Ms. Guidance, Counselor

The warm hum of computer towers filled the room, lighting up screens, and booting binary ready with careers to be placed on little shoulders. Each long table had five monitors and hard drives, stoically facing timid mouses and keyboards, and all seemed to become aware as children filled the scattered seats until each row was populated. The children felt warmth on their knees as the monitors waited like eyes after sleep.

Ms. Guidance, the guidance counselor, walked around with her amiable arms folded, eagerly watching as children danced with the career-placement questions that were visiting from the motherboard in New Delhi. The sound of tickling rainfall from little fingers on keyboards made her smile at the thought of what fruit they would bear.

Billy Chung’s program started with the math evaluation, and he came across a math problem that dealt with advanced numbers. Ms. Guidance happened to walk by at the moment, and her interest was piqued as she witnessed his careful martial artist math skills tear the sequence apart within seconds of ease.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she said. She leaned over and whispered, “You don’t have to be good at math if you don’t want to be.” The back of his head retreated from her self-congratulatory smile, and it turned his confused eyes upward. A plea for an explanation was stuck on his face, which tore her heart to pieces, because what she saw was a helpless cry for understanding. She had to keep her composure, though. She knew she had broken a barrier for this young immigrant’s son.

“I like being good at math,” Billy replied. “I think it’s fun.”

Ms. Guidance chuckled, “Oh, honey, no. You don’t. You’ve only been conditioned to think that by Western society.” She crouched to the level of his neck, and offered, “You can be good at whatever you want. Just because your parents came from Beijing, where they’re obsessed with math, that doesn’t put you in a box.”

Skin on Billy’s nose scrunched up, and he said, “Both my parents were born in Boston,” but he said it to an empty space. Ms. Guidance had wandered away, following the scent of another student in need.

She overheard André Jackson quietly say, to no one in particular, “I’m just answering however I feel like. I don’t care. I just want to play basketball. I love basketball.” At this devastating remark, she walked over to André, like a mother to an infant that’s struggling to crawl.

“André...” she began as she calmly touched his shoulder. With reverent caution, she asked, “Why do you want to play basketball?”

“Uh,” the feeling fell out of André’s face as he realized she had heard him, “Because I love basketball.”

She looked at the ground, desperate for a new world. “You know you don’t have to love basketball, right? You African-Americans have been through enough. You can be whatever you want to be, now. You just have to follow your dreams, your passions.” She relaxed her tightened fingers. “It’s how the world is going to be steered back in the right direction--with brave, black young men, like you.” She couldn’t even bear to look at him for all the generations of white shame weighing-down her thoughts.

“But, I love playing basketball,” replied André, “It is my dream. Are you saying I shouldn’t play basketball because I’m black?” Ms. Guidance didn’t see the contortion on his face, because her guilt had chained her gaze to the floor.

“What I’m saying, young, black André, is that--”

Suddenly, her ears perked up when, on the next row, she heard André’s twin sister, little L’Maya Jackson, quietly say, “I love playing basketball, too.”

“You go girl!” called Ms. Guidance, almost involuntarily. It startled about twelve students, including André, who was still right in front of her. Ms. Guidance stepped around the edge of the table, and walked toward L’Maya so purposefully it looked hostile, all while fixing her eyes on the girl. “You go ahead and be a basketball player, sister!” L’Maya could feel the cold terror in her legs that comes from an imminent attack. Ms. Guidance crouched next to her, and tried to grab her hand, but L’Maya jerked it away, which Ms. Guidance barely noticed. “You can do anything you want to.” L’Maya looked at Ms. Guidance as though she smelled of burnt vinegar.

L’Maya’s shy little mouth was shaking. “I don’t want to do it for a job,” she let fall just short of her lips. As shy as she was, she was almost crying. “I just like it.” It looked like those were the last words L’Maya would ever speak, because she’d clenched her lips shut into a light-skinned vice.

“Ms. Jackson,” Ms. Guidance offered, “You can be a basketball player. Men aren’t the only ones who can be professional basketballers, you know. You don’t have to be afraid to follow that dream, sweetheart.” She held out her fist in front of L’Maya, but L’Maya wasn’t looking at her, anymore. Maybe never again. Regardless, Ms. Guidance confidently left L’Maya to mull over the lifelong wisdom she just dropped in L’Maya’s head.

Minutes passed and students were no longer showing any enthusiasm about the activity. Each section was designed to test diverse aptitudes of every child, then gather each child’s highest scores and run them through an algorithm to indicate their ideal careers. Between the arduous test questions and the recent outbursts from the guidance counselor, all of the students were feeling overwhelmed.

Once the students had finished submitting their tests, they were sent to a page that listed their career placements, and sharp pings would hiss above the screens. There were mixed reactions to each fate, but Ms. Guidance was confident New Dehli kept their servers updated to the needs of American children, giving each of them the best results there could be.

Little Joey Piscottano’s invisible cell walls rang out, and Ms Guidance gently pounced in his direction. “I got a lawyer,” he said before she got next to him.

“It’s, ‘My result was lawyer,’ Joey,” she said. A pin-sized grunt was lodged and dissolved in her throat. “Joey,” she appealed, “you don’t have to be a lawyer.”

“Nah, it’s okay. My dad’s a lawyer, and we’re loaded.”

“Your dad had the same problem, Joey,” she replied, and rested her hand on his head. “He’s only a lawyer because Italians are conditioned to think they have to be, just like you’re conditioned to have that unrealistic and offensive accent. Both are because your family is part of the mafia.” She stepped next to him and grabbed his shoulder. “You are better than your dad, though, because you aren’t a coward. Are you a coward, Joseph?”

Joey paused, not because he was thinking, but because all of the thoughts were sucked from his head. “How am I a coward for being a lawyer?” he finally strained out of his mouth.

“I didn’t say you were a coward, I asked if you were, since your dad is obviously one. Listen, Joseph, if you’re Italian and only become a lawyer because you’re Italian, then how are you not just being a coward and bowing to prejudices?”

Joey was even more thoughtless. “Is the computer making me be a lawyer because I’m Italian?”

“No, sweetie,” Ms. Guidance’s eyes glinted, “America is.”

There came a scattershot of pings from a handful of other computers. One was from Jeremiah Goldman’s computer, two seats from Joey Piscottano. “I got lawyer, too,” he told her, cooly keeping his eyes on the screen. “I can be one, though, ‘cause I’m not Italian. My computer system isn’t broken, like America.”

“Jerry,” Ms. Guidance sternly pressed him down with her sight, “I need you to try and not be snarky.”

“But I’m a Jew, Guidance. We’re supposed to be snarky.”

"Did you not hear what I told Joseph about giving in to stereotypes?”

“No,” he looked at her and pressed right back with his eyes, “I try not to be a coward and do what any American expects me to. But, if you’re not an American, then I guess I can trust you. Are you an American, Ms. Guidance?”

Ms. Guidance’s face caught fire. With a quiet snarl, she neglected to attend Jeremiah and went on to Henry Ulrich.

“Psychology?!” she nearly fainted from strain. “Okay. Why not? Why not psychology?” She began to frantically pace at half steps behind Henry. “Hey, why not chemistry, too? Why not physics? Why not any of the sciences? I should assume as much.” She settled a bit, then said, "I suppose you were blessed with Baltic intellect, Mr. Ulrich.”

“I don’t know what that means, Ms. Guidance,” said Henry.

“Yes you do, sweetheart. Of course you do.”

“Oh,” he paused. “I didn’t know I knew that.”

Ms. Guidance went between students for the remaining twenty-minutes of the exercise, and became more offended and incredulous after every student’s result. Gunner Johnson was placed as a car mechanic; Billy McCray was placed as a farmer; Catherine Waiters was placed as a waitress; Ajit Singh was placed as a telemarketer. And, to make things worse, all of these students were completely okay with their results, which pricked her raw emotions like a hot needle covered in salt.

“This is America!” she finally shouted.

“This is actually the United States of America,” said Jeremiah Goldman. “America is North America and South Ameri--”

“Enough snark, Jeremiah,” interrupted Ms. Guidance. “We’re supposed to be a free nation of diverse cultures and backgrounds. How can we live up to our potential if no one is allowed to be whatever it is they want to be?” She left the room.

Looking back at the lab while she was calming herself down, it suddenly occurred to her that the lab looked a lot like a box, yet it had windows lining each wall, one of which many of the students were looking through to watch her. What didn’t occur to her is that, though she thought she was keeping them safe by slamming the door as she left, she was convincing them they weren’t allowed to follow.