This Girl Is Different

by J. J. Johnson

  “Get out! That is so cool!”

  Rajas looks over at me. “Really? Cornell? You don’t seem like—”

  “Ivy League material?” I raise my eyebrows. “Why? Because I don’t wear shoes and don’t shave my legs?”

  He looks stricken. “I really didn’t mean it like that.”

  I laugh. “You’re right; I’m not their typical profile. But I’ve been taking online courses and they have this fantastic Urban Planning program with a concentration in Social Justice. You work with architects and planners, plus do antipoverty campaigns and that kind of thing. The point is to learn how to build communities that help people help themselves. A bunch of their students helped Hurricane Katrina survivors rebuild in New Orleans, back when it happened.” I take a deep breath. “I’d be into the program whether it was at Morrisville Extension or City College or East Podunk University. But I have to admit, I don’t mind that it’s Cornell. Ithaca is gorgeous.”

  This seems to meet Rajas’s approval. He smiles. “That should be a bumper sticker.”

  “It really should.” I laugh. He’s sharp, this one.

  Jacinda says, “It is a bumper sticker! I’ve seen them!”

  Rajas says, “It was a joke, Jay.”

  “Oh.”

  Rajas looks thoughtful and tips his chin. “Is that why you’re going to high school this year? Is it hard to apply if you’re—” He jerks the wheel to avoid a pothole. “Do they let in homeschoolers?”

  “Colleges love homeschoolers!” Jacinda answers for me. “I read an article about it in the New York Times.”

  Wow. Score one for the girly girl. She’s ambitious and well-read. Right on, Jacinda.

  “So they say,” I agree. I tell Rajas, “High school is a curiosity to me. I only have a year left, so I thought, why not give it a try, see what it’s all about? Bells, detention, people getting stuffed in lockers, prom queens, house parties, that kind of thing. Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Clueless. I’m a sucker for movies about high school. Especially the classics.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” Rajas says. “High school is overrated.”

  “Don’t make her jaded!” Jacinda leans forward. “I think high school is fun. You get to be with your friends, and do all sorts of activities, and some of the teachers are really good…”

  Rajas frowns. “And some are sketchy as hell.”

  “Whatever.” Jacinda waves him away and turns to me. “We’ll show you the ropes. You’ll do awesome and then you’ll get into Cornell!”

  “I hope so.” Cornell is the one thing I don’t want to jeopardize.

  “That means if you think high school sucks, you can just go back to homeschool.” Rajas sounds like he’s been following his own train of thought instead of listening to Jacinda. “Nice back-up plan.”

  “Exactly! Cornell never has to know.” I point to a small dirt road on the right. “Here it is. Up near the Christmas-tree farm.” I untwist my ponytail and comb my fingers through my hair. “I talked with the head professor in Urban Planning. He seems super smart and super nice. The students I talked to were great too.”

  “Shut up! You had an interview? Already?” Jacinda sounds panicked. “When? I didn’t know they had interviews yet.”

  Gathering my hair back up and snapping the elastic around it, I turn to face Jacinda as best I can without jostling my ankle. The Blue Biohazard’s terrible shocks have already given it quite a few jolts. “It wasn’t an interview interview.” I shrug. “Martha and I just went for a visit.”

  Jacinda’s eyebrows knit together in confusion. “Martha? Your mom? What do you mean? You just… showed up?”

  I make an apologetic face. “I e-mailed first.”

  She slumps into the seat. “I didn’t…I didn’t know you could do that!”

  “They’re just people,” I offer. “People love to talk about what they do. You just have to give them the opportunity.”

  She’s still frowning.

  Okay. Time to change the subject. “So. Why Cornell for you?”

  She musters a pretty smile. “Because it’s Cornell. And it’s close enough to come home and do laundry. My mom doesn’t want me too far away.”

  “Don’t believe her,” Rajas says. “Jay just wants the sweatshirt. She’s into labels.”

  “Shut up!” Jacinda swats the back of his head. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to go to an Ivy League school.”

  “But I’m curious, why Cornell?” I ask. “What do they have that…” From the look on Jacinda’s face, I’ve lost her. I try another tack. “What are you interested in studying?”

  “Oh. Maybe, like, history and economics? My mom is all, ‘Don’t stress yourself, you should follow your dreams,’ or something like that, but I am thinking that I’ll go to law school and get my MBA at the same time.”

  “Jay’s already planning to sell out.”

  “Am not!”

  We bump over another big dip and my ankle throbs. Time for another change of subject. “What about you?” I ask Rajas. “Do you have any plans?”

  “Raj is a slacker,” Jacinda says. “His plans are to slack.”

  “Slacker and sellout. You two are quite the combination.”

  Rajas scratches his head. “Jay thinks anyone who doesn’t go straight to college is a slacker.”

  “I’m not the only one, Raj. Ask your mom.”

  Is she kidding? I can’t tell.

  Rajas ignores her. “The shop teacher, Mr. Pascal, hooked me up with a paid carpentry apprenticeship. Sweet deal, because they’re hard to come by.”

  “Sounds fantastic!” I enthuse. “Your parents aren’t into that?”

  “My dad’s cool with it. But my mom thinks I should be a doctor or a software engineer. Same old story. Holy crap, how long is your driveway?”

  He seems to be looking for another change of subject, so I oblige. I point at the white dome coming into view. “We’re almost there.”

  “No way! Really?” Jacinda scoots forward in her seat again. “You live in that?”

  “I do indeed. Welcome to the Dome Home.” Quite an inspiring sight, in my humble opinion. My house looks like a huge luminous igloo, a half sphere rising up from the earth. A soft eggshell covering of polyester and nylon drapes the frame, shaped by beams that converge in triangles. Clear round plastic windows dot the structure. Stretching off the ground on one side of the dome is a gigantic semispherical vinyl window. The entire upper third of our home is another transparent flexible window. Martha and I always dreamed of living in a sustainable home we built ourselves, and now we do. I am so proud of us, and our house.

  Rajas parks the Blue Biohazard on a patch of hard dirt near the Dome Home. He gets out and pulls his seat forward for Jacinda while I clamber out my door. I hop over to the hammock and sit back with care. Rajas sprawls out onto the grass nearby. After handing me my backpack, Jacinda walks around, looking everywhere, taking everything in. Her flip-flops thwup thwup against her feet.

  “This is a geodesic dome?” Rajas asks.

  “Very good.” I smile. “You’ve seen one before?”

  “Sort of. A picture of one. In our Environmental Science book.” He rolls onto his side and props his head on one hand. “But that one was ugly. Gray steel and asphalt shingles. This”—he nods at my house—“is amazing.”

  “Thanks.” A course in environmental science sounds fascinating, but my school schedule is crammed with requirements for graduation. The guidance counselor left no room for electives. I suppose my whole life has been electives, up until now. I rewrap my hair into a messy bun and tell Rajas, “We ordered the kit from a company in Oregon.”

  “You built it?” He sounds impressed.

  His interest feels as cozy as a warm sleeping bag after a day trek through the mountains. “Sure. The kit comes with all the parts, and a huge book of instructions. It was tricky at first, but once we got the hang of it, it was fantastic.” I smile at the Dome Home. “The best part was that, about halfway u
p, it kind of came alive—it popped up higher on its own. It lifted us with it, on our little scaffolding. We couldn’t believe it. We just about fell off from shock. And laughing.”

  “We?”

  “Me, Martha, and Rich. Her brother, my uncle.”

  “That’s it? Just you guys?” Rajas asks.

  I nod. “Just us.”

  “Wow.” He lies back down and gazes at the sky. “That’s amazing.”

  “You like to build? I figured that out, see. Because of the whole carpentry apprenticeship.”

  “Very clever of you.” Rajas grimaces; he seems embarrassed. “Yeah. Nothing like your dome, though.” He shades his eyes to look at me. “I really just fool around. Have a workshop in my garage. Made a couple of tables and I’m working on a rocking chair.”

  “Hey, don’t sell yourself short. Someone once said ‘I’d rather build cathedrals than chairs,’ because chairs are so hard to get right.” I smile. “I collect random quotes.” I tuck some unruly strands behind my ears and reach down to pick up Little Gray Kitty, who’s come to say hello. As I smooth down the kitten’s ears, I say, “I’d love to see your chair.”

  Rajas looks startled. Like he’s surprised by my interest, or maybe the fact that I just invited myself over. But he smiles. It’s dazzling.

  Jacinda appears from behind the curved frame of the Dome Home. Right. Jacinda. She and Rajas are together, probably.

  We watch her thwup-thwup around the vegetable garden to disappear into the barn—a regular barn, wooden and dilapidated, here long before Martha and me. Jacinda pops back out a second later. “Hey! There’s a bunch of cats in here! And ohmigod! A cow!”

  Rajas shouts to Jacinda, “A cow? In a barn? That is insane.”

  Jacinda gives him a withering look and disappears again. “And chickens in a hut!”

  “The cow is Hannah Bramble,” I call out to Jacinda. “She’s friendly, but beware the chickens. They’re deadly. Like piranhas with feathers.”

  Jacinda flies past the chicken coop, lifting her knees high as she runs to us. “Get out! Are you serious?” She turns to make sure there are no chickens in pursuit.

  Rajas cracks up. I can’t help but join him.

  Jacinda collapses on the grass next to Rajas. She pushes him like she’s mad but then starts laughing too. “Just what I need! Someone for Raj to gang up on me with.”

  Rajas carries me inside The Dome. It sets my heart galloping again.

  “Thanks. Sit down, guys,” I say after Rajas deposits me at the kitchen table. “You must be hungry.” Neither of them sits. Instead they wander through my home, looking up through the huge skylight, scrutinizing our mandala-patterned cork floor, pressing their hands onto the luminescent fabric of the walls.

  “Holy cow,” Jacinda breathes, twirling in slow circles.

  “This construction is so smart.” Rajas traces his hands over the struts.

  I smile and listen to them move around. It’s a comforting sound, like a soft wind moving through pine trees. No matter how much I try to distract myself, my eyes return to Rajas.

  “You have plumbing.” Jacinda sounds pleasantly surprised. She’s peeking behind the door to the bathroom. Built of oak planks, the walls and ceiling of the bathroom are the only square, straight, flat walls inside the Dome Home; they support the sleeping loft.

  “Mmm-hmm.” I hop to the fridge for ice—which I wrap in a dishtowel and tie around my ankle—and the jug of iced tea. “If you need to use the bathroom…this might sound weird, but it’s a composting toilet, so the toilet paper goes into—”

  “No no, I’m good.” Jacinda waves her hands. “I guess I just didn’t expect you would have a bathroom in this kind of place.”

  “Sure. Plumbing, electricity, hot water.” I pull a knife out of the block to slice some bread. “The stove and oven use propane from the tank outside. Solar panels do the rest.”

  “Ohmigod! Raj, come look! Evie has Ganesh!” Jacinda touches the elephantine figure sitting on our ecumenical altar among other sacred objects: more Hindu deities, small Buddhas, ceramic crosses from Mexico, a calligraphic verse from the Qur’an, a Star of David inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Martha and I collect them on our travels. Icons from the world’s religions.

  Rajas stands next to Jacinda to look at the collection. “No one around here knows who Ganesh is.”

  “Hazards of living a small town,” I say. “Martha and I were psyched there’s a food co-op and a Unitarian church. But still, no diversity. Especially with religion.”

  “So true,” Jacinda says. “Here, the biggest choices here are, like, Catholic or Protestant. Or Unitarian.”

  “But you’re Hindu? Both of you?”

  “Yeah. Our moms are from Bombay.” Rajas picks up a hand-carved Buddha, turns it in his hands. “They drag us to Binghamton University for Diwali and stuff.”

  “My dad is, like, a Methodist?” Jacinda says. “And Raj’s dad is agnostic, so everyone just compromises. Sometimes we go Unitarian.”

  Why on earth would their entire families compromise with each other? Oh no. Are Jacinda and Rajas engaged or something? Before I can speak, Rajas turns around to face me. “Haven’t I seen you there, at the Unitarian Church?” he asks.

  “Sometimes.” I manage to stay cool, but inside, I’m dying. He’s noticed me there before! I take a deep breath. Calm down, girl.

  “Just sometimes?” Jacinda asks.

  I nod, try to focus on her question. “I think all religions have the same message: Love each other. Respect a Greater Spirit. But I also believe there’s a life energy, like a current, going through everyone and everything. You know the Walt Whitman poem ‘I Sing the Body Electric’?”

  Jacinda’s eyes are starting to glaze over. Oops. I guess I was starting to ramble.

  “Anyway,” I say, trying to sum up. “Martha and I go different places, depending where we are. Or I do yoga or just lie on the grass and meditate. Same idea.”

  “Sounds like you’ve lived all over,” Rajas says.

  “I’ve traveled all over. But I have a rule that you haven’t actually lived somewhere unless you’re there more than two years. So I’ve only really lived in Seattle and Montreal. And now here.”

  Rajas makes a face. “I’d take those other places any day of the week.”

  “Oh, Raj, don’t be a hater.” Jacinda flicks her hand at him. “Upstate New York is beautiful, right, Evie?”

  “Definitely. What Leatherstocking Country lacks in diversity, it makes up for in natural beauty—”

  “Wait!” Jacinda freezes. “Where’s your TV?”

  You have to appreciate her non sequiturs. “We don’t have one.” I hop across the kitchen to the other cupboard. “But we’re not complete Luddites. Our computer plays DVDs. And we have the…what do you call it?” I snap my fingers like I’m trying to remember. “It’s a collection of tubes that information slides through. The Tube-A-Tron? No. The InterWeb?”

  “You mean the internet?” Jacinda looks concerned about me.

  Rajas rolls his eyes. “She’s kidding, Jay.”

  “You are?”

  I laugh. “Sorry! You’re too easy.”

  “That’s what all the boys say,” Rajas mutters. Which seems weird.

  “Shut up!” Jacinda says, not mad at all. She turns to me. “Don’t listen to him. I’m saving myself—”

  “For her anonymous internet—InterWeb to you, Evie—lover,” Rajas finishes for her. Frowning, he adds, “Real smart, Jay.”

  “Shut up,” Jacinda tells Rajas, more serious this time.

  What? Are they kidding? I am so lost. Are they not together? She has an InterWeb lover? It makes no sense. But from Jacinda’s scowl, now is not the time to ask. Besides, even though they seem comfortable and familiar, I have to remember I just met these guys. It’s none of my business.

  Jacinda puts her hands on her hips and takes stock of the Dome Home again. “Seriously, this place is pretty cool. But no TV? I cannot relate.”

 
; I shrug. “Martha and I usually just talk, read, hang out.”

  “Or, like, use the InterWeb?”

  “Exactly.” I smile. Despite her dainty, pretty-girl appearance—which is the polar opposite of what I’m used to—and her way-too-tempting gullibility, she seems solid, like she’s got depth and weight. Figuratively, not literally: the girl is teensy. I hop on my good foot to set a jar of honey on the table.

  After a quiet moment, Rajas points to the woodburning stove in the middle of the dome. “You heat with wood. This place is insulated enough? Is there some sort of liner for the winter?”

  “Yes.” I lean on the table; my ankle is killing me. “The winter liner covers the whole thing, sort of like a huge tarp. Unfortunately it dims the light from all our windows. But there’s a vent at the top to keep air moving.

  “You’ve probably figured this out by now.” I point to the different areas of our home. “That’s Martha’s space, behind the curtain. Living room, kitchen, bathroom. I have the loft upstairs.”

  “No walls. Not much privacy,” Rajas observes. He tilts his head to read the spines of the books on our bookshelves, which, along with the curtain, carve out the space between the living room and Martha’s room.

  “I don’t really need much privacy. After sharing a tent with Martha and Rich the whole time we were building this place, my loft is total bliss.” I pour iced tea into clean mason jars for drinking and set a plate of sliced bread next to the jars of honey and blueberry jam Martha and I made. “Please, have something to eat.” I sit and put the ice, melting into the dishtowel, onto my ankle. Ah.

  They both seem reluctant to stop looking around, but make their way over and sit. Rajas takes big gulps of his tea.

  Jacinda takes a sip from her jar and sets it down, holds up a thick slice of bread. “Is this from that cute bakery up in Sherburne?”

  I shake my head while I chew a bite, swallow it. “Fresh from the Dome Home oven.”

  Her eyes go wide. “You made this? Here? Like, rolling out the dough and everything?”

  I smile. “Kneading the dough? Yes.” Smearing more jam onto my slice, I say, “It’s not rocket science, I swear.”