Chapter Text
It’s Barbara Howard’s fourth year teaching at Abbott Elementary, and her fourth time attending the Pennsylvania Educational Conference for the Southeast Area.
The number of years under her belt didn’t matter so much as the feeling she had now - neither overwhelmed by the newness of her job nor jaded by too many years in the public school system. Four years at Abbott gave Barbara a special sort of optimistic confidence; she loved teaching, and after overcoming hurdle after hurdle the last few years, she was starting to feel prepared to take on anything.
PECSA weekend, however, was its own sort of challenge.
When Barbara arrived at the conference, she tried not to notice how her fellow Abbott teachers milled about in pairs and small groups, conversing excitedly about the day’s lectures.
She swallowed the lump in her throat and slipped past them, head held high.
It was fine.
She was fine.
It wasn’t any different than how things were when she was at school, anyways.
Barbara wasn’t against the concept of befriending her coworkers; it had just never really happened. The year Barbara started at Abbott, she was the only new teacher to join the staff. Her fellow educators weren’t unfriendly, per say, but they had all established their own groups already. Like high school cliques, and Barbara was the odd one out.
So, Barbara was used to being alone at school. Used to polite but minimal interactions with her coworkers. Used to quiet, contemplative morning coffees and silent solo lunches in the teacher’s lounge. It was fine. She was an independent woman, and she could be alone without being lonely. She had Gerald, and now little Taylor, waiting for her at home.
But there was something about the specific loneliness of PECSA that struck her differently, sticking uncomfortably in her ribs. Was it the new environment? The emphasis on networking? The way everyone around her seemed so overwhelmingly, frustratingly, embarrassingly at ease with one another?
Barbara took a deep breath and ducked into a nearby restroom to compose herself, sending up a quick prayer she’d find what she needed inside - a moment of solitude.
Instead, as she pushed open the door and rounded the corner toward the sinks, she heard a voice.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why can’t I ever just -”
By some twist of fate, the voice belonged to someone Barbara recognized - another Abbott teacher, Melissa something or other, she thought. She was new this year, teaching second grade.
When Barbara walked in, Melissa stopped talking to herself mid-sentence, quickly straightening up from where she had been bent over the sink, PECSA schedule clenched tightly in her hand.
“Oh, hi. Uh, sorry if you heard me gettin’ annoyed with the schedule here,” she said, words spilling out just a little too fast to sound entirely casual. “It’s printed all wonky, did you notice? Makes it hard for anybody to know what’s goin’ on.”
Barbara was pretty sure it wasn’t the paper the woman had been belittling a moment ago, but she had the good grace not to say so. Instead, she just smiled gently and made a sort of noise of agreement, stepping up to the sink and going through the motions of fixing her already perfect lipstick.
“You’re Barbara, right? I’ve seen you at Abbott.”
Barbara had seen her too, of course, though she wasn’t really sure what to make of the other woman just yet. Melissa had the sort of loud, in-your-face personality that set Barbara a little on edge, and she dressed in a manner Barbara didn’t entirely approve of. But she’d also noticed the other woman was one of the first to arrive and the last to leave school - like Barbara herself. And a few weeks ago she had overheard Melissa channeling that in-your-face personality to get the lunch staff to pack up extra take-home meals for one of her kids who wasn’t getting enough to eat at home.
So, while Barbara didn’t know the woman from Adam, she did have a certain level of respect for her.
“Mrs. Barbara Howard. Kindergarten,” she confirmed, extending her hand politely.
“Melissa Schemmenti, second grade,” the other woman offered, shaking Barbara’s hand firmly.
“Is this your first time at PECSA?” Barbara asked, and then winced internally at her own weak attempt at conversation. Of course it was - it was her first year teaching.
But Melissa picked up her awkward attempt at small talk immediately.
“Yeah. And you know, first times… they have a way of makin’ ya nervous.”
Barbara caught the innuendo in the words, but pretended she didn’t.
“Yes, and the schedule can be quite overwhelming. May I?”
Barbara indicated towards Melissa’s PECSA schedule, still clenched in her fist. After a moment’s hesitation, she handed it over.
Barbara sharply eyed the page, looking for evidence of any misprints. The text was small and cramped, but definitely not illegible. (To her, anyways. She was suddenly reminded of a lecture she attended at last year’s conference, about identifying learning disabilities in students...)
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Melissa cross her arms over her chest. Nervous. Defensive.
Ah.
It made her heart clench a little, but it also made her next decision easy.
“I swear, the print job gets worse and worse every year,” Barbara tsked, looking at Melissa’s schedule with obvious disdain. “The incompetence is staggering. Here, why don’t you switch with me?”
She set Melissa’s schedule down on the countertop and pulled her own modified version out of her purse, offering it to the other woman.
“Holy shit,” Melissa exclaimed, and then, seeing the look on Barbara’s face, “Sorry. But this is… wow.”
Barbara felt her face warm with the genuine - if not particularly articulate - praise. She looked down at her carefully crafted schedule, trying to see it from Melissa’s eyes. Lecture titles and times transcribed in Barbara’s perfect penmanship. Room numbers highlighted and marked with the corresponding color on the hotel map. Straight, confident lines dividing each section. Everything arranged in simple, chronological order.
Barbara didn’t want to come off as immodest, but it was objectively speaking much nicer to look at than the standard PECSA printout. And hopefully, easier to read for someone like Melissa.
Melissa finally dragged her eyes away from Barbara’s schedule, and made to pass it back to her.
“That’s - it’s really nice of you to offer, Barbara, but you clearly put a lot of work into this and I wouldn’t feel right, snatching it away from you,” Melissa said regretfully.
“Well, why don’t we share it then?” Barbara pivoted, her mouth forming the question before she had really considered what it would mean.
“...Share it?”
“We could attend some lectures together,” Barbara offered. She felt jittery as she said it, like it was hard to look Melissa in the eyes. (First times have a way of making you nervous, indeed.)
“If you don’t have other plans,” she rushed to add, leaving off the implied with someone else.
“No, I - I don’t. Have other plans, I mean,” Melissa said, sounding surprised by the offer. (And fair enough - Barbara had surprised herself by asking.) “But are you sure you’re okay with me tagging along? It’s just… you seem like kind of a solo act at school and all…”
She trailed off and Barbara felt her stomach flip-flop - a rush of warmth and excitement that Melissa paid attention to her at Abbott, followed by a twisting mortification that the woman had noticed she was alone .
Barbara cleared her throat.
“I’m not in the business of doing things I don’t want to do, Ms. Schemmenti. And I suspect you’re much the same.”
“You got that right, Mrs. Howard,” Melissa said, and for the first time this morning a wide grin lit up her face. “You really don’t mind?”
“Not at all,” Barbara replied, and a corresponding smile stretched across her own face.
“Alright,” Melissa said, crumpling up her PECSA schedule and tossing it in the trash. “What’s first on our agenda today?”
The pair left the bathroom together as Barbara began giving Melissa a rundown of the day’s lectures. They ended up spending the whole conference together (minus the afterparty, which Barbara declined to attend) and it was, without a doubt, the best time Barbara had in her last four years attending PECSA.
Then, the following Monday afternoon, Melissa Schemmenti joined her for lunch in the teacher’s lounge. Just slid into the empty seat next to Barbara like she belonged there, offering to share some kind of homemade pasta dish like it was normal for them. And after she did it enough times, it was.
So even though this conference was technically Barbara’s fourth PECSA weekend, she started thinking of it as her first. Somehow, the times before Melissa just didn’t seem to count.