A Universe of Misadventures: The Mrs. Rowe Show

The first day of school always felt like the first day of summer. I sat at my desk and looked over my class roster, but I couldn't help but think about the long vacation I had just finished. It was so nice to get away from all these kids for a few weeks.

"Hope you didn't forget about me."

I turned around and saw a tall man in the doorway. He was dressed in a tailored three-piece suit, complete with red tie and pocket square. His wavy brown hair was parted perfectly on the left side, and his clear blue eyes looked at me with genuine warmth. But what stood out most about this man were his eyebrows, which curved upward toward his temples, giving him a perpetually cheerful expression.

"Mr. Guidry! How are you?" I said as I rose to greet him.

He walked into my classroom and shook my hand vigorously; he seemed happy just to see me.

The students started filing in slowly after that, taking their seats and looking around at their classmates, who they hadn't seen since last spring.

"Class, this is Mr. Wilson Guidry," I announced to the class as they settled down. "He's going to be teaching American History with me this year."

"Hey everybody!" Mr. Guidry said enthusiastically as he stood up from his desk and waved at everyone in turn. "Nice to meetcha!"

The smile never left his face as he walked back over to my desk and took a seat next to me, still grinning widely.

"Well, let's start with roll call." I said as I picked up the attendance sheet from my desk and glanced over it briefly before calling out each name in turn. When I called out "Christopher Esparza?" there was a pause before someone answered: "Here." I looked up at the class and saw Mr. Guidry staring straight ahead with a confused look on his face, trying unsuccessfully to figure out if he knew any of these names that he'd heard me call out or not. After another moment or two of silence, he finally turned toward me and asked: "What's an Espa-za?"

"Uh…it's Esparza." I replied calmly, hoping not to make any more mistakes than I already had, but fearing that it was already too late for that wish to be granted.

His eyes widened for a second before he shook his head slightly, then turned back forward again and resumed staring blankly ahead of him like nothing had happened.

After we finished roll call, Mrs. Bryant knocked on the door and walked in while we continued our discussion of the Revolutionary War timeline on the whiteboard behind us. She stopped by Mr. Guidry's desk first and handed him some papers along with a laptop computer before moving on over to mine where she handed me some papers and gave me her usual warm smile before exiting the room again yet again without saying anything else other than: "Have a good day!"

After we finished our conversation about the French & Indian War, Mr. Guidry got up from his desk again and went over to the board where he wrote down an entry for Thomas Jefferson under 1770s Era Events leading up to Independence (he misspelled Jefferson's name). While he did this, I went around the room asking questions about various things related to this topic; when I arrived at Mr [sic] Guidry's desk though, he just stared blankly ahead again until I asked him if he knew why Jefferson wasn't present at the Constitutional Convention but wrote most of its documents anyway despite being absent from it ("Huh?") After that question elicited no response from him whatsoever, I decided it would probably be best if I moved on rather than try anything else with him today ("Okay…").