In her mid-twenties, when Patricia first became a high school teacher, she was surprised to discover that she was not well liked by the students.
Not only did they not like her, they didn’t seem to find her pretty. She was less vain than the average person and yet when she first started she was ever so slightly humbled (“disappointed” would not be quite the right word) to discern no hints of physical admiration. Oh, well. So much the better.
But being unliked took its toll. She had done well in school, her mentors had praised her, she worked hard, but her grade nine students didn’t care about these things.
Another sort of person might have tried to fake it, to create a persona that would make her more “popular”.
It was frustrating. She didn’t exactly blame the students; she blamed fate, or rather reality. She simply did not have the type of personality that usually appealed to young people. She was knowledgeable and fair, but she was also rather demanding, serious and despite some efforts, rather humourless. She expected the students to be more rational (as she had been when she was fifteen) and could never quite accept their immaturity. The truth was, as much as she tried to pretend otherwise, she did not particularly like them. She had to admit, it wasn’t too unreasonable that they didn’t like her.
There had to be a few exceptions, but one student was only a cell in an organism of the class. The students who did like her were particularly hard to recognize because what they liked about her was that she was a little like themselves–reserved, modest, a little shy in large groups.
She carried on dutifully. She started as a good teacher and became a better teacher, but, even if students treated her a little more respectfully as she became older (most likely because she looked more like a parent), she was still unliked.
In fact, as time passed it was not only the students who didn’t like her, it was her colleagues too. They had been friendly when she was young and new, but there was something she hadn’t given back. They grew to resent her. There was no conflict, but there was no affection either. She could not blame them. Although she respected and admired them professionally, she formed no friendships.
You learn a lot during the first ten years of your working life, especially teaching in a public school, spending your days with a fairly broad cross-section of humanity, watching them grow up before your eyes, catching glimpses of their family life, trying to give them what they need to survive and even prosper, to live a happy life in the modern world.
What Patricia learned–or came to believe–was that she had made a mistake. She had not picked a career that suited her personality. Teaching was an important job (if job is the right word), but it was not for her. Say “she was not cut out for it,” fine. Consider her a failure of sorts, fine. She was not so hard on herself. She had made a mistake in her late teens. She’d tried her best to make it work. She’d helped many students learn about history, geography and computer science. She pleased her principal, who liked teachers who did their jobs competently and self-sufficiently. The students didn’t like her, but when they got home from school, they forgot about her. The only person who was truly dissatisfied was Patricia.
She lived alone in a small condo just outside of the school’s territory. After work she went out with girlfriends. On weekends she golfed. She took up the sport after her second “summer vacation”, did the lessons, bought all the gear. She even vacationed to golf destinations, not expensive ones, hotels in quiet places near golf courses. She got quite good at planning affordable golf vacations, occasionally wondering what she could have earned if she’d taken a different career path.
Through golf she met Stan, a young electrical engineer who was still trying to figure out “what next?” now that he was finished school and had a decent job. The week after Patricia and Stan played eighteen holes together, they went out to dinner. Patricia laughed and Stan smiled. They had sex. Patricia planned a couple’s golf vacation, slightly more upscale than what she was used to. They moved in. They got married.
Golf and marriage took Patricia’s mind off teaching, but the fact was, after nearly ten years, she was enjoying it less than ever. She kept this fact to herself. She did not even mention it to Stan. It seemed dishonorable not to like teaching. Thankfully, Stan didn’t work in the education field. When she got home, she didn’t have to hear about teaching.
She found it refreshing when Stan talked about his work—except she envied him for not being a teacher, so it kind of tortured her too. But despite that she was eager to learn about what it was like in other careers, out there in the “real world”.
After she had her child she quit teaching. Stan was a little surprised. This was 2002, not 1965. A small part of Stan even thought about the decline in their family income. Certainly, they would not starve. Stan had a decent salary, and it was almost double Patricia’s, but still, losing a 1/3 of the family earnings was considerable. He didn’t care that much, though. It was just a thought that passed through his mind a few times.
While looking after her baby, Patricia thought a lot about her job. She decided that she would enroll in a business program. She got her business degree three years later. She and Stan registered their daughter in daycare and Patricia found a job.
Now she works in human resources. She goes to a career fair and meets a woman who comes back with her to her room. The woman gets very clingy and wants to meet the child. Patricia has a flash of concern but she is also thrilled. Her new job; her new friend. The friend is demonstrative in front of Stan, says some strange things.
Stan is upset. He is afraid Patricia will take half of everything and the child. In a voice that Patricia has never heard before, Stan says, “It’s not fair.”
Patricia is not proud of the way things have worked out, but she feels there is a sort of inevitability to the situation. Any more than a small allotment of sympathy feels like a useless self-indulgence.
Stan for his part hates her and will for the rest of his life, but he cannot entertain this hate because Patricia is the mother of his daughter and he does not want his daughter to grow up in a fountain of hate. So much else in his life is a compensatory treatment for the damage his hate does to him.
Patricia is doing an interview. After, the woman says that Patricia was once her teacher. She says she is so surprised Patricia quit. She says Patricia was a born teacher. She feels this is the right thing to say. An alternate life swoops past Patricia. Too sudden and unexpected. She can’t really see it. Still, it provokes a reaction.
She looks at the interviewee. “Thank you for saying that,” she says, “but looks can be deceiving.”
The candidate offers a fading smile. Patricia thinks she sees fear in her young eyes.
Patricia feels no more urges for seismic life changes, an indication perhaps that her actions were necessary. Stan buries his anger, like a dog in the backyard. Every so often he stands on the porch, eyes roaming over his green lawn, wondering where it is.
When Jessica Dreghn got home from the interview, which she thought had gone relatively well, she unpacked her high school memories. She remembered a project she did in geography class. The students had got quite into it. Even Miss Patricia had seemed to be enjoying herself. It had seemed at the time the project, for which Jessica had received an A, had set her on a new and better path. The memory stirred her.
A week later she received the news. She did not get the job.
Faint Scrawls 