at least it was an adult sized chair. He had spent all of the morning having a meeting on school safety in the library of Mynock Lake Elementary School, where the chairs were designed for 3rd grade bodies.
“Specialists, elementary specialists. They never consider what to do with us at these events.” He repeated as he sat down across from her at the black topped lab table. “Ben Solo, Elementary Music. I think we’re a group of oddballs on our own.”
She let out a small little sigh. “I guess so. I’m Rey.”
“Ben.”
“Where do you teacher.”
“Mynock Lake Elementary. It’s just up the road from you.” He replied as he watched her look over him.
A lot of people seemed to be intimidated by him at first glance. He was aware, between his height, his propensity for dark clothes and the scars on his face he didn’t come across as Elementary friendly. But he was surprisingly good with his students, though time had helped him find his best rhythm. To be honest he spent the first three months of kindergarten music trying to minimize his time standing in front of his students. It didn’t help when none of them came past his hip, and a few barely made it up his knee.
“Are you a new teacher?”
He let out a deep sigh. “From a certain point of view apparently. This is my tenth-year teaching but the first nine were down in California. It fun to change districts. At least I got to keep some of my seniority.” He added sarcastically.
“What do you know Rose?” her eyes seemed to flutter to life, though he could not help but realize that Rey was a few steps behind him in the conversation. He raised a brow at her, he had only been living in the pacific northwest suburb of Evergreen Springs for month. “She’s at Mynock, kindergarten. Rose Tico.”
He though to the many all-staff meetings he had sat through over the past few days. The name vaguely rang a bell, he could somewhat remember the group of teachers who had been sitting all together around a round table yesterday in the library. The kindergarten team, four female teachers with similarly large Starbucks tumblers and chatting away enthusiastically about their lake houses. He had been gifted the exact same tumblers over the years as well, the ones with the built-in straw. He hated them, they never actually managed to keep anything cold for more than a few immediate minutes, but classroom teachers carried them in their hands like badges of honor.
“I’m sure I’ll get to know her.” He added offhandedly. He though she had been the shorter one, with a very round face and cropped black hair.
Rey was drumming her fingers gently on the top of the table, nervously watching as her fingerprints left little marks that vanished quickly.
They were supposed to be discussing ideas for their assessment goals. As a first year or new to the district teacher they would be graded on a large litany of criteria at the end of the year. Ben already knew that half of them didn’t easily apply to what either he or Rey did.
“This your first year.”
She gave him a small nod. “Yeah. Any advice.”
He thought to himself for a while. What would be an honest piece of advice that meant something. That was practical, not what she had likely spent the last few years in university studying. The only thing he could think of was an honest piece of advice he had gotten from his high school band director after he had asked her before his first year.
“You have to be yourself. The kids can tell, when you’re pretending to be someone else.” It seemed like an easy piece of advice, but he had seen veteran teachers of twenty years struggle because they failed to be authentic in the classroom. “Its harder than you think, especially in our jobs. The version of you who teaches 6th grade speaks and acts very differently from the person who teaches kindergarten. You’ll find it though.”
She looked at him with an honest nod to her head. “Thanks.”
He glanced down at his watch, they still had fifteen more minutes before they could leave. Maybe the meeting will be cut short, but he doubted it. “All the 6th graders will hate you.”
She stifled a laugh. “I’m serious. They’re going to hate you this year, because they’ve had another art teacher who they got attached to for the first six years of school, and now it’s you. and all you can do is try not let it get out of control.”
“We’ll that’s umm….. a practical piece of advice.” She blushed, pulling at her cardigan. She had to be hot, even he was hot and he was wearing linen and cotton.
“Who do they have assigned as your mentor?”
“Uh, one of the third-grade teachers in my building.”
He rolled his eyes. “That’s not going to be very helpful. They don’t really get what its like to teach in our kinds of positions.”
“Okay, what kind of experience do you have in art?”
“Not in art, but I taught for ten years in the Los Angeles unified school district.”
Her head tilted in the same way a dog’s did. “Why’d you move?”
He answered quickly to keep from revealing the real answer. “Didn’t like the sun.” It seemed plausible enough with his pale complexion.
“Okay then enlighten me, what do I need to know?”
“First of all, those fifteen-minute breaks that you think you will have to go to the bathroom. Those are during kids recesses, and if you’ve done your job right they will want to hang out in your room, so schedule your bio breaks accordingly. You’re either going to love your school counselor or hate them.” She let out a laugh, but he was serious about that one. A bad school counselor who was always trying new methods for behavioral expectations and citizenship standards, or who didn’t connect with the students was a major headache for staff. “By the end of this year you’ll know which teachers have questionable classroom management, stay for at least three years at any school and you’ll know who the best and worst classroom teachers are. Perk of our job is that we see the same kids every year, management gets a whole lot easier the longer you’ve taught at the same school. Oh, and your best friends in the entire school need to be the janitors and secretaries.” He was serious about that last one, having someone who made sure your trash was taken out and your room was vacuumed at least one a week made a major difference.
“That’s very informative.” She replied. Though he could tell that she was overwhelmed by all the information he had dumped on her. It was a bad habit, if he managed to find someone who was half interested in something he was, he would talk their ear off.
“Just trying to pass on my hard-earned wisdom. I know our subject areas our different but its still a whole new crop of kids, and a new grade level every thirty-five minutes eight times a day, very few people in your building will be able to understand the flexibility needed for that.”
She gave him an honest smile. He could tell that she was excited to teach, she had that glow about her that only first-time teachers could have. Rey was looking around the room, trying not to feel guilty for them having gone off topic from the rest of the group, but like he had told her they didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the teachers.
“Hey, can I have your number?” Rey asked as she pulled out her smartphone.
He froze, the last time someone had asked him for his number have been six years ago. That relationship hadn’t ended on the best of terms.
Her bright face paled for a moment. Had she done something wrong, did he think she was hitting on him. “Just in case I have questions about teaching.” She added quickly. “It would help to have a mentor that at least understood the core of my day.”
His phone had been in his hand the entire time, he had been touching it as always fiddling with the pop socket on the back. “Yeah of course. You need a teacher.” He muttered as he handed the phone to her. They exchanged numbers quickly, passing a text, hers was filled with small emojis.
It was then when the leader decided to call the meeting over. He really needed to head back to his classroom. School didn’t start until next Wednesday; he had an entire week. But he was determined to get his room prepared by Friday so he could at least have a weekend to himself. Rey was smiling at him as she reached down and pulled out her bag. There was a question on her lips as they entered the hallway of the high school. It was the newest building in the district, of course they held the professional development there, but they were both unsure of where to go, so they hoped that the mass of other teachers they were following would lead them to the exit.
He was really hoping that she didn’t ask him out for drinks. It wasn’t that he didn’t mind getting to talk to her. He did, she seemed nice if a little naïve. He just didn’t want to go to a bar, and with teachers going out for drinks usually meant a bar. He always felt strange having to explain to others why he didn’t drink. Having two alcoholics as parents never seemed to be a good enough reason for other adults.
Without realizing it they were standing in the parking lot. “Well, um, good luck with your first year.” He said as he stuck out a hand for a very professional handshake. She took it and shook it thoroughly, even though it was a strange gesture.
“You too apparently.” She added coyly. He grinned at her with that one. She watched as his whole face lit up his eyes narrowing and becoming creased as he looked down at her, it was the first genuine smile she had seen from him. It made him appear handsome, and strangely more human.
**
Rey
It was hers. The room. This room. Her classroom. She had been waiting for this moment for a long time, yet it still didn’t feel quite real. The art room was in a portable, because of course it was. A building made in the late eighties was not suited to the size of a modern-day elementary school. The room that had been designated for art since before she was born had been a 4th grade classroom for nearly as long.
But it was hers. And being in a portable had a few advantages.
One she had air conditioning, proper air conditioning that she had a whole four-degree range of control over. The teachers in the main building didn’t have that. And the walls were made of a soft squishy fabric, her entire room was a bulletin board. She had set it up in a way that made sense, a sea of tables and chairs that she could easily navigate towards, supplies had been neatly organized in the bulk rolling cabinets she had for storage. At least the teachers in the building had closets in their room. She would quite literally kill for a closet.
She sat in her desk chair, swirling around like a kid deleting the many emails that kept beeping up on her computer that she didn’t apply to her.
She was a teacher. She still didn’t feel like one yet despite her time having student taught the year before. But she was. And she had worked hard to get here. Graduating high school had been a challenge. Making the choice to go to college, let alone have the means to was even harder. She worked her ass off to pay as much as she could, lived with as many roommates as possible. All the while a little voice in her head told her that many, she should have focused on a more practical branch of education rather than art. There would always been the need for hundreds of kindergarten teachers every year, but numbers wise positions weren’t in her favor.
Yet she had managed to get one, the teacher crisis working in her favor. The need for teachers to have planning times also in her favor.
She still had debt, she still had too much rent for an apartment in a not great part of town, but she was a teacher now too. She felt joy radiate through her, she had managed to achieve a dream. Growing up she remembered her classmates, or the other kids in her foster homes, whenever they were asked what the wanted to be when they grew up they would say something unattainable, like being a famous YouTuber. Rey had always replied with being a teacher. How many kids grew up to be what they had claimed to be in their second-grade yearbook. She felt incredibly lucky.
There was a nock on her heavy metal door. “Coming.” She leapt from the spinning chair. The windows of her portable did not allow her to see who was approaching her classroom. She tried to push aside any anxiety, it wasn’t the principal, she had been by already. The custodians had a key. Maybe it was someone wanting something.
She looked through the peep hole in the door and saw the dark top of a head. “Rosie!” She cried opening the door and giving her friend an awkward hug.
Rose Tico had a carry tray of iced Starbucks coffee in one hand and a foldable step ladder in another. “You need help?” It was more a statement rather than a question as she entered the room.
She had meet Rose in college. Those Rose was two years ahead of her initially, it took Rey five years to finish her degree. She took fewer classes at a time in order to work more, Rose quickly became a good friend.
“Don’t you have a room to set up as well?”
Rose gave her a small little grin. “The perks of staying in the same room for three years, you don’t have to redo much.” She looked around the space, it was cheery. There were a few posters on the wall about art concepts, even a watercolor that Rey herself had done, a desert scene featuring a rundown and decaying collection of cars that almost seemed like metallic mountains in the distance.
Rose was handing her an iced coffee and setting down her stool. “You’re completely ready for Wednesday.” She asked in disbelief wondering how the other could be so calm about the start of the school year.
Rose shrugged. “As much as I can be. I’m sure my class list will change before then, but yeah, I am ready. What do you need help hanging?”
“Why do I need you to help hang things.” She was fully capable of handing things on the walls herself, if she stood on a chair, she could easily reach the low ceiling.
“It helps to have a second set of eyes make sure everything is straight.”
That seemed reasonable enough and she did have a collection of small artist images she wanted to hang along the wall. Most of her room would be a showcase for student art within the first few weeks, she had even sectioned off corners for the seven different grade levels, but a bit of art history couldn’t help.
Rose chatted away loudly as she helped her. Though their pace was slow, most of the time Rose spent cackling loudly or talking about her husband’s Armitage, though no one called him by his first name unless he was at work or with rose. He had some plans to work on the deck this summer, but he had painted it with the wrong type of paint. Rose’s husbands bad attempts at DIY meant they spent more chatting than working on her classroom, though that happened eventually.
They were listening to some punk music. Rose had picked out the station on Spotify. It was strange to be listening to curse laden music while on school grounds even though there were no students around. She assumed Rose had chosen out of small rebellion.
Her phone vibrated on the desk, a longer hum than the one for her emails. She sauntered over past the desk where Rose was reorganizing her crayons into a system that made sense for 5-year-olds. She picked it up, not knowing who to expect a text from.
And another piece of advice, don’t work on the weekends.- Ben
She frowned, she had already been hearing over the luncheon about all the teachers who planned to come in on Saturday and finish up their rooms and prep lessons. They talked about it almost proudly, as if they were great martyrs for some cause.
Really? She texted back wondering if her naivete could be understood through the electronic message.
While she waited for his reply she looked back at her emails. There was a few more that didn’t pertain to her but had been send under the curse of a schoolwide distribution list. The few replies she saw were quickly letting her know which staff members were fans of the reply all function.
Work-life balance kid. Take the three-day weekend. Labor Day was literally invented for people like us.
“Who’s that?” Rose asked as she looked up from crayon sorting. Rey had thought color coordinated would be the best, Rose insisted otherwise.
“Do you know Ben Solo? He works at your school?” She frowned for a moment. “He’s the new music teacher.”
Rose’s eyes brightened. “Yeah big, tall fellow. Can’t wait to see what it looks like when he teaches kindergarten. Seen him in passing, I’m sure I’ll get to know him as time goes on. Why?”
She held up her phone as if evidence. “He’s who was texting me, we met at new teacher mentor meeting.” Rose raised an eyebrow, he didn’t seem like a new teacher to her, but then again getting qualified to teach was strange in these times.
A bell rang out sharply. It was three fifteen, the time of dismissal. She looked at Rose and then thought of Ben’s text. It was Friday, the room was as ready as it would be, and while she hadn’t planned so much as imagined what her first few days of lessons would be, she figured it would mostly be rules and introductions anyways.
She raised her phone up and snapped a picture of her classroom, capturing most of the room so far. She sent it to Ben. Does this look ready?
I’m off the clock. There was a small pit in her stomach forming, she had thought that perhaps they could be friends. Just kidding, looks great better than mine. Now get out of there.
She smiled looking down at her phone, not caring that Rose could see. Have a good weekend.
You too.