“No,” I said. “I’ve had enough, um,
coffee
. Tell me what you have to say, Kate.”
“It’s just that I’m finding–I have found–” “The Holy Grail,” Natasha said.
Kate didn’t even acknowledge the wisecrack. “I think we’ve all really been getting to know Adam, and, I don’t know,
liking
him. I think we’d all like to like him
better
.”
“What?”
“
Know
him better. We’d all like to
know
him better. And I think–I’m not just speaking for myself–we all feel a little tentative about that, because we don’t know how you feel.”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
Kate granted me a gratuitous smile. “I mean that we’d like him in our circle. What do you think?”
“You make it sound like a cult,” I said. I know; I know: ironic. “I just wanted to know if you’re OK by that.”
“Of course I’m OK
with
that,” I said. “I have to go.”
We were at Roewer. “Of course,” Kate said, carefully. “I have to go, too. See you later?”
“It’s a safe assumption.”
EXPOSURE THREE: A good one, and I’m not alone in my opinion;
America Unveiled
paid two hundred bucks for this one: Kate walking through Roewer’s side entrance with a puzzled frown. Behind her is the “PUSHED TO THE LIMIT ACADEMICALLY,
ATHLETICALLY AND SOCIALLY” sign, tattered to photogenic disarray, like something kids
just don’t care about
anymore.
EXPOSURE FOUR: Michael Baker at the blackboard. I forgot to mention we had another test yesterday which I flunked. Here he is seen writing his Rule on the board and underlining it. Do
something
.
EXPOSURE FIVE: After Poetry I managed to take this one of Hattie Lewis at her desk, with Jennifer Rose Milton and Gabriel looking on as she explains something from a book. Flora Habstat wandered into the background of this one, dammit, though be- cause of all her spotlight hogging–“The Whistle Blower,” in- deed–it meant this one fetched four hundred bucks, or about an hour of lawyer time.
EXPOSURE SIX: An attempt to capture Adam on his way to choir. However, Vice Principal Mokie blundered into the viewfinder and covered it.
EXPOSURE SEVEN: Guitar: twang-a-twang-a-
twang
. Successful attempt to capture Adam on his way to choir. Raising his eye- brows and smiling at something a perky second soprano is telling him while wiping his brow with a navy-blue handkerchief. Smiling at her like he never smiles at me. Her name is Shannon and she wears sweater-vests with flowers on them. You can stare and stare at a photograph and sometimes never see what’s right under your nose. Or what isn’t, like for instance its monetary value. Fifty bucks.
EXPOSURE EIGHT: Gabriel, framed by the door of the choir room. He’s waiting for me. He’s holding a rose. He’s sorry he was so jealous yesterday. Two hundred bucks.
EXPOSURE NINE: Lily and Natasha in the courtyard at lunch, peering over their economics textbook, covering up some diagram and laughing themselves silly as they try to recite it. There’s a test next period, and they’re going to flunk. In the lower right- hand corner, hanging over the edge of an overstuffed garbage can, Flan’s lunch bag. Inside it (invisible), a discarded red rose. Two hundred.
EXPOSURE TEN: Jim Carr’s hand on the chest of the grimacing teaching assistant, a little blurry because I had to lean through the office door, snap it and lean back before anybody saw. I bet this one could have fetched tons of money if it weren’t for what happened to Mr. Carr. One thousand, two thousand–who knows? I’ve never blackmailed someone. I know, you’re thinking,
big deal
, but it matters to me, OK?
EXPOSURE ELEVEN: The whole gang sitting around in Millie’s class, before Millie’s class started: Douglas, Kate, Lily, V , Natasha, Jennifer Rose Milton, Gabriel, and, dammit,
Flora Habstat
, who once again wandered into the background. This is the picture that fetched eight hundred bucks but launched the media’s thousand ships. This is what crystallized the myth that Flora was one of us. She was not one of us. No one was one of us until we all agreed about him or her, and I didn’t agree: Q.E.D. The original Latin phrase, that is, not the band.
EXPOSURE TWELVE: The same shot as eleven, except extremely gurgly. Blurry, I mean,
blurry
. I got distracted.
EXPOSURE THIRTEEN: The same shot as twelve, except not blurry, but everybody’s looking at the camera.
“What are you doing?” Kate asked. The needle screeches off the soundtrack.
“Nothing,” I said, ineffectually. “Just taking a picture.”
“I hate candid photographs,” V said, taking out her compact and looking in the mirror.
“I wanted nonposed pictures of you guys,” I said, wondering how that sounded.
“Whatever for?” Jennifer Rose Milton said.
“I have no idea,” I said, and everybody laughed.
Gabriel came over and gave me a peck on the cheek. “Where’s the rose?”
“You’ll never believe this,” I said, “but it literally fell apart right in my hands during Bio. All the petals came off and fell all over the place. I felt like the Evil Queen or something.”
“
When
did you feel this way?” Kate asked. Jennifer Rose Milton and V bit back smiles. Gabriel glared at them.
“Hey,” I said, “what are we doing this weekend?”
“Well,” Kate said, “Friday’s the dance, but Saturday, nothing.
Have a plan?”
“I was thinking we haven’t had a Sculpture Garden party yet this year.”
“That’s right!” V exclaimed. “And it’s already
October
. What were we thinking?”
“Let’s do it Saturday,” Kate said. “Who else besides the Basic Eight?”
“What’s the Sculpture Garden?” Flora said.
“It’s a sculpture garden,” Natasha replied with elaborate pa- tience.
“It’s in the Hall of Fine Arts,” Jennifer Rose Milton put in hur- riedly.
“
Outside
it, really,” Lily said.
“We go there, bring food and music–”
“But isn’t that illegal? The Hall of Fine Arts isn’t open at night.” Flora was puckered with concern, literally
puckered
like some overripe fruit.
“
Please
,” Kate said. “It’s not like we’d ever get arrested there.” Note the foreshadowing.
“Hey,” I said. “Speaking of illegal, we still have plenty of ab- sinthe left. The effect in the Sculpture Garden might be–”
Everybody but Natasha and Douglas shook their heads in Puritan unison. “I don’t know, Flan,” V said. “That stuff addled my brain. I don’t think I should take it again before finals.” Douglas, Natasha and I made quiet eye contact.
“OK,” I said.
“OK, OK,” Millie said, clapping her hands. “I guess we should give the taxpayers their money’s worth and teach you monkeys something.”
EXPOSURE FOURTEEN: The cast list for the Roewer High School Production of Othello, tersely posted at the Stage Door:
Role
Explanation of Role
*
Person Who Got the Part
Othello Desdemona
Jealous, deadly black Gabriel Gallon guy
Beautiful innocent vic- Jennifer Rose Milton
**
tim
Iago Emilia
The villain His wife
Adam State Flannery Culp
***
Cassio
O’s right-hand man, Douglas Wilde framed as an adulterer
Roderigo Duke Brabantio Montano Bianca
Officers, Clowns, Musi- cians, etc.
Iago’s sucker Um, the Duke D’s moody dad
Governor of Cyprus A courtesan
Frank Whitelaw
****
Flora Habstat
*****
Steve Nervo
******
Rachel State
*******
Kate Gordon
********
people we don’t care about
*
These explanations provided for ignorant readers who only read glitzy true-crime books instead of anything of substance.
**
Kate will draw blood.
***
Oh my God I get to play his wife.
****
An idiot played by an idiot. Ron Piper is a genius.
*****
Bitch. Not only do I have to spend time rehearsing with Flora Habstat,
but she’s playing a male character. Ron Piper is an idiot.
******
V is probably kicking herself that she didn’t try out for the play.
Reading lines for weeks next to one’s love interest is a sure way to–calm down, Flan, don’t get ahead of yourself.
*******
Rarely does a Dark Horse sneak into the cast like this. And in the case
of the Frosh Goth, I do mean a dark horse; she’s probably the only cast member who will have to remove makeup before going onstage.
********
Kate will draw blood
.
Ironically [here Winnie executes a perfectly designed bitter smile], the members of the Basic Eight were rehearsing for a performance of William Shakespeare’s brilliant tragedy Othello. But they ended up performing their own tragedy: the tragedy of murder.
THE REST OF THE ROLL: Overexposed. (Like the photographer herself.)
Thursday October 14th
Reread
Othello
last night. Adam’s going to kill me. Oh the irony, but fuck
Othello
and fuck tragedy and fuck irony even, while I sit around being so clever the real evil is underneath my nose,
way
underneath my nose, like around my–what did dear departed civil rights leader Mark Wallace call them?–
nice tits
.
At this point in my journal you’d find me saying, “Back up, Flan. Start at the beginning, Flan.” Well, all the Honors English narrative structure shit ain’t getting me nowhere, friends and neighbors. I’ll start wherever I want to. It’s not like anybody’s going to read this. (Fuck irony.
Fuck
it.)
It’s not like I was already stressed out–I mean it’s not like I
wasn’t
already stressed out.
Fuck
it, I can’t add up all the double negatives what I mean is that I was already stressed out. After staring at all those gorgeous photographs of Adam I psyched myself into talking to
him about our coffee date before Choir today. Adam had a cold and was blowing his nose with a navy-blue handkerchief when I approached him. Before I could help myself I touched his neck, and he smiled until the handkerchief came off his face. Then he frowned distractedly like I’d woken him up. I said I wanted to talk to him but he said he had to talk to the choir president, how about after rehearsal. I said sure but before the last note we sang was through ringing in the rafters (OK, I’m upset, my imagery is a little stilted) Adam was
out
the door, leaving me alone. Gab- riel was waiting for me with another rose. I let him kiss me. At lunch, Lily and I talked about oh who cares what we talked about, who
cares
, the point is that when I got to Advanced Bio the new teaching assistant had quit and Carr wanted to see me in his office after class and why can’t I just say it? Carr’s breath on me.
The way his eyes changed when he shut the door of his office and I was alone with him was like watching something shed off its larval form. “You’ve made me lose my assistant,” he said, reaching over and holding my arm, just above the elbow. It felt like a bear trap, one of those things you’d chew your own arm off to get out of.
Of which to get out. Fuck
it. “I’ve never lost an as- sistant before. And you know the only variable? The only possible cause?
You
.” He was a lunatic. “I’ve never lost an assistant before, and I’ve never had
you
in the classroom before. Therefore–” he said.
Irony, I thought, could work here. “This doesn’t sound like the Scientific Method,” I said, babbling toward the door. He leaned in and kissed me. It felt like bile, like some horrible sea cucumber, his tongue. In a perfect world I would have thrown up, right into his mouth. This wasn’t a perfect world. This was fucking Ad- vanced Bio at Roewer
High School, sixth period. I was going to be late to French, because Jim Carr was Frenching me.
Fuck the irony
, Flan. I broke away from him and reached behind me for the doorknob. I turned it; it hurt my wrist. Locked. Carr gave a little snort of laughter and then took me by the shoulders like he was going to shake me, but threw me down on his desk instead.
Threw me down
. I don’t think I’ve ever really been
thrown down
like that. I still have a bruise. A stack of binders fell to the floor and a forgotten cup of coffee turned over and drooled onto the blotter. That’s where I was looking, that’s what I was doing, watching the desk. That’s what I was doing. What Carr was doing was reaching an arm under my shirt and up my back like snakes. He was trying to unclasp my bra but he couldn’t do it. Come to think of it, of
course
he couldn’t do it; it’s hard enough for boys to do that when the girl is
willing
. I was thinking all these crazy thoughts and more. Giving up on the clasp he just reached under my bra and tweaked my nipple like he was looking for something good on the radio. I screamed and he pulled his hand away from my breast and slapped me, hard, against the face. He moved between my legs–God, when had I opened them? Did he think I had opened them for
him
? Right against my crotch I felt him and in a perfect world I would have thrown up again. This wasn’t a perfect world, though; this was Advanced Biology, and I could feel the oh-just- say-it
cock
of my Advanced Bio teacher up against me. He rubbed against me like friction. I guess it
was
friction. I don’t know, fuck it. Fuck irony. Which is pretty much what
he
was doing.
For a minute I thought somebody had burst in: Natasha, or Millie, maybe, wondering why I was late. She was hysterical, tears were just
gushing
down their faces, hot and streaming. “Just stop it! Just stop it!” Carr pushed
harder on me, and faster and I’d had enough boyfriends to know what this meant. “Just stop it!” somebody kept screaming and crying and then all of a sudden the desk shook a shelf off the wall. Beakers shattered everywhere and then it was quiet. “Just stop it!” they screamed again, and I don’t have to tell you who it was, do I? The door was locked, and it wasn’t Carr, OK? Carr was looking at me, panting and pointing at me, looking around at all the tinkling glass. “You broke
millions of dollars of equipment
!” he shouted. “You’re in
so much trouble
!”