Getting a car was of the utmost importance, Natalia decided when she woke up.
School started in one day. She couldn't keep bumming rides with people and public transport was...non-existent. Coming from London, one of the most well-connected cities in the world, arguably, she couldn't fathom that there was no public transport that would take her to where she needed to be. In London, she could be Paris in about two hours and here, even grocery shopping was an ordeal without a car.
She called an Uber when she had found a suitable car rental place to rent from online. She peered out of the glass panel on the door — her neighbour was nowhere to be seen and she breathed a deep sigh of relief.
Ever since that kiss she had tried her best to avoid him. She managed to avoid him everywhere but in her dreams. He lived in her dreams. With his jade green eyes and relentlessly perfect, kissable lips. She could barely close her eyes before her brain played that incident in her mind on a loop over and over again. Damn, it had been one of the best kisses of her life and it came from a white man that she barely knew. She had been so discombobulated. She hadn't even told, Lima.
Natalia wasn't even sure why he had kissed her. Yes, there was some sort of attraction between them, but Natalia assumed it was the casual type of attraction that was easily dismissed.
Objectively, she could see that he was an attractive man but she didn't like him, not even as a person. He'd been nothing but rude and short with her in the brief time she had known him and vice versa. There couldn't possibly be anything between them.
The kiss had come completely out of the blue. Especially since he had been all over her Scottish counterpart at the barbecue party. They made a cute couple, their colourings complimenting each other in a way that was ordinary and expected.
Her mind wandered back to the Scottish red-head, Agnes. If anyone was bad vibes personified, it was her. At the brunch, Ella had hosted she had glowered at Natalia's attempts at being friendly and engaging in small-talk. She'd asked stupid, stereotype-filled questions about life in London, as if it was an alien place and not the capital of the United Kingdom. Her demeanour was completely different when she interacted with Ella or the other teachers at the barbecue. Natalia couldn't explain it, but she knew it began with r and ended in acist.
That kiss had been so left field. 'Maybe he was drunk?' Natalia thought, and she'd let him drive her home. Which is exactly why she was going to get a car today.
The state of Texas let people drive for 90 days on a foreign licence before they had to get a State licence. She'd have to take a test, which was no bother. If she could drive in Dubai where people thought speed restrictions were optional, and in London where the roads were tiny and packed full of passive-aggressive arseholes, Natalia felt she could drive anywhere.
Natalia picked up a white Honda hybrid, it was small and cute, and drove back to the house. A lot of things were giving her anxiety, the fact that she might forget which side of the road to drive on, that she was driving whilst foreign and black; and the eye-watering price of a monthly rental.
She breathed out in and out deeply, centring herself and decided to explore her neighbourhood. She'd looked up a store where she could get stationary supplies and groceries, a win. And she was fiending for a Starbucks, with them so ubiquitously spread everywhere she easily located one.
Having consisted solely on sandwiches and takeout the last couple of days, Natalia bought some fruit and vegetables at the supermarket as well as other staples. She was going to make herself a nice healthy lunch and dinner and take the leftovers to school.
She also bought some stationary and supplies to spruce up her classroom. Plants, pens, notepads, a planner, highlighters, a gold painted in-tray and a giant mug, she could have her morning cup of tea in.
When she returned home, she parked the car on the street and carried all her supplies into the house, looking around first so that he was nowhere in sight. She couldn't handle seeing him right now.
After making an easy dinner of grilled chicken, potatoes and some steamed veggies, Natalia settled down to start on her lesson plan for tomorrow. She had already familiarised herself with the curriculum. There were plenty of materials that Ella had directed her to, but she wanted to make sure her lesson plans were unique and fun for the students.
The main difference between the UK and the US high school education system in terms of Science was that the students really had no choice in doing the subject right up till they graduated. In the UK students chose four subjects to study further when they were aged 16. It made it somewhat challenging to keep the students in the latter grades engaged but she was going to try her best. The subjects were also split up into their core, so students had Biology, Chemistry and Physics as separate courses.
Natalia was going to be teaching Biology and Chemistry as well as an AP Biology course. She was most excited about the advanced placement course, it was equivalent to the A-level course in the UK, and it would give her a chance to really delve deeply into topics with students that had elected to be there.
Nervous, to describe how she was feeling was a massive understatement. She had gotten to work extra early and was basically hiding in the staff room, before the bell rang, signifying the start of her day. Since she didn't have a homeroom assigned to her, she got a few extra minutes to herself before she faced the madness.
Her first class, a 9th grade Biology class or as the Americans called it, 'freshman' year went without a hitch. The students were mainly Black, which reflected the makeup of the town. What Natalia found fascinating was that she was one of only three Black teachers in the whole school. That wasn't very representative.
The students had been fascinated by her accent, and the fact that Black Brits actually existed. They spent the lesson mostly getting to know each other and discussing their summers. Natalia still couldn't believe it, summer was three months long in the US.
At lunch Natalia had a quick catch-up with Ella, who was practically brimming with excitement to find out about her first few lessons.
Her last lesson of a day that had flown by much too quickly, was AP Biology. Natalia was going to start with Genetics, and that excited her. She had ordered a couple of guerilla gene editing kits off the internet and was going to demonstrate it, in the next couple of weeks. She lived for introducing her students to new and mind-blowing concepts. Why should they wait till they were in university to try real Science?
The class was mostly made up of Juniors and Seniors, a lot of them arrived late. Ella had given her free reign in terms of discipline. She had specifically mentioned that no students were above their zero tolerance policy on homework, tardiness and behavioural conduct.
"You're more than 15 minutes late, is there a specific reason for this?" Natalia addressed the group of five students that sauntered in well after the bell for the final period had rung.
They were tall, and well built, wearing similar athleisure wear. Nobody answered her. Instead, choosing to shuffle to their seats in silence not even bothering to offer up an apology.
Natalia wasn't asking for much, but the lack of response from them was a clear affront to her and she couldn't be accepting that type of disrespect on her first day.
Every teacher worth their salt knew that if you let the small stuff slide, it would snowball into a messy situation that would be hard to salvage. Having a class that didn't respect you was the worst thing that could happen to a teacher. Natalia had never experienced it and she wasn't going to start now.
"That's alright, we can discuss all the interesting reasons why you were late to my class after the bell rings."
"Nah, dawg we got practice." One of the boys said.
"I beg your pardon?" Natalia made a concerted effort not to screech in astonishment. She was nobody's 'Dawg.'
"I've got practice, ma'am," the student corrected.
"That's right, but it's Miss Burton, to you. And I don't care about your practice."
Once they had settled down, Natalia started her lesson. No one gave her any trouble after she had sufficiently thrown her weight around at the beginning of class.
Her programme instructor back home would have been proud. That was one of the things she had been the most nervous about coming out to the States, that she wouldn't have any authority. But she clearly did, she thought smugly, as she watched her class work on the sheets she had given them.
The five tardy culprits tried to sneak out as surreptitiously as they could when class was done. With all of them being over six feet tall, Natalia had to stifle a laugh at their poor attempt.
She had gotten to know them through taking the class attendance register and picking on them to answer questions throughout the class, they were intelligent students and she couldn't understand why their focus was more on football than the academics.
"So who's going to explain why you were all late to my class?" Natalia glared from her seat at the desk, her arms crossed.
"We had football practice, Miss Burton." One of them answered.
"Okay. And?"
"Sorry, it won't happen again. Can we go now? We have practice again."
"No, you can't go. You're going to write me a one page summary of what we covered in class today and also explain the impact of lateness on your education."
Collective groans came from all of them. Natalia ignored them and handed out lined paper with a smile.
"Coach's gonna be big mad," one of the boys quipped pursing his lips and giving her, wide warning eyes.
"I told you before, I could care less," Natalia returned. "The sooner you finish, the sooner you can go."
One of the boys, Shawn crumpled up his paper and shot it with great accuracy into the bin.
Natalia smiled at him, refusing to react.
"Take your things and go. You won't be in my class next lesson." She instructed.
The boy got up and left, giving her an angry stare as he walked by her.
The other boys looked on. She could see they were clearly torn, but they opted to stay.
After half an hour to forty minutes, most of them had finished. They sat in silence till the last one of them had stopped scribbling and Natalia collected the papers.
She wrote up a quick email about Shawn in the Science faculty office before she left, so she could follow it up tomorrow. She was serious about him not returning to her class with that horrible attitude.
She has made her point and was pretty pleased with herself. She gathered up her belongings, closing the door behind her. It had been an okay but tiring day and she was looking forward to going home watching some mindless TV, scrolling through twitter and maybe having a glass or...two of wine.