The Art Room in the Old Depot

“Line fourteen,” Curt Maas said, and he ran his finger down the page to find it. “Elementary and middle school art. One half-time position, benefits, and the supply budget. Thirty-one thousand dollars.”

He said it the way a man reads a feed bill. Not mean. Just a number that had to be read out loud so it could be voted on.

I was sitting in the second row of the high school library in a folding chair, with my purse on my lap and my hands on top of my purse. It was the second Monday in April. They do it in April in Iowa because the law says a teacher has to be told by the end of the month if she is not coming back, and our board follows the law to the letter.

I had been the art teacher in that district for twenty-eight years. For the last seven I had been half an art teacher, because in 2019 they cut the position in two and I spent the other half of my week substituting for whoever had the flu. I had taught the children of children I had taught. I had a boy in fourth grade whose mother once ate a whole stick of red oil pastel in my room in 1999 and had to go to the nurse.

“Is there discussion?” Curt said.

There was not much. A board member named Sandy asked whether the classroom teachers could work some art into their regular lessons, and the superintendent said yes, that was the plan, and there were very good free resources online. Somebody asked about the kiln and the superintendent said it would go on the surplus list.

Then Curt took his glasses off and looked at me. He is a big, tired man who sells farm equipment and has been on that board for eleven years without being paid a dime for it. I want to be fair to him. I have tried to be fair to him this whole time, and it has been easier some days than others.

“Anne,” he said, “nobody up here wants to do this. We’re down forty-two kids in five years. The state pays us by the head, close to eight thousand dollars a head, and those heads are gone. I’ve got to cut something that isn’t reading and isn’t math.”

“I understand,” I said.

“And I want you to know you are welcome in that building any time. If you wanted to come in and volunteer, do a project with the little ones now and then, we’d be glad to have you. The kids love you.”

He meant it kindly. That was the part that went through me. He was offering me my own job back for nothing, in front of nine people and the girl from the newspaper, and he thought it was a courtesy.

I heard my husband breathe in next to me. Tom is an electrician and not a talker, but he has a way of setting his boots flat on the floor before he stands up, and I felt him do it.

I put my hand on his knee.

“Thank you, Curt,” I said. “Thank you all.”

They voted. It was five to nothing. I picked up my purse and we walked out past the trophy case, and Tom did not say a word until we were in the truck.

“You could have let me,” he said.

“Let you what? Tell him the numbers are wrong? They’re not wrong.”

He started the truck. “Welcome to volunteer,” he said, to the windshield.