Chapter One: Anxiety Queen

Full disclosure: I never thought I’d get the job. So when a vaguely familiar phone number danced across my screen, I ignored it. Assumed it was spam. When my phone buzzed to tell me I had a voicemail, I paid a little more attention.

Hello, this message is for Allison Hale. My name is Marnie Phalen and I met you two weeks ago when you interviewed for the sixth grade math position at our school. I-

Marnie Phalen was the principal of Leadville Middle School. I could still see the hot pink paisley dress she’d worn during the interview. I highly doubted she would call to tell me they’d filled the position with someone else, so that meant….

“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” I hyperventilated as I rose to my feet, pacing my room. My anxiety-riddled brain thought it helped me think better when sitting there felt like a boulder was on my chest. 

When her secretary called me to set up the interview, I’d assumed it was a long shot, but after being a building substitute for four years at the middle school closest to my parents' Denver townhouse, I figured it would be good experience. I truly had not believed it would get this far. I figured they would see my address and throw my resume in the garbage.

“Ally, are you dying?” my younger sister Elenore called from the bathroom.

“No, just questioning my life choices!” I called back as I continued to walk back and forth looking at my phone, trying to get my pulse to slow down by at least half before I called Ms. Phalen back.

Elenore stuck her head into my room. Her sandy blond hair was in two braids, her unisex Funland t-shirt tied into a knot by her hip so she could attempt to show her feminine curves. It was summer, so while I wasn’t working at the moment, she was sunkissed from working at an amusement park everyday. 

“In all seriousness, I don’t want to leave you if you have a real problem. We know how great Mom and Dad are at dealing with crises.” She smirked at me, but I knew she was being serious underneath. 

Despite the five year age gap, we both were combat veterans with family drama. My pacing was a telltale sign I was dealing with something.

“I wouldn’t say this is a crisis, just something I wasn’t prepared for.” I let out a sigh. “Let me deal with it, and I can give you all the details when you get home later.”

Elenore seemed placated by that. “Sounds like a plan.” She waved before ducking back into the hallway.

“Stay hydrated!” I called after her. “Don’t kill anyone!” 

Elenore mostly worked in the midway part of the park, but they sometimes threw her in where they needed coverage and the thought of my baby sister being in control of a roller coaster was nightmare fuel. She was twenty-one and more focused on the social aspects of the job than the technical ones.

Once she was gone and I’d calmed down enough to make coherent thoughts, I finally tapped the number for Leadville Middle School. After a couple of rings, the cheery administrative assistant picked up.

“Leadville Middle School, this is May.”

“Hi May, it’s Allison Hale.”

May skipped over the pleasantries. “Excellent! Ms. Phalen wanted to get a hold of you as soon as possible.” My stomach dropped like it was made of lead at her words. “Hold please.”

People didn’t want to give rejections as soon as possible, did they? I thought to myself as cheery music played. 

Did I want a rejection? Honestly, half the reason I’d applied for the job in the first place was because on paper it seemed exactly like what I envisioned in my mind when I thought of a career–the kind of stuff you put on vision boards. Well, maybe I didn’t manifest the ninety-minute commute, but everything else was pretty awesome.

“Hello, Allison?” Marnie Phalen’s voice was just as bubbly and enthusiastic as it had been in person.

“Hi, Ms. Phalen, sorry I missed your call.” 

I thought about making up an excuse as to why I’d let the call go, but decided to keep quiet instead. I was obsessed with good first impressions. They made it harder to tell that things weren’t always perfect underneath.

“It’s okay, sweetie, I’m glad you called back so quickly. I’m about to leave for a week of vacation in Aspen and want to make sure all my loose ends are tied up.”

I fought the urge to tell her about my sister Olivia’s boyfriend and his new bakery that just opened in Aspen. I figured that was something you told someone when you knew them for more than an hour. I didn’t want to come on too strong. 

“No problem,” I said instead.

“I’ll just get right to it,” Ms. Phalen said. “Allison, we'd love to offer you the sixth grade math position. We were just so impressed with your interview and your model lesson, it would be a mistake to not take you on.”

My body felt like I was sitting in a warm meadow, like the day was full of magic and anything was possible. It wasn’t like I didn’t get compliments when I was a substitute teacher, but they were more of the ‘hey, you handled that class of brats really well, here are your battle stripes’ kind of compliments. No one really made a point of telling me I was good at what I did. It felt good.

“Thank you.” All too quickly the logistics of the situation began to sober me. “Your school seems like a really great place to work, I just–”

“Allison, I remember on your resume that you live in Denver. I would imagine you would have to relocate for this to be a better transition for you.”

Plenty of people probably commuted that far everyday, but then you had to figure in Denver traffic as you got closer to the city, not to mention overbearing fathers that thought I went to lunch with a friend the day of my interview and not to a rural town over an hour away…. He would have been giving his opinion, telling me it was a terrible idea and it would have only added to my stress.

I fought the urge to tell her the truth, that I really didn’t think they’d want me for the job, but that didn’t seem like the sort of thing you told a potential boss, especially when they just sang your praises. 

Instead, I smiled, took a breath and humored her. “Yes, I think to have the most focused school year possible, it would be important to be local.”

“So I’ve been thinking, maybe we can use your substitute teaching experience to raise your salary to the next level so you would be able to find a place nearby. This is of course in addition to the benefits and other perks we discussed in the interview.”

When she stated what my new salary would be, I actually had to move the phone away from my ear and cover my mouth with my hand to stifle the scream of shock. Was I dreaming right now? It made my substitute teacher salary look like a step above minimum wage. How could I say no to that? It would be the stupidest thing I ever did.

“Wow,” I finally answered breathlessly. “You certainly know how to haggle.” When Ms. Phalen laughed softly on the phone, I knew what I had to do. “As I stated in my interview, having a classroom of my own is something I have wanted for a very long time. I had reservations about being so far from Leadville, but you’ve certainly put me at ease with the pay bump.”

“So does this mean you are accepting the position?” Ms. Phalen asked hopefully.

My body fought the urge to pace again with that same warm, perfect day feeling in my chest. I wished there was a way to bottle it so I could use it on days when things weren’t so sunny. 

I nodded even though she couldn’t see. “Yes, I am.”

“Excellent!” she replied, even more enthusiastic if possible. “Let’s plan on you coming in to sign paperwork and get the lay of the land once I’m back from my trip, okay?”

“Sounds good,” I answered, deciding to let the glow of my victory take over all my other feelings. I could deal with the fear of the unknown after the call ended. “I hope you have a great trip.”

“Have you ever been to Aspen, Sweetie?”

This time I was the one laughing softly. “Yes, recently actually. My sister lives there.”

***

It took about five minutes for the joyful mood to fade away and for the anxiety to rear its ugly head. 

“Allie, what are you going to do?” I asked myself, looking out the window at where my dad usually parked his contractor truck. 

He was an HVAC guy and would be gone for most of the day, which was good because I had to figure out my plan of attack before he got home. No misconceptions, my father was not a bad man. He was the hardest worker I knew and he cared for all of us deeply. He also was the most hardheaded person I’d ever met. So much so that he and my middle sister Olivia hadn’t spoken for almost five years. That was around the time my anxiety got to the atmospheric levels I dealt with now. Things were on the mend thankfully, but we were all understandably gun-shy.

Part of the reason why I was still living at home at twenty-six was because of their fallout. She’d left home at nineteen against his wishes, and even though at face value he tried to play it off like Olivia was a fool and he didn’t care what happened to her, it impacted him, and in reality all of us, deeply. Ele and I felt guilty about leaving and he was hard-pressed to let us go. It was half the reason Ele decided to go to college forty-five minutes away when she really could have gone anywhere.

The rational part of me didn’t blame Olivia. She’d been living under his overbearing thumb for nineteen years and her boyfriend at the time seemed financially set, being the son of an entrepreneurial family. It was just the way she did it. I had to be careful with how I approached this now that it was my turn. Anything that seemed like a brash decision might end up with me locked in my bedroom for the rest of my life.

I’d walked around my room aimlessly to the point that there was a path in front of my bureau. Then I stared at the rose colored walls. I flopped dramatically on my queen sized bed as I attempted to sort out my thoughts. Finally, I ended up back at my white writing desk where I’d started this morning. 

My father was the kind of man who needed contingency plans. Perhaps it was because he owned his own business so he needed to be ready for dry months or issues that came up, but the man loved a well thought out proposal. Even for something as simple as a family vacation, my mother had to soothe him with a detailed itinerary before he would commit. This would be no different.

I opened up a blank Powerpoint presentation. The program was one I used often. It made my lesson plans visual and cheerful when I got to be in the same place more than a day at a time. Last school year, a history teacher went out on maternity leave and I took her place for three months. Even though my degree was in math, I still made my history slides look like I knew what I was doing. The kids hadn’t seemed any wiser, so maybe it would have the same effect on my father.

“This is your chance to finally get out of house arrest,” I reminded myself as I looked for fonts that were fun, but also easy to read. “You won’t have to give him a bullet point list of where you are going when you go out.” 

Or lie about it, I mused to myself. That was how I’d gotten myself into this mess in the first place.

Finding a style that got the vibe I was going for, I began to type:

Allison Hale Finally Grows Up: No, It’s Not For a Man.

The subtitle had sort of become an inside joke after everything that had happened with Olivia. I prayed my father would find even a shred of humor in it.