Blind Spot

by Laura Ellen

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means”—he sighed—“you say you’re friends, but are you? I bet you don’t know who else she’s dated this year, do you? Or what her dad does for a living? When her birthday is?”

  “You’re right. I don’t know her birthday and she didn’t know mine was over Christmas break. Guess you and I can go out after all!” I rolled my eyes. “What, you’re friends only if you know someone’s birthday?”

  “No! I meant”—he took a breath and let it out—“I meant . . . I mean . . . you barely know her, Roz. Is she really”—his voice got quiet—“more important than me?”

  “Oh, Greg, no! Of course not! I’m not choosing one of you over the other. Don’t you understand? You two were dating. I know how much it hurt when Jonathan—”

  “Him again! Is this even about Heather? Or is it just an excuse because I’m not cool enough? Not popular enough? Do you even want to go out with me?”

  “How can you ask that? Of course I do! Would I be sneaking around with you if I didn’t?”

  He pulled into my driveway. “I don’t know. Would you be sneaking around with me if you really wanted to be loyal to Heather?”

  My mouth dropped. “Do you not want to be with me? Is that what this is all about? Are you breaking up with me?”

  “How can we break up, Roz? Our only dates have been virtual. I might as well be dating an avatar!”

  “You think I want it this way? I don’t. I want it to be normal too. I want to go to the movies, parties, dances; I want to hang out with you! But”—I shrugged—“‘you can’t always get what you want.’”

  “The Stones? You’re quoting the Stones? How philosophical of you.” He gave a condescending snort that made my blood boil.

  “What? Mick Jagger not intellectual enough for you?” I flung the door open and stumbled out. “I’ll be sure to quote T. S. Eliot next time.” I headed toward my door.

  “Don’t bother!” Greg yelled over the clanky chugging noise his mangled purple beast was now making. “There won’t be a next time!”

  Day 157

  “No, Greg’s not like that,” Fritz said in Life Skills approximately two weeks later. He was trying to convince me that Greg wasn’t being vindictive when he had Missy deliver my AP notes. “They’re neighbors, right? He probably had something to do and asked her for a favor.”

  “Three times, though?” And the last time, Jonathan had been in tow. Whether Greg meant it to be or not, it was humiliating. More than that, it hurt. I sighed and took a bite of my beignet. Ruth had made the sugar-coated French pastries to celebrate—everyone but Fritz and I was applying for jobs today. “And now Heather’s not speaking to me either. I think Greg told her I was the one who wrecked his car.”

  “No, he didn’t.” Fritz hung his head. “That was me. It slipped out that you were driving.” He looked up through his long bangs like a dog begging for forgiveness. “Sorry?”

  I laughed and grabbed a second pastry from Ruth. “I should’ve worn sweats today. These are good.”

  Fritz licked sugar off his fingers. “If they don’t hire you at that fancy French restaurant downtown, you can cook for me, Ruth. I’ll take these over frosted flakes any day.”

  “Lookin’ spiffy, JJ,” Fritz said as JJ rolled up in a suit and a grin a mile long.

  Mr. Dellian came in behind him. “Yes, JJ, you do look nice. Thank you for taking this job application process seriously.” He looked at Fritz as he said this.

  Fritz glanced down at his dark green oversize suit jacket and Dead Zombies T-shirt. “What? It’s not as if I’m applying!”

  “It’s important that we all make a good first impression.” Mr. Dellian set a paper down on an empty desk. “I’m going to check on the van. Look this list over and decide which positions you’d like. Except the Birch Hotel position. That’s for Bart.”

  Everyone but me swarmed the paper. One by one, shoulders slumped. The mood in the room went from giddy to glum. Something wasn’t right.

  Fritz was the first to speak. “What the hell is this?”

  “What’s it say?” I asked.

  JJ began reading aloud. “ShopCo—Customer Greeter. Responsibilities: Greet customers in courteous, friendly manner; collect shopping carts; assist customers as needed. Pay—voluntary, no wages. Birch Hotel—Housekeeping Assistant. Responsibilities: Sort and fold laundered towels. Pay—voluntary, no wages. Riverside Veterinary Hospital—Kennel Cleaner. Responsibilities: Clean and maintain pet kennels. Pay—voluntary, no wages.”

  Ruth frowned. “Does this mean I can’t apply at Café de Paris?”

  Jeffrey’s eyes flew to me. “I thought we got to choose where to apply?”

  “I thought so too,” I said. Dellian was such an ass. How could he do this to them?

  “All that crap about ADA equalizing the job market. What a crock!” Fritz said. “These businesses just want free labor! I bet they’ll pat themselves on the back for hiring the handicapped too. This is bullshit.”

  “I can’t work at Café de Paris?” Tears fell from Ruth’s almond-shaped eyes.

  My anger boiled to the surface. With the exception of Bart, none of us had a disability that kept us from interacting in society. Sure, we had our quirks, our obstacles, but doesn’t everybody? I was so sick of being told what I could and couldn’t do because someone put a label on me. “Ruth, this doesn’t mean anything. This class, Dellian, it’s all nothing. It’s your life; Dellian has no say in that. You can apply at Café de Paris, or anywhere you want, and no one can stop you.”

  Ruth wiped her eyes. “Right now?”

  I glanced at Fritz. “Why not?” I said, a smile playing on my lips. “You in?”

  “Oh yeah!” He grinned. “Let’s do this!”

  “We need bus fare,” I said. “Everyone empty your pockets.”

  “Got it covered.” Fritz pulled a ton of quarters from his jacket pocket. “JJ, you wanted to apply at that hobby shop down the street from the café, didn’t you?”

  JJ nodded, his chair zooming to the door.

  “The movie theater is one block over,” Jeffrey said as he snatched his Indiana Jones hat off his desk.

  I heard Dellian’s shoes squeaking in the hall. “We gotta go. Bart?”

  He started to rock back and forth.

  “Okay, you stay, Bart, but shhh!” Fritz put his finger to his lip. “Don’t tell.”

  Single file, we moved out the door. “We’re going to the van,” I told Dellian as we passed him in the hall.

  “It’s nice to see initiative, Miss Hart,” Mr. Dellian replied. “I’ll get Bart.”

  When we rounded the corner, we raced out the back doors toward the city bus stop. “Hurry, Ruth!” Jeffrey called. “We’ll get caught if you don’t hurry.”

  But Ruth’s short legs couldn’t keep up with us. Fritz stopped wheeling and motioned to her to hop on his lap. Her squeals of laughter followed us all the way to the bus stop.

  “This is something Tricia would’ve done,” Ruth said with a smirk as we sat down on the bus. “What do you think she’s doing right now?”

  Doing? Drugs and dudes, what else? I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “I think she’s taking care of people, maybe kids,” Ruth said. “That’s what she does best, you know. She takes care of people.”

  We arrived back at school during lunch. The hall monitor immediately apprehended Fritz and me and ushered us into Ratner’s office, where Dellian was waiting.

  “What kind of asinine stunt was that? You had no right taking those kids out of school without permission! I should charge you both with kidnapping!”

  “Nobody was kidnapped!” Fritz said. “We went of our own free will.”

  “And we had permission. You sent it home last week, remember?” I said.

  Mr. Dellian glared at me. “They had permission to apply for jobs, not—”

  “That’s what we did,” I said. “Well, JJ, Ruth, and Jeffrey did. For real jobs, not fau
x jobs like the ones you set up. Ruth even got hired at Café de Paris to wash dishes.”

  “Wash dishes? How is that better than the positions I arranged?”

  “Because she chose it, not you. In June she can work food prep too, like she wants.”

  “Yeah, for a real paycheck,” Fritz added. “None of that tax write-off bullshit you were pushing.”

  Mr. Dellian almost exploded. “You two don’t know what you’re doing! Those kids can’t handle the pressures of employment in the real world! I worked hard to set up safe environments for them to learn in, to avoid another situation like Renny’s, and you two just waltz in and tear that down? You’re both suspended!”

  “No, they’re not. Skipping a field trip is not acceptable, but it warrants only detention at this juncture—unless of course the others say they were forced to go.”

  “Then I want them out of that classroom. I’ve had it with their insubordination.”

  “Insubordination?” Fritz laughed. “What is this, the military?”

  “That’s enough, Fritz.” Principal Ratner frowned at Dellian. “That class is now a requirement in their IEPs, remember? I understand your frustration, but you were the one who implemented this new policy change, Rodney, so that no kid with a disability slipped through the cracks.”

  “I know why I implemented it!” Mr. Dellian snapped.

  “And it’s a good policy. One we need to stick to, whether you like the students or not.” Principal Ratner pursed his lips. “Why don’t you head on back to class, Rodney. I’ll handle it from here.”

  Ratner gave us detention for the rest of the week, but I didn’t care. Detention couldn’t erase the freedom I felt. Our rebellion was invigorating, empowering. For once, I felt in control of my life, and I didn’t want it to end; I couldn’t go back to being invisible. So . . . in sixth hour, I marched into AP History, smiled at Dellian, and plopped down at the forbidden front desk.

  “Miss Hart!” Dellian hissed. “Absent!”

  “Here we go again,” Greg muttered next to me.

  I took a deep breath, my smile unfaltering. “Yes,” I said, loud and clear for the entire class to hear, “here we go again.”

  And this time? I wasn’t backing down.

  Day 170

  War broke out in Life Skills.

  Dellian interrogated the others one by one, threatening detention unless they admitted we’d forced them off campus. When that didn’t work, he told Ruth she should quit her job, that his jobs were more “conducive to her learning style” or some garbage like that. That made everyone only more defiant. Ruth’s parents even called Ratner, questioning Dellian’s qualifications on school-to-work issues.

  It was beautiful. We were finally using some life skills in Life Skills. But Dellian blamed me, and although he doled out detentions as punishment, I knew that wouldn’t be enough for him. Underneath that cool façade, he was raging, and he wouldn’t stop until he’d had his revenge, especially now that I was back to “insubordination” in AP too.

  It took about two weeks. And it came in the mail, right before Easter break.

  “What is this?” Mom stormed into my room, waving a letter at me.

  “I don’t know. What is it?” I grabbed at the letter, but she snatched it away.

  “It says if you skip one more AP class, they’ll suspend you! Rozzy, what are you thinking? Is it that boy? The one with the Corvette? Is this his doing?”

  I blinked at her. “Jonathan? Mom, we broke up in October! Don’t you pay attention?” I sighed in frustration. “I told you about this at the beginning of the year. Dellian’s marking me absent because I’m sitting in front.”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “Teachers don’t mark kids absent for the hell of it, Rozzy.”

  I folded my arms too. “This one does.”

  “Oh yeah?” She postured, hands on her hips. “Then bring me proof. Otherwise, you’re grounded.”

  “Proof?” I yelled as she left my room. “What do you want, a photo?”

  But then a thought occurred to me. Maybe a photo was exactly the proof I needed.

  And I knew just where to find one.

  Day 171

  JJ and Fritz were doing wheelies in the SPED hallway when I got to school the next day. “Fritz, I need a favor.”

  Fritz spun over to me. “Shoot.”

  “Can you get Dellian out of the room for ten minutes?” I knelt next to his chair. “I have to find something in his desk.”

  “Ooh, I’m intrigued,” he said. “A little CSI action?”

  “More like 007.” Blackmail wasn’t really CSI’s thing. “Are you up for it?”

  Mr. Dellian rounded the corner. “Miss Hart, Mr. Grandman, if you’re not inside in thirty seconds, you’ll have another detention.”

  “Are you a good actor?” I whispered. “Tantrums work well in this class.”

  The words were barely out of my mouth when Fritz shoved me backwards. “Get off me!”

  “Fritz?” JJ gawked from the classroom door.

  “Leave me alone!” Fritz screamed.

  Dellian turned around.

  I stifled my smile. “Fritz? What—”

  “I said get away!” Even though I knew he was acting, I jumped.

  Fritz whipped his chair around and began wheeling down the hall, away from the classroom, still yelling.

  Dellian sprinted after him, trying to hush him as students and teachers came running from all directions.

  “What’s wrong with him?” JJ asked. “What did you say?”

  “Nothing.” The rest of the class had come out. They were all looking at me.

  “You told him Heather won’t go out with him, didn’t you?” JJ said.

  “Heather?” I said. “Heather Torres?”

  “The girl with the pink hair,” Ruth said.

  “She doesn’t like him?” Jeffrey asked.

  “What? No . . . I mean . . .” How did they know that? Now that I thought about it, yeah, it made sense. How had I missed that?

  It didn’t matter. I had a job to do. Fritz’s love life would have to wait. “I’ll fix things with Heather, okay? Just not right now.” I hurried over to Dellian’s desk.

  I’d just pulled the key from the back of his planning book when Jeffrey asked, “What are you doing?”

  “Seeing what’s on the agenda for today,” I said.

  “You can’t. He didn’t put you in charge.”

  Typical Jeffrey. I didn’t have time to come up with a lie. I needed to find that damn photo before Dellian came back. “Look, Dellian’s trying to suspend me. There’s something in here that can stop him. Fritz is helping me. He freaked to get Dellian out.”

  The room was deathly still. Great. I should’ve lied. “If you need to tell Dellian, I understand,” I said. “But I’m running out of time, so—”

  Jeffrey walked to the door.

  It figured. Now I really had to hurry. My fingers fumbled with the key in the lock.

  “I’ll whistle when he’s coming,” Jeffrey said.

  “And I’ll stall him in the hall if you need more time,” JJ said.

  “Me too,” Ruth added.

  “Thanks.” I smiled briefly and then returned my focus to the drawer.

  There were files inside that hadn’t been there before.

  I took them out in one big stack. Then the yellow paper pad. Then . . . nothing. Where’d it go?

  I went through the files, page by page, in case the photo had slipped in between.

  It hadn’t. It wasn’t there. He’d taken the photo. My only leverage.

  When I walked into the nurse’s office after class, Fritz was parked next to the bed I’d brought Tricia to so very long ago.

  “Hey! You get that assignment done?” he asked with a sly grin.

  “Couldn’t find it. Hi, Mrs. Martin,” I said to her baggy nurse’s smock. She looked a lot thinner than I remembered. “Can he leave now?”

  “If he’s ready. He had a panic attack,
” she said. “It happens. I’ve had a few myself lately.”

  “It’s the chair’s fault,” Fritz said. “It makes me crazy sometimes.”

  “Oh? I heard it was Heather,” I teased. “How come you haven’t asked her out?”

  Fritz shrugged. “I guess I was afraid she’d say no.”

  “She’ll say yes.” I pushed Fritz to the door. “Her wardrobe is less black lately; she’s done mourning Greg.” I blushed. I’d forgotten Greg’s mom was there.

  “I didn’t hear that.” She laughed. “If you need help again, I’m here. You too, Roz.”

  “Actually,” I turned back, “I’m having a problem in AP. Maybe you could help?”

  My heart was hammering its way out of my chest by the time I entered AP. My legs shook as I sat in the no-sit zone and waited for the bombs to fly.

  The bell rang. I focused on the chalkboard behind Dellian.

  He was peering over the podium at me, an impish grin on his face. He grabbed his roll book and lifted his red pen dramatically in the air. “Roswell Hart.”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Dellian?” Mrs. Martin tapped on the open door.

  Mr. Dellian flinched in surprise. “Yes?”

  “I was hoping to observe today. May I?”

  “Of course.” He gestured for her to enter.

  She walked past me to the back row and stopped at my “assigned” desk. “Is this seat okay, or is it taken?”

  The class knew what was up. We held our collective breath.

  “That’s fine,” Dellian said with a thin, polite smile.

  “Thank you.” She sat down. “Please, continue. I believe you were on Roswell?”

  A manic giggle rippled through me. I had to clench my lower lip between my teeth to keep the laugh from escaping.

  “Right, yes. Roswell Hart.” Dellian had to physically force the word out of his mouth. “Present.”

  The class breathed again. I stared down at my notebook, biting my lip until it bled and digging my nails into my palms, but it was no use. A smile spilled across my face.