Page 3

worst spring ever

. . .

lark

M r. Good Time did not give me what I most wanted for Christmas.

Instead, I spent the holiday alone in that hotel room he couldn’t disappear from fast enough.

More than playacting the neurotypical cliché of crying into a pint of salted caramel ice cream I had DoorDashed to my room—along with a package of caramel M&M’s to dump on top while listening to the Tegan and Sara Essentials Playlist on non-stop repeat.

But eventually, I accepted that I was on my own if I wanted a baby. Which I did. More than anything.

So when checkout rolled around on Boxing Day, I scraped myself together. Made several lists. Got to work.

I traded in my master’s program for an extra job as supervisor of the girls’ dorms. I scrimped and saved every non-pre-designated loonie I earned, hoping to have enough for fertility treatments by summer.

And it still wasn’t enough.

Which made the meeting I’d scheduled with the head of school that spring feel even more make-or-break everything as I walked into his classic boarding school office—dark wood furniture and a grand bookcase stuffed with hardbound books written exclusively by white men.

“Hi, Principal Awlridge.”

I pasted on my usual hey, I’m neurotypical, just like you smile, but it was hard to keep the nervous tremor out of my voice as I sat down across from Barrington Academy’s notoriously frosty head of school. “Thanks so much for agreeing to meet with me today.”

“Yes, sit down, Ms. Bird,” he said without looking up from the Excel sheet he was poring over. “I have a few items I want to discuss with you, which is why I asked for this meeting.”

Okay. I was already sitting. Also, I had asked for the meeting, not him.

But considering my number-one agenda item was requesting a raise after nearly a semester of working as a dorm supervisor, on top of teaching a combined 5th and 6th grade class, it didn’t feel wise to correct him.

I scrambled for one of the win-win responses drilled into me during the year-long Dialectical Behavior Therapy course I’d taken in college to learn how to manage my emotions, tolerate distress, and improve my interpersonal relationship skills.

“I’m glad the timing worked out for both of us,” I offered.

“And I know you’re busy, so I’ll get straight to the point?—”

“Yes, let’s,” he cut in. Principal Awlridge sat up and placed his reading glasses on top of the printout. “No need to beat around the bush. I have concerns about your appearance.”

I jolted. “My appearance?”

“Well, you and your sister Robin have always had straight hair. And now it looks like…” He gave me a frowny up-and-down look.

“…that.”

“Like that?” I glanced down at the kinky curls spilling over the shoulders of my yellow merino wool sweater. “Do you mean in a twist out?”

“Whatever it’s called.” He made a distasteful sound. “Wouldn’t you agree, the way you and Robin wore your hair before was a bit more professional? In fact, I saw she still wears hers that way in the baby announcement she and Vikram sent around. And she’s just given birth.”

I adjusted my glasses—my preferred stim for social situations. Also, a great tactic when you needed a few seconds to choose something other than yelling… or punching your boss in the throat.

“While Robin and I applied and were hired at the same time, we're two separate people,” I eventually replied with more patience than I felt. “And as two separate people, we make different decisions about our hair.”

“So you’re saying that while she chooses to keep hers neat , you’re deliberately keeping yours in this messy state?”

Glasses adjust. Glasses adjust.

I barely managed to level out my voice. “If by messy, you mean natural?—”

“Oh, don’t give me that natural junk,” he scoffed.

“I started as a teacher here thirty years ago. If I had come to school with my hair in its natural state—without bothering to trim or run a comb through it—I would’ve been fired on my first day.

I let it slide, assuming you’d go back to how it was before. But it’s been over four months now.”

Yes.

Over four months since I’d stopped wasting money I didn’t have on expensive blowouts and started saving every penny for the far more expensive fertility treatments.

Which, ironically, was the only reason I didn’t point out to Principal Awlridge that he was already several comments into violating at least one discrimination law I could name off the top of my head.

I mentally flipped through the dog-eared DBT workbook I still referenced, even though it had been ten years since I’d taken the course at age nineteen after receiving my diagnosis.

“Actually, this segues into what I wanted to talk to you about when I requested this meeting.” Opting for the redirection chapter, I used my cheeriest tone to steer things back to safer ground. “I was hoping to bring my salary up to match my last performance review.”

Before he could reply, I slid the folder I’d brought across the desk.

“As you can see, I’ve received fives across the board in all categories—students, fellow teachers, and parents. I was honored to be named Teacher of the Year, but I haven’t received a raise since I signed on to teach here three years ago. I’d love to bring my salary in line with my performance.”

I waited.

He didn’t open the folder.

Just drummed his fingers across it.

“There’s at least one parent who’s not all that happy with your performance.”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Our dean of students received a call from Cara Detweiller. She was very agitated. Something about you advising her son that he didn’t have to go to university if he didn’t want to and could live his life however he chose.”

“Well, those weren’t my exact words.” I tried to figure out how to convey Jonas’s situation without breaking the self-imposed teacher–student confidentiality. “He was…” near suicidal because of the pressure his parents kept piling on top of him.

I opted for, “…extremely anxious about the life path already laid out for him. I just wanted him to understand that he has choices.”

“Does he have choices?” Principal Awlridge took off his glasses and pressed his fingers to his forehead, as if I were giving him a headache.

“I know this is often hard for those who grew up middle class or below to understand, but not everyone is free to be their own person. Some are born into a life plan, and it is not for a lowly teacher to tell those students what they can and cannot choose.”

“But Jonas is a human being, with a mind and heart of his own,” I felt compelled to point out. “Shouldn’t he get a say in how his life unfolds?”

Mr. Awlridge’s lips thinned. “As I said, you couldn’t possibly understand.

And it doesn’t matter whether or not you do.

Parents do not pay to send their children to Barrington Prep so they can find themselves .

They pay for excellence . Advising a student against that excellence is several points off your so-called stellar performance report. ”

This was why I preferred working with kids.

Their brains weren’t fully developed yet, and as chaotic as their behavior might seem to neurotypical adults, it was often driven by predictable patterns of autonomy-seeking and emotional dysregulation due to hormonal fluctuation.

But grown-ups?

With them, it was harder to tell. I couldn’t be sure where Principal Awlridge’s conveniently oral feedback was coming from. The isms were piling up—racism, classism, maybe a dash of sexism—along with capitalism-inspired greed. Or maybe I was misreading it?

Not for the first time, I wished my twin sister Robin weren’t out on maternity leave.

Over my last three years in Canada, I’d become far too accustomed to checking in with her while working to confirm whether I was perceiving things correctly—or if this was just Bob , our code name for the emotional dysregulation I had to navigate in order to keep the job I loved.

People often assumed I went along with Robin’s plan to move to Canada because of our twin bond, and that certainly factored in. But it was also the way she told me how to feel about the often contradictory things other adults said to me.

Unfortunately, Principal Awlridge wasn’t done.

“You’ve actually cost me unnecessary time and money,” he continued. “I had to spend several hours convincing Jonas’s mother not to pull both of her children out of Barrington, and I doubt the Detweillers will be giving us nearly as generous a donation at the spring fundraiser.”

He glared at me from his high-backed leather chair. “Perhaps, if you return to your previous level of care with your appearance and conduct yourself in ways that align with our school’s vision, we can revisit the possibility of a slight bonus at the end of the next school year. But for now…”

He stood to look down his long, patrician nose. “No, Ms. Bird. You will not be receiving any additional remuneration for your poor performance .”

He sneered the last two words. At least, it felt like he did. I wasn’t sure—and it didn’t matter because my legs were on fire.

I stumbled to my feet and left—just ran out—without another word. Legs on fire was the trigger warning. It meant GO.

Go now , before I said or did something I regretted. Before I got myself fired.

I’d learned that lesson the hard way as a student teacher after losing my temper when my lead berated a sixth grader without accommodations for asking for more time.

It had only taken an unfair “Well, maybe you should have studied harder” to set me off, and Robin had to intervene to keep the department head from kicking me out of the program.

But Robin wasn’t here. And all I could think to do was run.

One moment I was inside Principal Awlridge’s office. The next I was dashing across campus, only managing a quick wave to the students calling out to me.

It was springtime in Canada. Many of them were sprawled on the lawns, basking in the rare sunshine, playing disc golf, and flirting with each other before study hours.

Study hours .

Oh, geez. I had to pull myself together before it was time to host study hours, and I couldn’t bother Robin—she was home with a newborn.

The ache of no longer being able to text Mr. Good Time whenever Robin wasn’t available—or wouldn’t understand—filled my chest.

“Did the last three years mean nothing to you?” I’d sobbed, unable to control the tears after he told me he not only wouldn’t help me but was also ending our relationship.

“Yeah, it meant a good time. Just like my profile said. I’m sorry if you read anything more into it. But this has always been about sex. Only sex. You suddenly wanting more from me doesn’t change that. Fuck! We had such a good thing going. Why did you have to ruin it?”

He’d acted like I’d somehow misunderstood the parameters of our relationship. And maybe I had. During the last months of mulling it over, I could kind of see where his suddenly accusation had come from.

But if it was just about sex…

Why did he ask for exclusivity?

Why did he hold me after makeup sex and let me prattle on about everything going on in my real life without reminding me about the agreement?

Why did he always answer my texts on the Fetder app—even when I was just venting about a bad day?

Why did he remember my favorite students' names and sometimes even ask how they were doing?

Why did he always bring up my dream to open my own school when I felt like giving up?

Why did he encourage me through the last of my grad school finals the week before our hotel room rendezvous?

No, he’d never let me see his face, but the last text message I’d gotten from him on the Fetder app had said, “ I miss you. Good luck finishing up the paper for your Motivation and Emotion course. Can’t wait to see you on the other side.”

He always remembered details like that.

Robin had tried to explain the whole fuckboi concept to me when she came back to Vancouver after spending the holidays with Vikram’s family in Calgary.

But I still couldn’t reconcile it, even though Mr. Good Time hadn’t texted me once since abandoning me in that hotel room last December. Was I really crazy? Had I just imagined the real connection I thought we had?

I’d done such a good job shoving down what he’d called “ending our arrangement” and what I continued to call “the breakup.” But as I ran to my room, trying not to cry until I was behind a closed door, the questions spun like a tornado in my head.

This truly was the worst spring ever.

My already low frustration tolerance had hit empty, and the next stop was ripping off my mask and screaming into my pillow—just long enough to ugly cry for exactly 40 minutes before I had to clean myself up and pretend I was fine while overseeing the dorm’s mandatory study hours.

And I planned to use every single minute. I’d been trying so hard not to feel sorry for myself. But on the cusp of 30, it felt like my life was slipping through my hands.

I guess the universe had other plans for me, though.

Halfway through my cry-fest, I was cut off by the ping of my private phone.

Which was quite unusual these days. Robin always texted me on my school one.

And our mom had opted for back-to-back cruise life since Robin and I moved from Pittsburgh all the way to the other side of the continent in Canada.

I picked up the barely used phone to find an email notification from the account I only used for Family and Friends.

Or I guess I should say Friend . Since moving to Canada, I’d only managed to make one: Holly Winters, the other Black American in my online infertility support group.

And weirdly, the message was from her.

It was an invitation to a “Joining Ceremony.”

In some place called Bear Mountain.