ripe old age of sixteen, students are ready to begin their adult couch potato years. Still, some senior students take the class out of interest or desire to maintain some degree of physical fitness beyond using the fingers on their right hands to operate their computer mouse to navigate internet chat rooms with their friends. Tricia was one of those.
By the time I wound my way down to the gym, class was already underway, and the students were taking advantage of the rare, late fall sunshine to run outside in the crisp November air. I found the P.E. teacher, Ralph Bremner, standing in the exit doorway of the gym, waiting for the students to return from their fitness sortie. Another educational mystery I had wondered about since my own high school days was why so few P.E. teachers actually ran with their students. Bremner cupped a cigarette in his left hand. Role modelling.
“Oh, hey there, ahhh, umm,” Bremner began, surreptitiously tossing his cigarette onto the ground.
“Winston,” I reminded him, “Winston Patrick.”
“Right, Winston. Sorry about that. You’re the lawyer, right?”
“I was. I’m a full-time educator now.”
“Right. I was just . . . .”
“Relax, Mr. Bremner.”
“Ralph. It’s Ralph.”
“Okay, relax Ralph. We all have our vices. I’m not here to bust you for smoking.”
“Right. I’m sure you’ve figured out how it is. So few hours in the day. So much to do. Sometimes you need to sneak in your breaks whenever you can get them.”
“I understand,” I told him, putting on my neutral lawyer face to hide my quasi-disgust at this physical education teacher sucking back a Players Light.
“Wow. So you gave up the courtroom for the classroom. Doesn’t that seem like kind of a step backward? No offence.”
“None taken. If you met some of the people I got to work with as defence counsel, you might think differently.”
Bremner sort of chortled. “You may not have worked here long enough to meet all of our people. Hell, here you’re probably just meeting them before they get to the court room.” He started to laugh, then graduated into a hacking wheeze. As he choked, his large paunch tottered up and down above the waistband of red and white Adidas pants that looked like they dated at least as far back as my high school days.
“You all right?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” Bremner replied, recovering sufficiently to participate in dialogue. “It’s this cold weather.”
“Yeah, it’s a bitch.”
“So, what can I do for you, Winston?” Bremner asked, recognizing slowly but surely that I probably had some purpose for standing out in the cold with him.
“I was thinking of going for a run with your class,” I replied casually.
“Really?”
“No.”
“Ah, shit, you had me going there for a second.”
“I’m looking for one of your students. I was hoping I could steal her for a moment.”
“You just want one?” he smiled. For a moment I worried he might start laughing again. I don’t know CPR.
“One will do for now. Tricia Bellamy.”
“Uh-oh. What’s she done now?”
“Done? Trish a problem student in your class?”
“Nah, not really a problem. She’s just got some attitude at times. Truthfully, she’s not really the kind of girl we usually get in elective phys-ed.”
“What kind of girl is that?”
“You know. Nothing wrong with her really. She’s usually pleasant enough. But when she’s in a pisser of a mood, there’s almost no working with her. You know how melodramatic teenaged girls can get ‘at that time of the month.’ ” Bremner made those obnoxious quotation marks with his hands.
“Not really, but I guess I’ll learn.”
“Yes you will, my friend. Luckily for me, when they get bitchy, I can just make them go run outside. Keeps me sane, if you know what I mean.”
“Sure. So you don’t mind if I take her away for a few minutes?”
He looked across the field as the first of the runners began to appear. “Nah, help yourself.” The first four or five runners approached the entrance to the gym. “Here she comes now,” he continued.
“Which one?” I asked him.
“You don’t know her? She’s not one of yours?”
“No. I just need to ask her something to do with one of her classes.”
“Oh. Well, that’s her. First girl in the group. She’s pretty fast, I’ll give her that.”
I nodded. I had no idea what constitutes fast for a teenager. I wondered if fast to Ralph meant anyone who could complete a run without stopping for a smoke break.
“Trish!” Bremner suddenly bellowed, nearly jolting me into the wall behind us. Smoking hack or no, this man could project his voice. I thought he might double as a drama teacher. A student, still breathing heavily from her run, turned and trotted lightly towards us.
Tricia Bellamy was the kind of girl that sent eighteen-year-old boys for a cold shower. High cheekbones, deep green eyes and an engaging smile peered out from under beautiful, thick brown hair tied back in a tight knot on the back of her head for her P.E. class. For a student who thus far I had come to think of as a bookworm, Trish had the body of an athlete. Muscular arms, rock-firm legs and shoulders that looked like she could probably press her own weight, held together by a torso that seemed never to have heard of the term “body fat.” I suddenly thought: if Carl had fallen for a student, at least on appearances, I could see why Tricia Bellamy might be the one.
“Trish,” Bremner said, “Mr. Patrick wants to see you for a few minutes.”
Trish looked up at me and smiled. “Hi, Mr. Patrick?” If the thought of some strange teacher coming to see her gave her any reason to be worried, Trish didn’t show it.
“Hi. Yes. I’m Mr. Patrick. I teach in the Social Studies department.”
“Oh, yeah,” she replied. “My best friend Jessica McWilliams is in your Law class.”
“Sure, yeah, I know Jessica. Do you mind if we talk for a couple of minutes?”
A brief flash of genuine concern passed across her face. “Is everything okay? Is something wrong with Jessica?”
“No, no. She’s fine,” I told her. “I just need to ask you about something school-related. Why don’t we go inside? I may be dressed warmer than you are, but you’ve had the benefit of cardio exercise.”
She
