class, for instance, everybody else gets the information the first time the teacher gives it out, but I never do. I hear it and I think I understand it, but then I start getting questions. I think, what about this? Or, like, oftentimes, I’ll think, well, that’s true in this instance, but is it true in another instance? And every time I’ll see there’s a time when it isn’t true, but then it is true some of the time. Then I realize there’s this big huge area of junk I don’t understand at all, but everybody else is sitting around me, writing like mad. They understand it and I don’t. And if I ask the questions, then pretty soon the teacher says, ‘We’ve got to move on now. You’re holding us up.’ And then I know for sure I’m some kind of mega-dumbhead, because I only understand a weensy bit of it.”
Her cheeks grew blotched, making me realize the intensity of her emotions over the subject. Pushing the shaggy mass of hair back from her face, she rested her hands against her reddened skin. “And the kids … Whenever I try to ask something, everybody groans. They say, ‘Oh, God, not her again.’ Or, ‘Shut her up, would you?’ This one kid who sat in front of me in math, he turned around to me and said, ‘Shit, can’t you just do it, for once?’ I wanted to die, I was so embarrassed. I never asked anything again in there.”
Pointed silence hung between us. Sharp, it was, like a small dagger. Sheila turned to me. “It’s because I’m the youngest in the class. I haven’t had as much school as they have and it isn’t fair.” Her voice was heavy with accusation. “How can they expect me to know as much?”
“You’re youngest in the class, Sheila, because you know more than they do, not less. The other kids aren’t asking questions, because their minds don’t throw up so many possibilities so quickly as yours. They don’t even realize questions are there.”
She chewed her lower lip a moment. Staring ahead at the far-stretching road, she sighed wearily. “If I’m so smart, how come I feel so stupid then? What kind of gift is it that turns the world upside down, so that less is more and more is less?”
We arrived in Marysville in the midafternoon after a leisurely journey across the state. The day had grown very hot, the sky going white with the heat, and coming into the shady streets of the town was a relief. I booked us into a motel on Main Street that, much to Sheila’s delight, had a swimming pool. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a swimming suit, so we made a jaunt out to find one at the shopping mall. The mall hadn’t been there when I had last been in town, and as with all such places, Sheila was keen to explore. Consequently, we wandered around for an hour or two, by which time we were ready for an evening meal; so we stopped for supper in the mall food court before returning to the motel. Feeling overcome with nostalgia as I drove through the familiar streets, I would have preferred going out then and there to visit some old haunts, but Sheila was desperate to go in the pool. Thus, we spent the evening swimming.
The next morning, it was raining steadily.
“Oh, geez, would you believe it?” Sheila said in dismay, as she pulled the curtain back from the motel window. “In July? It never rains in July.”
It certainly did that particular July day and by the looks of the clouds, it was not close to stopping. “Come on,” I said, “it won’t matter. Let’s go.”
Sheila wanted to go out to see the migrant camp. I thought I remembered the road, but it turned out I didn’t and we were soon lost. This left me feeling a bit irritable, which wasn’t a good start.
When we did finally locate it, we found the camp full to bursting with seasonal workers. Several types of crops were at a harvestable stage, which had caused the usual swell in camp numbers, but as it was raining and some crops could not be worked, many of the workers were milling around the various buildings.
The camp itself had changed considerably from what I remembered of it. Two large new housing units had been erected. They were great green-painted aluminum structures reminiscent of the calving sheds I was used to in Montana, and they dominated the camp. Many of the old tar-paper buildings that made up my clearest memories of the migrant camp were gone and the layout of the old roads in the camp had been disrupted by the new buildings.
What Sheila was thinking, as we drove through the rutted tracks around the housing units, I do not know. She had become increasingly silent as we approached the camp. Face turned away from me, she looked out the window.
There was a different atmosphere here to when I used to come out to see Anton. It didn’t strike me as a particularly safe place for two young white women to wander around alone and a lot of people were noticing us, even in the car. As a consequence, I didn’t suggest we get out of the car. It was with a sense of relief that I drove through the gates and back up onto the main road. Sheila still didn’t speak.
Back in town, I took the car slowly down a few of the streets I knew best. I pointed out where my old apartment had been. The pizzeria where Chad and I had taken Sheila after the hearing had been replaced by a bar and lounge, but I showed her where it had been. We had an invitation to Chad’s house for a picnic supper and fireworks for the next day, and I mentioned that I hoped the weather would improve.
Down a quiet, tree-lined suburban street I located our old school. A low, one-story brick building with white trim, it fitted in attractively with the neighborhood of ranch-style homes. This wasn’t a wealthy suburb by any means, but it was solidly middle class, the type of area that so embodied the American Dream of the fifties and sixties. Most of my teaching career since had been spent in drafty, old, turn-of-the-century buildings in the less-affluent parts of large cities, and I had forgotten just what a small, attractive school this had been. The contrast with the migrant camp struck me forcefully.
Pulling the car over to the curb, I turned off the engine. “Recognize this place?”
Sheila nodded faintly.
“See that window there, three along on the left? That was our room,” I said.
Absorbed silence.
“Do you remember any of this?”
“I don’t know,” she murmured quietly.
I certainly remembered. All the little moments came crowding back, grappling one with the other to reach my consciousness first. There was the door where I lined the children up, observing the military precision my principal had loved so well. There were the seesaws the kids always fought over. There was the wide expanse of asphalt where Anton and I had struggled to teach them dodgeball and kick ball and …
“Are there still special-ed kids in that classroom?” Sheila asked.
“The room isn’t a classroom anymore. They’ve made a counseling center out of it,” I said. “I suppose we could get out and walk around, if you want …”
“No.”
I started the engine, then paused, hoping for what I’m not sure. Finally I pulled away from the curb and drove off.
After another half hour of cruising up and down the back streets, I began toying with the idea of visiting the shopping mall again. It was still raining heavily and my mood was going from wistful to something less comfortable, making me realize I’d had enough nostalgia for one day.
“You want to do something?” I asked. “I think I saw where there are movie theaters out at the shopping center. Shall we go see what’s on?”
Sheila shook her head. “Let’s go to that park,” she said, “the one where you took those pictures of the last day of school.”
“Why don’t we wait until it stops raining? Maybe tomorrow, before we go see Chad.”
“No, let’s go now.”
The park was just as beautiful as I remembered it, with its broad winding entrance road lined with locust trees and flower borders. I parked the car on the street and we walked slowly down amidst the flowers. The floral display being quite stupendous, I was entranced. I am very fond of gardening and was curious about the plants used, so I stopped along the way to examine them. Sheila, however, was totally lost to