Bayview Heights Trilogy (6 page)

Taylor smiled at her. “So, what else is new?
You’re always the last one to concede on anything.”

“Are you calling me stubborn?”

“Only when it comes to what’s best for the
kids.”

o0o

DAMN. THEY WERE ONLY KIDS. There were only
twelve of them. Mitch had faced a gang of more than this number on
the streets once, and his palms hadn’t been this sweaty. More so,
he’d been in a brutal war and confronted death head-on. How hard
could it be to teach a class, for God’s sake?

Ms. Smith sat in the back, hands folded, eyes
on him. He recognized the look. She expected him to fall flat on
his face.

It gave him courage.

“All right, let’s begin,” he said, passing
out the papers. At least he’d gotten them all into desks. They’d be
easier to control that way.

It took a long minute for the papers to get
to the back; by that time, two kids had started to talk.

“No talking, please,” he said in his best
police officer voice.

“I was just askin’ him for a pen,” Arga
said.

“I got one,” Som volunteered. She took a
ballpoint out of her purse.

“Don’t throw...” Mitch began just as the
instrument sailed across two aisles.

“All right. Calm down, now. What we’re going
to talk about today is violence prevention. How you can keep your
world orderly and safe.”

Snickers rumbled through the group. He saw
Battaglia slouch down in the chair, fold his arms over his chest
and close his eyes. “Mr. Battaglia. Are you with us?”

“Nope.”

“May I ask why?”

“You can ask.”

“Why?”

“I pass.”

Palms even more clammy, Mitch said,
“Straighten up and stay alert.”

Johnny opened his eyes but didn’t sit up.

Mitch turned to the rest of the class. “All
right. On these five pages, there are several situations or
circumstances you might find yourselves in. Then there are choices
for you to make at the end of each question. Please do all
twenty.”

That ought to keep them busy for a while.
Five students picked up their pens and looked down at the paper.
Two made faces at each other. One was staring out into space.
Battaglia put his head down.

Mitch started to walk back to him when Nikki
Parelli raised her hand. He went over to the girl. “I don’t
understand what this word means, Captain.”

Mitch explained the meaning of
contention
, baffled that such an easy word could cause a
high schooler problems.

As he returned to the front of the room, a
paper airplane landed on the floor. He bent down and picked it up.
It was page five. Everyone was looking at him. He knew he could go
through each row, find out who didn’t have page five, but he sensed
it was the wrong thing to do. He folded his arms over his chest and
told them all to get to work.

He walked to the back of the room. “Mr.
Battaglia?” The boy raised insolent eyes to him. “You’re not doing
the assignment. Why?”

“I’m tired. I worked till midnight last
night.”

“Answer the questions on the sheets.”

After a long, hard stare at Mitch, Battaglia
picked up his pen. He circled an answer for each question without
reading them. Then he looked up at Mitch again. “Done.”

Mitch was about to respond when he heard a
student say, “Quit kickin’ me, man.”

“I ain’t.”

“You just did.”

“Shut up, Youngblood.”

“You tellin’
me
to shut up?”

Mitch hustled to the front of the room. “All
right, you guys, knock it off.”

“He started it,” Arga said.

“This isn’t a first-grade classroom,
gentlemen,” Mitch scolded.

DeFazio looked around. “It ain’t? You could
have fooled me.”

Everyone laughed, and Mitch knew he was
losing control. Rules. They needed rules. “I want everyone to be
quiet and finish this assignment.”

They settled down somewhat. Intermittently,
someone would stretch and everyone would turn to look at him. One
student burped and they all laughed. Two kids tapped their pens on
their desks. Mitch stopped that by standing close to them. In
fifteen minutes, half the class was done. The other half, Mitch
noted, were in different phases of completion. As he looked at
them, he realized he had no idea what to do with those who had
finished.

Someone snapped gum loudly. Mitch’s head
jerked up. “Whoever did that, throw the gum out.”

Twelve angelic faces stared at him wide-eyed.
His hand fisted at his side. He glanced at the clock. He couldn’t
possibly have sixty more minutes of this chaos to deal with.

He caught Cassie’s eye. She wasn’t smiling.
She looked...sad.

As he tried to discuss the material, he got
more of the same antics from the kids. The remaining hour crawled
by. Inch by inch, Mitch lost control. Finally, Cassie announced it
was time to leave. The kids rose. There was some conversation as
they picked up their gear. They all said goodbye to her. As they
walked by him, Nikki smiled at him. “Bye, Captain.” He was grateful
for that. When they were gone, he realized they’d left their papers
on the desks. Solemnly, he collected them.

Cassie leaned against the wall and watched
him. His body language was a study in frustration. His shoulders
were stiff, every muscle taut. Absurdly, she felt sorry for him.
When he’d retrieved all the papers and returned to the front of the
room, she looked at him somberly. “It didn’t go so well.”

Placing the pile on a desk, he scrubbed his
hands over his face. “No, it didn’t. Is teaching always like
this?”

“It can be.”

“I had no idea.”

“Most people don’t. They think anybody can be
a teacher. You just stand up in front of the kids and deliver the
material.”

“Yeah, but no one listens. Even if they do,
they don’t always get it, do they?”

“No, they don’t.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and faced
her squarely. “I need some help.”

Cassie knew that cost him. She understood
intuitively that Mitch Lansing rarely said those words to anyone.
Neither did she.

“I could help.”

“I don’t like failure. I don’t want to
experience it again.”

Giving him a quick smile, she said, “I
appreciate your honesty.” She perched on the edge of her desk. “You
sure you want this?”

He nodded.

“Okay.” She held up her index finger. “Rule
number one—kids learn by doing.” A second finger joined it. “Rule
number two—they learn if you can make it relevant.”

Mitch watched her for a minute, then said,
“So how do you get content across?”

She picked up the packet he handed out. “I
looked through your material. It’s good stuff but should be used as
reinforcement of the ideas, not to teach them.”

“How do you teach ideas, then?”

“Tell me what you want them to learn.”

“Alternatives to violent behavior.”

“All right, then ask them first for their own
input. What alternatives can they come up with? Then maybe ask them
for situations where they’ve been involved in violent behavior, and
how they could have chosen something different.”

“But that would take so long. I’d never get
through all the material.”

“No, but they’d be thinking, coming up with
their own conclusions. And they’d be with you every minute.”

“What about the rest of the content?”

Cassie sighed and stared over his shoulder at
the window. Then she looked back at him. “Let me tell you a story.
One of my favorite workshop presenters told us this once. There was
this guy, Ted, who was supposed to give his friend Bill a ride to
the airport. But Bill had to tie up some things before he left. Ted
went to pick up Bill and waited in the living room while Bill made
phone calls. It was getting later and later. Ted kept prodding
Bill, but Bill kept calling people, and he hadn’t started to pack.
The plane was leaving at three. At two-thirty, Bill still wasn’t
ready. So Ted left for the airport without him.”

Mitch nodded. “Okay. I see what you’re
getting at. A teacher can’t leave the kids home and make the trip
to the airport by himself.”

“Bingo!”

“So you deliver no content?”

Cassie’s temper flared; this accusation was a
sore spot with her. “No, I deliver content. Sometimes not as much
as I’d like, but enough.” She looked down at the packet of papers
she held. “From what I can tell, this last page with the
alternatives is what you want them to know. You could finish
getting all their input, then go to this sheet and see how many of
these points they covered. For those they missed, you could start a
discussion about how they apply and how they might be relevant in
different situations. Then you could ask for examples.”

“Makes sense,” Mitch said. “Even if it does
go against my grain.”

Cassie’s gaze swept over him. She hadn’t
expected this open-mindedness. “I wonder, Captain, underneath that
suit, what grain really exists.”

o0o

CASSIE STARED OUT the window of the
glassed-in porch of Zoe’s huge condominium on the bay. The water
lapped lazily, though the temperature this January afternoon edged
around freezing. She pressed her face to the cold glass, hoping the
sting would encourage her to go inside and socialize. Behind her,
music from the sixties combined with the din of
conversation—teachers letting down after a tough week. Usually she
loved these gatherings, where she shared her joys and frustrations
with her colleagues.

“Hey, kid, what are you doing out here by
yourself?”

Cassie turned to Zoe, who’d changed into a
Japanese-print caftan to play hostess as she often did on a Friday
night.

“Thinking.”

“About?”

“What else?”

“School. Honestly, Cass, you’re a hopeless
case. You need a man in your life to distract you.”

Unbidden, a vision of Mitch Lansing came to
mind. She wondered what he’d look like out of that damn suit, in a
dark green T-shirt that accentuated his eyes. “Yeah, maybe you’re
right.” If she was having these thoughts about Lansing, she
definitely needed something.

“Did you see the hottie Susie brought? He’s a
vice president down at the electronics plant.”

“No, I didn’t notice.”

“You must be dead, girl, not to have
noticed.”

No, she wasn’t dead, Cassie thought. She’d
noticed some things--the way Mitch’s face had hardened with
determination when the kids were brushing him off, how the cleft in
his chin deepened when he was frustrated, how his smile was warm
and reassuring to Nikki when the girl couldn’t quite master the
language of his worksheet.

“Zoe, someone’s at the door,” one of the
teachers called from the other room.

Zoe gave Cassie a strange look, then turned
to go to meet her new guest. Cassie faced the bay again. She
shouldn’t be noticing anything about Mitch Lansing. But she knew
why she was. His wit, intelligence and determination were traits
that appealed to her. She liked the fact that he enjoyed reading.
Thank God he’d blown it with the kids today. She stilled the little
voice inside her that reminded her he’d wanted her input after
class and had accepted her suggestions. God help her if he got good
with them. She was a real sucker for men who worked well with
kids.

Cassie turned when Zoe came back into the
room. With her was Mitch Lansing. “Cass, look who’s here.”

Cassie bit her lip to keep her jaw from
dropping. “Captain. What a surprise.”

“I invited Mitch to our get-together tonight.
I’m glad you came, Mitch. What can I get you?” As always, Zoe was a
perfect hostess.

Mitch glanced at his watch. To make sure he
was off duty, no doubt. “I’ll have a beer.”

“Cass?”

Cassie sipped the bottle of Michelob. “No,
thanks. I’m nursing this one.”

When Zoe left, Mitch faced her. His hair was
a little mussed, but his white shirt was as crisp as it had been
this morning. A faint growth of beard shadowed his face, and she
had a sudden urge to touch him.

He watched her closely. “I get the impression
you’re not glad to see me.”

“No, no, I’m just surprised.”

His grin was little-boyish; the switch from
cynical cop threw her. “Truthfully, so am I.”

“Why? That Zoe would ask you, or that you’d
come?”

Green eyes sparkled. “Both, I guess.”

“Well, Captain, if nothing else, you’re
honest.”

“No, not always.”

Before Cassie could respond, Zoe returned
with a frosted glass of beer for Mitch. She chatted for a minute
then left to see to the food.

Cassie lifted her beer. “Toast, Captain?”

“To?”

“To a better lesson next time?”

He smiled broadly and Cassie’s stomach
contracted. “Let’s hope so. Nothing could be worse than today.” He
looked down at her. “Thanks for your help.”

Cassie smiled up at him and clinked his
glass.

He said, “To a successful collaboration.” His
husky tone made her shiver. “Are you cold?” he asked.

Oh, God, had she really
shivered?

“Ah, a little. This porch isn’t heated well
enough for January.”

Before she realized his intent, he set his
beer down, removed his suit coat and placed it on her shoulders.
His hands lingered there for a minute; they felt solid and firm and
made her wonder briefly if his fingertips would be callused. As if
he read her thoughts, he removed his hands abruptly and looked
away, out to the ocean.

Released from his touch, she steadied
herself— until his scent surrounded her. It was so male, so potent
that for a minute she had to stop breathing, had to stop the
bombardment of her senses. The jacket was heavy and huge on
her.

Mitch said nothing, just stared at the waves
lapping against the shore. Cassie watched his throat as he
swallowed a swig of beer. It was an oddly erotic sight, and she
turned to look out at the bay, too. Lost in their own thoughts,
they were both silent.