“Wow! Thanks, Ms. Straw!”
He does. And watching Strangers on a Train, Foreign Correspondent, Key Largo, Public Enemy proves to be even more enticing than sledding with Douglas Peterson. The snow melts rapidly enough, anyway, soon nothing more than gray and white splotches on the landscape. For a while I fear that Connor may suggest that Douglas or some other boy come watch the films too, but this doesn’t happen. I wonder why not. Maybe Connor simply knows that other boys his age aren’t interested in such old movies. On the other hand, perhaps he senses something special about this time we spend together. He knows I don’t offer the classroom at lunchtime or the TV and VCR to anyone else. In truth, I’m not even there every day: occasionally I have to attend a meeting or conference with a parent. Once I have to rush to Gracie’s school because she’s throwing up. (Mild food poisoning: she ate a crayon.) Still, I allow Connor to watch his videos whether I’m there or not. I trust him. He sees that, appreciates it.
But I’m usually there, sitting at my desk, watching with one eye as James Cagney or George Raft or Humphrey Bogart goes through his ancient black and white motions. The rest of my attention is occupied with lunch, or with grading spelling quizzes and practice paragraphs. Of course the truth is that little of my attention is really focused on any of these things. Instead I watch Connor, his enraptured eyes aimed at the TV screen. Occasionally he’ll blurt out some sound of enthusiasm (“Wow!”) or ask me something (“What does ‘cracking wise’ mean, Ms. Straw?”), but mostly he’s quiet, an ideal filmgoer, completely fascinated.
As with everything we do together, our movie-watching is perfectly appropriate. I sit nowhere near Connor. The lights are on. The door is open. Every now and then someone steps into the classroom: a stray child, perhaps, who’ll watch the unspooling film for a minute or two, grow bored and leave.
At last it snows again.
It’s not a major storm, just a few inches, but it closes school for the day. Bill, in a generous moment, offers to stay home and take Gracie out for lunch and a movie. “Stay here and get some sleep, Mom,” he smiles.
“Bill, thank you. This is so nice of you.”
He shrugs, getting into his coat. “We’ll give you a few hours of peace.”
I wave to them as Bill pulls the car out of the driveway.
Then I stare at the phone for a very long time. I know Connor’s home number; I’ve called his father a couple of times, good-news calls about Connor’s excellent performance in my class. Connor won’t be there, I know. He’ll be out sledding with Douglas Peterson. He’ll be out running errands with his dad. I know he won’t be there. I’ll call and there will be no answer, or I’ll get their machine, or his father will pick up and I’ll tell him how well Connor is doing again and hang up.
My throat is dry. My hands quiver. It’s as if I’m a child again, an adolescent just on the cusp of dating and wanting, desperately wanting to call some boy but frightened to pick up the phone.
I pick up the phone. As I punch in the numbers I feel my body relax because I’m completely certain he won’t be there. This is nothing, I think. Just a call to his dad. After all, he just got a 100 on his last spelling quiz. That’s good news, sharable news. The line rings once, twice. Exhaling, I wait for the answering machine, his father’s gruff We can’t come to the phone, leave a message. “Hello, Mr. Blue,” I rehearse in my mind, “this is Mona Straw, Connor’s English teacher, and I just wanted to say how well he did on…”
“Hello?”
It’s Connor.
I stammer, wipe my mouth with my hand. My fingers run shakily through my hair. Somehow I choke out the words snow, shovel, work, pay.
“Sure, Ms. Straw. I’ll come over.”
“You…?” My breath is shallow, short. “Connor, won’t you be out sledding or…?”
“Nah. There’s not really enough snow for that. I’m not doing anything anyway. I can come right away.”
And he does. It feels as if it takes him twenty centuries to arrive and yet it feels, as I see him hustling coldly up the walk in his big coat, that he has arrived much too soon, as if he must have hitched a ride on a lightning bolt to have arrived so quickly. I’m wearing my pink blouse and blue jeans. The top buttons are undone on the blouse but that’s because I’m just casually hanging around at home, no other reason. The same reason I’m not wearing a bra. I’m just a teacher on a snow day, that’s all, sluffing around the house.
I open the door before he even knocks. We look at each other. Finally he says, “Hi, Ms. Straw.”
I realize I’ve forgotten to speak. “Hi, Connor,” I say, gesturing him into the house.
“Back walk again?”
“Yes, yes, that would be… great. That would be great.”
“All right!” He grins, marches through the hall and the living room and to the rear door. I watch him shoveling. It doesn’t take him long, there isn’t much snow. But when he comes back in he’s panting.
“Sit down, Connor,” I say. “Take off your coat. Rest a bit.”
“Thanks,” he says, handing me the coat and dropping to the sofa. He has on a red-and-white striped shirt underneath. “I hope my shoes aren’t dirty.” He lifts each of his legs so that I can see the soles of his tennis shoes.
“No, they’re fine. Just a little wet. Don’t worry about it.”
“Okay.” He smiles, still catching his breath.
I sit gingerly on the hassock in front of the sofa, facing him.
“Where’s your daughter?” he asks.
“My husband took her to a kids’ movie. Would you like some hot chocolate, Connor?”
“Well, sure. If you have some, Ms. Straw.”
“Of course we do.” I jump up quickly, move to the kitchen, put on the kettle, pour powder into cups. My hand slips and one packet bursts out onto the counter everywhere: a spray of brown dust. I wipe it up quickly, not wanting Conner to see, anyone to see. I wait for the water to boil. Like his arrival, it takes twenty centuries. Finally it does and I pour it into the cups holding myself very steady and take the cups into the living room. Connor is looking at the long line of videos on the shelf.
“You sure got a lot of movies, Ms. Straw.” He takes the cup. “Thanks!”
“Would you like to watch one, Connor?”
He glances at the shelf. “Well, sure… If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind. I’ll watch it with you. It’s a snow day. We don’t have anything else to do, right?”
“Right!”
“Do you think you should call your dad to let him know where you are?”
“Nah. He’s at work. He doesn’t care.”
“Oh.” I look at him. “Well, what one do you want to watch?”
He chooses Double Indemnity, one of my all-time favorites. Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck, their illicit relationship, her husband’s murder. He sits on our sofa engrossed in the film. I sit on the other chair. After twenty minutes or so we’re finished with our cocoa and I rise to take the cups to the kitchen.
“Should I pause it, Ms. Straw?”
“No, I can hear it, Connor. And I’ve seen this movie lots of times.” I smile and, to my astonishment, reach out my hand and tousle his hair. I’d not intended to do that. He hardly seems to notice, continues staring at the screen.
I move to the kitchen, wash the cups. I don’t have to wash the cups. We have an automatic dishwasher. But I stand there at the sink carefully rinsing each cup with hot water, applying a bit of liquid detergent, scrubbing each cup inside and out for several minutes, rinsing again. I wonder what I’m doing. What I’m doing here, at this sink, what I’m doing with this boy in the living room, what I’m doing with my life. And yet I’m so excited I can hardly see. The cups blur before me, the countertop sways. I’m hot, flushed. My arms tingle. I’m wet between my legs. I can’t get over how pretty he is, how young, and how he’s in this house, alone with me.