I tried tilting the door to one side and then to the other. I tried aiming the latches at the oven from above and then from below. The oven door remained unattached to the oven, like a couple at the end of a bad first date.

A bead of sweat rolled down my torso, maybe from the unexpected workout. Or maybe because the heat coming out of the open oven was turning the kitchen into a sauna. My sister Carol’s voice popped into my head, warning me about the dangers of salmonella if I let the turkey temperature drop too much.

After taking a moment to ponder whether or not using the camp stove in the canned ham trailer in the backyard might be an option, I decided it would probably only fit a drumstick or two.

I pressed the oven door against the gaping hole, wondered if I could keep holding it for about three and a half more hours or until somebody showed up to take a shift.

My forearms started to ache. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I held on with one hand long enough to reach for my phone. Carol answered on the first ring.

“Sorry,” she said when I filled her in. “But we’ve already got a turkey in the oven over here.”

I heard myself gasp. “Why are you cooking a turkey? I’m cooking the turkey.”

Carol laughed. “I think you just answered your own question.”

“Funny,” I said. “So funny I forgot to laugh.”

“Don’t bother calling Christine,” Carol said. “Her oven is otherwise occupied, too.”

“I hate you both,” I said.

After I hung up on Carol, I thought about calling my brothers, decided I couldn’t handle it if they were cooking turkeys, too.

I called the Turkey Hotline.

“Seriously?” I said after the Turkey Hotline person finished talking. “People’s oven doors fall off all the time on Thanksgiving? You have no idea how much better that makes me feel.”

So much for getting a long weekend off from school. Polly held the door open while I burst into the teachers’ room at Bayberry Preschool carrying the turkey. I’d followed the Turkey Hotline’s instructions to the letter, double-wrapping the turkey and pan in foil to hold the warmth in, wrapping an old winter jacket around that, blasting the heat in the car as I transported the turkey to a new oven as fast as I could.

Lorna and Gloria were sitting at the long rectangular table. They were two of my favorite teachers and partners in crime—Lorna because she always said the things I’d never dare even think, and Gloria because she was one of those preschool teachers who mothered everybody and made you want to crawl into her lap with your blankie and start sucking your thumb.

“There better not be a turkey in that oven,” I said.

“Like I cook,” Lorna said.