Her students, too, sent rambling emails that they never seemed to proofread:
Hey Miss Nicoll,
Sorry I don’t get this homework are we supposed to just free write about what we think or do we have to use quotes from the book? And if you said 3 pages does that really mean 3 or if we do 2 and a half is that OK because that’s really all I have to say? Or do you want me to add a bunch of random stuff in their to make it three?
Also I was absent on Friday b/c I had to go skiing in Tahoe with my family, did I miss anything?
Sincerely,
Steph Malcolm-Swann <3
When Molly had exhausted her patience for emails, she returned to grading, then reviewed her lesson plans for the following morning, when the whole routine would start again. She became accustomed to falling asleep with a pen in her hand, and slept without dreaming.
—
Molly was locking her room for lunch one day when she felt a strange hand cradling her elbow. She turned to find Doug Ellison, who taught government in the classroom next to hers. They had nodded to each other from across the hall but never spoken, and he seemed an enigmatic figure, avoiding other teachers, remaining with kids in his room during the lunches and breaks. He was probably ten years older than Molly, slender and slope-shouldered with thinning strawberry-blond hair. He seemed kind; she’d noticed him standing at his classroom door at the start of every period, greeting his students one by one.
“Miss Nicoll, I presume? Doug Ellison.”
“Molly. Nice to meet you finally.” She offered her hand.
He took it. “I hope you didn’t dress up for my benefit.”
Blushing, she glanced down at her outfit—a sage-colored sweater, pencil skirt, nylons, and heels. She shrugged. “I can see you didn’t dress up for mine.”
Doug chuckled and hitched his jeans, which were held up by a frayed and braided leather belt. “Well played.”
She smiled too. Then he asked her to join him for lunch.
It was a friendship she hadn’t expected but was happy to fall into. Soon they were eating together most days, at his desk or hers, sharing the sandwiches and sodas and potato chips they toted in brown paper bags, a habit they’d both carried over from their own school days, while almost every one of their students bought lunch off-campus. She found that she liked him. He was someone of whom Bobbi, her father’s elderly secretary, would have said, “Bless his heart, he means well.” Despite his lame jokes and flirtations, Molly thought Doug Ellison did mean well. She liked how he shook his students’ hands before class, and the easy way he joked with them, even the awkward ones, in the hallway during break. She liked that he seemed, like her, to care more about kids than test scores, and more about fiction than friends.