I give her a wan smile, the kind you’d give your mom if she’d ruined her favorite dress and you felt sorry for her, even though it wasn’t that much of a dress to start with. “Nobody? ” I query. “What about Travis? Aren’t you guys still talking? ” We all knew about her king-sized crush on Travis the first of the year. I also happen to know that he’s been going out with a junior cheerleader since October.
“Travis? No.” She tries to collect herself and get back the haughty ambassador look. “What’s it to you anyway?”
“I care about you, Nicole. That’s all. So shoot me.”
“Nicole!” Lauren calls from the doorway. “We’re going to be late to chem. I’m leaving.”
Nicole is still blocking my path. “You need to talk to Star, Mary Jane. You know she and Jackson are going together.”
I smile at Nicole. I could nod and be done with this. That’s what I should do, what Plain Jane in my head would very likely tell me to do if she were talking to me. But taking the easy way out is not M.J.’s style. And before I can stop her voice, I’m echoing it: “I know Star and Jackson have been going out, Nicole. You know they’ve been going out. Jackson must know it too, right? Star certainly knows this, at least most of the time, when her interests don’t lie elsewhere and she’s not going out with someone else.”
Nicole starts to interrupt, but I won’t let her.
“So if it’s true love and all,” I continue with impeccable logic, “what are you girls so worried about?”
I move around her and take two steps before she wheels on me and shouts, “Just don’t forget the way things are around here!” This is tree talk. To Nicole, Star hangs at the top of The Girls’ family tree. She is our leader, our guide, the most powerful Girl. If Star decides to claim one guy as hers, with half a dozen guys on the side, then those of us on the lower branches should just go along with it.
I take a deep breath, then turn back to face her. “And you, Nicole, don’t forget that the way things are doesn’t mean it’s the way things are meant to be.”
4
Plain Jane us. Lunch
I walk out of English class, trying to replay what exactly I said to Nicole. I’m grateful that there were no witnesses. Lauren and Cassie must have given up and gone to their classes. I can deny every word, if it comes to that.
But what did I say anyway? That the way things are doesn’t mean that’s the way they’re meant to be? Was that it? What does that even mean? How are things “meant to be”?
I know how I’d like things to be.
I stick Jackson’s pencil into the pocket of my gray sweater and hold on to it.
See ya. See ya. See ya . . .
I must be losing my mind.
Luckily, none of The Girls have second-hour French with me. Seniors don’t usually take beginning French. But I left the class to the last possible minute. My penalty is that I share the room with mostly freshmen and sophomores, who still think French is the language of romance.
Why did I wait so long? Because I don’t find French men or their language sexy. Not that I’ve ever met a French man. Our teacher’s name is Mr. Smith. Enough said. Plus, it makes no sense to me why I should be required to have a language (other than my own) to enter college. I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up, but I do know that I don’t want to do it in France.
Nothing much happens until lunch, which happens at 10:50. This absurd lunch hour is the result of a new security policy adopted by Attila Ill in the wake of all those high school shootings upstate. I’m not sure how eating lunch when normal people are still thinking about breakfast is supposed to make us safer, but Principal Garrison assures us that this is so. We now have shorter lunch periods and more of them. Four, to be exact, with the last group storming around the halls, writhing in hunger pangs, until they are allowed to dine at something like 1:32 p.m.
I put my books in my locker and search the hall for Cassie, but she’s not there. This could mean nothing, since about half the time she goes straight from study hall to lunch without passing Go or stopping at her locker.
But I suspect her absence is by design. In high school, one of the major rules is Guilt by Association. You can’t be friends with a girl other girls are mad at, or they will automatically transfer said madness to you. Guilt by Association.
If Alicia were still in high school, she would be standing right here at my locker, waiting for me. She’d keep associating, no matter what. Cassie, who isn’t half the man Alicia is, is nowhere in sight.
And can you blame the girl? Plain Jane asks. She is angry. She’s been silent most of the morning, worrying about the likely prospect of going through her whole senior year without a single girlfriend.
M.J. isn’t saying much either. She’s not mad or anything. She’s just spending every possible minute thinking about Jackson House and mulling over his last words: “See ya.” She is on the lookout for the boy.
I try to pull myself together, to buck up. My mother, Mrs. Thomas S. Ettermeyer, is Queen of the Bucker-Uppers. She demands nothing less of her offspring. On my first day of school, when I refused to get out of the minivan, she issued bucking-up commands intended to carry me through any conceivable difficulty: Keep your chin up! Don’t let them get you down! And above all, remember who you are, Missy. After all is said and done, you are an Ettermeyer, of the Evanston Ettermeyers.
I try to remember my mother’s sage advice as I do the dead-man-walking shuffle to the cafeteria.
Ever since kindergarten, Plain Jane has been the one who shows up for lunch. The second I step into the lunchroom, she’s there, whispering: You look so stupid. Why did you wear gray? And these jeans? Hello? The seventies called. They want their clothes back. Besides, you know these jeans make you look fat. See that girl over there? The one with guys hanging all over her? You will never have hair like that. You will never pull off that air of confidence. Look around you. Admit it. Nobody here wants you to sit with them. Don’t even try to put your tray on their table.
As I stroll between tables to get my food, comically called “hot” lunch, I’m reminded that school cafeterias always make me think of prison. And I’m not just referring to the fact that school kitchens and prison kitchens share the same food supplier in Uncle Sam.
It’s not a prison cafeteria our cafeteria reminds me of. It’s more like death row. That last march, with all eyes on you. The sneers. The clanging of metal. The catcalls on occasion. The desire to be anywhere else, anyone else.
Alicia saved lunch hour for me. For three wonderful years, I knew I’d always have somebody to sit with at lunch. No matter what happened, we always ate lunch together. We’d drop and add classes if, for some reason, they gave us different lunch periods.
Now I have to face the great unknown every single day. If Cassie comes to her locker after study hall, I have it made. We can walk to lunch together and dump our stuff off at her table, the cheerleaders’ table. They don’t seem to resent me if I appear with her Cassie-ness.
If, on the other hand, as today, I walk in alone, there’s a chance I will actually eat alone. Or worse, I could sit at one of the loser tables and still eat alone.
Is there anything more pathetic than being forced to eat alone in a school cafeteria?
I take the pizza, at 10:53 a.m., and walk back to the madding crowd. Star Simons is hovering over the cheerleading table, talking to Cassie, even though Star’s supposed to be in the hunger-pang, late-lunch group. Ha ha. She’s wearing skin-tight jeans and a lime green top that’s even tighter and barely covers her bra. Her auburn hair (not her real color) is long and straight, parted on the side. And she’s thin. Model thin, coming and going.
Star graciously smiles at The Girls, then dashes out of the cafeteria. Heads turn. Gazes linger.
Plain Jane doesn’t miss this opportunity to point out that Star is beautiful. Gorgeous even.
Lauren is seated illegally at the cheerleading table, and so are two juniors who don’t cheer and therefore do not deserve
or qualify for these expensive seats. So I’m seriously considering sitting in the empty space next to Cassie and pretending nothing is wrong.
I start toward the table, but inside my head, Plain Jane is screaming, Stop! Are you crazy? You are so not cheerleader material! Never mind the fact that they’re all probably talking about you. You don’t belong with those girls.
She’s right. So I turn and scan the room for an empty table. I look left. I look right.
Nothing.
Nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. I can’t eat this pizza on my plate. It’s all red, gooey sauce, with almost no cheese on it. And it’s 10:56 a.m., for crying out loud.
I smile and nod as I weave between tables. These gestures aren’t aimed at anyone in particular, though I’m hoping that if anyone is watching me, it will appear as if I’m greeting all of my many inmate friends scattered around the cafeteria.
I want Alicia.
Why hasn’t someone done an exposé on school cafeterias? I’d like to see those investigative reporters uncover corruption and extortion in seating arrangements, not to mention the Mafia behavior of cheerleaders. And the smells? There’s no way cafeteria smell comes from anything remotely connected with food. I suspect it’s a semipoisonous spray of some sort. Instead of little after-school specials, let’s have a reality show on the school lunch hour. It would make that Survivor show or Fear Factor look like Mary Poppins.
Everybody worries about high school dropout rates. I’ll tell you why kids drop out of school. Lunch! Take away lunch hour, and watch school attendance soar. Why do we even need lunch hour? It’s not an hour. It’s barely lunch. Why can’t we just eat while we’re watching class, like we do at home, only we watch TV?
I keep walking through the cafeteria, because what else am I going to do? Only there are no empty tables. And I’ve passed the table of no return. The last loser table.
You cannot, under any circumstances, backtrack in a school cafeteria. You might as well hang a sign around your neck that says: FRIENDLESS. WILL WORK FOR FRIEND.
I’m almost back to the last three tables. The infamous tables.
The jock tables.
5
M.J. us. the Jocks
Brad Hartwell is talking to Tim Collins. But when he sees me, he stops talking and gives me a long, slow smile. I am not imagining this, as I stand before the jock table, tray held in front of me like an offering.
He has to be smiling at somebody behind you, you idiot, Plain Jane is quick to point out.
Still, it’s making me nervous. Even if he’s not smiling at me, this whole table spells trouble. I consider walking away from the jocks and throwing myself on the mercy of my girlfriends, or possibly the losers’ table.
But M.J. reasons, effectively, that a table full of jocks is not necessarily a bad thing. Not at all. Jock interest increases a girl’s value, even with The Girls. Sit with the boys, M.J. coaxes. What could it hurt? They won’t bite.
I manage to smile back at Brad. After all, I’ve known him through eleven-plus years of classrooms and lunchrooms. Never mind that he’s never so much as said “Boo” to me.
Tim is smiling at me, too. Plain Jane would call it leering, but I’m no longer listening to her.
“Take a load off, Mary Jane,” Brad says. He scoots over, clearing a spot between Tim and him.
I don’t move.
Tim pats the empty spot. “Come on. We promise not to bite.”
Hmm. Score one for M.J.
"Yeah,” Brad agrees. "C’mon! Lunch is going to be over before you get a chance to enjoy the famous school pizza.”
The whole table has stopped talking. I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that we are in an alternate reality and the entire cafeteria has been zapped into silence.
Or maybe it’s just that the cafeteria noise seems like silence compared to the screaming going on inside my head:Plain Jane: Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? Your zit is coming into its own. You can’t let them see you eat. You’re fat, fat, fat! Step away from the table! I’m telling you—this is all a trick, a cruel joke!
But I’m thinking Plain Jane is wrong—at least about the joke part. The looks I’m picking up here aren’t aimed at my zit. I feel like crossing my arms over my breasts. But since I can’t, I raise my lunch tray strategically.
M.J.: Sweet! These guys like what they see! Sit with them. You can do this! They probably heard how cool you were at Cassie’s, and they want to get to know you.
Plain Jane interrupts at this point: That’s it! Now you’ve done it. These boys have heard about you, the way you threw yourself at Star’s boyfriend last night, staying out until all hours. I knew this was going to happen. They all want to sit by you because you’re easy!
M.J.: You’re easy! You’re easy! They think you’re easy! They all want to sit by you! You’ve finally made it! You’re popular!
M.J. is crazy. I am so not popular. Or easy.
Finally, because my knees are starting to weave, I sit down, taking the open spot between Tim and Brad. It’s a smaller space than I’d banked on, and I’m touching both jocks, not that I’m complaining. But I feel a bit like a twig in a Christmas tree lot.
“So, Mary Jane,” Brad says, leaning over and smelling my tray of prison food. As he does this, he brushes against my arm. “What’s for lunch?”
“Pizza,” I answer cleverly.
M.J. is shouting: You will never in your whole life get a chance like this! Take advantage of it, or I’m never speaking to you again. Go for it!
Plain Jane has always insisted that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, so I say, “There’s no way I’m eating pizza for breakfast. Anybody want mine?”
Seven hands appear on my tray. The winning hand belongs to a sophomore, one of the few sophomores on the varsity team, John Something. He snatches the pizza and takes a bite, devouring half the slice in one jerky motion. Red oozes down his chin.
“So what brings you to our neck of the woods?” Tim asks.
“I believe it was Brad,” I answer, feeling the power of M.J. behind my words. “Couldn’t resist his charm, when he so sweetly said, ‘Take a load off.’”
They laugh. I’m being funny with a tableful of jocks.
They’re laughing at you! Plain Jane cries.
They’re laughing with you! M.J. insists.
“That’s right, Tim,” Brad agrees. “You can take notes from the master. Maybe one day you, too, can get a hottie to sit by you.”
Tim reaches behind me and punches Brad in the shoulder. “Hey! Last time I looked, I did have a hottie sitting next to me.”
They are talking about me! I am the hottie Tim just punched Brad over.
M.J. is purring.
“What are they staring at?” John asks, motioning to a B-level senior girls’ table.
I look and see six pairs of eyes focused on me. I choose to ignore them for now.
“They’re probably wondering who the new jock is,” Brad jokes. He elbows my rib. It hurts a little.
“You think I couldn’t make your ol’ football team if I wanted to?” I ask, as if offended.
“You?” Tim laughs. “You wouldn’t last two seconds on the field.” He flicks his fingers, like he’s flicking a fly. “You’d be facedown in the dirt with footprints on your jersey.”
“First of all,” I say, setting the stale cookies from my tray to the middle of the table and letting the guys fight over them, “we’d all get new outfits. Seriously, does anyone look good in black and gold? And the shoulder pads have got to go. Out with the eighties. Second of all, doesn’t everybody end up facedown in the dirt sooner or later in that game? So when you stop doing that, and when you get some decently spun threads, then you can give me a call for tryouts.”
I have them all laughing. Plain Jane is yelling at me. She wants me to look around the cafeteria. She’s sure every girlfriend is watching and disapproving. But M.J. is trying to convince her that flirting with the entire team is a good thing. T
hen Star won’t take flirting with Jackson so personally.
“Seriously,” Tim says, “how come you walked up to our table?”
“Okay, Tim. I’ll tell you. But you have to keep it a secret.”
They’re quiet, all two tons of jocks leaning in to hear.
“I’m conducting a psych experiment. It’s for my psychology class. I’m trying to prove that jocks can, too, do two things at once, like eat and talk.”
Half of them groan. Half of them laugh.
Brad’s in my psych class, but I wonder if he knows it because we’ve never talked before today.
“We’re not doing psych experiments in that class,” Brad says, answering my unspoken question about whether or not he knows we’re in the same class. He knows.
"Extra credit,” I insist. "You’d know this if you didn’t sleep so much in class.”
This gets approving oohs and ouches from my jock fans.
Brad turns to Tim. “She calls our prof ‘Sigh Fry.’” Then he turns back to me. “Tell ’em why.”
I’m stunned that Brad knows my pet name for our teacher, Geraldine Fry. But I recover from this information and turn to the mass of jocks hanging on my every word. “Okay. Her last name’s Fry, so that part should be easy, even for you, Tim.” I get the laughter I so richly deserve. I am on a roll here. “The first part is tougher, so pay attention. This woman starts every answer to every question with a deep, soul-shaking sigh. For example, Brad here might ask, ‘What do you call it when you think somebody’s out to get you?’ And Sigh Fry will give this deep sigh, as if to say, ‘What did I do to deserve this classroom of idiots?’ and then answer, ‘Paranoid.’ Hence, she is dubbed ‘Sigh,’ as in ‘s-i-g-h’ Fry.”
“Excellent,” Tim says, nodding.
I don’t eat one bite of food the entire lunch hour, but I’ve never had a better lunch in my entire life.
Kids at other tables are getting up and dumping trash when Brad whispers to me, “I hear you had a real good time with Jackson last night.”
Crazy in Love Page 3