by Mindy Mejia
He tried to spook me by telling me it was going to turn my hands green or make my hair fall out, but I just laughed and called him a liar. Oh, I was still scared. I hated the sight of a shoe box, because I knew he’d trapped something slimy or scaly inside it, but I learned how to turn a cry into a grin and how to talk loud when I wanted to curl up and whimper.
I didn’t mind when Greg signed up for the army right after graduation and shipped off to Afghanistan. I knew he’d come home changed; I just didn’t know if it would be changed better or changed worse.
The first and most important lesson in acting is to read your audience. Know what they want you to be and give it to them. My Sunday-school teacher always wanted sweet smiles and soft voices. My middle-school gym teacher wanted aggressive baseball players, swinging like Sosa even if you couldn’t hit a parked car. My dad wanted hard workers—finish the chores well and without complaint. And even though I didn’t like my chores, I became Cinderella and slogged through them as patient and graceful as you please. Fit the character to the play.
You knew you were playing it right when your audience was happy. They smiled and praised you and told each other how wonderful you were. Maybe part of you wished they’d see past the act, even once, and tell you Bridget Jones–style that they liked you just for who you were, but that never happened. No one wanted to go see independent movies with you. They laughed at the books you were reading and thought you were snobby because of the way you talked. So you put on the show, waiting for your real life to begin someday. And the applause made things inside of you warm that you hadn’t even known needed to be warmed up. The real you might be so much colder. So you kept doing it.
I’d acted my entire life and so far it’d only gotten me here, to the first day of senior year at Pine Valley High School. My last year in this building EVER. The last year of mandatory pep fests, the last year of rubbery macaroni and cheese smells in the hallways, the last year of showing my work on math formulas with sine, cosine, and the other one.
I’d always been good at school, not because I was so interested in most of it, but because I could remember anything I read or heard. And that was pretty much what school was, just reading things and then saying them back. Teachers loved that. What I really hated, though, was doing group projects. The teachers always paired up the smart kids with the stupid or lazy kids, which was completely unfair. Sometimes we got to pick our own groups, but even then I always ended up with someone who didn’t understand what we were doing. In American history last spring, Portia and Heather and I did a project on the civil rights movement and Heather kept confusing MLK with Malcolm X. Seriously. And at the end of class one day, Portia said, “I totally understand why you mix them up. I mean, they’re both black.”
And Heather just said, “Yeah,” like Portia was serious.
Portia looked at me like she couldn’t believe it—she’s very sensitive to race issues because she’s Hmong. But she’s sensitive to everything else, too, and that’s because she’s Portia.
Later Portia passed me a note that said, “Don’t u hate it when ur dumb friends r dumber than u think they r?” I almost died laughing and had to hide the note before Mr. Jacobs saw it.
Portia’s family moved here from Chicago when we were in ninth grade. Before then I’d been sure there was something wrong with me. Everyone else seemed to belong here without even trying; they didn’t have to pretend to like things like 4-H or American Idol. Then Portia came, bursting with stories about the Magnificent Mile and the lights on the marquee of the Goodman Theatre, and I realized there were places where it didn’t matter if your cow won a blue ribbon at the state fair. We’d been best friends ever since.
I pulled up to school in Greg’s old truck and waved at Portia, who was just walking in. She waited for me.
“OMG, I love it,” Portia said, eyeing my outfit as I walked up. “Turn around.”
“You like?” I did a catwalk turn. My first-day-of-school outfit was the best New York impression I could find in the Apache mall in Rochester—a black pencil skirt and a gray twinset with my black church heels that had the pointy toes. My hair was long and straight, light brown because mom wouldn’t let me dye it, and I usually wore it like today, swooped over my forehead and tied into a low, sleek ponytail.
“You’re so East Coast, darling.”
“And you are totally California chic.” I grinned at her sundress and chunky sunglasses. “I guess it makes sense that we’re meeting in the middle.”
Portia laughed, slung her arm through mine, and pulled me inside.
“You just missed Becca Larson. She’s got tan lines all over her boobs and half the football team was checking her out. I tried calling Maggie like three times to compare schedules, but she didn’t answer or text back, so I don’t know what her deal is.”
Portia kept chatting as we roamed the hallways and I put in a word here or there, but really, Portia didn’t need a lot of replies. So I pretended I was at the ten-year class reunion. Look at how small everything is! There’s my old locker. Oh yes, I’ve been living in New York for the last decade. Manhattan, darling. I couldn’t possibly live north of 96th Street. Not that I knew where 96th Street was, but I would. In less than a year I would be there and my new outfit officially kicked off the countdown.
We got to our lockers and found Maggie flirting with Corey Hansbrook, who still had acne all over his neck. Gross.
“So.” Maggie turned to us after Corey left for class. “Have you seen the new English teacher?”
“No! Dish.” With the promise of new gossip, Portia completely forgot about being snubbed. At least for now.
“I saw him when Dad and I were pulling into the parking lot and asked who it was.” Maggie’s dad was the vice principal, but that never seemed to interfere with her sexcapades. My dad would’ve freaked out if he saw me hitting on everything with a penis.
“He’s got gorgeous dark hair and cute squareish glasses and he looks like he’s in college.”
“Ass?” Portia demanded.
“Couldn’t tell. He was walking toward us. Kind of skinny, but hot, like library hot. Sweaty in the stacks, you know what I mean?”
I laughed along with Portia as the two-minute bell rang and didn’t give the new teacher another thought until we walked into our fourth period AP English class. Then something changed.
I’d felt out of place in my New York outfit all morning, which was the whole point, really—I was taking my first, deliberate steps away from trying to fit in—but when I walked into English and saw the new teacher, somehow I felt exactly right. He was lounging in his desk chair wearing chinos, facing the window, and completely oblivious to the stream of students talking and laughing as they picked out where to sit. I didn’t pay much attention to them either, only enough to slide into the front row and crack a notebook. Portia and a few other people settled in the desks around me and Maggie leaned over to whisper, “See, he’s totally hot.” I flashed her my Mona Lisa smile and started doodling random patterns on the notebook cover.
When the bell rang, the class quieted down and the new teacher moved to half-sit against the front of his desk. “Right, I’m Mr. Lund and you’re in Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition. If that’s not the class it says on your schedule, you’re in the wrong place.”
It was then, seeing him face-to-face, that I realized we’d already met. He glanced at me, but his attention kept moving around the class. He didn’t make a big deal about his name or introductions like some teachers did and he didn’t seem to care about the whispers that still lingered at the edges of the room.
“I’m sending some papers around. Mark your name on the attendance sheet and take a copy of the syllabus and read through it. This is what we’ll cover for the first semester, but you’ll need to sign up for the spring semester as well in order to take the test for college credit. Everyone clear? Questions?”
When no one spoke up he kept going, and a hint of a grin tugged the corner o
f his mouth up. “This is by far the best class they gave me this year. You’re all seniors on a college track so you’re smarter than the average bear. We don’t have to beat our heads against the five-paragraph essay or any of the standardized testing crap in here. We’ve got some room to play and do some actual learning. I’m going to expect you to do your own thinking, speak up about your opinions, and be prepared to debate and either defend or relinquish those opinions as our discussions demand. If you’re quiet, I’m going to have trouble passing you. Speak up. I’m not Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society, all right? I’m not going to draw you out of your little self-conscious shells and show you that you’re a closet poet.”
Most of the room started snickering.
“And on that subject, we won’t be writing poetry in here. No poems allowed. I can’t stomach them. Don’t write a poem in response to one of our texts and expect me to pass you. This is about reading and critically thinking about what you’ve read and how the text has changed you. Every book changes you in some way, whether it’s your perspective on the world or how you define yourself in relation to the world. Literature gives us identity, even terrible literature. Moby-Dick, for example, defined how I feel about rope. I don’t know how anyone can write pages and pages of thinly veiled rope metaphors. If there are any Melville fans in the room, I might have trouble passing you.”
More laughter and this time I couldn’t help joining in. He pushed away from the desk and collected the attendance sheet.
“I expect this class is going to be the highlight of my day. Don’t let me down.”
As he started going through the syllabus I felt something good happening deep in my stomach, the same kind of feeling I got when the casting call for Jane Eyre was posted for the Rochester Civic Theater a few weeks ago and I knew I was going to get the lead role. Mr. Lund was smart, funny, and urban. He looked as wrong in the cement brick building of Pine Valley High School as I had felt for the last three years. And even though it seemed like he must be a mirage or some product of my bored-to-death-by–Pine Valley imagination, I could feel the heat coming off him from my seat in the front row. I could smell the soapy spice of his deodorant. He was real and he was talking to us like we were actual people, which was a teaching strategy no one had ever tried in this building before. The feeling in my stomach grew throughout the whole period and when the bell rang, I gathered my books with a huge smile on my face.
I was walking out with Maggie and Portia when Mr. Lund stopped me.
“Hattie the cashier.” He smiled as he erased his notes on the board.
“Peter the customer.”
“Let’s go with Mr. Lund, all right?”
“All right.” I gave him a little wave and left for lunch.
Maybe it was Mr. Lund’s attitude or just the promise of some actual literary discussions, but whatever the reason, I forgot about being excited for the end of the year. Now I was excited for what the year might bring.
I worked the photo counter at CVS. It was way easier than working on the farm and they actually paid me here. All I had to do was develop pictures and run the cash register and sometimes I helped the old ladies pick out greeting cards for their grandkids. They always wanted to get the 99-cent ones with generic teddy bears on them. I thought they were being cheap until one of the pharmacy techs told me how much they spent on their meds every month. Jesus, remind me not to get old. I must keep in good health, and not die.
The store was pretty quiet when I punched in after school. Usually the rush came when the first shift at the plant finished and then again after five when the Rochester commuters got back into town. I pulled a blue smock over my New York outfit and started downloading picture files from the website and sending them to the printer. They were mostly kids’ birthdays and holidays, sometimes a wedding or a vacation to Branson. Once there were two hundred pictures from Hawaii and another time someone had gone to Paris. I must have stared at the Paris pictures for hours, seeing myself sitting in those little cafés and strolling over the bridges, meeting a fashion photographer and going backstage at a runway show. I had the whole trip completely imagined, but when the lady came in to pick them up, she said it was just a layover on a business trip. My version was so much better.
It was always women who got pictures. Ninety-nine percent of the time when a guy came to the counter, they were picking up for someone else, like Mr. Lund did last week. The scrapbook ladies developed the most and they always told me what kind of album they were working on and showed me a picture or two, like I hadn’t already peeked at all of them.
As I finished today’s downloads, Tommy Kinakis walked over.
“Hey, Tommy.”
He nodded and opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
“You picking up some pictures?” I prompted, trying to help him out. He looked flustered and kind of wet.
“Yeah, for my mom. Told her I’d get ’em after football practice.”
“Is that why you’re all sweaty?”
He huffed out a laugh and ran a hand through his hair, leaving it standing up in spikes. “Coach rode us pretty hard today. First game’s Friday night. You coming?”
Tommy and I had gone to school together since kindergarten, just like most Pine Valley kids. I’d known him when he was throwing rocks on the playground. I’d watched him give his country report on Germany in sixth grade, when he didn’t know anything about WWII and flushed like a Red Delicious in front of the whole class. By high school he’d grown bigger and taller than my dad and he didn’t talk much since his voice changed. He had dirty-blond hair and baby-blue eyes that darted around skittishly.
I pulled his mom’s pictures and rang him up. “I don’t think I can. They’ve got me scheduled to work on Friday.”
“Here?” He looked around like he wasn’t sure the place was real.
“Yeah, somebody’s got to keep an eye on the store.”
“Don’t know why. Everyone’s going to be at the game.” He pulled out a faded leather wallet and handed me a twenty.
“Right? That’s what I keep saying.” To no one. Ever.
Tommy nodded, all serious as he took his change. The subject of football seemed to loosen his tongue.
“You should come. We’re going to destroy Greenville. Wipe the field with those bastards.”
“I know we will.”
“They’re not going to lay one finger on Derek.” He pounded the counter with a fist. “We got the best QB in the region this year.”
I had zero responses for that, so I just tossed him a flirty smile. He softened immediately and ducked his head as he stuffed his wallet away.
“I’m sure your boss can find someone else to work.”
“That would be awesome.” I was never in a million years going to ask my manager about it.
He finally raised his eyes and took the pictures from me, blurting, “I’ll watch for you in the stands.”
Half a grin, a spin, and he hurried out of the store.
I was confused for the next half an hour. Tommy Kinakis? What had I ever done to interest Tommy Kinakis? He sure wouldn’t like me if I told him I had specifically asked to work Friday nights.
Football was just one more thing that separated me from everyone else in this town. I’d never gotten what was so great about smashing into a bunch of beefy guys and throwing a pointy ball around, but no one else in Pine Valley agreed with me. Every resident from age ten to a hundred and ten could tell you the names of the varsity roster, and they all showed up for each home game, screaming and cheering so loud I could hear the roar from in here. I liked working during games because the store was always completely dead; I could read books from the bestseller rack or paint my nails until the game was over and then everyone remembered some pictures or a card they had to pick up and mobbed the place. Before I knew it the shift was over, and all my coworkers loved that I let them have the night off.
After today’s shift, I punched out and drove home on the winding dirt road that I k
new as well as my own face. Our farm was about six miles from town, surrounded by nothing except fields and wind turbines. We got some of the money for the electricity created by the ones on our land. Wedding money, my dad always chuckled when I asked him about it. Even though I didn’t think I was ever going to get married, I didn’t tell him that. I always said, “Holiday Inn wedding or Hyatt Regency wedding?” and he pretended to cuff me on the head and we laughed. With Greg gone in the war, he liked to think about me living one of those safe, normal lives—going to college, having a career, getting married, and giving him grandkids who would play tag around the hay bales and call him Pop-Pop.
When I pulled into the driveway I was surprised to see the kitchen light still on. Usually Mom and Dad had already settled into bed on the nights I worked. Dad sat up watching the bedroom TV and Mom would be reading whatever the library just got in, since she’d gone through everything else on their shelves. She never wanted to talk about her books though. She just swallowed those pages up and kept them tucked inside. Maybe that’s what made her so hard to read sometimes, all those books floating around in her.
The table was set when I walked in and Mom pulled a chicken hot dish out of the oven, serving up two plates while I took off my coat and shoes.
“Late supper?”
“I wanted to eat with you, hear about your first day of school. Dad couldn’t wait.”
“You don’t eat supper at nine forty-five at night!” he bellowed from the bedroom. “It’ll give you heartburn.”
“That’s what Tums are for!” I yelled back. He liked a good yell. Made him feel like the house was alive.
“Sit down, eat up. Did everybody like your new outfit?” Mom glanced at my clothes like I was still ten years old and playing dress-up with my cousins.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I like the outfit.”
“You look . . . different. I suppose that’s what you wanted.”