At the end of the period, as he gathers up his things and confers with Douglas about getting sleds, I say coolly, “Connor, may I speak to you for a moment?”
He glances up, seemingly unconcerned. “Huh? Oh, sure, Ms. Straw.” To Douglas: “I’ll catch up with you. Get two, okay?” The boy leaves, they all leave. In a minute it’s just Conner and me alone in the room. He walks up boldly to where I sit at my desk. “What’s up, Ms. Straw?”
But I suddenly realize that I have no idea what I want to say to him.
“Are—are you and Douglas friends now?” I ask in a small voice. I seem to be having trouble breathing.
“Huh?”
“You. And Douglas. Are you friends?”
He cocks his head. “I dunno. I guess we are.”
“That’s—that’s good.” I stare at his white sweater, at his soft young hands. His blue jeans are faded and frayed. I should buy him new ones, I think, and instantly dismiss the notion, tell myself I didn’t think that at all.
“I guess.” He looks puzzled. “Did you want something, Ms. Straw?”
“No, I…” It occurs to me then. “Connor, would you like to make some money?”
“How?”
“Are you good at shoveling snow?”
“Pretty good. I shoveled the front walk at our house yesterday.”
The thoughts suddenly tumble into place, onto after another, dominoes falling.
“We have a back path,” I say, “that leads to our storage shed. My husband hasn’t gotten around to shoveling it. Would you?”
“Well, sure, I guess. But I don’t know where you live.”
I tell him. I don’t tell him that I’ve looked in the file at the main office, learned where he and his father reside. It’s in a different housing tract, a poorer one, but not more than a mile from us and on a main bus route. We talk about price for a moment.
“And you could use our snow shovel,” I say.
“Okay.” He smiles. “When?”
“How about tomorrow?” I say. “Friday. Could you make it on Friday afternoon? Should I call your father about it?”
“Nah, he’ll be at work anyway. He won’t care.”
“Four o’clock?”
“Sure. Okay. I’ll be there.” He looks distractedly toward the classroom window. “Can I go now?”
I smile and stand. “Of course, Connor. Thank you.”
He grins and runs for the door, stopping to pull on his old brown coat before scampering out onto Cutts School’s gentle hills, green in spring, smooth and white now. I walk to the window where I can see him and Douglas pulling red sleds up the steepest hill on the property, which isn’t very steep, really. Still, they ascend the hill, mount their sleds, slide down. I can hear their little boy cheers as they drop. My body tingles. Sweat trickles down my neck. Looking down at my hands I realize that they’re quivering. Yet I’ve done nothing wrong, I know. I have done nothing wrong. This is a perfectly pedestrian arrangement between a teacher and her student, and what I told him was absolutely true. There is a back path to our storage shed where we keep our firewood, among other things. Bill has failed to clear it yet. What’s more, I know Connor has no money. The few dollars I’ll pay him for this service will be a godsend to him, allowing him to buy any number of things. Comic books. French fries at McDonald’s. Admission to a movie downtown. Perhaps the back path doesn’t really need to be shoveled with any urgency—we have plenty of firewood in the house anyway—but this kind of make-work project just shows once again how caring I am as a teacher. He’s a poor boy. I’ve found an excuse to let him earn some money. No one could possibly criticize, no one could judge.
He comes the next day, fresh-faced and on time, his cheeks bright apple-red in the cold. Gracie is playing with a picture puzzle on the floor. Bill is at work. I watch my young student walk briskly up our front walk in his brown coat and red wool hat, ring the doorbell.
“Is that the boy?” Gracie asks. I’ve told her he’s coming.
“Yes, sweetheart, I think it is.” I run my hands over my hair nervously, smooth my blouse, go to the door and open it.
“Hi, Ms. Straw!”
“Connor. You came.”
“Sure! I like money.”
I smile. “I’ll bet you do.” My fingers flutter around my face, my hair. “Come in, Connor. Meet my daughter, Gracie. Gracie, this is Connor. He’s one of my students.”
“’lo.” She glances up, then back down at her puzzle. Gracie doesn’t care for strangers.
“Hi, Gracie!” Connor steps quickly over to her and kneels down. “Hey, you like puzzles, huh?”
She shrugs. “Sorta.”
Connor studies it for a moment, picks up a loose piece and points out where it belongs. He hands it to Gracie to put in, and she smiles a little. He stands again, faces me.
“Well,” I say, “are you ready?”
“Sure!” He looks around. “You have a nice house, Ms. Straw.”
“Thank you, Connor. Step into the living room here. That leads to the back.”
We do. Connor’s eyes look around admiringly at the big-screen TV and big collection of videocassettes on the shelves. “Wow, Ms. Straw, you must have a hundred movies here!” He tilts his head sideways to look at the titles.
“You’re welcome to borrow any that you want, Connor.”
“Yeah, but you know what?” He looks at me sadly. “Our VCR’s busted.”
“Oh, no. Can you get it fixed?”
He shrugs. “My dad keeps saying he’ll get around to it. It hasn’t worked in a week.”
“I’m sorry, Connor.” I look at him. “Listen, the job’s in back here.” We step onto the rear porch. “See the shed there? There’s a walkway to it, but you can’t really see it in the snow. It’s just sort of an indentation. See?” I point.
“Yeah, I see.” He notices the snow shovel leaning against the house and grabs it in his mitten-wrapped hands. “I’ll have it done in no time!”
I smile. “This is a big help, Connor. Thank you.”
“Sure!” He grins brightly under his red wool cap, takes the shovel and marches over to the start of the walkway. I watch his shoulders as he works. He’s energetic, stronger than I might have thought. He’s very tidy, making sure each portion of the walkway is completely cleared before moving onto the next. I realize I should stop staring at him and turn away, look at Gracie who has come into the living room and is watching him too.
I have a vision, a sudden image in my mind, Bill and I, Gracie, we’re together in this house and we’re happy and normal and there’s a fire in the fireplace and a holiday movie on the TV and hot chocolate with marshmallows in mugs on the table and Connor, if he’s there at all, Connor is simply a neighborhood boy, my student whom I’ve hired partly out of practicality, partly out of sympathy, he shovels the walk in my vision and comes in and I pay him his money and he thanks me and out he heads into the fading winter afternoon, happy as a lark at his newfound wealth, running off to join Douglas or some other boy and frolic in the snow exactly as any sweet trusting eleven-year-old boy should. Yes. For an instant this is vivid in my mind, as bright and detailed as any vision can possibly be. And as evanescent. As unreal.
11
The lunchtime sessions become movie-watching sessions. I have a VCR and TV combination unit permanently in my classroom, after all. Connor’s father is seemingly in no hurry to repair the equipment at home. And so I suggest to him that he can watch movies here at the noon hour. “You’ll have to break a movie into two parts, probably, the lunch period isn’t long enough,” I say. “But you’re welcome to use the equipment here.”