July Part 2--New Insights
Emma unlocked the door to her home and allowed Regina to enter first. "Should we cook or order in?"
"As ridiculous as this sounds, can we get pizza? After today, I need carbs, sugar, and sex." The brunette huffed while kicking off her shoes at the door. She sighed, stretched, then sprinted over to the couch and dramatically flopped backward.
Emma laughed at her childish antics, "Do you want the heart attack special, or would you prefer a veggie pizza so that it looks far more decadent than it is?"
"Stop making fun of me," Regina whined, one arm flopped over her head. "Fine. I want artichoke, roasted garlic, ricotta, spicy marinara. No mushrooms."
The blonde placed the order, then pulled up the other woman's legs and dropped them in her lap. She began rubbing on Regina's tired feet while waiting for the woman to want to talk.
"Oooh. That feels nice." Tension eased out of the English teacher with the gentle attention of her lover. "I know I said it at lunch, but thank you again for defending us to that idiot. I can't believe that they chose her to replace Rumple." She sighed. "Who am I kidding? I can believe it. I expected someone hideous, but not her. I thought I would be safe from her."
She sat up on her elbows, catching Emma's eyes. "Don't fall for her false attempts at being sweet. She sucks you in and lets you spill your heart out, and then she throws your words in your face with a homophobic spin to it."
Emma switched which foot she worked on but offered no words. She knew Regina would share more if she kept her mouth closed. "When I did my year of student teaching, MM was too. They placed us in the same cohort and school. Dani had moved in, and I had trust issues."
The younger woman sat both of Regina's feet in her lap and teased the sensitive flesh around her ankle bone. Shivering and enjoying the tease, the sultry voice faltered, not finding the words to say what she meant.
"Am I distracting you, my Queen?"
"Deliciously so, but I think you should know MM is a snake. She asked me why I was crying then paraded my weakness in our weekly evening course. She said 'my people' tended to have personal drama issues and are unfit to teach. Then, I went on to tell the whole class about Dani's sexcapades as an example."
The blonde empathized with how humiliating that moment would have been. No one wanted intensely personal information paraded around in front of a group of future colleagues; Colleagues who tend to gossip. Emma didn't respond. She couldn't think of anything that would help, so she chose to distract. Using the tips of her nails, she stroked the underside of Regina's knee until she heard a giggle.
"Stop it. You know I'm ticklish. And, you've been teasing me all day. I need you." She pulled her legs away but slid into the blonde's lap with a tiny smile on her lips. Emma's hands instantly found their home on her hips, pulling the smaller woman closer.
Pale pink lips crashed into plumper, softer ones. "I love moments like this."
"What? Where we know, we can't start something more because we will give the delivery man an eye full?"
"Nope." Emma shook her head, rubbing her nose with Regina's. "I meant when we are together, and the rest of the world could be on fire, but we're fine because we have each other." She kissed her again, allowing her tongue to explore and her mouth to caress. Then, she pulled her lips to Regina's ear. "Nothing else matters right this second. Nothing at all." She dropped a kiss to the other woman's neck. "You are the entire universe to me, right here, right now."
The doorbell rang, destroying the bubble of happiness.
"No," Emma whined; Regina dropped from her lap, leaving the blonde grasping empty air.
Regina sighed and stood. "I'll get the food if you will grab the drinks."
They devoured the pizza quickly before cleaning the dishes. As soon as they finished the chore, the blonde threw her arms around Regina and nibbled on the woman's ear. "Do you want me to help you forget about your troubles, or do you have to go home and sleep all by yourself in your great big lonely bed?"
Regina leaned back into Emma's torso, pulling the woman's body tightly against hers. "I should go home," but instead of moving away, she turned her head, offering her neck for further exploration. The blonde licked the shell of her ear, then licked a line down to her pulse point and bit into the sensitive flesh. Regina responded with a shiver; her voice hitched when she said, "But, I think I'd prefer your idea better."
"You are addictive, Dr. Mills." Kissing along the brunette's neck, pale fingers dropped to the hem of her shirt and lifted. She broke away from her love for a moment tossing the offending garment on the hallway floor. She continued to strip the woman between intermittent kisses, trapping her against the wall.
"If you keep this up, I'm going to make you fuck me here."
"Don't mind if I do," Emma muttered, lifting the woman, bringing tanned bare legs around her waist; the shorts had fallen away several steps ago; long fingers slipped inside lacy underwear. "God, you are so wet."
Gasping, Regina's head fell forward. She lost her body in the feel of Emma's fingers, relentless and demanding. "Oh, this is going to be embarrassingly quick," the brunette swallowed thickly, trying to remember what she wanted to say, but the blonde's nose had brushed her lacy bra out of the way; warm lips and tongue lapped at her nipple, keeping time with her thrusts. "Fuck!"
Regina's body quaked, held in place by Emma's strength. "Let go, baby. I've got you." Emma whispered in her ear. "When you deal with her, think of this--know I have you." The English teacher's mind blanked out; she returned to herself, still pinned to the wall. Dancing emerald eyes watched her lovingly.
Feeling vulnerable and open in a way that she never had, Regina drew her fingers through the small tendrils at the base of Emma's neck. She brought their noses together so that she whispered the words across pale pink lips, "The words that want to escape are true, but it's much too early for them."
Emma nodded softly, making the velvety tips of her trace across an olive cheek. "It is, but I think it's true for me too. It's been true. I think I've loved you since the copier incident."
Regina's eyes teared, but she laughed. "Yeah. Me too, I think. Now, carry me to bed. I want to taste you."
"Your wish is my command, my Queen."
*****
Mary Margaret Blanchard flitted into the room, floating on a cloud of over-indulged self-congratulatory importance. "Good morning again everyone, welcome to day two of my long reign here at Leopold Blanchard High School. I want our digital footprint to be amazing. Wouldn't that be great? Here at Leo High, we need to be seen on social media and putting ourselves out there so the world can bask in our greatness. Now, I want everyone to create a school-based Twitter account. It must be appropriate and easy to tie to LBHS. Why don't we require that in our usernames, shall we? Hmm?" Everyone open your laptops, go on Twitter, and do that. Then, I want you to 'follow' me. I'm MMBlanchLBHS."
Regina noticed that MM relished that the full faculty jumped to do her bidding; her smile twisted into an evil sneer. Hands shot in the air all around the room.
"What is it, Karen?"
The older female teacher's expression soured. She stood from her table, glared, but held her tongue for a moment.
Emma ducked her face behind her hair and pretended to go through the motions while attempting not to laugh.
Finally, in full control of her tongue, the teacher responded. "It's Judith; we met ten minutes ago. Twitter seems to be blocked." She turned her laptop for all to view the glaring red strip across the screen with black lettering. May contain mature content--blocked. Blanchard County School Board.
"Right, Judith." The principal's face reddened at the correction, but not from her faux pas. Then, she realized what the woman had said. "Oh, that's unfortunate. This is not good. I've already announced our intention to tweet school events." She huffed, and her lower lip slipped out into a pout. "I'll fix this. In the meantime, everyone use your cellphones and create a Twitter account."
"Do you think she tweeted her intent to make all our announcements on Twitter, or did she realize the audience isn't there yet?" Regina's sassed quietly to her partner.
Emma's lips disappeared as she tucked them into her mouth and bit down to prevent her laughter from leaking out into the increasingly pregnant silence.
"Shh--you. She still thinks you are a leader to us' single ladies.'" Regina's elbow poked her knowingly in the ribs.
A snort escaped.
"Who is laughing? This isn't amusing." Furious straight dark bangs flopped mercilessly as her temper snapped.
"No one is laughing, lady. But, I'm not wasting my data for something I ain't gonna use." Beefy arms folded together across Gaston's chest as he stood to his full 6-foot 6-inch height to tower from the back of the room. He looked every bit of the intimidating man he wanted to be.
"Why won't you use Twitter? It's a great tool to spread a lot of information quickly."
"Look, Blanch, I coach wrestling and JV football. I don't have time to deal with this. I communicate with the parents using the Remind app. The rest of this is a waste of my time."
"It's a Blanchard-Nolan." Muddy brown eyes squinted irate concentration at him. "What's Remind? Is it school district approved?"
The entire coaching staff launched to their feet. "Where've you been, lady? We've used it for years." Whale's foot tapped, emphasizing his displeasure at her lack of attention to their programs. "You came from the hoity-toity end of town. We're the group that gets shit done. I suggest you keep the castle; we'll handle the gridiron."
Her lower jaw twitched dangerously, but James Shepherd placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Let me see if I can help," he said cautiously. "Whale, I'll meet with all of you in the field house after lunch. We'll get everything sorted. The boss doesn't know our ways, and we don't know hers. I'm sure it'll be like the first time you and Gaston had to decide who got to use the field for practice when. We've just got to respect each other enough to get it sorted, but this isn't the time."
The coach nodded his head. "I can live with that." Whale retook his seat, the others followed.
Mary Margaret sniffed her displeasure, then plastered on her smile, clutched her hands together, and cleared her throat. "Like I mentioned yesterday, the kids will each receive a Chromebook that is theirs to use at school once all of them have been tagged, imaged, and all the students have returned their borrower's agreements."
Her face showed a mixture of displeasure and agitation as she noticed a growing look of disbelief around her. "Your utter lack of faith in our school system is shocking."
Madge, a woman so close to retirement no one asked her anything, cackled. "Don't worry; you will lose that cherry far faster than you will lose your other one."
The teachers erupted in laughter while their new principal stewed in front, yelling 'quiet' into a microphone, a command everyone chose to ignore.
"Do you mind if I cut in?" Superintendent Wolf's voice cut over the din without a microphone. No one had noticed her appearance. Understanding the situation, the misbehavior died. "I know all of you have adjustments to make. Ms. Blanchard-Nolan has some great ideas about bringing this school up to speed. Our kids are graduating and struggling to keep up because they are not using technology. They aren't becoming proficient at basic skills before graduation. Whether you think much of private institutions or not, she's offering something we need. I also know that ragging on new people is your way of welcoming. It was that way my first year of teaching; I doubt that'll change before I die. However, this is a school. And, she is your BOSS whether you are happy about it or not. I suspect most of you are just scared about the changes. Please remember a little respect from you is not a big ask, but if you don't start showing her who LBHS really is, then I'm afraid I'm going to have to start teaching some of you what power my office wields." Wolf spoke without any malice in her voice. "I know all of you are great teachers. Quit acting like you are one of our kids."
Suitably chagrined, everyone sat a little straighter and allowed the principal to retake control. "Thank you, Eugenia. I appreciate you coming by to visit." She then turned back to her staff. "Before I send all of you to the lounge for refreshments, then to your morning round of mandatory meetings, I wanted to give you a few thoughts to consider. Google Classroom will be going live for all of you sometime tomorrow. I expect that all of my teachers will be posting their lessons on Google Classroom daily so that students can have access to anything they need each day. Oh, department chairs, please survey your people. Find out if you need my help. Any department that needs my expertise in acquainting them with the new Google suite apps, please let me know. I will personally spend a few hours of training in any department that needs assistance. I've posted your cohorts, your learning session topics, and times and locations in the lounge. Consult the charts as you grab your healthy snacks. Have a great morning, and I will see you this afternoon in your department meetings. You are dismissed."
"Well, I don't think that disaster could get much worse. What do you two think?" Mal stood, grabbing her purse. "She might want to tweet about it, but I'm going to drink about it. Please say you'll join me for margaritas at lunch."
Emma nodded, looking shell shocked. "Only if we can go to Marco's. He likes me, so the drinks are never watered down."
Regina scoffed. "Don't you think we should wait for dinner?"
"NO!" They said in unison.
*****
"Emma, I'm so glad you came," Mal announced, flinging the door to her classroom open. "Thank you for leaving the history meeting for a moment." The rest of the modern language department smiled pleadingly at the younger blonde.
"Okay?" The history teacher nervously took in the group smiling at her. Desperation clung to them.
An older woman, Emma, couldn't name waved at her. "I heard a rumor that you are Google certified."
"What?"
The older woman stood and offered her hand. "Judith Hopper."
"Ah! Archie said his sister worked here. Why didn't I know you worked with Mal?" Emma didn't pause for the woman to answer. "I am going to show history how to use Classroom as soon as they tell us the classes are loaded. If you want, I can get Archie to let you know when and where, and I'll give everyone a quick run-through starter kit since it's our extra time with her."
Madge took the vape out of her mouth from where she sat alone on the far side of the room. "Might I suggest Wednesday after 5? She'll leave to go to Wednesday bible study, and that way, we can avoid receiving any more of her expertise."
The younger blonde nodded at Mal. "I'll tell Archie the plan." Then, she whispered in her ear. "You said your department was eccentric; I didn't think you meant Howard Hughes or Michael Jackson levels of it."
"I'm not sure Madge isn't related to Marge Simpson, or maybe Divine." Emma laughed at Mal's comment on the way out the door.
*****
Emma slumped in the booth across from her brother. "God, it is so good to see you, August." She smiled at him as the waitress sat a pitcher of beer and two frosted glasses in front of them.
"I went ahead and ordered the wings and fries; they're some of the best I've had."
He laughed. "Well, I bet I've had better."
Emma nodded. "So, how did you get that cool gig?"
August stared at Emma blankly, then grabbed her hand. "Right after Elsa died, I tried college, and it wasn't for me. So, I returned to New Orleans and worked through the restaurants in the French Quarter. I realized the best way for me to hide from Ingrid was to stick around. After waiting tables and then, they bumped me up to help in the kitchen. I realized I loved food."
The blonde died laughing at his admission. "Well, duh. You're the one who said McD's was more plastic than food and that Taco Hell shouldn't be served to anything that breathes."
The waitress returned with a large platter of fries and wings. They both leaned forward and inhaled, tasting the food from the scent wafting off of the still sizzling food.
"These do smell great. That's a good sign." He picked up a wing, dipped it in their sauce, and his eyes sparkled. "You know these taste a lot like those from Boudreaux Bar and Grill, lots a cayenne in the glaze and--"
His eyes detected the amusement in Emma's. "Augie, I've missed this."
"Me too." He sipped his beer and set it back on the table. He tossed a few fries in his mouth and looked around the room. "Where was I? Let's see, I realized I wanted to be a chef, but as much as I like kitchens, I don't like their hours, so then I started learning about being a critic. I went back to school. Majored in journalism, and then, I became a steady critic. Although, I freelance mainly. I'd rather travel and see everywhere than stay in one city and write for the local paper."
"So, how's being a teacher going? I thought you wanted to be a professor?" He verbally poked at her.
Her face scrunched. "I think I wanted to be a therapist or a social worker when we younger, didn't I?"
"That was before Mrs. Ogunmekan's World history class." August raised his eyebrows in challenge. "If I remember correctly when she assigned us Candide to read, your whole life trajectory changed."
She shrugged. "Maybe. I don't remember which assignment did it, but you're not wrong. While working on my Ph.D, I taught at FSU and FAMU, and I discovered that I preferred high school kids. So, I chose this path. It isn't as glamorous, but the publish or perish paradigm doesn't exist here. It's not nearly as political or demanding in your personal life."
She ate a few fries then pointed at him. "What I don't understand is what you are doing with Christie?" She sighed and put her hands on the table while watching the storm clouds rolling across his face. "I know you were a player in high school. If you still are, great? But, if this is something that you think is serious, I know some people you really need to talk to about it. Christie may have money, but she's got the loyalty of an alley cat."
His anger melded into a bemused smile. "I know." He started laughing. "Picture this. I flew into Chicago on the red-eye to cover a food truck expo where the best of the city would be out and about, you know. Anyway, I got into my hotel, like almost dawn late. And, I stumbled on this woman crying in the hallway because her one night stands locked her out of the room when she stepped out to deal with security and a noise complaint."
Emma's eyes scrunched as she looked at him quizzically. "Please tell me you didn't do your knight in shining armor bit."
"Guilty!" He held his hands up with wing sauce still glistening on his fingers. "We may or may not have received another complaint from the front desk." He shrugged again. "It was so late there wasn't any point in sleeping, so I did what I did."
She laughed at her brother. As much as she hated the flippancy he gave relationships, she knew he'd always been the wandering kind. He held a restless soul. She punched his shoulder. "I'm glad you haven't grown out of it because that one is trouble."
"Ah, she's fun. Not keeper fun. But, fun all the same." He sat back in the booth, looking at the remains of their dinner. "Kiddo, we're going to have to meet up more often than this."
"Yeah, we do." Her smile turned melancholy. "Where do you call home?"
"Wherever I lay my hat."
She rolled her eyes, remembering the fistfight he got into with the baseball coach for refusing to wear the full uniform; he refused the cap. "Dude, you don't wear hats, like ever."
"The truth is I travel 300 days a year. The rest I spend wherever I want." His eyes studied her. "Why? Are you looking for a roommate? I wouldn't mind having a place to return to for holidays."
Her lips twisted in a goofy grin that looked like a kid trying to hide a secret. "As ridiculous as this sounds, I wouldn't mind that at all. It's been a decade, but I would rather I knew where you were than having to guess if you're still living."
"I wouldn't be home much, but I'd like to have a home. I'd like to belong someplace."
*****
At 5 p.m. Wednesday, Regina entered Emma's room carrying her laptop with her computer glasses perched on the end of her nose. "Dr. Swan, this better be great. I'm not spending one single minute more time with that woman than absolutely necessary."
Emma looked up from where she pulled up the appropriate tabs on her computer and waited on her department to arrive. "What are you doing here, Reg? I thought this meeting was going to be history and modern language."
"The ladies in my department all agree that as of today, we're part of Modern Languages if it will get us out of having her training us."
"What about me? I heard I could drop in too?" Thomas Cornelius Lewis III sang as he came in the door. "Seriously, I'm not spending more time with her, alone. No. I can't." He placed his laptop next to Regina's, then turned to both of them." The woman told me that she thought I looked sweet and tasty in my suspenders. And, I'm afraid she wanted a taste. She may pretend to be pure as the driven snow, but she had me cornered in her office. I think she wanted to see if she could allure me into being straight. Then again, she might not know which side of bread I get buttered."
"Hon, unless her gaydar doesn't work, you are safe--you make mine ping off the chart." Emma smiled at him. "Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, anyone can come to this. It doesn't matter how many people are in the room, as long as we work together to get you all sorted out."
Before Emma began, the room filled to the point she had to steal more chairs from Regina's classroom so that everyone could sit down.
"Okay. Um. Hi. I know most of you know who I am, but I'm going to be honest and say I don't know most of you. Sorry, I'm more than a little bit of an introvert. Please don't take it personally if I can't call you by name."
Collectively the group chuckled but continued to look around nervously.
"Alright, I can tell everyone is on edge, so let's just go ahead and jump off into the deep end. First, sign in to your school Google account. Step one: open Chrome. On the right side, there should be a waffle or nine squares in a cube. Click on it. Choose Gmail. If you don't know what yours is, they told me the system protocol is patterned like this. Replace your initial and name with mine, and it should work. [email protected] Your password should be the same you use to clock in every day."
She waited until everyone had followed her directions. Surprisingly enough, everyone managed to log in to Google.
"Okay. We're doing better than I expected; that usually has a few people who are exceptions to the rule. Now, go back to your waffle and choose Classroom. It's green. You are going to sign in to a dummy class I made just for this training. When you are ready, the class code is on the board."
Grumbling came from the back of the room. "Is there a problem?"
"How do they expect us to do this with kids?" A dumpy beige man in polyester and glasses and more beard than hair on his head whined. He looked like he'd time-traveled in from the early 1970s.
"What's your name?"
"Harold, I teach Physics."
Emma's brow scrunched, trying to figure out why she didn't recall seeing him yesterday. "Okay. Right. Well, Harold, most school districts create your classes and put students in them for you. We, the teachers, are expected to add lessons and resources, but they normally do all the connecting of us to them."
"I guess our fearless leader has her 'people' to get this done. Anyone wanna bet how fucked this gets?"
"We're all fucked because of our fearless leader. The technology's got nothing to do with it. I, for one, am looking forward to something new and different to excite the kids for a few minutes until the newness wears off," Mal snarked, trying to steer everyone back on course.
"Now, it says I have 57 students. Is that everybody?" She looked around and hoped that everyone had managed. "I'm first going to show you what it is like for the student because that will change how you see the interface."
"Emma, what's an interface?" Regina's voice cut across the quiet. The blonde desperately wanted to toss a sarcastic remark out, but then she looked at the stress in coffee eyes and chose to respond less harshly.
"It's what you call the connection between user and teacher. It's that thing on the screen right now. See, mine is projected behind me; yours is on your screen. This is the class stream, and this the classwork. Do you see how mine and yours look different? Please keep this in mind for when YOU have to teach the kids."
"No," Harold slammed his computer shut. "There's no way I can teach kids to use something I don't understand."
Archie huffed. "Harry, chances are you will have them sign up, and two minutes later, they teach you to use it since you've got the Gifted kids."
"Hey, Weird Harold, shut it will you. Some of us want to do this today." Emma at a table filled with angry men, she suspected they were the rest of the man's department. Any sympathy for him had long since died.
Not missing a beat, and more than half afraid she would be witnessing an interdepartmental brawl in minutes, Emma redirected everyone's attention. "I guess we should get back to it then."
*****
More than two hours later, Emma sat at her desk with her head in her hands. The others had left with a classroom filled with videos to set up their own classrooms successfully. In her free hours, she had thrown together several screencast tutorials, which she wanted to call "an Idiot's Guide to Classroom," but sitting here now, she's thankful that Augie had talked her out of it.
In hindsight, there had been several times in the last few months where she'd noticed Regina's technophobia, but today mortified her. How do you earn a Ph.D., teach or do anything online and not know how to run a boolean search using restricting commands, or check for plagiarism, or help students collaborate on a typed document. Hell, the woman didn't know about the TedEd channel on Youtube.
"Emma?"
Regina leaned against the door shrinking before her girlfriend. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped at you." She sat her purse and school bag down on the nearest table. "I'm in over my head, and I know it. It scares me." She clutched her hands together, looking unsure and worried. "Come on. Let's get out of here. It's getting dark outside, and neither of us has had dinner. Let me cook and pamper you; you've earned it."
The blonde shook her head. "No." When she saw Regina recoiling, she put up a hand. "We're getting takeout, and you and I are going to play with our laptops until you get used to using Google Docs. You hate looking like less than a pro at anything, so we have to tackle this head-on; the sooner, the better."
Slowly, Regina walked over to Emma, placing her hands on the woman's shoulders where she sat staring blankly at a computer. "We can do that another day. You are exhausted."
"I am. But, I think we'd be better off baby-stepping it with you. If I teach you Docs tonight and show you how the kids collaborate. Then, tomorrow we can work on adding useful teacher extensions."
Panic shone brightly in mahogany eyes. "What's an extension?"
"Baby steps." Emma grabbed her backpack and dropped her laptop in it. "Let's go." As she brushed past her girlfriend, she whispered in a delicate ear. "Good students get rewarded. Bad girls get punished."
The blonde swayed her hips walking away, laughing, knowing full well she'd left her girlfriend dumbstruck.
Regina narrowed her eyes. She hated being thrown off her game. She chose to let go of her anxiety and embrace the fact that something had inspired bipartisan attitudes within the building to evaporate; they had a common enemy. "Well, dear, we've learned one thing for sure. Really, what would that be?"
"Every department in the building doesn't want to work with her."