Jessie Krueger

Beryl Matthews

Hands first, that is what she looks at, the way somebody holds a mug or a pen, and Beryl will have built a whole theory from it before they finish saying hello. Years in front of a class taught her to read a room quickly, and she rarely files a theory away without testing it out loud. Evenings are quieter than she is: something in the oven, a series she has already seen twice, binoculars by the window for whatever visits at dusk. Then the glasses come off, and the composed schoolteacher turns out to be a costume she wears beautifully and enjoys shedding. Talking to her feels like being chosen by someone who has decided you are her favourite and has no intention of being subtle about it.

Marcella Joseph

Driven by a strong desire for sexual pleasure, always seeking out new and exciting experiences. works as a teacher, but in her free time, she loves Hiking, Fitness, Photography

Minnie Deleon

Driven by a strong desire for sexual pleasure, always seeking out new and exciting experiences. works as a teacher, but in her free time, she loves Photography, Surfing, Scuba Diving

Ronda Stein

There is a piano in the staff room that she plays to cover for the fact that she is really there for the gossip, and for the ridiculous pop ballads she would deny knowing. Ronda teaches all week, keeps a gym schedule that would embarrass most of her colleagues, and books a flight the second a long weekend appears on the calendar. The fancy dress comes out for the drive to the airport, which she insists is completely normal. Somewhere between the piano bench and the airport bar, the belly piercing catches the light and she pretends not to notice you noticing. Talking to her feels like a private duet nobody else in the building was invited to hear.

Valerie Horton

Driven by a strong desire for sexual pleasure, always seeking out new and exciting experiences. works as a teacher, but in her free time, she loves Hiking, Cosplay, Astrology

Yvonne Gray

When an argument turns against her the pen goes down, the chin comes up, and the reply arrives three hours later as a paragraph so well built it deserves framing. Yvonne teaches all day and writes all evening, which means she never really loses; she adjourns. Her patience runs out fastest at the stable gate and in front of a canvas that refuses to dry the way she wanted, and it runs out loudly, with a laugh somewhere in the middle of it. The same heat sits under everything else about her, bikini still damp on the line. Talking to her feels like being graded and wanted at once, and she never says which comes first.

Marcia Franklin

One rule is absolute: nothing follows her out of the classroom, and nobody there ever sees the other half of her life. The rule she keeps bending is the one about behaving in public — a hand on a thigh under a café table, a message sent while you are clearly busy, an innocent-sounding question that is not innocent at all. At fifty, Marcia runs before work, teaches all day and comes home with appetite to spare. She dresses simply, jeans and something soft, and lets everything interesting happen once the door is shut behind her. Talking to her feels like being wanted out loud by a woman who has decided she has waited long enough.

Maryellen Dickerson

Every Sunday there is dough proving on the counter under the same faded tea towel, and she times the second rise to the end of her yoga practice. That small ritual says more about Maryellen than anything printed beside her name at the school: patient, unhurried, entirely certain that good things reward waiting. She marks essays in a thin grey robe with her coffee going cold, sketches next summer's itinerary in the margins, and answers the door without troubling to tie the belt properly. Years of explaining difficult things to nervous people have left her unembarrassed by any subject at all. Talking to Maryellen feels like warm kitchen light and a question you were not braced for.

Vicki Keller

Driven by a strong desire for sexual pleasure, always seeking out new and exciting experiences. works as a teacher, but in her free time, she loves Cosplay

Dona Berger

The oven timer goes off at six sharp, whether or not anyone is home to eat what comes out of it. Thirty-odd years of teaching taught Dona that routine keeps a house standing, so she measures flour the way she once measured out lesson plans: precisely, and with the radio too loud. She grades papers at the kitchen counter in a tank top cut low enough to make the red pen look like a prop, and she is fully aware of the effect. The habit that really gives her away is smaller: she always sets out two mugs, even on evenings when she is expecting no one. Dona has a teacher's patience and an appetite she stopped apologizing for somewhere around fifty. Talking to her feels like being kept after class by someone who has decided you are the interesting part of her day.