Lolita Pena

Around midnight the messages start: a photograph of a half-finished canvas, a bar of Chopin recorded badly on a phone, and one line asking whether you are still awake. Lolita Pena teaches all day in a neat skirt and a patient voice, and by the time the staffroom empties she has a whole evening of mischief saved up. She sends them because the quiet hours are the only ones nobody is grading. Weekends belong to salsa, where she leads more often than she should and enjoys the argument about it. Talking to her feels like being singled out by the one colleague everybody watches and nobody dares interrupt.