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“And that’s what you can expect from Abbott’s upcoming Eighth Grade Graduation Dance,” Clarence spoke into the desktop microphone in front of him. “Hope to see you there, and we’ll send Abbott off in style.”
“This has been This Abbott Life. Signing off, Clarence, Raheem, and Mr. C,” Jacob finished, adorning himself with the kids’ slightly insulting nickname as a treat. Gregory was a bit surprised, but even he had to admit at this point that the kids seemed to use it with affection.
“Nice job y’all,” Gregory said to Clarence and Raheem. It would likely be their last podcast episode of the school year, and then their two loyal club members would be off to high school. The prospect hit Gregory a bit harder than he thought it would, especially compared to how he felt joining Jacob’s Podcast Club at the beginning of the semester. But he had gotten to know and like Clarence and Raheem, and he’d definitely miss their candor and wit. The banter was something he didn’t get a lot of during the day, teaching first graders.
“Producer Mr. Eddie, can I ask you a question?” Clarence asked, playing with his pencil. Gregory got the sense that Clarence wasn’t quite ready to leave the room. He wasn’t sure he was ready either.
“Shoot,” Gregory said.
“I’d be happy to weigh in as well,” Jacob said eagerly.
“If you say so, Mr. C,” Clarence threw Jacob a bone, but continued to mainly address Gregory. “You, uh…you got any tips for asking someone to the school dance?” Clarence was usually filled with so much confident 14-year-old swagger, it was a bit off-putting to see his demeanor suddenly turn shy.
“Oh,” Gregory started. He had not expected the conversation to go this way, but he was admittedly flattered that the boy felt he could turn to him for such a vulnerable teenage question. “Well sure, yeah. So first, you gotta be polite. Be direct too, don’t beat around the bush. And it definitely helps to throw in a compliment.”
“Polite, direct, throw in a compliment,” Raheem repeated, taking notes in his notebook.
“Yeah, and I know it feels scary, but it’s really not a big deal. Go in with confidence. You got this.”
“Excellent advice,” Jacob chimed in. “I’d say the same thing, if I had ever asked someone to a school dance. But you know, someone’s gotta be the one who gets asked,” Jacob chuckled to himself, looking like he had a lot more story to tell. No one asked him to elaborate.
“Would you say the same advice goes for asking someone out?” Clarence asked Gregory.
“For sure,” Gregory said.
“So if it’s no big deal, why haven’t you asked out Ms. Teagues?” Clarence asked slyly. Gregory stared at him. Clarence was definitely smirking. Damn these kids. They had a promising career in investigative journalism.
“Uh, what?” Gregory mustered. He didn’t really think that playing dumb would work with this duo, who had already confronted him and Janine once about their dancing at the club, but he really couldn’t think of another response at the moment.
“You’re down bad for Ms. Teagues, Mr. Eddie,” Raheem said gleefully. “We don’t even have class on the first floor and it’s obvious. Every school function and every assembly and every time we pass y’all in the halls, we can see you simping after her. Why don’t you just ask her out?”
“You gonna control your students?” Gregory appealed to Jacob, but for once, Jacob had leaned back in his seat and looked very happy to let the conversation continue without his input.
“I think they have compelling evidence,” was all Jacob said.
“Look,” Gregory said, focusing back on the two teens. “I know I said asking someone to the dance, or asking someone out, isn’t a big deal. But in this case…there’s just a lot of complicated aspects that come with an adult relationship.”
“Like what?” Raheem asked. He looked ready to take notes again.
Like the fact that we got drunk and kissed and we both said it meant nothing , thought Gregory. Like the fact that she only broke up with her boyfriend a few weeks ago, and her boyfriend was also my best friend, and I may have ruined that friendship. Like the fact that we work literally yards away from each other every day, and if it doesn’t work out, it’ll be way worse than the Barbara-Taylor fallout.
He couldn’t explain all of this to the 14-year-olds sitting in front of him. He hadn’t even found it in him to explain it to anyone his own age.
“Mr. Eddie,” Clarence interrupted Gregory’s reverie, “if there’s anything I’ve learned in my time at Abbott, it’s that time moves fast. It feels like yesterday I was in Mrs. Howard’s kindergarten class. And now it’s eight years later, and I’m moving on from this place. So if you’re into Ms. Teagues like we know you are, don’t wait.”
“Yeah, we’ll back you up Mr. Eddie,” Raheem threw in his support. “Polite, direct, compliment,” he summarized, reading off his notes. “And remember, it’s no big deal.” Raheem finished with a wink, and both boys grabbed their backpacks and departed.
Gregory was left rather astonished. Had they planned that? Maybe he should feel fortunate to teach first graders, whom to his knowledge, had not consciously schemed against him yet.
Nevertheless, he was not going to let the taunts of some teenagers get in his head. He had his reasons for remaining where he stood with Janine, even if he always seemed to forget those reasons in her presence.
*****
Gregory managed to mostly forget about Clarence and Raheem’s confrontation until the following week, when Jacob released the final episode of the podcast to Abbott’s website. The goal in releasing the podcast to the website was to get the Abbott community - students, parents, and teachers - listening to the episodes without exposing the kids on a public streaming platform. However, the consequence of this method was that their podcast was largely unlistened to. It averaged two listens per week, which was pretty remarkable, considering that their club consisted of four people if you counted both the kids and teachers. But Jacob was always adamant that the value was in the work that went into creating the episodes, and not the number of listens they received.
Thus, when Jacob found Gregory in the hallway and exclaimed, “Gregory! We have 50 listens since yesterday!”, Gregory was dumbfounded.
“50 listens on This Abbott Life ?” Gregory asked, wanting to make sure Jacob wasn’t talking about some NPR podcast that he thought they both listened to.
“Yes!” Jacob confirmed excitedly. He showed Gregory his phone, open to the podcast page of school’s website. The counter of unique listens was indeed up to 52. Gregory scrolled to look at some of the other episodes. They were all still at 2 or 3 listens, or in one generous case, 7 listens.
“What happened, did the kids go around promoting this one or something?” Gregory asked, still holding onto Jacob’s phone and staring at it as if it would speak the answer aloud.
“Not that I know of. Maybe the breakdown of 8th grade graduation events is really vibing with the Abbott community. I really thought Clarence and Raheem hit their stride with this one.”
“Jacob, why is this episode 42 minutes? Don’t we usually cap it at 30?” Gregory asked. In continuing to stare at the webpage, he had noticed this discrepancy in the apparently popular episode.
“Ah,” Jacob said, shifting his footing a bit. “Well, I didn’t want to cut the boys off. Like I said, they were on a roll with this one.”
“But I didn’t think they talked for much more than half an hour,” Gregory mused, racking his brain to try and remember their recording session the previous week.
“Time flies when you’re having fun,” Jacob dismissed him, taking his phone back. “Well, enjoy the success - don’t let it get to your head!” And he practically skipped up the stairs to his classroom.
Gregory was not worried about letting 50 views “get to his head.” Really, he was not all that interested in the slight bump in listenership, and he was fairly certain he’d never think about this podcast episode again.
But oh, was he wrong.
Lunch in the teachers’ lounge that day was quieter than usual. At first, Gregory reveled in it. He sometimes enjoyed talking to his colleagues at lunch - especially if it was Janine, and she was speaking just to him - but if Janine wasn’t there, like she wasn’t today, he embraced the rare quiet away from his class. But as Gregory sat down with his boiled chicken sandwich and looked around the room, he realized something odd: everyone in the room was wearing headphones.
Suddenly, the silence felt not like an absence of noise, but a noise that everyone could hear but him.
He was just being irrational though, right? People listen to their own music in the teachers’ lounge all the time to help them concentrate on grading or lesson plans. But no, that was part of the problem, Gregory realized as he did another scan around the room. No one was doing work with their headphones on. Everyone was either eating their lunch or just sitting there, eyes wide, attentive to whatever was being pumped into their ears. Without entirely knowing why, Gregory felt the air turn heavy. It was hard to breathe it in.
Gregory turned his attention to Melissa, who was sitting at her usual spot with Barbara at the table next to him. Both women had their headphones on - unusual for them to not be talking, and definitely unusual for Barbara to choose technology over a conversation with her work wife. Melissa had her laptop open, and Gregory realized with a slow horror that the pit of his stomach already knew, that the webpage she had up was the This Abbott Life page, and the most recent episode was playing.
“Melissa?” Gregory tapped Melissa on the shoulder. She removed her headphones, clearly annoyed. Normally Gregory would not make any move that would potentially provoke Melissa, who still scared him a little, but this was an urgent situation.
“What?” Melissa asked aggressively.
“Uh, are you listening to Jacob’s podcast?”
“Yeah, isn’t it your podcast too?” Melissa asked.
“I mean, it’s really the kids’...but you’ve never listened before, have you?”
“Nope. I heard there was some interesting stuff this episode,” Melissa smirked, and her smirk was possibly more frightening to Gregory than her agitation.
“I just finished,” Barbara said, removing her headphones. “That was some good advice, Gregory. I hope you take it. I’m rooting for you two.”
“No spoilers!” Melissa cried, jamming her headphones back in.
Gregory did not need to ask any more questions. As he glanced around the teachers’ lounge another time, he realized that more and more people were beginning to look up at him and give him the same knowing smirk that Melissa had just delivered. Gregory made a beeline to exit the teachers’ lounge, leaving his lunch behind and pulling out his own phone and headphones in the process. He navigated to the This Abbott Life page, pressed play, and fast-forwarded to the last 10 minutes.
“You’re down bad for Ms. Teagues, Mr. Eddie, ” came Raheem’s voice in the podcast.
No. Oh no. No. Gregory skipped ahead a bit in the podcast as he raced down the hallway.
“So if you’re into Ms. Teagues like we know you are, don’t wait, ” said Clarence’s voice. Gregory ripped the headphones out of his ears and took another look at the listens on the episode: 91. It had nearly doubled since this morning.
“Jacob!” Gregory half-yelled, half-whispered as he approached the man’s classroom. It looked like his kids were in the midst of changing periods, but even if they weren’t, Gregory may have been angry enough to have pulled Jacob out of his class in the middle of teaching.
“Oh hey Gregory, come to hang?” Jacob asked pleasantly, drastically misreading Gregory’s tone.
“No, I came to ask you why my private conversation with Clarence and Raheem is in the latest episode of the podcast!” Gregory pressed, his voice urgent but still hushed. Anyone who didn’t know about this yet didn’t need to. “I didn’t even know you were still recording when we were talking about this stuff, I thought you had stopped! Doesn’t this go against your stance on surveillance or something?”
“Actually, you were the one who was supposed to stop the recording…” Jacob started, but immediately changed track under Gregory’s glare. “No man, I’m sorry, I totally see how you feel violated. I was just as surprised as you were when I heard that this convo was captured at the end of the recording. And I don’t know, I thought it was such a cool, genuine talk between teacher and students, and I wanted to preserve that. Usually no one listens to these things. I really didn’t think so many people would find the teacher-student bonding just as compelling.”
“People find it compelling because it’s embarrassing to me,” Gregory corrected him. “I’m being schooled by some teenagers, and 91 people, presumably all in this school, have listened to it.”
“91, really?” Jacob let excitement overtake his apologetic expression for a moment, but then snapped his face back into an appropriate frown. “Doesn’t matter. I can get it taken down from the website. It just may take a day or two because Abbott has one IT guy, and I think he has like four other jobs, so it takes him a while to get to requests.”
Gregory sighed, bringing his face to his hand. He needed to come to terms with what was really bothering him about the recorded conversation.
“Do you know, uh…has Janine listened to it?” Gregory asked, trying to be casual. He knew Jacob was all but certain about his feelings for Janine, just as apparently everyone else was, but admitting it to him felt like giving Jacob a powerful card that he was not sure he wanted him to have.
“Doubtful, she had a busy day today, prepping her class’s end-of-year projects.”
“Yeah, she wasn’t at lunch…” Gregory said thoughtfully. Maybe, miraculously, Janine’s busy schedule would persist until the IT guy got the episode removed from the website, and she’d never hear it.
“But I gotta say, word of this episode is spreading like wildfire,” Jacob seemed to read Gregory’s face and know what he was thinking. Gregory hated that he was getting better at that. “I definitely heard my class gossiping about it. Not sure how long that talk will take to reach the second graders.”
Gregory sighed again, partly because a class of eighth graders were gossiping about his love life, and partly because he knew the truth in his gut - that even if this sort of gossip didn’t spread to the primary students, that it had already spread to the teachers, and there was no way that Janine wouldn’t find out about it if Melissa and Barbara already knew.
“You can keep the episode up,” Gregory said, coming to a decision. “I’m gonna miss Clarence and Raheem, and it’ll be nice to remember them by.” He turned to go back down to the first floor.
“Right on, bro!” Jacob called after him. “Freedom of press!” Gregory shook his head, ridding his thoughts of Jacob and refocusing them on Janine, where he usually liked his thoughts to be focused. He hadn’t woken up thinking today would be the day, but this school was forcing his hand. It was time.
*****
When the last of his first graders had been picked up at the end of the day, Gregory took a deep breath and knocked rhythmically on the wall of his classroom that he shared with Janine. He often thought about that - how there was just a wall separating them all day long. On days where he was not feeling energized enough to put on a smile for his kids, or patient enough to deal with their antics, he would look at the wall and imagine Janine on the other side, teaching her students with an enthusiastic smile and probably a lot of gold-star stickers. It always got him through the day.
He took the couple of steps over to Janine’s open door, where she was standing, waiting for him with a sweet smile.
“Hey,” she said, her smile growing. Gregory’s heart did a flip. His mind had circled for months about whether Janine had feelings for him too. Some days he was sure any evidence of reciprocated feelings were all in head - she was bubbly and smiley to most people, after all, not just him. But times like this, when her smile grew at his mere presence, his heart was jumping for joy that she must feel the same way, even as his brain told his heart to calm down.
“Hey,” Gregory returned. “You, uh, got a few minutes? I wanted to talk to you about something.” He could feel his palms getting sweaty. It’s not a big deal, he reminded himself.
That was bullshit advice. It definitely felt like a big deal.
“Sure, yeah,” Janine said, taking off her adorable round reading glasses as they both stepped into her classroom. “It’s good to see you. It’s been such a crazy day with the kids’ story book projects, I don’t think I’ve even talked to another adult today.” This was all encouraging. Gregory told himself to press forward. What had he told Clarence again? He should have listened to the full podcast episode, like everyone else. No wait, he knew it: be polite, be direct, throw in a compliment.
Okay, be polite.
“Well, thanks for your time.” Why did he sound like someone calling about a political candidate? “I mean, thanks for not leaving as soon as the last bell rang. That’s what I’d want to do after a busy day. Or maybe just take a nap in the teachers’ lounge.” Gregory cursed himself for rambling, but Janine giggled.
“You know, I have done that before. The lumps in the couch weren’t the worst, but I did have some wild dreams during that nap. I think there’s something cursed in that fabric.”
“Probably just years of never being washed,” Gregory commented, and Janine laughed again. Okay, move on before you get awkward again, Gregory thought to himself. What was next? Be direct.
“I’ve asked Mr. Johnson before if he’s -”
“Janine, will you go on a date with me?” Gregory interrupted Janine mid-sentence. Shoot. Too direct.
Janine looked completely stunned. Her mouth was still open from her unfinished sentence, and her eyes were wide. Gregory had temporarily stunned himself as well, so that there were a few moments of pure silence while they stared at each other in shock. But he shook himself out of it first. Be direct.
“Janine, I’ve liked you for a…a really long time. Ever since my first day at Abbott, you’ve been just...this…light in my life, and I haven’t been the same.” He started off slow, but the words were pouring out of him now. A year and a half’s worth of words that he had bottled up. “If I’m being honest, I tried to get over you a bunch of times -” he thought of his resolve to let go of his feelings for Janine when he first learned about Tariq, when he started dating Taylor, and then Amber, and when she started dating Mo “- but it’s never worked. My heart doesn’t care what my brain thinks. And now my brain and my heart and my gut are all on the same page, and they all want to be with you. I don’t know how I’ll get through this summer without seeing you all the time like I do at Abbott.”
Gregory paused to catch his breath. Janine was still paralyzed in stunned silence, and Gregory had no idea if this was a good sign or a bad sign, so he figured he might as well press on. What was the last thing? Throw in a compliment. He was pretty sure he had done that already, but at this point it was all out there, so why the hell not keep going.
“I just think you’re beautiful, and smart, and funny, and you care so much about your students and this school, and every day I see you, you make my day, so I’d love it if you would make my evening too.” What? Wrap it up Gregory. “And go on a date with me,” he finished, resolving himself not to open his mouth again until Janine said something in return.
There were a few more moments of substantial silence as Janine slowly closed her mouth.
“I - uh - wow,” Janine stuttered. “I - I think I was quiet for too long and forgot how to speak.” They both laughed, genuine belly laughs, and the tension deflated from the room like a freed balloon. Janine looked up at Gregory as she finished laughing, her hands fidgeting and her smile wide. “I’d love to go on a date with you, Gregory.”
Gregory’s heart swelled so large he wasn’t sure his chest would be able to contain it. He wanted so badly to lean down and kiss her right there, but he reminded himself that it wasn’t long after the afternoon bell, and many nosy podcast listeners were probably passing by.
“Great,” he said, feeling like his smile was stretched all the way across his face.
“Great,” Janine repeated, similarly beaming. Gregory could count all of her beautiful teeth.
“How about Friday?”
“Friday sounds amazing.” There were a few moments where they just looked into each others’ eyes and continued smiling, a much more pleasant silence than earlier. For once, Gregory didn’t care if the documentary cameras caught him looking lovingly at Janine. He could get used to this.
“I guess I should finish lesson planning for tomorrow…” Janine finally said.
“Right, right, yeah.” Gregory turned to go back to his classroom, but turned back with another thought. “Hey Janine?”
“Yeah?”
“Be honest with me - was I a complete mess just now?” Gregory asked. Janine laughed, looking at the floor and then fondly back up at him.
“I thought it was perfect.” Gregory’s heart swelled again. “It was perfect to me, anyways. But maybe don’t go giving seminars on how to ask people out,” she teased.
“In that case, I owe an apology to some eighth graders. And if anyone tells you to listen to this week’s episode of This Abbott Life, you need to give them a hard ‘no’.”
Janine laughed again. It was probably Gregory’s favorite sound. And This Abbott Life just may be his favorite podcast.