In The Mind's Eye

"Unforgiven Child"

The Principal’s anteroom had become more professional, more cellular and subordinating, than back in those days when Cora’s neatly yellow-bowed braids would tickle her bare arms. Mrs. Chamberlain would be there soon. That’s what Miss Griffin, her secretary, had said. You can wait. Right there. 

Cora knew that, and she waited and smoothed the stiff pale denim of her new skirt squeezed out her last bi-weekly check. She could hear that other Principal say it, too, her name, Cora, thudding the o, so it sounded clunky and distasteful. That sound would echo Cora’s uncertainties. All of that was irrelevant here, though. Here she was Ms Turner, another cog among colleagues.

Then they entered. That’s why Cora hated being there a little too early, just three or four minutes, as always. Now she would be there for the two of them to look at as they arrived. The mother was prettier than Cora had imagined, certainly prettier than Clorinda, the student, her daughter. No, not pretty, the mother was beautiful, flaxen blond hair, sculpted severely and tightly in a French twist to emphasize the length and muscular taper of her neck into the broad but gentle slope of her shoulders. Her artfully glossed lips half-parted into a winnowing smile at nobody and nothing in particular. Just wanting to be nice, she had the aspect that Cora knew she had never wanted. The mother drifted across the anteroom, guiding Clorinda, as though she were moving furniture, being meticulous not to disturb things, and ignored Cora on the way. Cora turned her head and shoved a gulp of breath into her nostrils.

She had confidence that her breath was OK, that the new method of Listerine and cough drops would cover her. What bothered her more was that cranial fur piece that seemed to be muffling her thinking and the sag and tug on her lower eyelids that she couldn’t be sure went unnoticed. Even though her mind felt alert, it seemed to be two beats behind the motions and sounds in the room. She blinked her eyes and shook her head to stir up some clarity. These Mondays would get better. Definitely. Personal self-promises. Next weekend, Friday’s promise will stick. One needed acuity, even insight for Monday rounds in the Principal’s office.

She looked up into the glossed grin of Mrs. Conrad. No resemblance there. Clorinda had the darkness and olive skin of her name. Her high cheekbones and deep eyes implied they were formed from some unanswering male. Her plumb straight hair had the sheen and feather of various Italian men Cora had met along the way, not usually the family types, as she recalled. Mrs. Conrad apparently had made some independent moves of her own. From the look on her face, she had learned most from the faulty moves. A caustic readiness etched the beauty of her practiced grin.

Cora glanced down at her own nubbled sweater and tucked the frayed elbows into the crease of her lap. Many long, blurred weekends had passed since she had given much thought to things like the balance of fabric, color and makeup. She welcomed the opportunity of those weekend times now merely to languish in the relief of another week’s passing and nothing more. Through the five teaching days she could use the busy work to restrain her doubts about herself. The children needed her energy and generosity. That’s how it worked, that is, until this past weekend. Those recent three nights and two days moved sporadically around the hours and minutes of worrying her blemishes and picking her cuticles to blood. The ambiguity of this Clorinda episode had twisted Cora out of her usual, solitary, numbing routines.

She peeked again into Mrs. Conrad’s face, directly opposite, there in the anteroom, padded and stilled from the children’s clatter on the other side. Mrs. Conrad’s mouth pleated its corners neatly, precisely into the soft, plane of her cheeks. Indifferent to Cora’s gaze, her hazel eyes seemed opaque, focused casually on a spot in the grit of the ceiling just above Cora’s head, almost as though she wasn’t looking out but rather in. Mrs. Conrad’s face appeared molded by a righteous, inevitable certainty. This rigid calm puzzled Cora initially, but then it poked at something deeper in the confusion of her muffled brain. Ticking, flickering white flashes skittered in there, and Cora’s mouth twitched a wince suddenly, and she turned away to look at Clorinda.