A Mean Tongue and Codeine

Chapter 4

Maia smiled and waved at the kid she just shut the car door for. She sighed, another work week done. Luckily for her, another teacher caught the flu mid-week, ensuring Maia got a full week's work in. The motion sensitive lights clicked on with a hum as Maia walked back in the classroom. There was something about a quiet, but destroyed kindergarten classroom that comforted her. Something about the broken crayons, messy learning centers, and papers littering the floor and desks that indicated a day filled with learning. Smiling softly, Maia got to work picking up the classroom.

"Knock-knock!"

Maia whirled around at the sudden voice. She sighed, looking at her old teacher standing in the doorway. "Jesus, Mrs. Jeffers, can you ever not scare me when I'm here?"

"When are you going to stop calling me Mrs. Jeffers, Stephens? I haven't been Mrs. Jeffers since you were in my class." She surveyed the room, putting her hands on her hips and tsking under her breath. "Seems like you let your kids blow up the room the same way you blew up mine. You'd be able to get out of here sooner if you had them clean up at the end."

Maia dumped a pile of papers in the recycling bin and pushed them down with her foot. "They have fun, besides. I don't mind staying late. I don't have anything else to do at home anyway."

Mrs. Jeffers snapped her fingers and pointed at one of the tiny, child-sized chairs.

Maia sat, hands folded in her lap like a child about to be reprimanded, and looked up at her favorite elementary school teacher standing above her, arms crossed. Mrs. Jeffers was an older black woman, pushing 70, and had the face of somebody who had spent the last 50-odd years wrangling tiny humans. She was tough on her kids, always had been, but almost always won the end of year Favorite Teacher award voted on by the students. Maia still affectionately thought back to the time Mrs. Jeffers told her to "cut the theatrics" when she cried that her parents "were absolutely positively going to kill her" if she had to call home and say she didn't do her project. Mrs. Jeffers let her stay inside during recess and make the project up for full credit, and then made her call her parents anyway. At least there was a happy ending at the end of the phone call.

"How old are you now, Stephens? 25?" Maia nodded. "Explain to me why a beautiful, fun 25-year-old would rather stay late doing pick-up duty and cleaning classrooms on a Friday night instead of rushing home and getting ready to do whatever young adults do these days?"

Silently, Maia picked at her fingernails, the blue from last weekend's party almost gone.

"I asked you a question. I expect an answer."

Mrs. Jeffers was one of the only people Maia never had "a mean tongue" with. She'd been the first one to tell Maia she had one after hearing her argue with a boy in her class. Shrugging her shoulders, Maia found a spot on the multicolored rug and tried to stare a hole into it. "I just don't have any plans."

"Maia Lee Stephens, you look up when you talk and quit that mumbling." Maia obeyed, half embarrassed and half humored at how Mrs. Jeffers could whip her into shape. "You mean to tell me you have no prospective plans? Not a single one? If you were to call that Tagle girl, she would say you couldn't go with her to whatever scheme she's involved in now?" Maia fought the chuckle threatening to slip out at the mention of Lauren. The pair had met in Mrs. Jeffers' 3rd grade class and had been inseparable since.

Like a hot coal, Maia's phone burned in her pocket. She'd never responded to Andrew's invitation for drinks. She couldn't find an acceptable excuse, after already using Lauren and Alli and then work to get out of socializing with him. Not that she didn't want to talk to him, but she couldn't figure out why he was putting in so much effort for her.