Look Again

26

DEXTER

Joey’s face is radiant, and she stands so close I can touch her. I am touching her. My hand is on her shoulder, and I can’t stop my thumb from tracing the line of her collarbone. It feels so right, so familiar. Probably because I’ve been doing it for far too long. Here, in front of all these kids. Our students. Well, her students.

I drop my arm and immediately want nothing more than to touch her again.

I know it’s a bad idea.

It’s the best bad idea ever.

The kids are laughing, and I realize it’s because they’re in on the joke. Me. I’m the joke. And I don’t mind at all if it comes with Joey Harker looking at me like that, with those eyes filled with stars.

I refocus on the less important thing—the reason I came. “Can you all help me out for a minute?” I wave over a couple of kids who have started walking back to their tasks.

“I need you to help me with something. Can you come over here?” I point to the dais and step up on it. “Come stand here and let me check the sound. Any chance you sing?”

“Reuben does,” Dierdre says.

I shake my head. “Now, see, you’ve made it so I can’t actually believe anything that comes out of your mouth,” I tell her. “I’m going to have to ask you if that’s true.”

Dierdre crosses her heart. “Like an angel, Mr. K.” She nods to confirm her own statement. “An angel of gangster rap.”

Reuben makes a sound of protest. “It’s not gangster rap. That’s not even a thing anymore. And you’re profiling,” he says, making Dierdre laugh. He turns to look at me. “I beatbox. And it’s much better with a microphone, but I can give you a little something so you can check your acoustics.”

I catch Joey’s eye, and she’s grinning. Turning to the kids, I say, “Perfect. First, all of you come up here together and do this thing for me.” I guide them into a line. “Say, ‘Ma-ma-ma-maaah.’”

They stare at me.

Without the benefit of my first weeks’ class lecture, they don’t follow. I’m unused to students not responding to direction. “Come on. Say it. Ma-ma-ma-maaah.”

The kid named Chad raises his hand. I see Joey shake her head and try to hide her eyeroll. But she’s grinning still. Oh, that smile.

I call on Chad. “Yeah?”

“Mr. Kaplan, are you kidding?”

I sigh a little. “No. I am not kidding. I need to hear how sound moves when a small group is singing.”

Dierdre is shaking her head. “That? That mama business? That is not singing.”

I pretend to look around the room for something I’ve lost. Then I point to myself and say, “Oh, right. Professional. Just say it.”

They all laugh and then manage to make the sound I requested.

“One more time, please. Ma-ma-ma-maaah.” This time I direct them with hand gestures, and they speak back the syllables in perfect synchrony.

“Turns out we’re very good at this, right?” Briley asks.

I nod. “Excellent. You can all get down now.” I shoo them off the dais, but I point to Reuben. “Except for you. Beatboxing, right? Do your thing.”

Reuben, fearless and not needing to be asked a second time, covers his mouth with his hands and starts making all kinds of strange and amazing noises. I watch him. I watch Joey watching him. I watch Joey long enough that I don’t notice Briley lean close to me until she whispers, “Is someone performing like this at the show?”

I take a half step back from her, that practiced teacher-distance that I hope she doesn’t register. And if she does, that she doesn’t feel embarrassed. “No,” I tell her. “I just think it’s cool, and I wanted to hear him do it.”

We all clap for Reuben, and he bows and pretends to flip the tails of an imaginary tuxedo. I see Joey head back up a ladder and I walk toward her, hoping if I hold the base, she’ll talk to me. Keep laughing with me.

The girl named Dierdre intercepts me with a clipboard in her hands. She asks me if I prefer paper or digital and then hands me a spreadsheet. “Here is the order of events, including the artists’ mingle and the slots for each of your singers and ensemble performances.”