Matt & Zoe by Charles Sheehan-Miles Page A

conversationally.
    “All right, please line up,” I say to the class. As always, it takes several minutes for the class to get it together, though it is definitely faster than the second grade classes are at the beginning of the year. I guess I’m moving up in the world.
    I herd my class down the hall to the cafeteria, noting Zoe walking along next to Jasmine. Jasmine is talking, which is a good change… but I’ve also heard her stammer several times this week. She used to be a big talker.
    My Mom’s still alive—but I never did get over Dad’s death. I know how she is feeling.
    That breaks my heart. Whatever else happens this year, I want to help that little girl get through this ordeal.
    Everything in the cafeteria is business as usual. Once my students are in line for lunch, or seated at their tables, I walk over to the lunch line.
    Zoe is at the back of the line next to Jasmine, so I end up right next to her. I can’t help but look at her. She’s crazy beautiful. Narrow waist, generous breasts, fantastic legs. She’s smart and confident. Whoever ends up with her is going to be a very lucky man.
    Shut up, Matt. Whoever it is, it’s not going to be me. I’m her sister’s teacher, and … that’s just a bad scene.
    Even so, she turns to me and in a wry tone asks, “So is this going to be as bad as Army food?”
    I grin. “Maybe.” Although food served on the road and on a train, night after night, probably does compare, and not favorably. Of the three dishes available, I point out the most edible one, broiled chicken. Once through the line, we part ways. Zoe goes with Jasmine, and I head to the faculty table, where I sit with Mary Jane Reese, a transplant from Alabama who sounds like sweet-cream butter spread on toast—and Rhonda Williams, a fifty-year-old widower who lost her husband in a snowplow accident two winters ago.
    Immediately, both of them ply me with questions about the union meeting tonight, the possible strike, whether or not the school committee is going to budge, and a number of other questions I can’t answer. I make it clear to both of them that they’ll have to wait in suspense just like the rest of us, then focus on my eating.
    My eyes fall on Zoe again. Zack, the nine-year-old sitting next to Jasmine, shouts, “You were in the ARMY?” Zoe throws her head back and laughs, her teeth flashing white. It’s nice to see that she is capable of smiling. But then Mary Jane speaks in an unpleasant tone to Rhonda.
    “Look at her,” she says. “Her Mamma’s not even been dead two weeks and she’s over there laughing. What’s wrong with that girl?”
    Rhonda mutters, “She was in my fourth grade math class. Years ago. Thought she was better than everyone else because her father taught at Mount Holyoke. Then she runs off to the Army of all things.”
    Mary Jane speaks again. “They should leave fighting to men. It’s Obama’s fault. Do you think she’s a lesbian? A lot of those women in the Army are.”
    “All right,” I say. I lean close to them. “That’s enough. Her little sister is in my class, and they just lost their parents. Have some class.”
    Mary Jane’s eyes widen and she covers her mouth with one hand in an almost comical expression. Rhonda looks indignant, her face turning the shade of a plum. I grumble and take out a paperback without saying anything else. The book hasn’t been keeping my interest, but almost anything is better than listening to these two.
    “Well, I never,” Mary Jane mutters.
    Finally, it’s time for lunch to end. My class is standing, and Zoe stands with them, stretching her arms high above her after sitting on the too short seat for the last twenty minutes. The stretch arches her back, pushing her breasts out, and I have to look away.
    Christ.
    My class goes to music now, and I get the next fifty minutes free for my planning period. I head back to my class alone, needing to get my head clear.
    It would be a bad idea to get involved with a