from surrounding towns were earnest and friendly, many were unprepared, as evidenced by the abundance of remedial English and math courses offered each semester. I was assigned five sections of “Developmental English.” Facing a class of twenty-plus students, many with brains but little preparation for college work, was a challenge, and I hardly knew where to begin. Not only did my students lack basic literacy skills, but many also lacked motivation, which was confirmed by their frequent absences and bogus excuses for missing class and turning in assignments late. During that first year of teaching, I treaded in rough pedagogical waters. But I learned more about teaching that year, from both my many failures and few successes, than during the subsequent thirty years (as I managed to stay afloat).
Both college and coal mines define Stonehill, sandwiched on a strip of bottom land between steep hills, adjacent to the Kanawha River. CSX trains carry coal along tracks that slice the town’s midsection. Over the years, both the college and the mines had experienced a downturn.
During that first semester, Marlene and I figuratively picked over the male species like shoppers fingering fresh produce at a farmer’s market. Each of us stood squarely at opposite ends of the love boat. Marlene was a blissful bride, and I, another casualty of divorce.
“What do you think my chances are of meeting a decent single male around here? Not that I’m quite ready yet.”
“I hate to tell you, but things don’t look too promising on this campus. Most of the male faculty are married. Then you have your total nerds and some weirdos. But there is a guy who works with my husband at Legal Aid. Just out of law school someplace in Texas. He’s been here about a month. Came over to our apartment for a few beers after work last week. Kind of cute in a boyish way. Laughs a lot. Good sense of humor. And he doesn’t have one of those funny accents.”
A cute guy with a sense of humor? Okay . . . . But a Texan. Hhhmmm? I’d never set foot out West, with the exception of Los Angeles, which had overwhelmed me. My take on Texas was gleaned from grainy black-and-white cowboy movies that my father had watched on the old Philco TV back in our living room in Queens. Daddy sat wearing his clean white tee shirt, on the left side of our plastic-covered green couch, with a pack of Chesterfields on the coffee table, the hot ash of a half-smoked butt disintegrating in a lead-crystal ashtray. It seemed as if John Wayne starred in every Western. Those taciturn cowboys said, “Yup” and “Ma’am,” wore ten-gallon hats, packed pistols, tied their horses to hitching posts, and fought in saloons. My dad loved to watch the good guys chase the bad guys. We cheered as the sheriff’s posse sprang over chasms in a perfect arc from one mountain top to another in pursuit of the outlaws.
I tucked Marlene’s Texan into the back of my mind as I raced to prepare my classes and settle Matt into kindergarten and our new mountain home. I lucked into a one-year lease on a furnished cottage while the owners, the Higginbottoms, spent a year teaching in Egypt. When I first came upon it, this shingled cottage glistened in the morning sun. Set deep in the woods, it reminded me of Snow White’s house. Rather than the Seven Dwarfs, this abode was occupied by King, an elderly collie-shepherd mix. Soon King and Matt were inseparable, but I drew the line when Matt wanted to sleep with our rent-a-dog.
Matt and I spent a lot of time cooking, coloring, and reading books together in the kitchen with its long red Formica counter top and knotty pine cabinets. A baby grand piano dominated the small living room where a couch and a wing-backed chair, both covered in a yellow floral print, were arranged in front of a stone fireplace.
From the window above the kitchen sink, we watched sparrows, chickadees, finches, and cardinals land at the feeder in the yard. I kept a generous supply of suet and seed in the pantry. Matt was enthralled the day we spotted a family of white-tailed deer grazing in the front yard. During that year, I ran through three cords of firewood because cold air leaked through ancient casement windows. Later that year, we welcomed the warmth and colors of spring: trillium dotted the hillsides, forsythia twisted skyward, and jonquils graced meadows. There were also West Virginia’s ubiquitous, plastic Easter egg trees which delighted my son: “Oh, Mommy, can we get one of those trees for our yard?”
Although Matt missed his father, he adjusted quickly to his new school and surroundings. He adored his kindergarten teacher, Mr. Pauley, a gentle man who, with humor and love, tamed a rambunctious tribe of five-year-olds. Matt and his school buddies spent hours in the front yard climbing up, down, and around boulders that served as fortresses, jails, castles, and speedways, depending on the boys’ fantasy of choice. They tussled with old King and raced their Hot Wheels up and down the gravel driveway.
I adjusted less well. I missed my friends, my comfortable contemporary home on its wooded lot on the outskirts of Chapel Hill, and the security of marriage, even one that had been unstable for several years. I still harbored faint hope that my husband and I might reconcile.
To help Matt during this difficult transition, I purchased a “special calendar” and marked each weekend that his dad would visit. Matt carefully placed a gold star on the date of each visit. Just after his bedtime story and before he went to sleep, he checked off each day, anticipating his dad’s first trip in early October.
Matt’s dad arrived on an unseasonably cold day, the kind with wood smoke in the air. As I opened the front door, Matt bolted toward his dad, who scooped him up, kissed his cheeks, and stroked his curly hair. After an awkward exchange with my soon-to-be-ex-husband, I handed Matt his Snoopy backpack, kissed him, and waved goodbye. Father and son departed in a rented car. I lingered in the front hall and faced my first weekend alone. More than forty-eight hours to fill. What to do? Best get busy.
I unpacked a few boxes, ran the vacuum, folded laundry, wiped down the kitchen cabinets, and walked King. Then I tackled student papers and littered the margins with “awk, frag,” and question marks. I tried to untangle mangled English syntax. What in the hell did these kids do during four years of high school English? Around 5:00 p.m., I fixed a tuna sandwich and flipped through the entertainment section of the newspaper. The Saturday evening TV lineup wasn’t promising; besides, reception on the mountainside was no better than the grainy images on my dad’s old Philco. Normally a voracious reader, I couldn’t concentrate on what I judged to be the “fluff” in the Life and Style section of the local newspaper about people and places I didn’t even know yet. I debated whether or not to phone my Chapel Hill friends and dump more of my angst. Although I hadn’t tired of venting, surely they were tired of listening to me, swimming in circles over my impending divorce.
An evening road trip, even to the local Mom-and-Pop roadside store to pick up milk, wasn’t feasible, as I feared driving the winding roads that were covered in mud and littered with ruts. What if my car careened into a ditch or a deer darted in front of my headlights? Besides, I didn’t need any milk.
Clearly my options were limited.
I didn’t welcome the idea of another evening wrapped in a bundle of regrets. So I smoked and paced, wishing I were anyone but me, and anywhere but in this cottage on a dirt road five miles from town and light years from Chapel Hill.
Then I recalled my conversation with Marlene about the lawyer from Texas. In seconds, I shifted from idle into overdrive and weighed the relative merits of contacting this total stranger. Would his phone number be listed? Could I call out of the blue? Was that too pushy? Would I come across as needy?
Then again, I was needy, and lonely too. But to admit it was degrading.
Can I pull off “casual and confident”?
I reasoned that the Texan was new, maybe lonely too.
Then again, he might have a girlfriend back home where the buffalo roam, a former cheerleader or drum majorette. A beehived blonde with cowgirl boots and big boobs. But Marlene would
