pop-song

always awake before the the alarm ….she hardly slept. Still she checks the time. 4:45. Then goes over the essay questions in her mind. They were her strength, if there was essay, she would nail the exam

Still dark as pitch out. She pulls aside the pale teal drape to look outside, past the balcony towards Amstel Park ….and through the dark it was fog. She burns the tips of her toes on the floor heater by the balcony door. 

“Ow!” she moves away and turns to vinyl; ‘the hounds of love’ very low (her odd taste in music) and goes to the sink to wash her face. Out to the darkened hall it’s still, everyone still sleeps. She goes and makes a cup of tea in the narrow kitchen and sits at the narrow marble bistro table. Still going over essay questions 

She finishes her tea and brushes her teeth. Face and hair. Clothes…. She wears a deep plum knit over a grey flannel skirt and slides on black tights with buckled Mary Jane’s and still the essay questions 

By feel, finds her coat on a hook and quietly slips out with her heavy book bag. She steps into the hall to wait for the lift…. ‘no, that was Plato….’ she corrects her thought ….

she pulls on her heavy winter coat with rust fur cuffs in that shade if salmon burgundy her mother picked out for her (not her taste)as she steps into the lift and swings her bag over her shoulder and is welcomed by a gust of wind as soon as she’s past the marble floored lobby 

The long street to the bus stop is one long wind tunnel that parallels the park and now she regrets not closing her coat before stepping out. Then it is a tram to Amsterdam Central Station to catch the train to Den Haag. Always the pressure to make the connections in the weather ….the Meno…. she goes over the dialogue in her mind ….essential points….

Central Station is a zoo when she gets there, the area to avoid is overflowing with predators and she runs towards the gate she guesses would be about right and breathless stops. Checks. Yes. Gets on. 

And all the way, as the dawn comes in through the train windows ….the essay questions ….it was her way to freedom…. Away from the man who she knew as father —she had already been accepted to college and it would mean the beginning of a life away from him ….

she arrives at the station in The Hague to take the tram to the street near her school on Paulis Buystraat. And walking down the square blocked road reaches school with the brick exterior and painted blue double doors. During the Second World War it had been a military headquarters. It still looked it. Three flights up to “intellectual history” class and ….

a spill at the top of the staircase. She falls. And all her books go flying out of her bag.

“Here,” someone helps her as other students go running and stampeding over her. 

“Thanks,” she takes the books and starts to head to class 

“Uh—wait, which way to Mr. Jenkins office?”

“Oh….” she turns snd looks up now realizing he is a man….in a suit and tie ….  ”oh….”

“First day, new teacher filling in for —Robbins….”

“Oh—I have her for third hour—no? Mr.Jenkins is actually 202, down a flight….”she stares a moment 

“I’m Mr. Bettings, then I’ll see you, third…”

***

The essay aced; third hour awkward; lunch spent studying for the Lit exam —and by day’s end, she is partially unconscious, stepping to her locker to rearrange her evenings studies ….dropping heavy artillery into her bag—and, off again. 

Leaving school ….the weather turned wet. She heads to the tram stop to head back to Den Haag Centraal Station. 

And so, running for the enclosure that blocks the wind, lugging the heavy bag, the dreary heavy clouds from the dismal sky decides  to fall just then. 

And in heavy, sloppy, frozen murdered-snowman clumps-of-gray which  now hits her full gust in the face 

“Are you all right?”

A car stops.

“Mr. Bettings,” she looks up as he comes over holding an open umbrella 

“Let me give you a lift,” he says

His car is warm and dry