Authors: Matthew Quick
“Oh, my god. Gross. Men are such pigs.”
“No argument here.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well.”
“At least he married you. Tommy’s dad just took off when I told him he was going to be a father. Poof. Gone. Simply vanished. Instantly became a sperm donor.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, thinking about my own unnamed rapist father.
“Good riddance, actually. You know what you want to eat? Or do you need some time?”
“Hell yeah, I know what I want.”
“Shoot.”
“Waffles for both of us.”
“Whipped cream?”
“Mom?”
“I’m invisible,” Mom whispers. “No one can see me.”
Danielle Bass raises her pencil-thin dyed red eyebrows.
“One with whipped, and one without.”
“You got it, Portia,” Danielle says as she slides her notepad into her waist apron. “And you look friggin’ great. Like you beat time. No wrinkles either.”
“You’re a beautiful goddamn liar.” I break eye contact and shake my head.
“Your ex-husband’s a moron.”
“You look good too, Danielle. Better hair than Jon Bon Jovi circa 1986,” I say, because she still poofs up her bangs, which seems rather anachronistic here in 2012, even in South Jersey.
“You know, I saw the Slippery When Wet concert at the Spectrum. Jon Bon Jovi flying around on wires high above. My mom got my brother and me seats. She was dating—um, cough, cough, screwing—a radio DJ at WMMR.”
“Lucky you.”
“I would have gladly been the teenage mom of Jon’s baby.” She laughs. “Still have my fringe leather jacket. It even fits. Why did male rock stars look like women in the 1980s? Why were we so turned on by androgynous men back then? Poison. Def Leppard. Mötley Crüe. All fronted by men who looked like women. Remember Cinderella?” She squints, raises an imaginary microphone to her mouth, and sings, “
Shake me. All-ALL-all night!
”
“Remember how sexist everything was back then? In every video there was a girl dressed in ripped spandex crawling around on the floor like a cat.”
“Ah, bullshit. Eighties hair metal was fun. It’s
still
fun. God, I miss guitar solos. Where did those go? They were like the orgasm of the song. Why would you ever cut those out? What do teens even do in mirrors now if they can’t play air guitar?”
“Hey, do you remember Mr. Vernon?” I ask, although I’m not sure why. “God, I loved his class. He was a good guy. If ever there was one. You were in that class, right? Mr. Vernon’s? Senior English. Remember those little cards that he—”
Danielle’s face goes slack. “You haven’t heard about Mr. Vernon, have you?”
“What?”
“How could you not have—”
“Danielle, I don’t pay you to talk the customers’ ears off!” a man yells from the other room. He looks exactly like that fat hairy terrorist they kept showing on TV a few years ago, the one in the white T-shirt with the extra-wide neck hole and the carpet of black hair ringing his jowls.
“My boss, Tiny,” Danielle says. “Asshole supreme. I’ll be back.”
Danielle hustles off, and I look at my mother, who is staring at her reflection in the window.
“Do you know what happened to Mr. Vernon?” I say.
“I’m invisible,” she whispers. “No one can see me.”
“Do you even remember him? My senior high school English teacher? I used to talk about Mr. Vernon all the time. The teacher who encouraged me to write. Remember?”
Mom doesn’t answer.
“How much I loved his class? Why I tried to major in English? All those books I read?”
Mom says nothing.
“Do you know who Gloria Steinem is, Mom?” I say, although I’m not sure why. Maybe because I know Mom doesn’t, and I wish she did. Maybe because I wish Gloria Steinem was my mother and I secretly believe that if she were, I would be living a much better life right now. Maybe because my mom is a whale riding a bicycle all alone, with no one paying her any attention but me.
“
I’m invisible
,” Mom whispers more forcefully.
“I know, Mom. I know.”
I remember the first day of my senior year in high school. I had heard rumors about Mr. Vernon. Some kids said he was some kind of poet-philosopher, like a bad-looking unmusical Jim Morrison or something, and all of the musicians and art room kids were ready to abscond with him to some Central American country and force him to be their leader. Some of the jockstraps called him “Fag Vernon,” and there were serious rumors about him being gay, because he wasn’t married and never talked about a girlfriend, which was a crime back in the late 1980s, around here anyway.
Rock-and-roll front men were allowed to wear makeup and tease out their long hair—androgyny was being sold on MTV every day—but homosexuality was still taboo.
The lead singer of Skid Row, Sebastian Bach, definitely teased
his hair out to look like a woman, and he also used to wear a shirt that read
AIDS KILLS FAGS DEAD
.
It didn’t even seem wrong to wear that T-shirt when I was in high school, which is insane now, looking back.
When I walked into Mr. Vernon’s classroom on the first day of school, he announced we were having a pop test worth twenty-five percent of our marking period grade.
I instantly hated him.
Everyone in the entire class groaned.
More than one of the boys whispered, “This is bullshit.”
And I agreed.
My heart was pounding.
Worse yet was the fact that this thirtysomething man in canary-yellow shirtsleeves, with a lumpy tire of flesh around his midsection and a hairline that was racing toward the back of his neck—he used to gel long wispy strands to his pink scalp so it was sort of striped—was so sure of himself. It was offensive.
He’s a high school teacher, for Christ’s sake, I remember thinking.
Follow the rules, pal.
“Clear your desks of everything except a writing utensil,” he said. “Let’s go. This will take the entire period. You’ll need every minute.”
My palms began to sweat, and I felt nauseous.
I had pretty crippling test-taking anxiety even when I studied for days in advance and was prepared, so this was my absolute worst anxiety nightmare turned real.
We had not been assigned summer reading.
What the hell could he be testing us on?
As backpacks were dropped to the floor and kicked under desks, Mr. Vernon passed out lined paper. He instructed everyone to take
two sheets and then wait for directions. Once he had all of the paper passed out, he said, “Do not even think about looking at one another’s answers, because I will be watching you like our school mascot—a hawk. If I even so much as suspect you are cheating, I will fail you on the spot. Today’s test will be worth one-fourth of your first marking period grade. And this test is pass/fail. Zero or one hundred. If you fail today, the best grade you can receive for the first quarter is a seventy-five, and that’s if you score hundreds on everything else for the entire marking period and never miss a homework assignment.”
“That’s not fair!” someone yelled.
I agreed.
“Starting now, if you speak—even one word—for the rest of the period, you automatically score a zero. So do not speak. I’m serious. You don’t want to test me.”
Oh, how I hated Mr. Vernon at this moment. I fantasized about marching right out of the room and straight to guidance so that I could demand to be transferred to another teacher.
“Write your full name on the first line of your first piece of paper.”
We all did that as Mr. Vernon paced our rows.
“Skip a line and write the number one, followed by a period. After that, I want you to write a paragraph about how you feel right now. Do you think this test is fair? Are you looking forward to being in my class? Tell the truth. If you lie, I will know. And I will fail you. I will not be offended by the truth. I promise. I want you to be honest here. It’s important. So how do you feel? That’s question one. Go.”
Everyone stared at Mr. Vernon. We were dumbfounded. Was this some sort of joke?
“You have three minutes. So I suggest you start writing. Remember, this counts for twenty-five percent of your first marking period grade.”
Someone began writing, I don’t remember who it was, but then the rest of us followed suit like so many dumb blinking sheep.
I remember thinking that if Mr. Vernon wanted the truth, I would give it to him. And so I wrote about how I had always had test anxiety, and his surprising us with this stupid and completely unfair test was unprofessional and unkind. I said I was not looking forward to his class based on what I had experienced thus far and was strongly considering transferring out as soon as possible. I finished by writing something about absolutely loving my previous English classes, just to make him feel bad and also to let him know I wasn’t a math and science person predisposed to disliking any and all literature classes. I wanted him to know this was about him specifically, and I did so with unbridled seventeen-year-old righteousness and fury.
I was still scribbling angrily when he said, “Pencils down. Skip a line and write the number two. Then answer this question: What do you think should happen on the first day of senior English class? What would you have the students do if the roles were reversed—if you were me? Remember to be honest. You are being graded on your honesty.”
I remember being incensed.
I would definitely NOT ask my students to do impossible things, I remember writing. I would maybe make them feel welcome. Talk about what books we were going to read. I don’t know, maybe it might be a good idea to hand out a syllabus? Pass out the first assigned novel? Act like a normal regular teacher and not some freak on a power trip? Be gentle and kind and . . .
I erased many of those lines, but Mr. Vernon saw me, walked over to my desk, and said, “That’s the wrong side of the pencil, Ms. . . . Ms. . . . What is your name? I don’t know you.”
I pointed to my lips to remind him that he had forbidden us to speak.
“You may answer this question,” he said.
“Kane. It’s Portia Kane.”
“Ms. Portia Kane.” He smiled kindly at me. “Be honest. I can take it. Rewrite exactly what you wrote the first time. Don’t doubt yourself.” He winked at me once, and then addressed the class. “All of you need to stop doubting yourselves!”
I blew away the tiny pink eraser worms and quickly retraced my cursive into the dented grooves of the paper.
“Okay,” Mr. Vernon said. “Take the second piece of paper and make a paper airplane. And if you are thinking you don’t know how to make a paper airplane, shame on you! There are no rules. Make a paper airplane any way you want. And then decorate it with drawings or doodles or your name or anything you wish. But you must make a paper airplane and decorate it. Make it uniquely yours!”
This was getting very weird.
“Why are you looking to your peers for answers?” Mr. Vernon said, holding his palms up in the air and shrugging in disappointment. “There is no right or wrong way to make a paper airplane at this very moment in time. Just do it and then decorate it the best you can. Make it yours!”
One of the boys in the front row began folding, and then the rest of us did too.
I had no idea how to make a paper airplane, so I began to glance around the room.
“Ms. Kane,” Mr. Vernon said.
I met his eyes.
“No cheating.”
I returned my gaze to the paper on my desk, felt my cheeks burn, and cursed Mr. Vernon in my mind.
Why was he picking on me?
I’m sure other girls were looking at the boys to see how it was done. What a sexist thing to ask us to do. Would Mr. Vernon be asking us to build racetracks for Matchbox cars next? I was so angry.
But I began to fold and fold and fold some more until I had something that resembled a paper airplane, if only in an abstract way, and then I was writing my name on the body of it.
Portia Kane Airways.
I smiled in spite of myself.
I drew little windows and then little faces in the windows.
My airline would have women pilots, I thought, and then drew a picture of myself looking out from the chair in the cockpit. Why not?
“On your first piece of paper, skip a line and write the number three followed by a period. In a brief paragraph describe and evaluate your paper airplane. Remember, you are being graded on your honesty. So be truthful. Is your airplane any good? Do you like how it came out?”
I studied my paper airplane, and even though I had enjoyed creating it just seconds ago, the folds didn’t look even and the faces in the windows looked childish—like what a four-year-old would draw—and then I thought that you wouldn’t even be able to see faces looking out of an airplane because of the glare maybe, but I wasn’t sure. I had never been on an airplane in my life, and that made me feel ashamed too, because everyone else I knew had flown at least once. Of course, Mom hadn’t had enough money to send me on the British Literature trip to London the year before. I remember writing something about my airplane being the worst one in the class, but insisting that it wasn’t my fault. If I had known what this test was on, I would have surely spent the summer reading books on how to make a superior paper airplane. I would have practiced my folds every day. I would have consulted origami how-to books even, and then I felt proud of myself for using the word
origami
.
I wasn’t finished writing when Mr. Vernon said, “Skip a line and write the number four followed by a period. Now I want you to close your eyes.”
We all began to look at each other again.
Mr. Vernon was insane if he thought we were going to close our eyes.
“What are you afraid of? Just close your eyes. You do it every night before you fall asleep, so I know you know how. Remember, this test is worth twenty-five percent of your first marking period grade. If you don’t close your eyes in the next five seconds—and keep them closed until I say—you will receive a zero. No peeking!”
My eyes snapped shut, and I guessed everyone else’s did too, because Mr. Vernon continued.
“I want you to imagine standing with your paper airplane in your hand, walking over to the windows. Admiring the world outside. The beautiful day that seems to be everywhere but in this school, at least judging by the looks on many of your faces. Imagine your arm reaching out into this warm September day. The sun on your skin. The palpable feeling of escape accelerating your heartbeat. Now see your hand coming back toward the classroom. Your paper airplane is between your thumb and forefinger. You push it out toward the sky and let go. Watch its flight. Does it soar off into the heavens like a fierce majestic eagle? Does it take an immediate nosedive for the ground before crashing and burning? Or does it do something else entirely?” He paused for a second. “Open your eyes and describe the flight of your plane exactly as you imagined it in your mind.”