#billy mcmath

Billy walks into the classroom with Orpheus on his mind. He has twenty minutes to prepare a lecture on "Sir Orfeo," before his students come in from lunch. He gives himself twenty-five, privately, because he knows Harris will be five minutes late and anything he says before that will be lost in the stream of breathless apologies as the boy dashes in red-faced.

He drops his bag onto his desk and is startled by a solitary figure curled up at one of the desks near the back. She has her feet tucked up under the desk top and her elbows on her knees, hands buried in a thick mass of curly black hair.

"Has hell frozen over?" he asks after a second, and she looks up at him, hands moving to her cheeks. "Is Keisha Nicholas voluntarily sitting in my classroom twenty minutes before the bell?"

She sniffs and looks down at her knees. "Is it okay if I stay in here?" 

He watches her for a second, then approaches, slowly.

"What's going on?"

"Nothing." Her answer is too fast and her voice is thick. "Just-- Can I stay here until class?"

"You're asking me permission for something. You never ask permission. And Josie isn't even here to make you-- Oh. Is it Josie? Did you have a fight?"

He settles onto one of the desks, one foot balancing his weight on the chair. He's a few rows away, not crowding her, but close enough to see the redness of her eyes.

"No."

"I know she can be pretty tough sometimes, the things she says--"

"It's not Josie," she snaps. "Sorry, Sir."

He shrugs. "You're all right. Class doesn't start for twenty minutes. You want to talk about it?"

She snorts and shifts her shoulders, a bit of her customary bravado sneaking back onto her face. "Yeah, I'm gonna sit here and talk about boys with my English teacher."

 Billy crosses his arms and grins softly. "Well, no. That doesn't sound appealing at all. But I'd be happy to talk about common literary motifs."

She lets out a disbelieving laugh in spite of herself. Billy talks over her.

"You know, heartbreak, betrayal. Growing up. Loneliness. They're all recurring themes. Care to discuss?"

She blinks up at the ceiling, chewing on her lip. She blows a deliberate breath out her nose.

"You're avoiding Josie, yeah? Why?"

"I thought we were talking about literature." She hears the shake in her own voice and scratches at the edge of the desk with one long nail, scowling. Billy nods.

"Right. So when two characters always appear together--Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, let's say. Or, ah, something more relevant. And then suddenly one shows up without the other. What does that tell us?"

Keisha picks at the desk, but eventually replies. "Maybe one person  is avoiding the other. Maybe because the other person is gonna give her advice, and it's always the same advice. You know? And she's right, she's, like, totally right, but that doesn't mean that I-- that the first person is gonna do anything about it. And then the friend, character, thing, she's just gonna get pissed off and then I feel like an idiot, because it's not like she's wrong, you know? She isn't wrong, and every time I'm like 'Yeah, yeah, I get you. I'll do that.' And then I never do and I feel--" she trails off and kicks at the chair in front of her. "I mean, she would feel. The character, I mean. I imagine she would feel stupid. And weak."

Billy lets her words sit in the room for a moment, tapping his dangling foot thoughtfully against the leg of the chair.

"It's a common feeling," he says finally, screwing up his face as he hears the words. "That's not quite what I mean to say. I mean, it's a shitty feeling."

"Sir!" she gasps in mock horror. He pulls a face.

"I know what you mean. Is what I'm saying. This character knows that she'd be happier if she just stopped . . . whatever it is, but she can't seem to figure out how. It's all easy enough to say, but then someone asks, 'Are you busy later?' and she can't seem to figure out how to say 'Yeah, sorry.'"

She looks at him curiously for a moment, then picks at her nails. "Is this the teacher showing his humanity? Relating to the youth of today?"

Billy raises his eyebrows. "Showing my humanity? Do I come off as not human?"

"You're a teacher. That's your job."

He opens his mouth to reply, but decides not to press the issue. They sit in silence for a long moment, until Billy starts to consider returning to his desk and his half-finished lecture notes. She doesn't look up, but breaks the silence with a mumble.

"I should be better than I am."

Billy says nothing, waiting.

"I'm not some fucking-- You know. One of those girls who just says 'okay' to everything. I don't let anyone tell me what to do."

"I've noticed," he says with gentle amusement. 

She sniffs. "I don't know why it feels like I can't-- It's like I turn into a different person. And I hate it, but I don't hate it. I don't know."

"I know what you mean. It's okay. It doesn't make you any less-- Well. It doesn't make you less. It'll get better."

"Did it get better for you?" She looks up at him, seeming younger than sixteen.

"We're talking literature, remember?"

"But what did you do?" she asks, a bit of desperation creeping into her voice. "Did you ever get over it?"

"No," Billy replies thoughtfully. "But, then, I'm cheating, a bit. I married him."

She blinks. "Oh. Huh."

He shrugs. "If it hadn't turned out that way, though, I think I could have. Gotten over it, I mean. It's not easy, and it was a long, long time, but I'd have gotten through it." He grins. "Clapton helps."

"What?"

"Eric-- Forget it, it'll just depress me. I mean I'd have figured out how to get over it. You will, too. You're tough, you know?"

She snorts a humorless laugh. "I'm cheap and I'm rude and when I get beat up I usually deserve it. That's what you mean."

"No." There's no pity in his face; he's dead serious. "I mean you're tough. Like recognizes like. You don't break easy, you don't let things go, and in the end you don't let anyone push you around. You maybe bend pretty far, but you don't break. I'm the same way."

She smiles a little, crookedly, and goes back to picking at her nails. "Didn't know you were married. We thought maybe there was a Mrs. Mac somewhere. Wouldn't have guessed Mister."

"Well-- Sure. For all intents and purposes."

"I have no idea what the fuck that means."

"It's-- Ah, it's just something people say. I don't have to teach you anything for another five minutes, just let it go."

She laughs, briefly. The silence this time is more comfortable.

"I don't really feel any better," she says finally, sitting up in her chair. He shrugs.

"You don't have to. Stop avoiding Josie, she means well. I have a friend like her. Pain in the arse, but you'd be lost without her."

"Yeah, I know. Ugh."

He rises with a smile and head back to his desk. "So now that we've bonded and everything," he tosses back over his shoulder, "does that mean you'll pay attention in my class?"

She arches an eyebrow at him and wrinkles her nose. "Are you still going on about the Greek stuff?"

He rolls his eyes at her and doesn't respond, sorting through his papers.

"That's not very professional, Sir. Pulling faces at a student."

The first students start to shuffle into the room, so Billy keeps his retort to a simple: "You're a nuisance, you know that?"

She smiles and leans back in her desk balancing it on the back legs.