Alexander pulled up at the school. It was late, at least 8:00 PM. He had to work during the day so he was never able to come here during normal school hours. Actually, he had never even been inside. Just driven by it occasionally. But now he was here for a parent-teacher conference. His son's teacher had been nice enough to schedule this conference for after working hours. He appreciated that. He knew she did not have to do that, and it was a great help for him. He had never met Ms. Toshak, but he had spoken with her on the phone. She had sounded like a nice enough person. Hell she had to be if she was willing to meet him late at night for something that he really should have been able to do during the day.
He walked up to the side door of the school which she had said she would leave unlocked for him. That was different. He was from Raleigh, which was far from a bustling metropolis. But it was certainly large enough that no one would leave a door open at night. It was also large enough that teachers did not make late night appointments to talk with parents. But Alexander did not live in Raleigh anymore. This was Sanford, and things were definitely different here.
He slipped in and locked the door behind him. Then Alexander went up the stairwell to the second floor, down the hall and to the third room on the left. The light was on, spilling into the dark hall. He walked up to the door and looked in. He liked what he saw. Ms. Toshak was a few years younger than himself and looked quite sexy as she attempted to appear professional. She had dark hair and a curvy figure. She probably thought she needed to loose weight. But she was most certainly wrong. The prospects for the meeting were looking up.
He introduced himself and they started talking. She was going over benchmarks that were used to evaluate learning objectives for first graders. Alexander thought back to his own first grade experience. It had been a long time ago and it was hard to remember clearly. But it seemed like his son was learning a lot more than he had. Of course when Alexander thought about grade school, classroom standards were not the first thing that popped into his mind. His early school years had been tough for him. He had been intelligent but shy, lacked social skills and probably had ADD. This was complicated by attending school in the newly desegregated south which still had tremendous racial tensions. Alexander had not understood those tensions at the time, but he had been quite aware that there were people who wanted to beat him up. All in all school had been a lonely and frightening place. By the grace of God he had actually managed to do fairly well, but he did not have pleasant memories.
