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Sometimes on days I wasn't substitute teaching, I would have lunch at a restaurant at the Student Services Center at UWSP. One of the waitresses on work-study there, Pam, was a friend of mine from the year before. She was pretty, a thin blue-eyed blonde about 5'5" tall. As trouble and pressure grew at home, my lunches there went from monthly to biweekly to weekly. Near the end of the school year I didn't have enough cash for a tip, and offered instead a root beer float. She thought it was the most awesome tip she'd had all year; we made arrangements and met at the local root beer stand a few days later. It was nice to have a sympathetic ear and I would stop at her house from time to time to talk. Talk eventually gave way to kisses and an extramarital affair over the summer. She was seeing another guy at the time as well, but said she preferred my company to his... he was much more forceful with her and at one point she called me at home saying she was raped. Debbie, needless to say, did not appreciate the call and grew suspicious. Meanwhile, spring and summer was time to look for a full-time teaching job for the following year. I went to a recruiting fair in Madison, met with a dozen administrators, and was offered a job on the spot for the school district in El Paso, Texas. I was excited with my first-ever offer and called home immediately. Debbie was adamant... if I went to Texas I'd be going alone. (This was even before Pam and I fooled around.) So much for better or for worse. This was the big indicator to me that Debbie and I had no future together. The recruiting fair yielded a total of four job offers, all out-of-state. I had dreamed of teaching since I was in sixth grade and nothing was coming through for me in Wisconsin. I signed a contract that summer to teach in Bakersfield, California. |