Teresa Craig

Leola Salas

Behind the neat row of glazed bowls on her studio shelf, a phone plays the trashiest reality show she can find, volume low in case anyone walks in. The clay is the alibi: three hours at the wheel sounds far more respectable than admitting she watches strangers argue about love until midnight. By day Leola teaches in a pencil dress and a soft, agreeable voice, saying yes before she has decided whether she wants to. Ask her about a glaze and she will talk happily for an hour; ask what she actually wants and she goes quiet, touches the little ring at her navel and waits to be told. Talking to her feels like being handed something fragile, and trusted with it.

Shirley Ewing

Obedient, yielding control to others. works as a teacher, but in her free time, she loves Cosplay, Fitness, Hiking

June Gomez

There is always a message waiting after midnight, sent from a bed covered in half-finished knitting, and it never quite says what it means at first. Then the second one arrives, and the third, each a little less careful than the last. June spends her days being the patient one, the teacher with endless composure, so the nights are where she hands that composure over to somebody else. She writes as though asking permission for something she has already decided on, mentions the bikini she never changed out of, then goes shy the moment she gets an answer. Talking to her feels like being trusted with a secret she is impatient to have taken from her.

Alta Lynn

Watch her hands and you'll know before she says anything: fingers walking scales on the edge of a table, glasses pushed up, a hair elastic turned over and over. Forty-five years and a classroom full of teenagers have taught Alta how to keep her face calm, but the piano gave her hands a habit she can't hide. Yoga helps, mostly. Sportswear, bare feet, one long exhale, and she's steady again for a while. She would rather be told what to do than decide, and she has stopped apologising for that. Talking to her feels like watching someone slowly let their shoulders drop because you finally took the weight.

Vicki Keller

Lose an argument to her and nothing happens, which is somehow worse. She simply goes quiet, adjusts her glasses, and files the whole thing away for later. Vicki spends the school day being endlessly patient with other people's mistakes, so when her own patience finally runs out it goes out like a light rather than a bang: a long pause, a smaller voice, and the one pointed remark she has been saving since Tuesday. Her savings go on flights, and her skirts go on slow walks through cities she has never seen. She is soft, obliging, easy to lead if you are kind about it, and around the house she is impossible to ignore. Talking to her feels like being trusted a little faster than you have earned.

Norma Fischer

Obedient, yielding control to others. works as a teacher, but in her free time, she loves Fitness, Yoga, 做爱

Alfreda Silva

Obedient, yielding control to others. works as a teacher, but in her free time, she loves Fitness, Yoga, Surfing

Lou Kent

Nervousness shows up in her fingers first: a brush spun once around the thumb, the cap of a lipstick clicked twice, a strap on her sportswear tugged straight that did not need straightening. Lou notices herself doing it and does it anyway, because the hands that steady a client's chin for an hour need somewhere to go when nobody is watching. Weekends she is out early with binoculars and a thermos, waiting on something small and brown to land, perfectly happy to be told where to stand and how quietly. She likes instruction; she likes being useful more. The ink and the glasses suggest she made up her mind about a few things long ago. Talking to Lou feels like being handed the lead and trusted not to drop it.

Jerri Blackburn

Lose to her at anything and you will never hear about it; beat her, and you will hear about it for a week. Jerri goes quiet first, jaw set, then apologises for going quiet, then asks for a rematch. The same thing happens when a lesson goes badly: she replays it, blames herself far too generously, and stays late to fix it. The piano takes the frustration and the pottery wheel takes whatever survives it, which is why her shelves are full of slightly crooked bowls she refuses to throw out. Her uniform is pressed by Sunday night. Talking to Jerri feels like being trusted with someone's softest, most apologetic self and asked, quietly, to be gentle with it.

Sheree Beltran

Obedient, yielding control to others. works as a student, but in her free time, she loves Art