Excerpt from "Intimate Beings" by Jessica Inclan

ONE
Claire Edwards had just absolutely had it, again, for about the sixth time that day. She wanted to scream and shout and stomp her feet, but since that reaction was exactly what was bothering her in others, she could not do any of that. She didn’t want to roll around on the floor in tempera paint like Annie or pee in her pants like Thomas. She didn’t want to fall into instant and hysterical weeping and cling to pillow in the corner like Sam. Maybe she wanted to stand shocked still in the corner with the rest of them, but theoretically, she was in charge.

She was--Claire finally realized as she picked up the thrown barrel of blocks in order to get to Sam--the adult. She was the one paid for keeping things flowing educationally and psychologically for Annie, Thomas, Sam, and the twelve other children in her charge, all of whom were staring at her right now with wide, frightened eyes. Claire was in charge of “environment” and “attitude.” Claire was in charge of “educational outcomes.”

“Sam,” she said, her voice like the blanket that Sam was missing, the one that his mother insisted he go “cold turkey” with this very morning. “I promise you that when you get home, your mommy will give you your blankie. It’s just that it needs to stay at home for now. While you are at school.”

“I want my blankie!” Sam wailed. “I want it now!”

Annie rolled toward Claire, smearing primary colors everywhere. Thomas clutched his pants, whimpering.

The rest of them chimed in, crying in sympathy for this horrible scene, all of them suddenly wanted their blankies, their mommies, the toilet, an afternoon snack, their pets, anything but this classroom.

Claire knew that she shouldn’t do it. Couldn’t do it. Really, really, mustn’t do it, but she wanted to close her eyes, think of a spot, any spot on the planet. She wanted to focus on the Kelani Resort in Maui or the Mendocino Hotel in Mendocino. She wanted to think about the Tuilerie Gardens in Paris. Frankly, she would be happy at the Starbucks on the corner of Masonic and Fulton. Or the French Laundromat on Stanyan, the air thick with steam and soap. Anywhere but here.

The problem always was, of course, that she could go wherever she wanted to. Anywhere on the planet. Just like that. Just by thinking. By picturing a place, she could be there, and she had performed this trick for herself a hundred times or more since she discovered it when she was six. She could send herself anywhere, but coming back home wasn’t easy. Claire wasn’t sure why she just couldn’t bounce herself back home, but there really wasn’t a resident expert on this kind of thing. There was no Teleportation for Dummies at the local bookstore. There wasn’t anyone she could call up and ask, “Hey, can you tell me why I can’t get home the way I got here? You can’t? Oh, well, could you just explain to me why I can’t get even close?”

Sure, she could triangulate her way around, flinging herself from place to place until she ended up closer to home, but mostly she had to do it the old fashioned way: bike, car, bus, cab, boat, train, plane. Of course, when she decided on a whim to disappear, she hadn’t managed to pack a thing (not that she could take anything with her) and on one sad day when she failed a college exam in statistics, she’d ended up in Hawaii without a bikini or a credit card. She cringed when she thought of the phone call she’d had to make to her mother, though the two days’ wait for her passport at the Oahu Holiday Inn had actually been fun.

But who cared about that now? In less than a second, she could be away from all of this and drinking a Mai-Tai on the veranda of Kelani Inn—assuming, of course, the staff took pity on her credit cardless self. Annie, Thomas, and Sam would think they blinked too long and Claire had just stepped out of the classroom. The children would stop crying, surprised and then excited that they were left all alone, by themselves, no adult in sight. After a moment of exhilaration, they would start crying again, this time even harder. Chaos would ensue. All the children would throw paint, pee in their pants, and sob in the corners. They would be forever marked and ruined by this horrifying abandonment and become troubled, over-pierced drug-addicted teenagers who would look back on this class and all of their education as an abusive waste of time.

What was worse was that—if Claire wanted to—she could dive into their minds, see the patterns of shock and confusion and understanding. As quickly as she could travel to any place on the planet, she could get into the little stream of consciousness that flowed strong through Annie’s mind. What would Claire find there? Images of school and home, friends and pets and siblings? Or something worse, something scary and horrible, images Claire would never recover from. After hearing things meant for no one but the thinker, after seeing grief and despair and sexual positions and partners no one should know about, Claire stopped. She didn’t dip into anyone’s mind but her own, clamping down tight and holding on to her thoughts and her thoughts only.

Childhood was too fraught a place, full of dark forests with evil stepparents, confusing events no one explained, and nightmares that made sleeping with the light on crucial. She didn’t want to do that one last thing that would ruin everything for them. Claire knew how hard it was to overcome something from childhood. She had been trying to overcome her “gifts” since forever.

“Sam,” Claire said, picking him up and cradling him in her arms, knowing that if she were a male kindergarten teacher, she could never do this. “It’s okay. It will be all right.”

Claire looked out at her class, all of them staring at her, even Annie, who glanced up at her with a blue smeared face; even Thomas who stopped his incessant whimpering. “I promise you, it will all be okay.”

They stared at her. The big white clock on the wall moved its long black hands in clicking seconds. Claire stayed in the classroom, held Sam who stopped crying, too.

“Really?” Annie asked, and Claire nodded, wishing she were agreeing to what was true.

“Yes,” she said. “It will all be one hundred percent okay.”