Chapter 63

When he finished grading the papers, he had a mixed reaction.  The grammar was good. Their knowledge of the play was excellent. Their essay organization was fine. Those were the good points. Their conclusions were lousy. Most of them were using what Ron called summary conclusions, where they just restated their major ideas. In some cases they used the topic sentences from their previous paragraphs. He knew it was the system that Sister Anna Lourdes taught them. It was a system and Ron could not quibble that they needed a system, but now it was time to move beyond that and use the conclusions to actually say something. He thought about how he was going to explain this, and jotted down some quick notes. That was really a pretty easy fix. The ones who understood it would get it, the ones that did not would still have well organized essays. The second problem was harder. A lot of their ideas were his ideas parroted back. What were they going to do when they no longer had his ideas with which to work? He wanted to share his ideas with them, but he didn’t want those ideas to become their thoughts. His nagging voice chided, if you didn’t make them sound like the gospel of truth according to Ron Tuck maybe they would have their own ideas.

It was true and Ron didn’t like it. He looked over his test questions. He had started with five quotes for which they had to supply speaker, literary devices, and an explanation of content. That was fine. He needed that to reward the girls who read the play carefully. He had given them an essay that also began with a quote. He read over his words, “Using the quote ‘We are the stuff that dreams are made on,’ fully explore the themes of the play, using this quote as a basis for exploration.”

His nagging voice said that it was a clumsy sentence. Ron pictured himself walking into the wall that he sometimes viewed language as being. Too many of the girls had just fed him back his ideas. What he wanted was their ideas. Then a thought struck him. He wrote, “Using what you know of Hermia, Helen, Lysander and Demetrius, predict what their lives will be like in five years. Your answer must include references to the play that shows the basis of your predictions.” He liked it. He would have to give the next test in two parts. The first part would be the quotes, and then they could do the second part with open books. They would need more time. He thought again. He could create a two day test. He could create ten quotes for the first day and the essay would be the second day. He glanced at his syllabus to see what was coming up. It was The Merchant of Venice. That would be perfect.

He lay back on his bed thinking that he was ready for tomorrow. Ron laughed at himself when he thought again and realized that it was Friday night. Some life you’ve got, said the nagging voice.

He looked at the clock again. It was almost 10pm, but it wasn’t too late for The French Maid. Ron smiled and got himself dressed and drove down the parkway. When he got to the club, he found that it was locked shut. He was startled and wondered what had happened. He did know of another place up in Paterson. Quimpy had told him about it when he first mentioned that he was going to go-go bars. Quimpy had said, “If you want to see some really wild stuff, try a juice bar.”

The Nest was tucked away on a side street in South Paterson. It was run by Squirrely, a smallish man with a penchant for repeatedly wincing his glasses back up against her eyes. It was that expression and his quick sudden movements that earned him his name.

When he arrived, he was met at the door and a man sitting behind a glass partition. Ron stood in the small vestibule and reached for his money.

“You a member?” asked Squirrely.

“Not yet,” said Ron.

“Twenty buys you six months membership and two glasses of soda.”

Ron slid the money under the Plexiglas partition and the guy said, “I’ll need to see some ID.”

For a moment Ron panicked. He had always come and gone anonymously. The man saw the hesitation on his face. “We don’t put up with no shit here, kid and if we know who you are you are less likely to cause trouble. We are a private club.”

Ron nodded. It made sense. He reached for his driver’s license, careful to not show his school ID. He slipped the license under the partition.

Squirrely took it, looked up at Ron, and then wrote his name onto the list. Ron was feeling queasy. What was going to happen to the list? It was his name! He waited to see if Squirrely took any of his other information, but the guy slid his license back out under the partition, took his $20 and buzzed him through the locked door.

The bar looked like one that served alcohol except that the barmaid was topless. She wore only a G-string and a small beret on her dark hair. Ron handed her his ticket and she brought him a glass of coke that was mostly ice. She stood in front of him waiting. He looked at her and then down at the ticket. He reached into his pocket and brought out the rest of his money. She squeezed her tits together and leaned over as he slid the dollar between them, go-go style.

Ron settled back with his soda and looked at the place. It was dark, they were all dark. The sound system was not as sophisticated as the one at The French Maid and there was an order of perspiration. The girl who was standing on the stage wore nothing. She was a little plump and had dark roots showing at the base of her blonde hair. She did not smile when she met his eyes. Ron felt instantly uncomfortable.

The music was nondescript. There were six other guys in the place. None of them seemed to be looking at the girl. Her set ended and she walked off and disappeared. She was replaced by a thin Latino girl with jet black hair and a resemblance to at least ten of his students. Ron swallowed hard. This was not what he had expected. This girl was young. She looked almost familiar. This isn’t what he wanted at all. Suppose he ever walked into a place like this, and it was one of his former students? What would he do? Money or not, he had to get out of there. He slid the money back into his pocket and literally bolted out of the door. Heads turned at his quick exit. Squirrely laughed quietly.

Ron was shaking by the time that he got to his car. He felt itchy. He wanted a shower. He jumped in quickly and drove him without turning on the radio, trying not to think.

 

Chapter 62

That night Ron got home after his run and made a dish of spinach pasta. Sitting at his writing table, he looked over the end of the play as he ate. He wondered exactly how far he could take them, how much he could push them so that they would realize their potential. He wanted them to stretch without breaking, and he knew that they would try to stretch until they broke in order to please him. The weight of the responsibility caused his shoulders to slump.  Soon it would be time for them to start applying to colleges, and he wanted them to shoot for the stars.

A nagging voice belittled his desire. How would he know what they needed for a good school? Hadn’t he worked himself to illness at the one really good school that he attended? Didn’t he have to drop out of Drew University and take a year off before he finished up at William Paterson? For some of them, William Paterson would be like shooting for the stars, but he wanted better for them. They were going to be better prepared than he had been. Lashly had come from good colleges and Lashly had trained him. Maybe that was enough. They could go further than he had gone because they would start with a better foundation than he had. He needed to push the doubts from his mind. Suppose some of them did fail to make it and some of them did make it? Wouldn’t that be good enough? Sure, for the girls that succeeded it would be enough for them, and he could tell himself that the others would do ok at state schools or at junior colleges. Hadn’t he done ok at a junior college?

He saw their faces in his mind. Elena was a star. She was going further than he could imagine. So was Donna. He had nothing to worry about there. Veronica had a great work ethic and was bright. No need to worry about her. Elizabeth Holland was another story. She needed to make it, or she would break like a porcelain doll that was dropped from a shelf. She might be able to be pasted back together but the tell-tale signs of the breakage would always be there. Should he push her or go easy? Didn’t he owe it to her to push her if she wanted to be pushed? Wasn’t it really her choice? Wasn’t it any of their choices?

There was the voice again. This time it was saying that it was easy for him to say that because it relieved him of any of the responsibility of his influence on them. Samantha Satorini was pretty enough and smart enough so that she had a great chance to be a success, but was it his place to factor her looks into it?

Ron realized that he had stopped eating. The pasta was cold. He stared out his front windows into the September evening. One by one he saw their faces again and the evaluation continued. What did they want? Sure they wanted him to be proud of them, but that wasn’t what they wanted from their lives.

At first he didn’t hear the knock on his door. When it came again, it was louder, less timid. Ron got up and walked through the railroad rooms expecting to find a plate of leftovers at his feet, but opened the door to see Zoe standing there and smiling for him.

Ron stepped back to let her in. “Zoe, I’m surprised to see you. I thought that you’d be at school.”

“Hi Ron,” she said quietly. ‘No, I don’t leave for another ten days.”

He moved to kiss her and at first she stiffened and then she kissed him as gently as he kissed her. They could both feel the stir of passion in back of the kiss.

“Ron, I want to take some of my things back.”

“What things?”

“The writing desk, the bookcase and Nightscape,” she said biting her lip.

Ron felt his face harden. “Zoe, you gave me those things. You said that you had no money and knew that I was paying for everything and that I could have those things instead.”

She sat down on the bed. “I know, but now I want them back.”

Ron said, “I had Nightscape framed. It’s the only piece that I have of yours. You wouldn’t let me keep anything else, even though I was the model for a lot of it.”

“I didn’t want you to have anything else.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s my art, not yours.”

“I know that it’s yours.”

“Then give it to me.”

“It’s a lithograph. I had it framed. You have other copies.”

“I don’t want anyone to have my things.”

Ron felt himself getting angry. For the time that they had lived together he had basically supported her. Her father, who had a lot more than Ron, hadn’t helped at all. But if she wanted it, and it made a difference to her, then maybe he should just give it to her. “I really love the piece, Zoe. Can’t I just have it?”

“Can I stay here with you?”

“Why do you want to do that?”

“I miss sleeping with you. Do you have a girlfriend?

“No.”

“Are you seeing Robin?”

“No.”

“Do you want to sleep with me?”

“Yes. You know that I do.”

“Will you agree to give me what I want?”

Ron stared hard at her. Was she really saying what he thought that she was saying? She started to meet his gaze and then turned away.

“You can do anything that you want to do to me for a week, if you give me my things.”

“Zoe, why are you doing this? I really cared for you.”

“You didn’t love me. You always loved Robin, or the memory of Robin.”

“That’s not true. When I was with you, I was with you, not her.”

“Was it where you wanted to be, Ron? Was I ever the one that you wanted to be with?”

“Yes.”

She looked at him with the flare of her own anger now. “You’re not telling the truth. If I was the one that you wanted, you would have never let me go. You would have come up there after me, the way that you went to Minnesota after her.”

Ron didn’t say anything. He felt dumbstruck. All this time, he had told himself that it was her craziness that drove them apart. Now she was saying something very different.

“When I called you and didn’t say anything,” she continued, “all I wanted to hear was you saying that you loved me. You never said it once.”

“You think that I never loved you?” said Ron.

“No, I know that you never loved me. I even slept with Quimpy to make you jealous. Quimpy of all people! Did you think that I wanted him?”

“I didn’t know what to think.”

“You were angrier at his betrayal than you were at mine, because it was him that you loved.”

Ron was silent.  Zoe’s chin quivered slightly. They sat on the bed staring at each other. Time passed.

Ron said, “Do you want something to drink?”

“What have you got?”

“There’s soda and some old bottles of beer that someone left when they came here.”

“I’ll take a beer,’ she said.

Ron started to get up and go to get it. She stopped him. “No, let me.” She slipped out of her white cut offs and walked into the kitchen in her panties and her top. She came back carrying two of them and handed one to Ron. He took it and set it down without drinking.

“You’re comfortable here. I can feel it. How’s the teaching going?”

“It’s great,” said Ron.

“You’re still at the same school?”

“Yes.”

“And all the girls still think you’re great?”

Ron blushed. “We get along well.”

She took a long swallow on the beer and wiped her mouth with her arm. “If I got up and left, you wouldn’t try to stop me, would you?”

Ron literally hung his head. “Probably not.”

Then she put her shorts back on and left as silently and as magically as she had arrived, and he knew that he would never see her again.

 

Chapter 61

 

“Shakespeare is mostly a mystery. Some people think that he is a miracle. I mean here is Willy, this guy with a basic education, who winds up being able to crawl inside the minds of Kings, of Generals, of young women, of peasants. He seemed to have the ability to think like anyone that he chose to understand and explore. On top of that, he had a huge vocabulary. Additionally, he wrote great poetry. As luck would have it, he did all of this in English and we get to study him.”

Ron raised his eyebrows and looked at the class. Again he felt a wave of sheer joy at having the chance to work with them. “We’re going to begin with a light hearted play that can also be a little confusing.  It is called Midsummer’s Night’s Dream. So our first question.” He turned to the board and wrote, “What causes people to fall in love?”

He turned back to look at them. “Come on ladies, I have 20 beautiful and intelligent young women sitting in front of me. What causes you to fall in love?”

Donna Seaford smiled with her thought and then raised her hand. “I’m pretty sure that I have never been in love, Mr. Tuck. What about you? What causes you to fall in love?”

The girls giggled. Ron felt himself flush. He thought well Donna isn’t wasting any time either. Ron thought about how to answer. He wanted to be very honest. “I think it starts with attraction and I think attraction is initially physical. Then there is compatibility. But what I think causes me to fall in love is when my imagination is touched.”

Some of the girls grinned and nodded. Others looked down. “OK, now you.”

Elena raised her hand. “I’m with Donna. I don’t think that I have ever been in love either and I’m not sure that I want to be in love. From what I’ve seen it makes people stupid.”

More Laughter. Ron grinned.

Samantha Santorini raised her hand. “I don’t know what causes it, but I know how it feels. It feels as if the world is right there in that other person, and no one else or nothing else matters. It makes you feel like your life is special. It makes you feel like no one else has ever understood you before.”

Ron nodded thoughtfully. “Those are great descriptions. But we still haven’t gotten to the question. What causes it? Is it magic?”

“I think it’s a chemical reaction,” said Judith Wunderlan. “I think that we have chemicals in our bodies that respond to certain people.”

“There is a school of thought that agrees with you Judith,” said Ron.

“This is going to sound silly,” said Veronica Petrelli, “but I think that it’s the people in heaven who look out for us and steer us towards certain people.”

“Why do you think that?”

“It’s what my grand-mother told me. She said that we fall in love because people in heaven want us to be happy, and that love gives us the chance to be really happy.”

Some of the girls smiled at Veronica and others looked down. Ron watched them trying to gauge where he would go next. “That would be kind of magical wouldn’t it?”

People nodded.

“So what happens when people fall out of love?” said Donna. “Do the chemicals wear off, or are the people in heaven fickle?”

“Another good question,” said Ron. “Let’s see what Shakespeare had to say about it.”

He moved to the tape player and began the play. He told them that they should have notebooks out and write down any questions that came to them during the scene and that he would try to get to everyone’s questions at the end of each scene. He also told them to write down the parts that confused them and that they would look at those sections together. The girls followed along in their books as the tape played. Ron read the play again along with the tape and his students.

At the end of the first scene, he clicked off the tape. He looked at them for a long second. “Questions?”

“Why do parents act that way?” said Elizabeth Holland. “Why do they feel that it is necessary to decide who marries who?”

“In those times, daughters were considered the property of their fathers,” said Ron. “Marriage had economic consequences.”

Elena said, “Not just in those times, Mr. Tuck.” Some of the girls nodded sagely and Ron joined them.

“And, additionally we have the problem that Helena loves Demetrius but he does not love her but loves her friend Hermia. What does Helena say about that?”

Elena said, “Basically she is saying what does she have that I haven’t got?”

“Exactly,” said Ron. “Sort of what Sam was saying earlier. That it doesn’t matter what anyone else in the world thinks. In this case Helena was saying, who cares if I am pretty if he doesn’t think so?”

Tonight you are to finish reading at least the first act of the play. We will talk about it again tomorrow.” Ron finished just as the bell rang.

 

The next day Ron asked, “How did the reading go?” He was not surprised by the tentative silence that greeted his question. He thought about what he should do. “OK, there is confusion. Am I right?”

Heads bobbed. Veronica said, “I don’t think we’re ever going to be able to understand this stuff.” Ron gave her a disbelieving look. She caught the expression. “I mean it, Mr. Tuck. I read the first two acts last night and I was more confused when I finished than I was when I started. And I didn’t do my math, which is a big mistake that I’m gonna pay for.”

Ron nodded. “Ok, it’s important to do the homework for the rest of your classes. I agree. Save the reading until last. I trust that you will make a sincere effort to do it.”

Veronica smiled. “You don’t have to say that. That was my fault. I should know enough to do my homework, but you make him sound so interesting and important that I just wanted to get right to it, and I got carried away.”

“That happens to me too, Veronica,” said Ron. “It’s a lot easier to grade your papers than it is to grade some of my other classes. But you guys are also the most time consuming. So, I save what I love most till last, like dessert.”

Now they were grinning at him. He had told them again that he loved them and they basked in his smile.

“But I don’t believe this stuff is too hard for you. You got Romeo and Juliet. You got Macbeth. You’ll get this. Those two plays are really way harder than this one is.” Ron turned to the board. “We’ve got two different worlds going on at the same time. The worlds kind of mirror each other. The characters of the fairy world are ones that you really know.”

Donna said, “I’m pretty sure that I never met anybody named Puck, Mr. Tuck. Then she grinned. Puck and Tuck rhyme. Are you really Puck, Mr. Tuck?” She laughed as she emphasized the rhyme.

Ron grinned at her and gave her his dimples. “Sometimes I am, Donna. “Do I ever trick you?”

Donna smiled broadly. “I’m here, right?”

Ron laughed and said, “Yes, you are and some of you may think that I tricked you. Like the way that I tricked you into being the good writers that you are today.”

“You tortured us into that,” said Elena.

Ron was having trouble not laughing again, but it was time to be serious and to turn this into something else. “Ever lose your keys and then find them in the same spot that you looked at ten times before?”

“I do that all the time with my purse,” said Paula. Some of the other girls laughed and nodded.

“That’s Puck, playing with you. When you stub your toe and nothing is damaged but you wind up hopping around and limping for a few minutes, that’s Puck.”

Samantha raised her hand. “So if I say ‘Oh Puck!’ I won’t get into trouble? I can tell them that my English teacher said it was OK?”

Now the girls really were laughing. Ron rolled his eyes. “Just make sure that you emphasize the P, Samantha. But seriously, Puck is a trickster and he works for Oberon who is the King of the Fairies. These are not witches like in Macbeth. They don’t think fair is foul et cetera, but they do like to have fun.”

Ron drew two circles that touched each other. In one circle he put in the world of the fairies and in the other he placed the human world. “Both worlds depend on each other and when they interact, things get funny. Don’t try to read too deeply into this play. Take it for what it is. It’s a dream. It’s sexy. It’s funny. Don’t try too much to understand it with the exception of a few lines that I will point out to you.”

For the next thirty minutes Ron walked them through the plot and had them create character descriptions. When the class was coming to an end he said, “I had this teacher in college who made us write a comment on the side board before the class began. Not everyone had to write, but unless there were a certain number of comments, he would not start the class. He did it because it gave him a place to start, a way to understand what the class was thinking. We’re going to do that too. We will need five comments to start the class, but anyone who makes a good comment will get a point on her next test.”

As the bell rang Samantha said, “See you are a real Puck, Mr. Tuck.”

 

Ron watched them leave and they looked content. He stopped Veronica on the way out. “I meant what I said about the reading.”

She blushed and put her head down. “I lied. I got up early and did my math, Mr. Tuck.

Ron smiled. “Good for you. I still meant what I said.”

 

Paula Sandal was hanging back, and so Ron waited until the classroom was empty. He had lunch after this class and he didn’t expect any company. “I really don’t think that I’m smart enough to be here, Mr. Tuck.”

“Why do you say that?”

She shifted uneasily. “First of all, look at my grades and look at the grades of the other girls in here. I don’t measure up. And secondly, you didn’t invite me the way that you invited them.”

“So, show me that I was wrong to not invite you.”

“That’s just it. I don’t think that you were wrong. You know me really well, and if you didn’t think that I could do it, you are probably right.”

Ron looked into her eyes and lied to her. “I didn’t invite you because you had me for so many other classes, and I thought that you would get bored.”

“Really?” she said and smiled for him. “I’m not bored. I’m scared.”

“Let me ask you a question,” said Ron. “If you don’t get an A will it be the end of the world?”

“I don’t care about that. I just don’t want to be the dumb kid.”

“You could never be that,” said Ron. “Do you think that I would allow that to happen?”

“You can’t make me smart, Mr. Tuck. I know that you think that you can do anything, but you can’t make me smart.”

Ron tightened his mouth into a smile and nodded. Then he said, “You’re gonna be fine.”

When she left, he wondered if he was doing the right thing. She didn’t have the grades and she was not as obviously quick. What she did have was desire. Quietly, he hoped that he was not making a mistake by not encouraging her to change classes now, when it was early enough to not be an issue.

 

Chapter 60

At the faculty meeting that began the 1980-81 school year, Ron was introduced to the two new male teachers that would be joining the staff. Anthony Mancuso and Arnold Needlehaus were as different as night and day. Mancuso was a very young, dark haired, olive-skinned Italian kid that Ron could see the girls going completely gaga over. Needlehaus was an older gentleman with grayish white hair and a short closely cropped beard. Instinctively Ron felt that something was not quite right about this man. He was effusive and smooth, and Ron thought a bit too old to be more than a one year guy here, using the school as some kind of way station.

Sister Donna Maria introduced them both to Ron saying that he was one of the faculty leaders and that they should address any questions that they had about assimilating to the school to him. Anthony looked scared and Andrew appeared to be smug. Both new teachers stood in front of him waiting for him to say something.

“The girls are great but they will watch everything that you say and do, even more than students normally would. They’ll take note of everything that you wear, and they will watch you all the time and talk to each other about you. Just relax into it and you’ll be fine. They have hungry minds and open hearts. If I can be of any help, just let me know.”

“What do the nuns expect?” said Needlehaus.

“Mostly that we do our job and do it well.”

“Do they check lesson plans?”

“No they don’t, but it’s a good idea to have them for your own purposes.”

“I’ll probably just break out some old ones and get by using them. I retired from public school teaching last year and I don’t imagine that this will be significantly different. It really is all the same, isn’t it?”

Ron said, “I suppose you can look at it that way.” Ron turned his gaze to Anthony. “You know the girls are gonna think of you as quite a hunk, right?”

The kid blushed visibly and said, “Is there something that I can do about that?”

“You can use it to your advantage but make sure that you create a professional distance,” said Ron. As he said it he thought that it was the exact opposite from what he intended to do.

Again, Ron was in charge of the faculty council but this time it was explained at the faculty meeting that all of the lay teachers and nuns would submit their discipline referrals to him and he would keep the records of who needed to appear because of an excess of demerits. Donna Maria explained that discipline referrals should only be used after teachers had utilized their personal, in class, discipline. Ron noted, with disappointment, that Bernadette was not a member of the faculty council and would be in charge of both the choir and first Friday Mass preparations, and the family life units that all of the girls would now be required to take. Ron saw Holly Risotto across the room, but she stayed away and did not look at him. They had not spoken since the day that he drove her home. She had appeared after Easter vacation as if nothing had happened, and Ron had been cautioned by Bernadette that it would be better for her and for him if he did not mention the absurdity of her being back in the school. She told Ron that she would keep an eye on Holly, and make sure that she did not do any harm to herself or to the girls.

After lunch Ron wandered over to Bernadette’s classroom. She smiled when she saw him. There was an awkward moment when they almost hugged, but they both laughed and shook hands instead.

“Did you have a good summer, Ron?”

“I did,” said Ron, “but I’m glad to be back. What about you?”

“I got to spend some time back home in Philadelphia and it was good to see my family. For a while, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to come back.”

“Did you have a choice?”

She raised her eyebrow. “We always have choices, Ron. You must be excited. These are your girls.”

Ron felt the smile spread across his face. “Yes, they are. I want this year to be special for them.”

“So what are you teaching?”

“Senior English, Public Speaking, Creative Writing, Shakespeare Seminar, Sociology and Economics.”

“So you are still gonna work yourself silly?”

“Is there any other way?”

“Probably not for you, no.  Ron, what about your life? Do you have a girlfriend yet?”

“No one special.”

“You aren’t getting any younger, Ron. What are you thinking about?”

“I suppose that I’m not thinking about it at all.”

“I don’t believe that,” said Bernadette. “Whoever she was, Ron, she was a fool for not wanting you.”

“I don’t know, Bernadette. Maybe it was me who was the fool.”

 

The next day the girls arrived and Ron spent the first hour of the morning smiling and hugging them. He felt himself swelling with pride as he saw how they were growing up, about how the lights in their eyes were strong and bright and breathtakingly beautiful.

One of the improvements that Sister Donna Marie had instituted was a full school meeting that began the year. They would all meet, and then there was a much modified schedule where the girls would report to each of their classes for 10 minutes.

As each of the faculty was introduced, the girls applauded. Even for the teachers that they hated, there was polite applause. The new teachers got the benefit of the doubt and received an enthusiastic welcome, particularly Anthony Mancuso who got a few whistles that required Donna Maria to remind the girls that they were ladies. When Ron was introduced, the gym erupted in cheers. Some girls stood and cheered loudly and clapped and chanted “Tuck, Tuck, Tuck.”

Never in his life had Ron been greeted in even a vaguely similar way.  His cheeks burned with blush. He felt the wave of sound carry him up like he was surfing. He tried to make them stop but they kept cheering. He took his seat on the stage and Sister Donna Maria said, “I’m glad that I saved him for last. I’d hate to be the person that had to follow that.”

Ron kept his head down. He could not look at them because tears were threatening to brim out of his eyes. He loved them and they loved him back. He was convinced now more than ever before. This year he would give them everything that he had to give.

 

There were two senior English classes that met the first two periods of the day.  When they sat in the old room with the high creaky windows and the squeaky floor with just the crucifix and the portrait of Lincoln as decorations, Ron stood in back of his ever present podium with the class list. He called the roll and with each name a familiar face and story acknowledged him and there was an exchanged smile. It amazed them all how friendly the atmosphere in the class was and how happy they all were to be there. Ron could not stop smiling. The growth that had occurred over the summer, together with the potential that he saw, amazed him.

“I am really happy to see all of you. For the last couple of weeks, I have been anxious for the summer to be over and to get this started. We are going to have a great year. I’m going to drive you hard and it won’t always be easy, but you all know that we will have a lot of fun too and I hope that you think that it will be worth it.”

Vicky DelMarco raised her thin long arm into the air and turned her palm towards him. “Mr. Tuck, what did you do to yourself over the summer? You look almost hot and you aren’t dressing as corny as you usually dress. Are you in love Mr. Tuck?” Ron laughed and came out from behind the podium. Vicky turned to look at the rest of the class for support. “See what I mean? Look at him. Wow, Mr. Tuck.”

Giving her his very best dimpled grin and moving to stand right in front of her desk, Ron said, “I am in love Vicky.” He took a step back. “I’m in love with all of you.” They burst out laughing and he laughed with him. Vicky made a show of fanning herself with her hands. “Didn’t you want me to look good for you?”

Vicky was now playing along completely. “But you know that I have enough trouble concentrating as it is.” She turned to the class and made a hysterical face and rolled her Spanish eyes.

Ron lowered his voice to a whisper then he said loudly enough to project to the whole of the room. “But it will make me so sad if you don’t concentrate. You know how selfish I am Vicky. I want all of your attention all of the time.”

Now Vicky struck her own pose and said with fluttering eyes. “You couldn’t handle all of my attention, Mr. Tuck. I’d wear you out.”

The class laughed hard and the two or three girls who were new to the school sat with their mouths hanging open. This was not the type of classroom that they had ever been in before. This was not the type of classroom that they had ever even heard of before.

“Let’s find out,” said Ron. He turned to the chalkboard, took a breath and did it. There it was his phone number on the board. “I am here for all of you. This is my home phone number. I will give you as much energy as I have. That is my promise. What I want is the very same thing from you. I want as much energy as you have to give.”

The bell rang and the girls left as soon as it did. Ron saw that some of them wrote down the number. Vicky wrote it on the palm of her hand and showed it to him on the way out saying, “Now I can’t wash my hand all day.”

The atmosphere in the Shakespeare seminar was different. He knew all of them and, for the most part, he had invited all of them to join this special class.

Elena Gonzalez, maybe his best student, who he had challenged since freshman year when he had called her “Frowsy” because her shirt used to come out of her skirt and her hair was a wild and beautiful dark tangle. She hadn’t known what the word meant, but had looked it up that night and come into him the next day and stamped her foot in front of him and said that he had insulted her. But she had smiled before she turned away, and that had been the beginning of a challenging relationship where he pushed her and she pushed him back to push her more. Elena was now the class president and a spokesperson for student and Puerto Rican rights.

Ron looked from her to Elizabeth Holland, a paper thin waif looking blonde who had been too timid to speak to him for the first half of 9^th grade. She was always immaculately groomed and often quiet, but there was an angular quality about her and a drive that said she intended to prove herself not only to Ron and to the rest of her classmates but to her very strict mother and the rest of the world. She didn’t always like Ron’s teasing because she sometimes took it seriously and when she found out that it was a tease she would blush furiously and quietly steam and shoot daggers at him with her blue eyes.

She sat next to Donna Seaford who reveled in correcting Ron. She was a short girl with very black skin. Ron had once made the mistake of referring to her as an African American. She and her twin sister Deborah, who was very much her opposite, took a dual delight in telling him, with more than a little indignity, that they were Cuban, not Black.

In back of them sat Judith Wunderlan who had the face and body of a pixie. She was a bright girl who did her work and did not like to be pushed. She also did not like to ever shut up, and the two or three episodes that she had with Ron was when she had insisted on taking during class. She maintained that she was always talking about what was going on in the class, but Ron had contended that she could not talk and listen at the same time. Judith had maintained that she could.

This year Judith had vowed to sit next to Veronica Petrelli in as many classes as she could. Veronica was a good friend but very conscientious and quiet. Judith was hoping that her influence would be good for her. That was what she was saying publically, but privately she was hoping to bring Veronica more out of her shell and besides a quiet girl seldom interrupted her steady stream of chatter.

Paula Sandal felt the most insecure in this class. She had not been invited to join and she already had Tuck in three other classes. She was being “Fully Tucked” as Elena put it. Ron had spoken to her privately at the end of last year and asked her if she thought that she was overdoing it. She had answered resolutely that she had no other life and that if he could stand to have her in this many classes that she wanted to be there. Now it was here and what seemed like a good idea back then was intimidating her today. He was different and yet the same in each class. She listened and hoped that she could keep her head down here and excel in the creative writing class.

One of the other girls who had not been invited to join the Shakespeare class was Samantha Santorini. She had been dubbed as a party girl in 10^th grade when she had a boyfriend who was twenty-one years old. Sister Bernadette had found out about it and tried to talk some sense into the girl. When Samantha had scoffed at the notion, Bernadette had cautioned her that boys that age would want her to “go all the way.” Samantha had informed Bernadette that it was not only guys that age that expected the girls “to give it up” and that she had other ways of keeping them happy. Bernadette had been angry with her and cautioned some of the other girls to not follow Samantha’s example, and a war of wills had begun between the two of them. Ron, of course, was totally unaware of this. Samantha had taken this class to show Bernadette and the rest of the school that she had more than her looks going for her. She wanted them to know that she also had a brain. She was, as she liked to refer to herself, “a gift wrapped package.”

“We’re going to read eighteen plays this year,” began Ron. “Basically it’s going to be a play every two weeks, with some taking a little less time and some taking a little more. We won’t be doing Romeo and Juliet or Macbeth because you have already done those plays.”

Donna Seaford said, without raising her hand, “So this is the class where you try to kill us.”

“You could look at it that way, Donna, but what it really is the class where I show you what the pace at a good college is like.”

Then Ron showed them how serious he was by passing out a syllabus that had dates and titles of plays and testing dates mapped out for the entire year. The girls were shocked into silence by the enormity of what he had given them.

“Nope,” said Veronica. “Donna is right. This is where you kill us.”

 

At the end of the day, Ron felt himself filled with the energy that the girls had given him. He had no tutoring appointments because, at the beginning of the year, he usually didn’t have any students to tutor. His summer students had gone back to classes or made new arrangements. Ron drove back to his apartment and quickly changed into his running clothes and was on the track just as the football players were filling in for their afterschool practice up in Glen Ridge.

He got his first mile and a half in before they started their stretching. He saw the coaches looking at him strangely as he circled down to the field house at the end of the second mile.

“Excuse me, Sir,” said one of the coaches who was wearing than traditional light gray shorts and maroon t-shirt and baseball cap.

Ron slowed and came over to him. He was annoyed at having to break his stride. “Yes?”

“Can I ask what you are doing here?”

Ron shrugged. “This is where I always run.”

“I haven’t see you here before.”

“Usually I run in the mornings, but I’m back to school as well,” said Ron. “My family lives right over there.” Ron gestured to the back of the bleachers.

“You wouldn’t be scouting us for another team, would you Sir?”

“Not at all,” said Ron. He was flattered by the accusation. “I’d never do anything to hurt the Ridgers. Class of ’67. I played for the team. My name is Ron Tuck.”

Then he saw one of the assistant coaches who looked vaguely familiar. The head coach motioned the assistant over. “Richie you were class of ’67 right?” Richard Westin nodded. “You remember a Ron Tuck?”

“Sure, I remember Tuck. Hello Ron, you still wearing your leather jacket and shades?”

Ron grimaced and shook his hand. “Not so much anymore, Richie.”

Richie grinned at the head coach. “Ron’s alright. He sure ain’t no scout.”

“Just stay to the outside of the track when the team gets going, Mr. Tuck. Sorry to interrupt your workout.”

Ron heard Richie say to the other coaches as he started back into his run. “He wouldn’t know what he was seeing anyway.” The other coaches laughed and Ron felt his ears burn. It made him remember how inadequate they had always made him feel at this school. For the first time, he began to think about whether he really would enjoy coaching football.

Chapter 59

It had been almost a year since Ron had spoken with Warren and he needed a conversation. He wasn’t sure why he was still going back for these talks but from time to time he would feel the need and then he would make the inevitable phone call or drive down to the college and meet with his former professor and mentor.

It was a strange relationship that they had. Warren was often not particularly nice to Ron but he was always willing to see him. The conversation would be on Ron’s dime as Warren called it, at least it would start that way, but it usually transformed itself into something else. Sometimes Ron would have a specific agenda and sometimes it would be an ambiguous feeling that would sort itself out once they began to talk. The last time he had seen Warren he almost laughed out loud. Warren had dyed his hair and permed it so that it was curly. He was still rail thin and had a boyish never look older face and body.

He made the call early in the evening.

“Warren, it’s Ron.”

“How are you?” Warren drawled.

“I’m doing pretty well. How are you?”

“I couldn’t be better. I’m just back from Greece and getting ready for classes to start here in a couple of weeks.”

“I was thinking of taking a ride down.”

“That would be fine. We’re gonna be having dinner about nine here and you’re welcome to join us.”

“I’ll see you then.”

“See you when I see you,” said Warren.

Rahway was in its late summer ripeness of green and humidity. Neither of them lived with air conditioning and so the heat was not something that they ever thought about. The screened windows were all opened a sweet evening cross breeze moved the air in the rooms. They sat in the living room in front of the dormant fire place. Warren had a glass of wine. Ron was drinking seltzer.

“You’re looking very fit,” said Warren.

“I’ve been working at it.”

“What else have you been working at?”

It was always like that between them. They needed a project. Warren had admired Ron’s strength when they put a new kitchen floor into Rahway together. He had heard about that side of Ron before but he had never seen it in action until that day. It was the only time that Ron could remember Warren letting him take the lead on a project and his eyes were drawn to the floor each time he passed over it.

“It’s my 4^th year of teaching and the first group of students that I started with is going to graduate. I feel very close to them. I’m thinking of opening myself up to them in ways that I have never done before and I wanted your advice.”

“That depends on what you mean by opening yourself up?”

“I’m going to give them my home phone number and tell them that I’m there for them whenever they need me.”

“You want to be careful about that,” said Warren with a smile. “Students can drain you dry. They will never get enough of you and you’ll find that you can’t get rid of them when it’s time to move on.”

“Tell me what you mean,” said Ron.

“I mean that their needs can leave you with nothing left for yourself. Students don’t understand boundaries unless you provide them with a distinct set of rules. But the real question is why you think this is necessary.”

“This is a special group of kids. They have a chance to exceed everyone’s expectations for them, but some of them don’t know yet what they are capable of achieving.”

“That may be true but why do you feel the need?”

“I’m not sure. Why did you feel the need to do it with us?”

“I was interested in pushing the boundaries of how people lived and learned. You guys were hungry for something more and don’t forget I was done teaching classes to all of you before Chris and I started this place.”

“You ever think about Chris?”

“I think about him often and I still love him dearly. I believe that I saved his life although I am sure that he would not agree.”

Ron laughed and lit a cigarette. “No, I’m sure that he wouldn’t.”

“My relationship with Chris was an attempt at true partnership. It was a mutual trust that both of us eventually violated.

“I suppose that’s true.” Ron sat back and thought about that.

“You didn’t come here to talk with me about Chris,” said Warren. “Have you heard from Robin?”

“Not since she wrote and told me that she was moving in with another guy.”

“Do you think that she still had a hold on you?”

“I don’t know.” Ron was totally sure that he had not come here to talk about Robin. He had noticed that not one meeting between them went by that he did not mention her name. He wondered again, as he had countless times before, if Robin had ever slept with him.

“Would you say no to her if she wanted to give the relationship another try?”

“No, I’d jump at the chance.”

“That’s honest. Would you give up teaching if that’s what it took?”

“No, I would never give up teaching. I’m sure of that.”

“Teaching really is what saved you,” said Warren. “Is this desire to open yourself up more fully to your students a way of replacing what it is that you wish that you had with Robin?”

Ron didn’t know what to say. It was a profound insight and aside from the idea that it left him feeling weak and cast his devotion to his students in a self-serving light, he could not dispute it.

“She touched my spirit in a way that no one else ever has.”

“What she did was put your spirit in a chokehold from which you have still not escaped.”

“I don’t think that she even realizes that.”

“The question is whether or not you realize it.”

Ron tried to change the subject. “You know, I use some of the techniques that you used in the classroom.”

“We all borrow from each other. Sometimes we out and out steal from each other. I’m getting a little hungry here and I think that it’s time to wake Janine up.”

Ron smiled. He liked Janine. She was Warren’s other woman. When Kelly wasn’t around there was always Janine. She was a tall dark-haired beauty that Chris had loved and wanted to run away with. She had turned him down and stayed with Warren, although she had slept with him whenever Warren was up in Boston visiting Kelly. Ron knew that it had broken Chris’s heart. Warren had encouraged the two of them to sleep together and Ron believed, although he had never asked Chris that the three of them, maybe with the addition of a fourth person—a female— had all slept together.

Janine kissed Ron and hugged him. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you, Ron. How have you been?”

“I’m well,” said Ron smiling. “You look terrific.”

Janine struck a pose in front of Warren and said, “See! I look terrific.”

Warren drawled. “Ron hasn’t seen you without your clothes on. You’re getting too thin.”

Dinner was just the three of them. Warren sat near the window in his accustomed spot and Janine sat in the middle. Ron placed himself in the place that he would always consider Chris’s chair. They ate salad and steak. Ron wondered if Warren was eating steak every night as he did when they had the communal dinners.

Warren looked at Janine. “Did you ever want to sleep with Ron?”

She looked embarrassed by the question and didn’t answer. Ron felt himself tense at the question. What kind of a thing was that to ask the girl?

“Come on,” said Warren. “Did you ever want to sleep with him?”

Janine did not look at Ron. Quietly she said, “No.”

“Why not?”

Ron was silent and remembered why he sometimes hated Warren.

Janine said, “Warren please stop. Please don’t do this.”

“He needs to hear it. Tell him.”

Very quietly she said, “He belongs to Robin.”

Warren smiled at Ron, who had stopped eating. Janine continued. “It’s the only time that I ever saw him sit up straight.”

Ron realized that he was slumping and fought the urge to sit up straight.

Warren wasn’t finished. “Zoe never had a chance, did she?”

“I felt sorry for Zoe from the first time that I ever saw the two of them together.”

Warren sat back. “That’s why your students can give you something rare and meaningful, but you better know what you’re doing before you go and open yourself up to them. You better be really certain that you know what it is that you have to offer them”