11. Oliver

ELEVEN

Oliver

Back in my office, I stand in front of my coffee maker, running my hands through my hair.

Lina sits in the chair across from my desk. “So…” she begins.

“I can write her up for that,” I bark, jabbing the brew button, then collapsing into my chair. “I should write her up for that.”

Lina holds up her hands. “Whoa, boss man. Pump the brakes. That’s a little extreme. It was a little unprofessional, but sure as hell not an offense you should write her up for. We need her, remember? We need to keep her. You can’t just get rid of her—those parents and the supe would be pissed .” She pauses. “Do you want to switch? I’ll trade you for Elias,” she says, referring to our… golden retriever of a Physical Education teacher. “He’s driving me insane this year.”

I cut her a glance. “No. He annoys me too.”

Lina grumbles. “What’s going on with you?”

I lean all the way back in my chair, rubbing my eyes. I’m finding it difficult to answer her, because I don’t know myself. “There are so many things that I don’t know where to start. ”

“Why don’t you start with Georgia?” Lina asks, not one to mince words.

“What about her?” I fire back.

She shoots me a look. “Oh please, Oliver. The clueless act doesn’t suit you.”

I take a deep breath. In and out. “I don’t know where to begin, so I apologize in advance if I ramble.”

Lina frowns but remains silent, giving me space to talk it out.

“The superintendent basically offered me a promotion to his office as his Deputy Superintendent if I get Class 302’s test scores up,” I begin. Her eyes widen.

“This is it. What I’ve been waiting for. The next step in my career path. And he says that all the eyes in the district are on me to make that happen.”

“Well, you’re going to make it happen,” she tells me, waving her hand. “But I thought we hated all the people in District and Central Office. You really want to go work there?”

“One hundred percent. But if I make it up there… actually no, when I make it up there, I’m going to do my damndest to actually work. To make change.”

“Okay. So then let’s talk about Georgia. Why are you worrying about getting her test scores up?” Lina tells me. “I told you, she showed us the screenshots for her class test scores for the past several years. Her stats were incredible. And even if they weren’t, you could coach her. You’ve proven that you are capable of that over the last five years. You’ve done it for the entire school. You’re a hell of a coach. ”

“That’s because everyone I’ve ever worked with here has been a normal fucking human being,” I explode, choosing to ignore the stunned look on Lina’s face. “Georgia is not. She drives me insane. She pushes buttons I didn’t know I had.” I tick things off my fingers. “She’s headstrong. Disorganized. Unpredictable. Sarcastic. Impertinent.” I stand up and start pacing around my office. “She has a retort for everything I say to her. It’s impossible for me to work with someone like that.”

“I mean, Elias is kind of like that,” Lia offers.

Elias isn’t a gorgeous woman who makes my dick hard when she calls me sir . I shake my head. “It’s different with Ms. Baker.”

“I think you’re reading her all wrong, Oliver. She’s sweet, and she’s clearly a fantastic teacher. She cares deeply about her students. And I’ve seen you lurking outside her classroom like a creep when she’s having one of her spectacular moments.” Lina’s eyebrows furrow. “I’m not sure why you’re not seeing this, but you’re very different around her. You’re normally more measured, but… it’s like you’re all amped up. On ten. You raise your voice at her. I’ve never seen you treat anyone else that way. In fact, I’m actually impressed with her ability to keep herself in check considering your attitude towards her. Frankly, I think it’s really weird, kind of unprofessional, and I think our staff thinks it’s weird, too.”

I stop my pacing and look at her. “Other people are noticing? It’s that bad?”

“They certainly noticed just a moment ago. Also, what’s with the ‘Ms. Baker’? You don’t call anyone by their formal title.”

I want to tell Lina it reminds me that Ms. Baker is my subordinate. I want to tell her I like it when Ms. Baker calls me Mr. Flores. Instead, I go with, “I don’t know her well enough to refer to her by her first name yet.”

Lina eyes me. “You’re full of shit, but okay. I just want to remind you of something. You are her boss. You have to remain professional, too. There’s a power imbalance there.”

I sit back down in my chair, chastened. She’s right. I tell her so.

“Of course I’m right. I’m a woman who has worked for plenty of men who thought they knew better than me and tried to tell me how to do my job.” She glares at me. “You’re not one of them, thank Jesus. But you are on your way to being that for Georgia.”

I lean back in my chair, running my hands through my hair. “You’re right, you’re right. All right, future principal, how would you coach me through this situation right now? What should I do?”

“Tell me all the ways she’s a good teacher. How, in her few weeks here, she’s made the school a better place for kids,” Lina fires at me.

I wince as Lina uses a coaching strategy I’ve taught her on me . Now I have to play along. “She apparently has historically high test scores.”

“Mmhm…”

“She… has complete instructional control of her classroom,” I offer begrudgingly.

“I’d like you to remember that 302 was a zoo just a few weeks ago. And think about what happened with them when Georgia was just absent,” Lina smirks.

I sigh. “Her kids are engaged. They’re learn—” I cut myself off here. “They seem to be learning, but not in any way that I’ve seen previously. Not in a neat, organized, easily rated way.”

Lina frowns at me. “So her students are engaged and learning, but not in a way that you’re comfortable with.”

“I mean, I’m not un comfortable. It’s just?—”

She makes a noise in her throat. “You just said it, Oliver. They’re learning. Now, for my advice. Lay off of her. Trust her. She is a good teacher. Her ideas may be unconventional, but she is good at her job. She might not fit into your little mold, but she has great ideas.”

Cringing, I remember the conversation I had with Ms. Baker, with Georgia, just a few days ago, when she told me the same thing, almost verbatim .

“Listen to her. Stop with the back and forth.” Lina shakes her head. “It feels crazy that I’m giving you this advice, because you’ve already done this with every staff member here for the last five years. You’ve trusted them. You’ve listened to them. You’ve coached them appropriately. So I guess my ultimate piece of advice is to treat Georgia like you have treated everyone else here.”

Impossible .

“We’ll see,” I tell Lina. “I hear you. Thank you.”

When Lina leaves my office, I find myself alone with my thoughts. What is it with this woman? Why does she push my buttons? Is it truly because she doesn’t fit into a neat little mold? One that will be acceptable to Superintendent Daniels? She’s confident in her teaching, but she’s a mess. I truly do not understand how she can function, how she has had so much success in her classroom.

My cell phone rings on my desk. I pick it up, not bothering to look at the caller ID.

“What?” I bark.

There is a beat of silence on the other end of the line. “Try that again, Ollie,” my older sister says, in her Teacher Voice, the voice that’s always floating around in my head, telling me to just fucking chill .

I slump, dejected, back into my chair. Today is apparently the day all the women in my life decide to try me. “Sorry. Hi, Tala.”

I can hear my sister’s frown over the phone. “ Ano ba yan ? What’s your deal?”

“I…” I sigh. “So many things.”

“Pick one,” my sister says, never one to mince words.

“I’ve been having a shit time with one of my teachers.”

“Which one?”

“She’s new. Georgia Baker. She’s… something else.”

“What’s her deal?” Tala asks .

“She’s good, but she’s… intense. Not worth the headache, I believe,” I start. “I didn’t want to hire her in the first place, but the supe forced me to because of all the parents complaining that their kids didn’t have a permanent teacher. She’s chaotic. Disorganized, rude. We were in a meeting just now, and she ripped me apart.”

“Did you deserve it?”

I laugh without humor. “I’m her boss. It doesn’t matter if I deserved it or not. You can’t speak to your superior that way. I was actually just thinking about firing her over it, but I can’t.”

“What happened?”

“Admittedly, I’ve been kind of a jerk to her over the last few weeks. She’s been driving me insane. But she really flipped on me today.”

“What’d she say?”

I wince. “She told me to pull the stick out of my ass. Gently.”

I hold the phone away from my ear as Tala screeches with laughter. “I love her already.” She pauses for a moment. “So after weeks of treating her like shit, you expect her to just melt into a puddle at your feet? Who do you think you are?” my sister asks me.

Christ . “Her… boss, Tala,”

She ignores me. “Let me guess. She doesn’t fit into the neat little boxes of your teacher evaluation rubric, so you’ve spent the last few weeks trying to shove her into one of those boxes,” Tala says pointedly.

“I—”

“Ollie, as someone who has been teaching in the New York City public school system for almost twenty years, I feel very confident when I tell you that rubric is trash. The evaluation system the Powers That Be have come up with is highly subjective and limiting. ”

“But—”

“I know that for someone like you, those numbers and boxes make you feel safe and secure. And it probably feels real uncomfortable for you to have to supervise a teacher who doesn’t fit.”

“No—”

“Stop trying to interrupt me,” she says, in her Teacher Voice. “So during the several weeks of your bullshit, trying to get her to comply, this Georgia woman has been standing up for herself. And you’ve been calling her ‘rude’ and ‘disrespectful.’ And today, she finally snapped.”

I am struck speechless. Tala has always had an eerie ability to read me. I scratch my head, silent.

Tala fills the space, something she’s been doing ever since we were young. “You’re doing the thing, Ollie.”

“What thing?”

“The thing,” she repeats annoyingly.

“Tal—”

“The thing where you try to ‘fix’ things that don’t need fixing. The thing where you need to ‘control’ things that shouldn’t be controlled.”

“I—”

“Stop interrupting me. You’ve done this our whole lives, Ollie. To me, to Iz… Ma and Dad. Can you just relax? It’s going to be okay . It’s okay if it’s not exactly the way you want it. Are you meeting your goals or whatever?”

I grimace. “How do you know about my goals?”

“You always have goals. And lists of steps you need to take to meet them. Are you on track to meet your goals?”

I think about it for a moment, sifting through the chaotic debris of the mess that Georgia has left my lists, trying to recover the key points. Fix the school. Hire a competent teacher. Get 302’s test scores up. Get a promotion. “I… maybe. ”

“Well, then,” she says smugly, in the tone that only an older sister can take.

I blow out a breath.

“It’s your turn to talk, now, Ollie,” Tala says. I imagine her standing with her arms crossed, tapping one foot. “Well, am I missing anything else?”

Silence from my end.

“Wait a second.”

I resume my pacing.

“Oliver.”

“Hm…”

“How old is she, Ollie?”

“Um. Latetwentiesmaybe,” I mumble incoherently.

“Oliver… Ollie, is she hot, too?”

I sputter, making nonsensical noises of unknown origin.

“OOOO!” she squeals, “I KNEW IT. She’s soo hot,” she shrieks, dropping Teacher Voice into the Mischievous Older Sister tone I grew up with. If she were here, she would be dancing around me and poking me in the sides. “Ooo, so juicy! Ooo, I love this for you!”

I look around me, irrationally afraid that someone else could be in the room and hearing this conversation. “She’s not…”

“Hey, girls, guess what? Tito Oliver has a crush!” her voice over the phone becomes quieter as she presumably turns to her daughters to shout the horrible and absolutely untrue news.

“Oooooo Tito Oliver,” my ten-year-old niece Paloma’s voice now squeals over the phone. “Is she pretty? Is she nice?”

Her voice grows muffled as there is a struggle. “Tito Ollie! Will you bring her to Christmas this year?” my other niece Maya, eight-going-on-thirty-two, shrieks.

“Girls… ”

“Give me the phone, Maya,” I hear the muffled tone of my sister. “Yeah, Ollie, will you bring her to?—”

“I’m going now, Tala. Good talk. See you out there,” I say, and promptly hang up the phone.

I put my head in my hands, a headache forming from the hard truths the women in my life are dropping. Ms. Baker is good. Indispensable, even. My attitude towards her does need to change. Lina is right, Tala is right, it is wildly unprofessional and inappropriate, and it is making both her and my staff uncomfortable. But that doesn’t mean my goals are going to change. Focus on the goals.