“Miss, I told you I have no idea where she is, and if you’ll excuse me, I must get ready for my next class.” Ms. Goldman walks briskly, heading for the elevator marked “Staff Only.”
“Why isn’t the school notified? How come you’re teaching her class and the office knows nothing?” Suzy follows in quick steps, afraid that Ms. Goldman will disappear into the elevator without her.
Pressing the “Down” button, Ms. Goldman heaves a sigh and says impatiently, “Ms. Gibney, the school secretary, is out on maternity leave, so it’s all chaos there. But that’s not my problem.”
“Why does the secretary downstairs seem to think Grace is in today?”
“Well, I don’t know anything about that.”
“Does any of this have to do with the guy she’s seeing?” Suzy is tempted to pull out the quarterly and show it to the woman, but she decides it’s better to let the question hang.
Ms. Goldman skips a minute or two, then says wearily, “May I ask how you are related to Miss Park?”
“She’s my sister.”
Just then the elevator arrives. Ms. Goldman motions Suzy to get in and snaps, “Fifteen minutes, but that’s it, I have papers to grade.”
The door opens to a cafeteria. Empty except for the kitchen staff and a few students at the far end, either waiting for a class or just killing time. Ms. Goldman returns to the table carrying two mugs on a tray. When Suzy declines the packets of cream and sugar, she dumps all into hers and stirs quickly. She knows Suzy’s eyes are on her. She lets the coffee sit without taking a sip. Finally, she looks up and says, “It was Miss Park who asked me to keep quiet. Without Ms. Gibney keeping track, no one has to know she’s gone as long as her class is covered. She didn’t want the absence on record, ’cause, you see, she’s used up all her vacation and sick days. She was afraid she might lose the job. Don’t get me wrong. Miss Park is very conscientious. I don’t know if I should even be telling you this, since you say you haven’t seen her in a while, but she hasn’t been herself lately, not since that guy started coming around, I guess for about a month. She’s been missing classes. Then, a few days ago, this past Sunday night, she called me out of the blue.
“She was quite upset. She sounded frantic. She said that she couldn’t come in for a while, and could I cover for her? You see, with ESL, the school doesn’t provide substitutes. It’s just not in our budget. So, when she’s sick or something, we’re all supposed to cover for her, the English teachers, depending on whose schedule works best with her class. So it was not a problem, except that she said ‘for a while.’ You see, I have my own class to teach, and it wouldn’t be fair for me to teach someone else’s class ‘for a while.’ So I asked her, for how long? She said two weeks. She’ll be back by Thanksgiving. I told her flat out that it was impossible, it just wouldn’t work. I told her to try Mr. Myers from English III, or Mr. Peters, who teaches remedial English. She’s got her ways with men; I don’t mean that in a strange way, I just mean that she has her ways.”
Ms. Goldman talks fast, in nervous bursts, as though she is glad finally to be getting it all out.
“That’s when she started crying, which surprised me. You know what she’s like, she’s always polite and proper, but I’ve always found her to be, well, a bit cold. But here she was, crying into my phone on a Sunday night. I’m a woman, I can hear it when there’s trouble. She said that she didn’t want to ask the other teachers ‘cause she didn’t want them to talk, and that she was calling me ’cause she respected me more than others. Well, I never knew she’d felt that way about me, although I guess I’ve always treated her with respect, much more respect than either Mr. Myers or Mr. Peters, who both look at her in ways not exactly decent, if you know what I mean. Besides, at large schools like this, students gossip, and especially with Miss Park—you know how she is—she’s rather, well, much talked about, let’s say.” Ms. Goldman will not say it. She will not say that Grace is popular because she is beautiful. She is a woman, after all. She will not let herself go there.
“Then she told me she was getting married. She said that it was a secret from everyone, more like eloping, because they wanted to do it quietly, especially with her parents gone. Of course, everyone remembers about her parents. I asked her then whom she was marrying, although I’ve heard about the guy picking her up in a fancy car lately, which I have to say I found inappropriate, these young people showing off money, especially on public-school grounds. She told me not to worry, ’cause he was like a new family for her. I asked her if he had a proper job, which concerned me, you know, since he’d been coming around in the middle of afternoons. She said that he was in the music business, which I found odd. I can’t remember why I found it odd, but I did. She then said that she was planning to announce it when she came back, but until then I was the only one she was telling. Poor girl, she was still crying. My heart just went out to her, a single girl getting married finally, without a family to help her, it must be overwhelming.” Ms. Goldman’s eyes flicker at Suzy, as if she blames her for Grace’s tears, as if asking, Where the hell were you when she needed you? Then she quickly adds, “So I felt sorry for her and told her that I’d take over her class, just for two weeks, though, not any longer!”
Grace.
Married.
It never occurred to Suzy.
Surely one of them would marry first, someday with someone. Yet Suzy never thought of it. Suzy never imagined that Grace would one day start a new family. But why go away to do it? Why in secret? Why would Grace suddenly confide in this woman?
“Did she leave any contact address or number? His phone number, or his name, anything about him?” Suzy can just about muster the question. There’s the sudden loosening, the hollowness inside.
“No, I thought of getting an emergency number, but then I thought it would be better to leave the girl alone through this. Let her have this moment, I said to myself.” Ms. Goldman lifts her chest a little, as though she is touched by her own magnanimity, and then she whispers, as if she just remembered, “I know nothing about him, although, when I asked her if his family minded the wedding being so sudden, she told me that he was alone too. What a lonely wedding, I thought, and asked her how come he was so alone, and she said that he was an orphan, just like her.”
Ms. Goldman is now studying Suzy a bit closer, contemplating her hair, all stringy from the sink water, and her overcoat still wrinkled from the bus. Too bad, her eyes seem to be saying. A sister? You don’t quite measure up to Grace Park, do you?
Before Suzy thanks the woman, she writes down her own phone number and hands it to her. “Just in case Grace gets in touch,” she tells her. “She’s all I’ve got.”
Although she is the one who insisted on sparing no more than fifteen minutes, Ms. Goldman appears to be in no hurry to end their conversation. It’s probably been the biggest drama in this whole week of her otherwise single, paper-grading teacher’s life. As though still jittery from all the excitement, Ms. Goldman knocks over the mug while getting up from her seat. Instantly there’s brown liquid everywhere, spilling over Ms. Goldman’s tan PBS tote bag and the piles of papers. Suzy immediately reaches over and pushes the papers off the table.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry, did it get to your coat? Let me go find some tissues.” Ms. Goldman scowls, running to the kitchen.
Too bad the mug was full. Ms. Goldman never even touched it.
Squatting on the ground, Suzy begins picking up the papers. Essays for the ESL class. Each cover sheet bears the student’s name followed by “Miss Grace Park,” underlined. Strange to see Grace’s name typed so neatly. Then “Assignment #3” in italics, many with a single “s,” which seems to be the common spelling error. It is then that Suzy notices their titles. “MY PERFECT HOUSE,” says one. “MY SWEET FAMILY,” says another. Slowly, Suzy surveys the papers strewn around her. They are all about one thing. The glorifying, larger-than-life capital letters celebrating home. “MY AMAZING FATHER.” “MY BEAUTIFUL MOTHER.” Then, finally, “MY GOOD SISTER.”