In this way, almost indiscernibly, the conversation moved forward without Molly in it. Molly felt herself shrinking, a figure on the platform as the train pulled away. The feeling was familiar. In elementary and middle school she’d been largely invisible. In an effort to be seen, she’d shown up to ninth grade with a new pixie haircut, a bold disaster: with her too-large eyes and too-wide nose, she had looked like an unpretty boy. For months afterward, wherever she went in her high school she’d heard giggling, whispering, directed at the newly bare nape of her neck. And she’d realized there was something worse than being ignored; there was being a target. By senior year, she’d grown her hair out, learned to walk with her head down, and made herself invisible again.
Molly’s colleagues fell silent. A new teacher had entered the lounge. The woman glided rather than walked, with chin slightly raised. Salt-and-pepper hair was cut squarely at her chin. She wore a midnight-blue sheath dress and brightly patterned silk scarf, and carried a slim leather folder that did not appear to have anything in it. Molly had glimpsed her before, settled on an outdoor bench with a salad and a book of Alice Munro short stories, as relaxed as if reclining on a beach.
She stopped at the copy machine, over which Molly’s papers were strewn, and turned to ask the room, “Who belongs to these?”
Molly stood up. “Sorry, let me take care of that.”
“Beth, this is Molly Nicoll, our new English teacher,” Gwen called out from her seat. “She’s replaced Jane Frank. You remember the Jane disaster.”
“Do I?” the woman asked.
Gwen smiled tightly. “Molly,” she said, “this is Beth Firestein. She directs our AP English program.”
“It’s great to meet you,” Molly said. She hurried over to Beth Firestein and offered her hand.
Beth was petite, although she didn’t seem so. Straight bangs framed a heart-shaped face with features that were small and finely drawn: dark eyes winged by crow’s-feet, delicate ears, and a serious mouth. Her handshake was firm and dry. Molly noticed that her fingernails were manicured, shell pink, impeccable.
“You are a fan of Lawrence,” Beth said coolly. Her eyes were on the handouts Molly had made—Lawrence’s “Give Her a Pattern,” an essay she intended to use as a launching point to discuss Gatsby and Daisy and the romantic ideal.
“Oh, yes.”
“Conrad says that the novels of D. H. Lawrence are nothing but obscenities and filth.”
Molly hesitated, gathering her papers. Finally she said, “If depicting women as real human beings is obscene, then I guess he is. But I think he’s wonderful. No one, except maybe Woolf, wrote more beautiful sentences.”
“Yes,” Beth said, nodding. “You are right about that.”
Molly beamed. Not since college graduation had her literary opinions been sought out and approved of.
Beth withdrew a sheet of paper from her leather folder and began her copy run. “How are you settling in?”
“All right, thanks. I had some trouble setting up my email account, but that’s the only glitch so far.”
“Oh, I don’t do email.”
“Aren’t we required to? In case our students need to get in touch with us?”
Beth waved Molly’s question away; the question was a fly that annoyed her. She pulled another paper from her folder and placed it on the tray. “Where did you say that you studied?”
“Fresno State,” Molly answered. “Where I grew up.”
“And the Fresno schools aren’t hiring?”
“I needed to try out a different place. I mean, I needed to be different.”
Beth did not answer. As the machine hummed, spit out papers, she squared off the copies and slid them into her leather folder. Molly hugged her own bale of papers to her chest. She saw she had been too honest, revealed too much, as she always seemed to do.
Finally Beth said, “It’s only geography, dear.”
Molly nodded respectfully at this, but inside she bristled. If a person’s life could not change—if a person could not change—then what was the point of it all? Maybe Beth, admirable as she was, had been worn down by years of service, had grown complacent. Maybe Molly would remind her what was possible.