“Okay, okay, let’s not give Kelvin the smacking he so richly deserves this morning. It doesn’t contribute to a positive working environment. And speaking of which, it’s transition time.”
Everybody groaned. “Come on, Mr. Harrison, man, this is so corny!” Kelvin said.
“I’m sorry, Kelvin, but I’m having difficulty hearing you when you’re not using professional language. Would you like to rephrase your comment?”
Kelvin rolled his eyes, took a deep breath, and said, “Mr. Harrison. By now we all know how to use professional language in class.”
“Yeah,” Alex said, “why can’t we just talk normal in here and then talk CUE-style for the rest of the day?”
Harrison looked at him blankly. “I mean,” Alex continued, “I think we make better use of our time in here when it’s an informal environment.”
“It does get tiring,” Aisha popped up.
“Must we go over this again? One of the primary purposes of advisory is to help us all transition from home mode to school mode. All I’m asking is that you ease into formality in the last five minutes.”
“Corny,” Kelvin said, then added before Harrison could object, “I mean, it seems unnecessary.”
“Well, Kelvin, that is where you and I part company,” Harrison said.
Gisela raised her hand.
“Yes, Gisela?”
“I seen—sorry, saw this HBO documentary about stockbrokers, and they be—they swear all the time on the job. So it doesn’t seem like they actually use the professional language that the school thinks we should be using.”
Everybody looked at Mr. Harrison. He took a deep breath and said, “Listen, Gisela, how many of the stockbrokers on that show looked like the students in this room?”
“You mean Alex, or everybody else?” Harrison didn’t answer. “I don’t know—a handful.” Alex thought it was interesting that Gisela somehow didn’t count Tanya as white, even though she was way paler than he was.
“Okay. Once you get your stockbroker job, you can drop f-bombs every other word for all I care. What we’re trying to do is to make sure you can get through the interview, that you know how to present yourself in a way that’s going to impress people. Now, maybe it’s not fair that you guys have to do more than other kids to impress people in those positions, but that’s the world we live in, the world we’re trying to get you guys to run someday, so you can do a better job than the people running it now.”
Nobody was really convinced by this, but it did kind of take the fun out of arguing. “All right,” Harrison said, “it’s now time for you guys to actually do some work, so get out of here so I can teach some first-year associates.”
The students from 212 gathered up their books and slumped out of the door to class as the tiny ninth-graders filed in, and Mr. Harrison said, “Yes! The Odyssey of Homer! Let’s put out a Cyclops’s eye this morning, shall we?”
3
Aunt Lily had finally finished with her third version of the big speech about how Eddie should consider himself part of this family now, and he would be welcome in this house for as long as he needed to stay. Now Eddie was following his cousin Alex, who he hadn’t seen since Dad’s funeral except at that one Fourth of July when Mom got drunk and yelled and they had to leave, on a big tour of the house. Well, it wasn’t really a house. Of course, they couldn’t live in a house like normal people. It was just a big open space inside an old factory that you got to by taking this gigantic elevator that you had to haul on a big strap to open. Weird.
When Dad was alive, Mom always talked about her artsyfartsy sister, and how she couldn’t understand why she’d want to live in the city with all the crime and bad schools and drugs. It was kind of funny now that Eddie thought about it, only not exactly ha-ha funny, since Mom was the one who actually got arrested for passing a fake OxyContin prescription. So much for the safe suburbs.
Alex was saying something about how his dad framed up all the walls so everybody could have some privacy, and Eddie looked at the wall in the bedroom he and Alex would share. It was really thin. He wondered if he’d hear Aunt Lily and Uncle Brian having sex. That idea made him very, very uncomfortable.
But so did being here. He felt really strange, like everything he thought he knew about his life was wrong. It was like he had been killed just as he’d reached the end of a level in a video game, and somebody had pressed the continue button, and he’d ended up in a different game altogether. Was this really his life now? Who was this kid with the duffel bag in his hand listening to his cousin talk about God knows what? And how messed up was it that fending for himself while his mom did drugs felt like the normal life, and this one was the weird one?
Alex was smiling and trying to make some kind of joke, but Eddie could barely hear him. He was angry. The only place where anything ever made sense was school, and now he couldn’t even go to his own school because he had to live here. He was glad he’d had somebody to call when the cops asked if he had any family in the area, anybody he could stay with, or should they call DSS for a foster home, but he hated having to live here, he hated Mom for causing this whole situation, and he hated Alex and everybody else who felt sorry for him. He wanted to scream at Alex, at Aunt Lily, at Uncle Brian, that no one needed to feel sorry for him, that he had been just fine by himself, that he wasn’t some baby that needed people to look out for him. Well, except for that part about paying the bills.
But, of course, Eddie was not a screamer, he never had been. Even when things got really terrible he would say something to Mom in this meek little-kid voice, and then she would yell and he would cry. He sometimes saw those people on Jerry Springer or whatever shouting at their brothers and sisters or their boyfriends or girlfriends, or their brothers and sisters who were also their boyfriends and girlfriends, and he wondered how it would feel to yell at somebody like that. He figured he’d never know. So he didn’t scream. He said nothing.
4
Alex was trying hard to be nice, even though he was getting kind of annoyed. He was showing Eddie around, but Eddie wasn’t really saying anything, and Alex was pretty sure Eddie was turning his nose up at everything, like we don’t live like this in the suburbs, why don’t you eat normal food, why don’t you have a normal room like in my stupid house in the suburbs … well, whatever.
It was just that Alex was giving up his room, or at least sharing it, and he had gone to all these meetings with Mom and Dad and Paulson to try to get Eddie admitted to CUE as some kind of fake sibling, and it’s not like they were rich anyway, and now Mom and Dad were going to be spending more money to feed Eddie, which meant less stuff for Alex, and Eddie was just being a jerk. Alex made a joke that Eddie didn’t seem to hear, and Alex stopped talking for a second and tried to imagine if he had to go live at Eddie’s house because his dad was dead and his mom was in rehab. He’d probably be pretty angry. Actually, he’d be a total dick. This thought made him feel a little better about Eddie.
Still, the kid was strange. When the grand tour was over, Eddie lay down on his brand-new futon (Alex thought he should get the new futon and Eddie should get his old one, but Mom and Dad had just given him the “We’re so disappointed in you” look when he’d said that) and stared at the ceiling without saying anything.
After a few minutes of silence, Alex felt uncomfortable. “So,” he said, “any questions?”
Eddie was quiet, and Alex was wondering whether he should repeat what he’d said or maybe leave the room for a while when Eddie came back with “What did you say the name of your school is again? Center for something?”
Alex loved this more than anything. “FA-CUE.”
Eddie clenched his jaw, and his ears turned bright red, and he said, “You don’t have to be like that. It’s just a question.”
Alex laughed. “No! No! That’s the name of my school! Francis Abernathy Center for Urban Education! FA-CUE!”
Eddie sat up, looking like he’d just heard something Alex said for the first time. “You
’re kidding, right?”
“No! Really! Our founders were so grateful to Mayor Abernathy for taking the skyscraper and giving them the space that they named the school after him! Nobody thought of it until kids started going there! It was mad funny! Every time anybody asked where you went to school, you could be all ‘FA-CUE!’ His name’s not on the door anymore, but it’s still on all the official school stationery because they ordered so much of it at the beginning.”
“FA-CUE,” Eddie said. “I like it. It beats OHS, which is what we call … called my … my old school. Listen, can I ask you something?”
“Of course! I am the urban answer man!”
“Not to be racial or anything, but, um, how many white kids go to this school?”
“I don’t know. Maybe twenty or thirty? There’s just me and one other girl in my advisory.”
“But it’s like … it’s a good school and everything?”
“Yeah, well, most of the kids who can get into the exam schools go there instead. I personally had the test scores but not the GPA to get a spot at an exam school, which Mom had plenty to say about, believe me. But, yeah, FA-CUE is a really good school, I mean, they expect us to all go to college and stuff.”
Eddie was silent. Alex wondered what he was thinking. Mom said everybody in Oldham was white, so Eddie probably thought 50 Cent was going to try to shoot him as he walked down the hall or some corny thing like that. Alex wanted to explain, but whenever he tried to think of a way to tell Eddie that he could expect to be teased about his race every day, but so could Kelvin and Hanh and Gisela, and that it didn’t really matter because … yeah, there was really no way to explain it. Eddie was just going to have to experience it for himself. Alex hoped Eddie did better than that clenching-his-jaw, ears-turning-red thing he constantly did, because if he didn’t, he was going to have a really long semester.
5
Alex loaned Eddie a tie, and Eddie put on khakis and a blue oxford shirt and his dad’s loafers that were still about a size too big for him. He hoped he was wearing acceptable business attire as he got ready for his first day at school. He wondered what it would be like going to school in the abandoned offices of some bankrupt mutual fund company (or two floors’ worth of abandoned offices, anyway—Alex told him the rest of the tower was occupied by real companies). Alex wasn’t much help because he’d never been to a regular public high school like OHS.
OHS had those long, long, long hallways, three floors of them, and the rows of lockers, and the cafeteria, and the gym, and the clear borders between the jocks and the stoners and the band geeks and the plain old grinds, which is what Eddie had been, which was kind of strange since he was also in band, but, pathetically, he didn’t even fit in with the band geeks. Still, Eddie had known exactly where he fit in at OHS, and it was strangely comfortable to have a place and know that you belonged in it, even if it wasn’t really a nice place. Now he’d have to start this whole business over again, and whenever he asked Alex about normal high school stuff like where the stoners hung out, Alex just looked at him blankly like he didn’t understand. “It’s really not that kind of place,” Alex would say. “I can’t explain, you’ll just have to see.”
So on Monday morning, Alex and Eddie had their bowls of organic cinnamon cereal, which Eddie had been afraid of, but which turned out to be good. For the first time since he could remember, Eddie did not eat his before-school breakfast sitting on his bed watching SportsCenter. Instead, he and Alex sat at the kitchen table in the corner of the loft with the big windows behind them and Aunt Lily and Uncle Brian passing sections of the paper around. Eddie grabbed the sports pages and found that things were a lot less interesting without the ESPN anchor guys making jokes.
“Okay, boys, it’s seven forty-five, you’d better go. Eddie, if Alex tells you he always stops at Melville’s for coffee in the morning, ignore him. I certainly don’t want you to be late on your first day.”
“Mom, in the business world, people stop and get coffee before work, and they have flex time. I’m just saying, if the Francis Abernathy Center for Urban Education wants to be all like ‘we’re like the business world, we’re preparing you to compete in the new millennium,’ then they ought to ease up about the time. Nobody punches a clock in an office. And anyway, I was only late once.”
“Well, I’m not going to argue, Alex. I’m sure Mr. Paulson would love to discuss this with you some Saturday morning if you’re late again. Just don’t drag Eddie into this particular fight for an important principle. Now get out of here!” She smiled as she said the last part.
Aunt Lily hugged Alex, who hugged her back, and then came over and hugged Eddie, who kind of wanted a hug, but from his mom, so he just stood there stiff and didn’t return the hug.
“Have a good day!” she said. “I love you boys!”
“Love you too, Mom,” Alex called as he pulled the strap on the elevator door.
Eddie, panicked, said, “Thanks for everything, Aunt Lily,” which wasn’t exactly the same as “I love you” but would have to do because Aunt Lily’s touchy-feeliness made Eddie really uncomfortable.
On the street, Alex said, “We won’t go to Melville’s today, but the cutest girl works there, which is why I really like to go there. She’s nineteen, so I don’t actually have a hope in hell, and I think she might have a boyfriend, but I don’t care.”
“Uh, okay.”
“Hey, don’t be nervous. Everybody at school is really—well, I don’t want to say nice, but definitely cool.”
“I’m not nervous,” Eddie lied.
“Don’t worry I was terrified before my first day last year. I was pissed about having to wear a tie every day. I really let Mom and Dad have it—you know, you guys got to go to normal schools, why am I such a freak that I have to go to the experimental school? But once I got there, I really liked it. I don’t know—I see high schools on TV, and I’m glad my school’s the way it is. I mean, do they really have tons of teachers you don’t know, and lines of lockers that the smaller kids get stuffed into, and jocks who beat up nerdy kids and stuff?”
Eddie thought for a minute. He tried to remember all the high school stuff he’d seen on TV. “I guess not that many people actually look like they’re twenty-five, and the girls on TV are usually hotter than the ones in school, and nobody on TV has zits, but otherwise, yeah, that is pretty much what OHS was like.”
“Wow.” Alex paused. “Hey, speaking of zits, can you see the Zit That Ate Boston up here on my forehead, or is my hair covering it okay?”
Eddie thought that was kind of a girlish thing to ask, but Alex had girlfriends, so maybe he knew stuff. “Uh, I can’t see any zits.”
“Cool.”
They waited in silence at a stop until a Silver Line bus came by. Alex ran his pass through and Eddie dropped change into the box. They got off the bus downtown. People dressed much like Eddie and Alex were bustling around everywhere, heading into all these buildings, lining up at Melville’s for coffee. Eddie did have to admit that it felt kind of cool to be one of these people, bustling down the street heading for an office tower, instead of standing on blacktop waiting for the bell to ring so he could squish through the halls.
Eddie watched, mystified, as Alex slapped the closing elevator doors and the grumpy old security guard looked up from his Boston Herald long enough to yell at him. What would make you want to wait till the doors were closing just to make them open again? It seemed like a dumb waste of time to Eddie, but he didn’t say anything.
They were on the elevator for about a second, and then they came to the glass doors, and Alex swiped his card. “We’ll make sure to go to Human Resources—that’s the corny ‘official business world’ name for the office—and get you an ID today,” Alex said.
They walked through the door, and Eddie just couldn’t believe what he saw. The floor was covered in carpet. The walls had art on them. Real art, in frames with glass, not a bunch of crappy self-portraits from Mr. Benson’s art class. The doors we
re big and heavy and made of real wood. There was no glass with the metal mesh inside it that was everywhere at OHS. There were no lockers. Mostly Eddie just couldn’t believe what good shape everything was in. Nothing was tagged like it was at OHS, and it didn’t look like anybody had tried to break anything on purpose. Everything looked nice and new. It even smelled good in here—kind of like oranges, and not like the ammonia they used to mop the hallways at OHS.
“Okay, here we are, Room 212, where all the magic happens,” Alex said, pulling on the door. As it opened, a paper airplane came flying out and hit Eddie in the left eye.
“Ow, shit!” Eddie said, and clamped his jaw shut. He didn’t know it, but his ears were turning red. The airplane in the eye hurt, but more than that, Eddie couldn’t believe that he’d started life at a new school by swearing. He hoped he wouldn’t get in trouble on his first day, though that would just about fit with the way the rest of his life was going.
“Oh, shoot, my b!” Kelvin called out. “Damn, you okay?”
Eddie rubbed his left eye. “Yeah, yeah, fine.”
“Kelvin,” Alex said, “this is my cousin Eddie.”
“What’s up?” Kelvin asked, standing up and extending his hand. Wow. This kid was really tall. Eddie wondered for a second if it would be racist to ask if he played basketball. Probably. Eddie reached his hand out to shake, and found Kelvin grabbing his hand in a way he’d seen on MTV but had never actually done himself. Eddie hoped he wouldn’t have to lean back and fold his arms and hold three fingers up or something, because there was no way he was going to be able to do that right.
As it was, he barely managed to fake his way through the fist bump with Kelvin, and then he had to do it again with Savon. Eddie wondered if Savon knew his name meant “soap” in French, or if Kelvin was named after the temperature scale from science class. Eddie had never been popular in school, but he knew enough not to ask those questions.
How Ya Like Me Now Page 2