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autumn_in_philadelphia) wrote2022-08-19 08:12 am
Chapter 2: Cory and Shawn's Miracle Soap- Won't Clog Pores, Just Your Drain: Part 1
"So what'd ya say we go do something this Saturday?" Cory let his tray clatter on the table next to his best friend. It was Friday and he was antsy for the weekend to begin.
"Aren't you goin' out with Topanga this weekend?" Shawn asked as he stabbed at his lunch with a plastic knife.
"No," he replied flopping down in the chair. "She's got some paper due so she's going to spend all day Saturday at the library. And when she can't be there, she's going to be at home studying. Can you believe that?"
Shawn shook his head mournfully. "What a waste of a perfectly good weekend."
"Yeah," Cory poked at the brown "gravy" on his plate. "So ya want to do something?"
"Like what?"
"I dunno. The movies or something."
Shawn stuck his hands in his pockets and pulled them inside out. "Not unless they'll exchange lint for tickets."
Cory gave him a weak smile. "I'm broke, too."
The boys sat silently for moment, contemplating the depressing situation.
An idea suddenly lit Cory's eyes. He jumped in his seat slightly.
"Wanna raid a bathroom and mix random stuff together?"
Shawn chewed on the suggestion briefly. "Normally, I'd say no," he replied thoughtfully. "But seeing as we have no money, I say let's do it. It's either that or study."
"Cool," Cory abandoned his brown mush in favor of a chocolate pudding cup.
"So," Shawn leaned forward and lowered his voice. His eyes were shining. "Whadya think about the student teacher?"
"You mean Miss Andrews?" Cory struggled to get the seal off of the pudding cup. "She's cool." He sat the cup on the table and picked up a fork. "I'd say we lucked out by getting the two coolest teachers in school in the same class." Standing up, he poised the fork above the cup. "Mr. Turner is young and hip. Miss Andrews is younger and hip." He plunged the eating utensil into the heart of the container. It bounced off.
"Besides that," Shawn said hurriedly. "Is she hot or what?"
Cory shrugged as he attempted to puncture the pudding again. "She's pretty. Almost as pretty as Topanga."
"Right," Shawn rolled his eyes and smiled at his friend.
Cory put his body weight into stabbing the stubborn snack. The fork struck the lid with such a force that it yanked out of his hands and flew out of sight.
Cory dropped heavily into his seat again and gave the cup a shove. "I didn't really want it anyway," he muttered.
"Hey," Shawn tugged at his sleeve. "Do you think Miss Andrews will teach here after her internship?"
"Sha-a-a-awn?" Cory drawled turning to him with a cheesy grin. "Do you have a crush on Mr. Turner's student teacher?"
"No!" he scoffed straightening his shirt with a disdainful shrug. "I don't get crushes."
"Right," Cory nodded. "You got a thing for her then?"
"Maybe," he said mysteriously. "After all she's not that much older than us."
A hand descended between them holding Cory's flying fork. The boys' eyes followed the hand up the arm to the shoulder to the owner's face.
"I believe this is yours, Mr. Matthews," Mr. Feeny remarked with disapproval.
"Whadya know," the boy said, meekly taking his fork. "So it is."
As the principal walked away he remarked to Shawn.
"And she is that much older, Mr. Hunter."
Audrey sat in her classroom, absently staring at a notebook that lay open in front of her. The week had gone by so fast- she couldn't believe she had only one week of observation left before she would have to start teaching on her own. The thought terrified her.
Why couldn't I have stayed at Julliard? she wondered. I was fearless there. Nothing in New York intimidated me. Everything here scares me. Why did I choose teaching, anyway?
Audrey actually knew why she had chosen the profession she had. Her mother had been a high school English teacher who died when she was thirteen. Her father said nothing would please him more than to see his little girl become a teacher like her mother. After her dreams of becoming a professional dancer had been shattered, she did what her father wanted and became an English major at City U.
She chewed on her bottom lip as she picked up a pen and began to write.
Daddy Dearest,
Well, I have survived my first week in Philadelphia. It is nothing like New York. I miss the fast-paced city life. I miss taking the subway to school. I miss our weekly trips to the Met and Central Park. But not to worry, your little girl is adjusting to smaller city-life just fine.
So far my internship has been simple. I have only been observing and it will be another week before I actually begin to teach. I am looking forward to it.
My cooperating teacher is wonderful. He has gone out of his way to make my transition easy. We get along well- which is something to be grateful for. I spoke to Cassandra briefly this week and she reports that her cooperating teacher is a hard-nosed tyrant who is impossible to get along with. She says the generation gap is so wide between them that nothing can bridge it. Mr. Turner (he has told me repeatedly to call him Jon, but I struggle with it because I cannot get used to calling a teacher by their first name) is much younger than most of the other teachers here. He wears jeans and an earring and drives a motorcycle- you would like him. I like him very much and I am thankful for that as I spend a great deal of time with him both in and out of school.
The principal, Mr. Feeny, is a hard one to figure out and I suppose it is because I am not around him much. He reminds me a great deal of Mr. Pennington, my sociology teacher at City U.
I regret that I will not be able to come home this weekend. I have much information about teaching still to go over and will be spending Saturday with Mr. Turner. I will be back in New York the first chance I get.
I hope that my letter will find you doing as well as possible. I miss you terribly.
With all my love,
Your daughter
Audrey Theresa
Audrey finished her letter and carefully addressed it.
Mr. Richard Andrews c/o United Hospice of Rockland
11 Stokum Lane New City, New York 10956
She sighed heavily as she sealed the envelope. She felt incredibly guilty- almost the entire letter was a lie. She wasn't adjusting well at all. She was homesick for New York and her friends there. In short, she was miserable. Mr. Turner was the only one who could brighten her day. And he was another matter that she had not been completely forth coming in. She failed to mention the slight attraction she had for her cooperating teacher. Audrey couldn't see the point in it, anyway. Mentioning it would only serve to worry her father unnecessarily and God knew he didn't need anything thing else to drain his energy.
Audrey glanced up at the clock unable to believe that it was only ten minutes into the lunch period. So far she had managed to avoid the cafeteria scene, but she couldn't keep it up forever. One day she would have to join the other teachers at lunch and eat in front of them. It was a day she dreaded.
Jonathan found Audrey holed up in the classroom as she usually was during lunch. She had a plethora of reasons why- she had studying to do, notes to go over- but he suspected that there was something more to it. Perhaps she was shy, but that didn't seem right. She was at ease in front of people. She had been charming and engaging when he had introduced her to the other faculty members after her first day- very warm and friendly. One on one, Jonathan found her to be more timid until she became used to him. Now she was relaxed and outgoing. Shyness didn't seem to a problem.
Audrey was writing away with slow exactness. Jonathan stopped in the doorway and watched her work. There was sadness about her as she wrote. He wondered why. Though they had spent quite a bit of time together over the last week going over the handbook material, he hadn't gotten to know her very well. He hoped the weekend would remedy that.
She paused in her writing, lifting the pen from the paper and touching it to her nose. He smiled at the gesture that made her all the more endearing.
She should be a kindergarten teacher, he thought, Not a high school one.
Audrey looked so frail and young and even more so next to guys like Harley Kiner, whohad also taken a liking to her. If it had been up to Jonathan, he would have assigned her to a class at the elementary school. It was easy to picture her in a denim jumper with her hair tied back at the nape of her neck surrounded by kids who no doubt would brighten to see her each day.
Audrey still hadn't seen him as she moved to put what she had been writing into an envelope. She glanced at the clock. With her hair pulled back from her face, her eyes seemed immense. He never had seen eyes quite like hers before. They were neither blue nor gray, but somewhere in between- like the color of the sea in Maine before a storm. And they said more than she ever did. Like the sea, they could be placid and calm, but were often turbulent and churning as though there was a surging maelstrom beneath their color disturbing them so.
She was bound to notice him eventually and he decided to make his presence known before he got caught.
"So my place or yours?" Cory asked Shawn as they emptied their lockers.
"Yours," Shawn replied without hesitation. "Miss Andrew is coming over tomorrow so she and Jon can do teacher stuff. I don't wanna be there. Teacher stuff makes my head hurt."
"What you're saying is they're going to spend tomorrow thinking up new ways to torture us."
"Yeah, basically." Shawn slammed his locker door so hard it caused the rest of the lockers to shake. A thin notebook fell out of Cory's locker, hitting him on the head.
"Well, Mom and Dad are going to be home tomorrow," Cory said, flinging the notebook back onto the locker shelf. "But Eric's got a date so we can have the bathroom all to ourselves. Unless, of course, we can come up with something else to do that's not so mindless and dumb."
They looked at each other.
"That won't happen," Shawn said.
"I know."
The boys slung their bags onto their backs and head down the hall.
"Wanna come over tonight, too?" Cory asked hopefully.
"Why? You have to baby-sit Morgan?"
Cory made a face. "Yeah. I don't know why my parents make me do it. You'd think they'd know by now that I can't be trusted."
"Parents," Shawn replied. "Who can figure 'em. Anyway, I can't. I've gotta do homework." He shuddered at the thought.
"Oh, yeah, I forgot," Cory remarked in a taunting tone. "You live with a teacher."
"So," he shot back. "You live next door to a principal. That's worse."
Cory stopped smiling. "Ug. You got me there."
A flustered Topanga rushed towards them suddenly, her long mane flying behind her like a banner. Cory held out his arms to her, but she raced by with a "Hi, Cory. Hi, Shawn. Bye, Cory. Bye, Shawn. Can't talk. Gotta study. Call you later, Cory."
She was gone in a flash while Cory stood there with his arm still open and a grin plastered to his face feeling rather foolish.
"You know," Shawn commented. "I'd hate to see her on caffeine."
Cory slowly let his arms drop to his side. He looked at Shawn and blinked.
"What just happened?"
Mr. Feeny left his office at a determined gait when the last bell ended the school day. He was rounding a corner when he suddenly checked up. Mr. Turner was escorting Audrey out of their classroom. They stopped briefly outside the door. It was too noisy for him to hear what they were saying, but it appeared that Jonathan was asking her something. She smiled sweetly shaking her head "no". He asked something else. Her smile widened but she still shook her head. Jonathan nodded and they said, he assumed, good-bye. They parted ways, heading in opposite directions. With his bag on his shoulder and his helmet under one arm, Jonathan started out towards the faulty parking.
"Oh, Mr. Turner," Feeny pushed his way through the loitering students that stood between him and the English teacher. "Mr. Turner, may I have a word with you?"
Jonathan stopped in his tracks and took several slow steps backwards. He looked over his shoulder with a look of apprehension before turning around.
"Come on, George," he said in a pleading tone. "It's never just a word. It's Friday and I wanna go home."
"I wish to speak to you about Miss Andrews," Feeny said seriously.
Jonathan seemed surprised. "Is there a problem?"
"There might be." Feeny took him by the arm and pulled him to the side.
By this time, Jonathan was frowning and slightly worried. He tried to think of what kind of problem might involve Audrey, but he came up with nothing.
"I just want to remind you that Miss Andrews is a student teacher here," Feeny said meaningfully.
Jonathan looked baffled. "Yeah..." he said slowly, trying to figure out what George was trying to tell him.
"And that she has only just graduated college..."
"Sooo...oh!" Jonathan suddenly got what Feeny was saying. He stared at the older man in disbelief.
"Come on, George," he said sounding offended. "Do you really think I'd consider dating her? She's just a little bit too young for me."
Feeny considered that. He rubbed his index finger and thumb together briskly. At the hurt look on the young teachers face, he lingered on the possibility that he had read too much into the situation. No, he decided, he didn't think he had.
"Yes," he replied drolly. "Keep that in mind."
The principal turned on his heel abruptly, leaving a confused Jonathan Turner behind.