“This isn’t a
virus
,” I said, apparently deciding to go for the Angry Approach instead.
“You’re right,” he said. “It’s not a virus. And you know what? I don’t think it’s a
problem
, either. You know what it is?” He grinned beatifically, a Caucasian Buddha. “It’s a
challenge
. Your biology class is tough?
Good
. It
should
be tough. You’re here at Roewer to be pushed to the limit academically, athletically and whatever-the-other-one-is.”
“Sexually,” I offered. “Yes.
No. Socially
.” “It’s the same thing.”
Bodin looked at me like he just realized I hadn’t brought him a birthday present like I said I would.
“Well,” he said. “There’s nothing I can do. It’s a
challenge
, for
you
to work out.”
“
Please
,” I said quietly, trying to backpedal to Teary again. “Medusa!” Bodin called. “Show this young lady out, please.”
The titan still babbling behind him, Perseus stormed out of the cave without waiting to be shown out, casually swinging his sword and decapitating the Gorgon at the front desk, but as I walked farther and farther down the hallway I felt like less and less of a hero. After all, tomorrow I have to go in and see Carr again, and Bodin’s secretary will probably grow another head like that other creature back in Greece.
Tuesday September 21st
“MARTIN, MALCOLM AND MARK,” the banner read, stretched loosely across the top of the auditorium stage so the letters rippled and lurched, and to this annoying abundance of alliteration they forgot to add MORTIFICATION, so I kindly supplied plenty of that. Instead of blundering into Bodin’s office yesterday, I should have hung out in the Visual Arts Center, because once I realized what they were drawing I could have stomped all over it, ripped up the butcher paper. Ripped up
all
the butcher paper. For after I participated in an off-key, half-learned version of what most definitely was
not
Mark Wallace’s favorite song, conducted by Johnny Hand, the art classes presented a fidgety assembly with a triptych of hurriedly painted portraits, each about the size of–well, about the size of an enormous head painted on butcher paper.
Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Mark Wallace. Two great civil rights figures and Mark “Nice Tits” Wallace.
Principal Bodin spoke, reprising word-for-word large sections of yesterday’s intercom elegy for virtually the same audience, while local TV cameras took note. Later they used a shot of Bodin’s speech during the umpteenth Basic Eight scoop–“death is no stranger to Roewer High School”–with Bodin and his chins clutching the podium against a background of the lower half of Mark’s face.
Principal Bodin was finishing up by telling us to go to our classes, but never to forget Mark Wallace, when a bunch of Mark’s friends stood up with their fists raised. One of them, speaking as “a representative of Mark Wallace, his friends and The People,” which I thought was an interesting distinction, demanded that school be canceled for the day, raising his voice even louder as the television cameras swiveled to find him. He reminded Bodin that if a white student had died the school would definitely be closed. This turned out not to be true, but Bodin didn’t argue the point. He agreed immediately, licking his lips and standing dir- ectly beneath the half-opened mouth of the middle head like Mr. X was about to eat him. Everyone cheered–which gave the whole proceedings an even more eerie feel–and we all left. I didn’t have to catch anyone’s eye to know that we’d all meet at the Mocha Monkey, and sure enough within twenty minutes Natasha, Gabriel, V , Kate, Douglas and I were all sipping lattes and draping our coats on simian faces. V , always having the upper hand in matters of pocket money, had bought a big plate of some luscious-looking biscotti, and I would like to proudly say that I only ate half of one. Natasha–you know, thin, beautiful Nata- sha–took three.
“What this gang needs,” Natasha said, eating the third, “is an- other dinner party.
Are
we charming sophisticates or aren’t we?”
“Oh,” Kate said, clasping her hands together. “We
are
, we
are
!” “Yes,” V said, “with just the Basic Eight. No outsiders, par- ticularly those who quote from any nationally syndicated collec-
tion of record setters.”
“Friday night?” Douglas said. “I know Lily can make it then.” “Where
is
Lily?” Kate asked.
“She had to go home and practice,” Douglas said, miming a cellist.
“She has to practice being home?” V asked.
Douglas tried to look offended but gave up and laughed. It’s good to see him without Lily chaperoning.
“Friday it is.” Kate said. “Where should we have it?” “My parents are–”
“Let me guess,” I said, and everybody chimed in. “
Entertaining
.” The last of my steamed milk went down wrong.
“
My
, we are punchy today,” Natasha said. “My house is out too.”
“And mine,” I said.
“You just said that,” Douglas said. “Kate?”
“OK,” she said. “But can we watch a movie afterward? I’ve been craving noir.”
“
Well
, OK,” Natasha said airily. “I
guess
I could sit through an old movie.
Maybe
–just
maybe
, mind you–one with Marlene Dietrich in it.”
“OK, it’s all set,” Gabriel said, rubbing his hands together. “I’ll cook. Something with peanuts, maybe.” He leaned against V
and gave her a kiss on the head. “Let’s get away from all these monkeys. Flan, do you need a ride?”
“No, Natasha will take me,” I said.
“That’s nice of her,” Natasha said dryly. “Let’s go.”
I heard a few bars of Darling Mud when Natasha turned on the motor, but she immediately ejected the tape. “I’m so
sick
of them,” she said, and put in something with echoey guitars and a man singing earnestly about the pain in his heart. Very unlike her. “You know what?” she said, swigging from the flask and scowling impatiently at the car in front of us. “
Gabriel
, Flan.
Gab- riel
. He is so fucking
chivalrous
. Go go go! The speed limit is just a rough
guideline
,” she snarled. “He is so
fuck-ing chiv-al-rous
.” Each syllable was punctuated by a blast of the horn. “Don’t you think so?”
“I don’t know what you’re saying.”
“It just
hit
me,” she said, merging. “Asking you if you wanted a ride home. Listening to your love woes by the lake. Taking you home after the dance when you were such a mess, you know what I’m saying?”
“No,” I said, and she looked at me, turned up the music and clamped her mouth shut all the way home. She opened the car door and looked at me like an overbearing mother, watching me disobey her. “No,” she said, “you wouldn’t.” I got out, shut the door and looked at her.
“Come in and have some coffee,” I said, but she was already halfway down the block. What the hell was
that
?
Wednesday September 22
God, I’m bored. Bored of high school, bored of my friends, bored of editing this goddamn journal. Nothing happened today, how’s that for the prime period of my life? Nothing. I cut choir and hung out with Hattie Lewis, there, that’s something. She was correcting papers, though, so she barely said a word. She got some red ink on her nose, is that what you want to read? Carr passed out fruit flies, what more do you want? We’re going to breed them and
see the colors of the eyes of the next generation, how’s that for riveting prose? Do you approve of that sort of education, schoolchildren watching bugs have sex, Peter Pusher? How’s that for some psychological insight into a symbol for Youth Gone Amok, Dr. Tert? After school we played a game where we impro- vised scenes with Ron Piper–you remember him, folks, you witch- hunted him all November–changing the tone instantly by calling out a genre. “Gothic!” he called out and we were gothic; “West- ern!” he called out, and we were all western. What do
you
want, reader? How shall the rewrites go? You’re paying taxes for my room and board, so I’ll do anything you want. Isn’t that what you wanted? Wake up, America!
Thursday September 23rd
Today’s the day. This is the day that Flannery Culp commits the crime. I can almost feel the itch on your noggin as you scratch your head, reader. You didn’t think it was this early, did you? You thought it was around Halloween. How confusing. Could it be that our narrator is unreliable? No such chance. Mind like a steel trap, I have. Lucky for me, because there’s a Calculus test
tomorrow
, covering “what we’ve been doing,” Baker said, glaring at me like I was an idiot when I asked. “What do you mean
we
?” I wanted to say, but there’s no reason to fish for an F where you’re pretty much guaranteed one by your own skills. Oh boy.
In other Glaring News, Adam has been glaring at me all period as I sit and write this. He
should
be glaring at the tenors, who can’t get their parts right for the life of them. But as he drills them he keeps glaring at me. It makes my stomach do that snapped-elev- ator-cable thing. Everybody hates me. Maybe I’ll get up the guts to talk to him next period; we haven’t had a real
conversation since we went and got wine, aside from me confess- ing my love during my alto audition. I lead a ridiculous life.
LATER
So after choir I waited for everyone to leave, until it was just Adam, sifting through sheet music on top of the piano, and me, and two hundred thousand folding chairs. He pretended not to notice me for a full minute, I could count on the official school clock clucking above us like some Authoritarian Hen. Where’s Natasha when I need her? She’d know what to do. All I could think of was clearing my throat.
Adam looked up, sourly. “Hi,” he said like he’d rather be sorting sheet music than even looking at me. “What’s up?”
“No fair,” I sighed, not looking at him. “That was my question.” “What do you mean?” he asked. He had a little pile of sheet music he was straightening, clunking it on the piano top like
knuckles. It punctuated the buzzing in my head.
“I mean what’s up?” I said, meeting his blank eyes. “You’ve been glaring at me all rehearsal.”
“I’m just tired,” he said, lying. “I meant to be glaring at the tenors.”
“Oh,” I said. The clock clucked. “You know, if something’s bothering you, you can tell me.”
“Well,” he said. “I
am
sort of annoyed that you keep cutting choir.”
“What? When?” “Yesterday, for example.” “Well,
that
.”
“You’ve cut a number of times.”
“Well, it’s nothing
personal
,” I said. “I didn’t realize it
bothered you. I mean, you know how it is. Sometimes you have stuff to do.”
“Forget it,” he said, and grabbed his backpack. “I have to go.” “What’s
wrong
?” I said, and heard with horror that I sounded like a whining girlfriend. “You glare at me today, you barely
spoke to me Saturday night.”
Adam put a hand on my furious shoulder. “I just need some room,” he said, taking his hand away and running it through his (gorgeous!) hair. “I just need”–gesturing nowhere–“a little room.” He left and I was alone with the folding chairs. I looked around the cavernous rehearsal hall and felt yet another stupid pun leap out of my throat like acid. “You don’t need a little room!” I shouted at the gaping door. “You already have an
enormous
room!
Look
at this place!”
I stalked out the door and almost ran into him. Somehow I as- sumed he’d be long gone. He was watching me with typical boy detachment, like I was some toddler tantruming and that any moment he’d pick me up by my feet and take me to bed.
No chance of
that
, I suppose. “
What
?” I said.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Pop
! All the air left me. “Oh,” I said. He didn’t
look
very sorry, but what can you say when someone says they’re sorry, particu- larly if they don’t really have much to be sorry for. So I love him. So he doesn’t know if he loves me yet. What can anyone do?
“Come on, let’s talk,” he said, gesturing toward a side door. A talk outside the side entrance was something; people either made out or broke up out there.
Both of us were sighing in unison when Adam opened the door and we stepped out into the little dismal
postdoor area. Another PTA sign, half-ripped, was taped to a wall; apparently we were supposed to be pushed to the limit academically, athletically and so. A brimming trash can, cigarette butts and a small bench with Carr’s teaching assistant sobbing on it. Oh.
Adam and I looked at each other and I felt our own small troubles wilt. Adam cleared his throat but she didn’t hear, or didn’t look up. “I’m going to–” I said to him, stepping toward her, and he nodded, turned around and went back into the building. When the door slammed shut she looked up, saw me and started crying harder. For some reason I froze for a few seconds and the world froze with me–I could even hear birds chirping like they do in suspenseful outdoor scenes in movies. Poised between comforting her and running back to find Adam, I didn’t know what to do. I just stood there, and then I heard in my head the Voice of Calculus, Mr. Michael Baker. He was reciting his rule, Baker’s Rule: do
something
. I guess somewhere in my head I was actually studying for the Calc test. Do
something
. So I did.
The door stuck for a second, so I had to pull it extra hard, and it made a wheezing noise that let me know I was supposed to be pushing. So I pushed in, and stalked down the hallway, around a corner, almost ran into Adam. Without thinking I just shot out my hand and pushed him aside; I heard him hit the lockers, hard. I kept walking. When I reached my biology classroom I peeked inside to see if Carr or some studying geeks were around; nobody was. That would probably mean the door was locked and that I’d have to pull it off its hinges.
No such luck. The door opened immediately, and the cabinet was unlocked, too. Using my whole arm I picked up all the test tubes like I was gathering daisies. Some of them dropped to the floor and shattered, but the other