Otoño

"So, you going to say 'hi' to your wife on your way out?"  I asked the blond booty shaking, now first grader.  "Miss Connor?  She's not my wife anymore" he answered, referring to probably the hottest member of our teaching staff.   "That's not what you said when you brought in that drawing of your name in hearts for her last year" I responded.  "Nooo!" he contested, "It's over between us, but she keeps chasing me.  I have a fourteen year old girl friend now". 

"My family escaped from Vietnam on a boat.  They were boat people.  It was after the war, things were bad.  They sailed to the Philippines and lived in a refugee camp until the U.S. let them in" the thin, pretty woman told me, while she painted my fingernails.   "That sounds dangerous" I responded.  "It is," she answered, "people get lost and the boats sink.  The U.S. stopped letting people in not long after my parents got here.  They had to.  It had to end sometime.  But people still get here".  "How?" I asked.  "They get fake papers and bribe people along the way until they get to the U.S. My roommate did it, she's not who her papers say she is," she responded "why are you missing a toenail?". 

"The hot water heater went out?" Alec told me.  Were we in Tijuana?  "What do you mean, did you re-light it?" I asked.  "Yeah, like a million times, it just goes back out.  I'll try again".  It didn't work.  Coldest night in recent months and no hot water, and I smelled like wet dog after my slow jog around the park. 

I stood in our morning meeting at work, feeling very bright eyed and bushy tailed after my freezing cold, splashing water army shower.   A woman walked by in furry, leopard printed pajamas.  A one piece.  Must be pajama day somewhere in the school.

I was wearing the necklace, the long, silver necklace with a silver apple at the end, that has a real, working clock inside.  My sister gave it to me when I started teaching.  High school kids loved it and now elementary kids love it.  It caught Emily's eye the minute she sat on her place on the rug.  The place she always sits.  Without change.  Everyday.  Barely thinking, I pulled it off and handed it to her.  She tried to twist the knob that sets the time.   I had to pull it out so that the hands would move.  Would she break it?  It was a gift.  What if she slammed it into the brick wall?  I love that necklace.  For some reason, I felt like it was worth it to let her play with it.   As I continued the lesson, every time I would glance at Emily's marble-like eyes, filled with fascination as she made the hands move and dangled the apple in front of her face as if hypnotizing herself, I felt oddly calm and content. 

It was time to get off of the rug.  Would it be a struggle to get the apple back from Emily?  I couldn't let her have it.  It was too important.  As soon as I explained the assignment, the kids jumped up, including Emily, to go to the tables.

She quickly handed me the necklace and headed to her place at the table, to the place where she always sits.  Everyday.  She wanted to draw what the seasons of the year looked like. 

I almost wanted her back, back watching the apple, back watching the silver swing in front of her glass eyes.