Authors: Jenny Han
Mairi nibbles on a carrot stick. “Have you seen some of the kids from Lincoln Elementary? They’re so clueless.”
Hadley chimes in. “Totally. I had gym with a few of
them, and those girls didn’t even use deodorant. It was, like, sick.”
I have to work hard at not rolling my eyes. Elaine and I look at each other from across the table, and I know she’s thinking the same thing. I like how we think the same things.
Taking a bite of my ham sandwich, I scan the cafeteria for Mark. He’s sitting at a table clear across the room. It looks like a boys-only table—Mark and Kyle and Tommy and Jack, plus some other guys I don’t recognize. I keep looking at him, trying to catch his eye, but he doesn’t seem to see me.
Then I see Sherilyn, and my stomach lurches. She’s in the lunchline, and she keeps looking over at our table. At me. She has that hopeful look in her eye. I do the only thing I can—I look away. Mairi sees her too, and she says, “Oh, God. There’s Sherilyn. Don’t look at her; she might come over.” She glances at me. “No offense, Annemarie. I know she’s your friend …”
“Not really. I mean, we used to be.” I want to add, she used to be your friend too. You ate pizza at her house and swam in her pool every summer since the second grade. You were there just two weeks ago. Instead I say, “I mean, she’s kind of immature.”
Mairi and Hadley exchange looks, and Mairi says, “She’s completely immature. We didn’t want to say anything, but the girl is hopeless.”
“Totally,” Hadley says.
I keep my head down when Sherilyn walks by. She doesn’t stop at our table, and some of the tightness in my chest fades away. Yes, she was my friend, but we’re in junior high now. Things are different. She was holding me back. I know I could be cool if I didn’t have Sherilyn hanging on to me. It’s like trying to shimmy up a rope with a moose tied to your ankles. You’ve just gotta cut that moose loose.
When the bus drops us off, Mark and I walk home together and I’m relieved. On a day like this it’s nice to walk home with your oldest friend in the world. I let myself pretend that nothing’s changed, that he didn’t stand me up this morning and ignore me all day.
“So what’d you think of Ms. Gillybush?” I ask, kicking a rock along the pavement. I want to ask him why he didn’t come by this morning, but I don’t. That would be like admitting something’s wrong, and saying it out loud makes it true.
“She reminds me of your grandma Shirley.” We look at each other and laugh. My grandma Shirley is less like a grandma and more like the grumpy old woman all the kids run away from.
After that laugh, everything really does feel normal. We talk about how different junior high is from elementary school, and how our new bus driver seems like a real grouch compared to old Mr. Rubenstein, who drove the elementary school bus. Mr. Rubenstein used to turn a blind eye when we had paper-ball fights, and sometimes he’d bring us Danish butter cookies for no reason at all. By the time we get to my house, things between us feel good again.
So good that I blurt out, “Hey, how come you didn’t come by this morning?”
Mark stares at his feet. “Tommy and I walked over together.”
“So, what, I couldn’t walk with you guys too?”
“You could … if you wanted. I didn’t figure you’d wanna walk with a bunch of guys.” He scuffs his toe along the gravelly street.
“So you figured I’d rather walk alone?”
“Well, yeah.”
“You sure it wasn’t ’cause you didn’t want me around?” My voice is very small, and now it’s me who’s staring at my feet.
“No … but, the guys, you know? They like it to be just us guys sometimes.”
“What about you?”
“Aw, you know I don’t mind you. It’s the guys …” His voice trails off. “You wanna ride our bikes over to the creek?”
“Yeah.”
We stay at the creek till dark. Just like old times, when we were little kids. And I want to stay here forever, just like this, because I know he won’t be picking me up tomorrow morning, or the morning after that.
To my dismay, Jack is standing by my locker again the next morning. He’s leaning up against it like he owns it. Shoving him aside, I say, “Look, you can forget about our bet. I’m sick of seeing your face already.”
He scowls at me. “You’ve got a face like the Elephant Man, but you don’t hear me complaining. That’s because I’m a man of my word.”
“You? A man? Ha!” I open my locker and put my social studies books inside. “I’m releasing you from your word, okay?”
Jack shrugs. “Fine by me.”
As he walks away, I’m left thinking,
Who’s the Elephant Man
? What does this Elephant Man look like? And more
important, how does
Jack
know who he is and how do
I
not know? Thoughts like those can drive a girl near crazy. Whoever the Elephant Man is, it doesn’t sound good.
In computer class I look up “Elephant Man” and right away, I wish I didn’t.
Teachers have always loved me. I am most comfortable when I am the favorite, the pet. I’m good at it. It’s what I do. I have never had a teacher dislike me. Until now. Ms. Gillybush more than dislikes me. She hates me.
Ms. Gillybush sits at her desk, tall, straight, and imposing. Her hair is dark but graying, and her eyes are like lead. I could not tell you what color they are; I can only say that they are hard. I am not sure when she decided to hate me, but hate me she does. Her voice is clipped and harsh when she speaks to me, not warm and familiar the way she is with Kara Jane Simpson. (“Kara Jane, why don’t you pass out the workbooks, honey.”) Kara Jane Simpson and her shiny brown bob with her stupid red headband. It is clear that
Kara Jane is Ms. Gillybush’s chosen one, and I, Annemarie Wilcox, am the one she has chosen to hate.
I can hardly bear it. At first I tried to be at my most Annemarie Wilcox, Star Student. I raised my hand for every question, laughed heartily at the few jokes she made, shushed the other kids when they were too loud. All for nothing. Every time I said a word, her eyes narrowed and her lips tightened. I have no idea what I did to offend her, but I sure wish I could undo it.
In class today I raised my hand, and Ms. Gillybush said, “I think we’ve heard enough from Annemarie for one day. Don’t y’all think so, class? Let’s let someone else have a chance to answer, hmm, Annemarie?”
The class tittered. My face must have been bloodred. I wasn’t just embarrassed, I was
mad
. What gave her the right to treat me like that? What’d I ever do to her?
The whole rest of the day, it’s all I can think about. Even now, on the bus ride home, I seethe with anger. “I mean, what gives her the
right
, Elaine?”
“She’s a total cow. Don’t let her get to you,” Elaine advises. I’ve been talking about Ms. Gillybush since lunchtime, and Elaine is holding up pretty well. By this point, most people would have said just get over it already. Mark wouldn’t even have made it through a
whole lunch period. Not Elaine, she nods sympathetically and says the sort of things a best friend should say. Things like, “what a witch” and “she’s completely insane.”
“I tell you, she has it in for me,” I gripe, staring out the window.
“Forget her. She’s not even worth it.”
“Easy for you to say, you’ve got Mr. Brandt for English. He’s cool.”
“Yeah, he is cool. Kinda cute, too.” She giggles.
“Elaine, that’s gross! He’s old!”
“He’s not old. He’s like twenty-eight. My cousin Eugene is twenty-six, and we’re totally on the same level. So age really doesn’t mean anything. Anyway, it’s not like I would do anything about it. I just think he’s kinda cute.”
“What about Hugh?”
“I think he might like me.”
“Duh. Do you like him?”
Elaine shrugs. “I don’t know. I’d go out with him, though.”
“Hadley Smith’ll wet her pants.”
The thought leaves a smile on my face the whole ride home.
When we get off the bus, Mark walks with Tommy
Malone and they don’t wait for me. I walk extra slow so I can pretend that I’m taking my time on purpose, so it doesn’t look like I’m trailing after them. Which I am, but it’s not like I can help it, seeing as how we’re all walking in the same direction.
I’m in my room doing math homework when I hear the car pull into the driveway. I keep working on problem number thirteen until I hear Mama call, “Girls, your daddy’s home.”
Daddy is the district manager of a sales company. There’s an office about thirty miles north of Clementon, but the main office is in Atlanta. He used to have to travel all over, but now that he’s district manager, on his way up to becoming regional manager, he’s mostly in Atlanta. But sometimes South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, and Florida, if he’s lucky. I don’t know what Daddy sells exactly, but he sells a whole lot of something lately because these days, he’s hardly ever home.
When we were little and Daddy came home, it felt like Christmas. He would stand at the foot of the stairwell and
bellow, “Where are my girls?” And Celia and I would come running just as fast as we could. We ran so fast the house would shake. And he would take each of us under an arm and throw us around until we were dizzy. Mama would say, “Be careful, Billy!” and we’d just laugh and laugh. Then Daddy’d pretend he’d forgotten to bring us presents, and we’d have to rifle through his suitcase until we found what we were looking for. Perfume for Celia, maybe a yo-yo for me. Hotel soap and a shower cap, if he hadn’t had time to buy anything. It’s not like that anymore. He still brings presents, but it doesn’t really feel like Christmas.
When Daddy is home, we make more of an effort to be “a real family.” It’s like, Daddy’s home, let’s pretend like we are the family we should be. Let’s go to church on Sunday; let’s go to the diner for dessert; let’s go to the movies and buy popcorn with extra butter. When we’re all together nobody mentions how Daddy’s away more than he is home, or how the gaps in between are getting bigger and bigger. A lot of the time, the Wilcox family feels like make-believe.
Celia never wants to go anywhere with us anyhow. She’s too busy running around town with her way-cool friends. She’d rather be with them than us, not that I really blame her.
But I do miss her.
I head downstairs to say hello to Daddy, and Celia doesn’t
even bother to come out of her room. Mama’s cooked a real supper—steak and cauliflower and bread pudding. She’s turning the steaks and Daddy’s already at the table. As soon as he sees me, Daddy stands up and I launch myself into his arms. My daddy is a handsome man, built strong and lean; his hair is dark blond and his eyes are chocolaty brown. He smells the way he always does, like tobacco and spearmint chewing gum.
“Hey, peanut. How much did you miss me?”
“Tons. What’d you bring me?” Getting excited about Daddy’s presents is just for show now. I’m too old to go bananas over a light-up yo-yo or a box of saltwater taffy. But I know he likes giving the presents more than I like receiving them, so I keep up the game.
Daddy laughs. “Wait till after dinner. Where’s your sister?”
My whole life that’s all my father ever says to me. Where’s your sister?
When dinner’s ready, Celia finally comes downstairs. She’s wearing her nubby yellow bathrobe, and half of her hair is curled. The other half is in a denim scrunchie. If only the football team could see her now.
The four of us sit at the kitchen table, and Daddy asks Celia and me how our first week of school was. Celia says fine. She barely even looks at him when she says it. The
corners of Daddy’s mouth turn down, and for a moment no one says anything.
Then I say, “Junior high’s all right, but my English teacher hates me.”
Daddy raises his eyebrows. “You? Impossible. What’s her name, Shug?”
“Ms. Gillybush.”
He stops cutting his steak. “Anita Gillybush?”
“I guess so. Yeah, that’s her. Why? You know her?”
Daddy laughs. “Yeah, your mama and I went to high school with her. Imagine that. Did you know about this, Gracie?”
Mama shakes her head. “No. I don’t even remember her.”
“Oh, come on. She was the year below us.”
“I honestly don’t remember, Billy.”
“Actually, I’m not surprised.” Grinning, Daddy turns to Celia and me. “Girls, your mama was the most popular girl in school. She didn’t have time for the little people. Girls like Anita didn’t cut the mustard with your mama. Not cool enough, no sir. Heck, I’m lucky she ever looked at me.” We’ve heard him say this a million times over.
Swatting at Daddy with her napkin, Mama says, “Don’t believe a word your father says.”
She’s eating it up, every word. No wonder Ms. Gillybush doesn’t like me. Once upon a time, Mama must’ve been snotty to her. Way to go, Mama. Talk about the sins of the father.
Then Daddy asks Celia which boy is in love with her this week. He doesn’t ask me of course.
Buttering a biscuit, I say, “Daddy, Celia’s a lesbian now. Didn’t you know?”
Daddy chokes on his iced tea. “My baby girl a lesbian?”
“Billy, she’s pullin’ your chain. Celia’s no lesbian.” Mama shakes her head and laughs.
“Mama’s right. I’m not a lesbian. I’m just bi.” With that, Celia gets up and puts her plate of half-eaten food in the sink. “Thanks for dinner, Mama. I’m goin’ over to Margaret’s.”
Mama raises her eyebrows. “Your daddy’s just come home. Don’t you think you should spend some time with the family? We could all go see a movie. Or we could go to the diner for ice cream.”
“I have a life, Mama. Daddy doesn’t expect me to change my whole life around just ’cause he’s in town. Right, Daddy?” Celia smiles her angel smile.
Daddy falls for it every time. “Of course not, princess. You go have fun at Miss Margaret’s. Tell her your old man says hey.” He winks at her.
Celia gives him a kiss on the cheek and runs off, her one ponytail bouncing.
As soon as she’s gone, Daddy turns to Mama and me. “Now what’s this about being bi? What’s this bi talk?” His forehead creases like a walnut. “Is Margaret her—her girlfriend?”
Mama and I look at each other and laugh our heads off.