Freshman Year & Other Unnatural Disasters

by Meredith Zeitlin

  I’ll just have to show them what a great year this is going to be. Along with everyone else.

  2

  The next morning, after a breakfast of all the cereals in the house mixed together, my friends head out into the wide world of Park Slope. I am left at the kitchen table with Travis, who is picking all the marshmallows out of the Lucky Charms I had to trick my dad into buying by enthusiastically pointing out the “Whole Grains!” sticker on the box.

  “Travis!” I snap. “Don’t steal all the marshmallows and leave me the cereal part!”

  She gives me her wide-eyed little sister look, complete with quivering lower lip. I sense a dramatic performance coming on, and since my parents are in the next room, I swiftly change the subject.

  “Hey, Trav,” I say conspiratorially, scooting my chair closer to hers. “Want Mom to take us shopping? I bet there’s some stuff you need to start off the fourth grade in style, right? I mean, it’s very important to look cool.”

  Travis looks at me suspiciously. “You just want Mom to take you shopping and you want me to ask her because I’m cute and adorable. Right?”

  I tell you, this kid is impossible to trick. Or live with, for that matter.

  “Well, sorry if I thought it would be nice for us to do something sisterly together, like getting ready for the first day of school. Forget it,” I say, taking my empty bowl to the sink to rinse it. I throw in a disappointed sigh-sniff combo as I load it into the dishwasher.

  Two can play this game.

  Twenty minutes later, we’re in the car. My mom (who hates lugging shopping bags on the subway and always insists on driving) heads into Manhattan, chattering the whole way about how nice it is that her girls are doing something as a team. Travis and I exchange pinches in the backseat. When, oh, when will my parents realize I should just be given a credit card and the autonomy to shop on my own? I’m in high school, for crying out loud. Has no one in this house besides me seen an episode of Gossip Girl?

  My mom slows as we pass the SoHo Bloomingdale’s and I start to feel a glimmer of hope. But then she keeps driving. When we get to Sixteenth Street, she hollers, “Girls—stop fooling around back there and look for an open meter!” and I suddenly realize where we’re going.

  The dreaded Loehmann’s.

  If you don’t know, Loehmann’s is this giant department store on Seventh Avenue that sells designer clothes at bargain prices. It is filled with old ladies who pick through the racks like vultures and fight over sequined scarves and scary pants with pleats all over them. If you’re ever interested in seeing a teenager being forced to try on an appalling pom-pom-covered sweater against her will, you should definitely check it out.

  The worst thing about Loehmann’s is the communal dressing rooms—what sick person thought of that? I cannot accurately describe the creepiness of huddling in front of wall-to-wall mirrors, being forced to try on dorky jeans that I would never wear in public, while random strangers in giant granny panties look at me. Then my mother will inevitably shriek something like, “Oh, Kelsey, this blazer is so hip and in! Reese Witherspoon was wearing one just like it on the cover of Glamour! Just try it on to humor me, okay?”

  Years from now, when my mother complains because I don’t visit her in the nursing home, I will cite the Loeh-mann’s dressing room as the reason. And she will see that she brought it all on herself.

  After three migraine-inducing hours, during which Travis gets seven hundred things (clothes for little kids are pretty much the same no matter where you go), I end up with a pair of weird checked pants and a terrifying red blazer that are apparently “just perfect for the Jewish holidays!”

  Obviously I was coerced into buying these items—I’m using what energy I have left to score a trip around the corner to Urban Outfitters, where maybe I can get something normal. And in a totally unsurprising turn of events, my request is summarily denied. Additionally, my lack of appreciation is pointed out repeatedly all the way home.

  So here’s the bottom line: I can either wear jeans and a shirt to the first day of school tomorrow, which I guess is fine but not really in keeping with my whole “taking charge of a new era” thing, or I can wear a shiny red blazer with my mom’s horrifying dragonfly lapel pin on it. Tough choice, I know.

  Did I mention I can feel a massive pimple waiting to spring to the surface directly under my nose? I bet it’ll pop up like a crazy Hitler mustache the second I walk through the front doors of school, and I won’t even realize it till someone Sieg Heils me.

  Oh, God. It’s going to be a disaster. I’m starting to totally freak out.

  After dinner and a couple of hours spent trying on everything I own (again) and examining my upper lip area in my mom’s magnifying mirror to see if the zit is any bigger yet, I go to my room and call Em. She says I should put toothpaste on it, which I immediately do. Can’t hurt, right?

  Then she asks, “Kels? Is there anything bothering you? Don’t get me wrong—I’m totally behind your soccer stuff and anything else you want to do. I just … well, you don’t have to prove anything to anybody, you know? Everyone likes you the way you are. I just want to make sure you know that.”

  Oh, Em. What would I do without her? “You’re so sweet to say that, and no, nothing is bothering me,” I say. “Well, not really. It’s just … I guess I feel like high school is a chance to … I don’t know. I feel like, finally, it’s my turn to … something. You know what I mean?”

  “Oh, yeah. That totally clears it up.”

  I laugh. “I’m just trying to figure out what my place is going to be. Maybe I watched too much Oprah this summer or something, but I feel like it’s my chance to … be … I mean, why should evil Jemma Bradley always get everything she wants, especially when she’s such a … ? Well, anyway, I’m always going to be the same delightful Kelsey you love and adore, and you’ll still have to hang out with me, so don’t get any ideas.”

  Em groans. “Damn. Here I thought this was my chance to get rid of you for good.”

  “Sorry. Your plans have been foiled. So, have you talked to James? Think he’ll come to visit?”

  Em launches into a hundred-miles-a-minute recap about her latest Skype conversation with James. I’m totally listening, but all my thoughts about school tomorrow are still buzzing around in the back of my brain. I feel like I’m on the cusp of something—that maybe in a new place, with new people, I can be the best version of myself. Explore the possibilities that maybe I didn’t take seriously enough in stupid middle school.

  “… and then he said that his parents probably wouldn’t let him visit at Thanksgiving because obviously they want him to be with them, and my parents would never let me go to his house because they’re like ‘blah blah, you’re only fourteen, it’s not as if you’re going to marry this boy, you’ll get over it,’ which is so beyond insulting—”

  “Em, your parents are being ridiculous. Who’s thinking about getting married, for crying out loud?”

  That’s another thing. Guys. How did it happen that I’m the only one of my friends—including Em, the shy one!—who has never hooked up with anyone? Not that I haven’t had any chances, mind you. A certain Keith Mayhew has been frantically pursuing me since sixth grade. (He’s totally nice, but … I don’t like him that way.) I just want my first real kissing experience to be this utterly awesome thing, with the right guy and the right situation. And I know fourteen isn’t that old … but it feels like I’ve totally missed the boat. I mean, I am seriously the only one now. And what if my friends start having sex or something before I even get to first base, and I’m still wandering around, unkissed, unnoticed? I’ll just die of humiliation. Not that I can imagine anyone (especially myself) having sex with any of the guys I know—or anything leading up to sex, really. It all seems so awkward and sort of gross … and yet it’s what I think about ALL THE TIME.

  Maybe I’m going crazy? This is why I should focus on the soccer tryouts. Left wing, left wing …

  “… which makes
me really nervous because, I mean, I’ve only known him for three months and he’s been so sweet about taking things slow … but what if he has some kind of crazy hormonal surge and—”

  Well, it’s comforting to know that I’m not the only one thinking about this stuff, anyway.

  I suddenly realize it’s almost midnight, so Em and I say good night and I get ready for bed, trying not to look in the mirror for fear of what I might see there. Beauty-sleep time. Maybe the pimple-to-be will disappear during the night.

  3

  Sometime around dawn, my evil alarm clock goes off, and after five or six rounds of hitting the snooze button, I only have about twelve seconds to get out of the house. Awesome. At least the pimple decided not to make an appearance. Toothpaste. Who knew?

  I quickly get dressed—and not in the heinous Loeh-mann’s options. I’m in the kitchen scarfing down an English muffin when my mom comes in and starts rooting around in her briefcase.

  She looks up and says, “So, your father and I agreed that we’ll take you to school for the first couple of days to make sure you’re comfortable on the subway. Get a move on—we have to leave in five minutes or I’ll be late for work.”

  Um, excuse me, what? “Mom, I’ve only been taking the subway by myself all summer. Am I suddenly going to get kidnapped? I think not. So … thanks, but no thanks.”

  “This is not up for discussion, Kelsey. It’s early, the station is crowded, you have a lot on your mind … God forbid something happens to you. Don’t start with me.”

  “Mom, I’m in high school, remember? I’m not five years old! This is completely un—”

  “Kelsey, if you don’t like it, you can bang your head against the wall and spit wooden nickels.”

  That’s one of her very favorite nonsensical sayings/conversation enders. Why she hasn’t been carted off to the lunatic asylum yet is truly beyond me.

  Five fury-filled minutes later, we all head out in a sullen Finkelstein parade. There’s my dad on the right, clutching his travel thermos for dear life and shooting me winks, like, “Hey, Kelsey, let’s just humor your ol’ mom, okay?” To my left is my delightful mother, carrying a shopping bag along with her briefcase and purse, and sporadically saying things like, “On my first day of high school back in 1917, I wore a beautiful dress I made myself by the light of our one candle,” and wiping my sister’s nose for her, though when I was nine, I’m pretty sure I had mastered the art of using a tissue.

  After twenty-five minutes of sitting on the F train to Manhattan (with me in a separate row of seats so the entire world won’t immediately know that I’m with my parents), we finally get to Fourteenth Street. We drop Travis off at the elementary school building, at which point I try to say a swift good-bye to my parents and head over to the high school on my own. Fat chance—they follow right behind me. Thankfully, Em comes up at that exact moment and meets me by the side entrance like we planned. She looks as if she’s about to burst with excitement.

  “Oh my God, Kels, I’m so glad you’re here. You will never believe the news!” she gushes. I haven’t seen Em this excited since she told me about her first makeout session with James.

  “What’s going on? Tell me!”

  “Jemma. Bradley. Moved. To. Arizona.”

  I just gape at her, disbelieving. Then we both forget to be extremely cool and age appropriate and start screeching and dancing around like lunatics. I just wish Cass and JoJo were with us to celebrate this glorious, glorious moment: Jemma Bradley is gone! Gone to live in the Arizona desert with only a cactus as a friend. Maybe she’ll get chased by a pack of coyotes into some quicksand and never be heard from again!

  “Isn’t this amazing news?” Em shrieks. Even Em, who likes everybody, doesn’t like Jemma.

  “How did you find this out?” I demand.

  “My dad works with Jemma’s dad, you know, and my parents were talking about it at breakfast—I was going to call you but I wanted it to be a surprise.”

  This is unbelievable. Now we can all enjoy freshman year without wasting a single second worrying about accidentally pissing off an evil, blond-ringleted dictator with no sense of humor at all. Next thing you know, they’ll be serving birthday cake for lunch every day.

  Em and I grin at each other. “This is going to be the best year ever. I can feel it,” I say.

  “Me too!” Em agrees.

  Suddenly my mother invades our happy-dance circle and clutches my arm. “Kels, I need to speak with you privately before you go zipping off into your new life. How about that bench over there?”

  I immediately know that she is going to do something horrible, like kiss me in front of the free world or warn me about teenage pregnancy. Inevitably it will be something so embarrassing that I will have to throw myself down a well.

  I heave an enormous sigh, tell Em to go ahead without me, and sit on the bench with my mom for our chat. Behind us, kids are heading inside, taking pictures, laughing, and generally not having chats with their mothers.

  Mom takes my hand (seriously? In public?) and says, “You know, Kels, I really discovered myself in high school. Looking back, it was truly a crossroads between childhood and adulthood for me, and that’s very important. Now that you’re entering this phase of your life …”

  This is even worse than I anticipated. Bring on the “just in case” condom to carry in my backpack.

  “… I know it’s not easy to be fourteen, and I want you to know that I know. Okay?”

  “Um … sure, Mom.” What do I say to this? Thanks? “Thanks.”

  She looks at me and I look back. I can tell she’s about to do the thing where she silently beams at me for five minutes and then recounts the story of my birth—definitely no time for that today. I force a smile. “So … are we done? Because I don’t want to be late for homeroom, so …”

  “Okay, okay. Go in. But listen—I want you to be yourself. Let everyone know what a fabulous person you are and how much you have to offer. You really are terrific, you know that?”

  Well, now I feel a little bad for wanting to throw myself down a well. “Thanks, Mom. Really.” I smile for real this time.

  She takes a small box out of her pocket and hands it to me. I open it … and there’s a gift card to Urban Outfitters inside.

  Every once in a rare while, my mom can be pretty cool.

  “Mom, thanks! This is great!” I exclaim.

  “Use it for whatever you want. Oh—that reminds me, speaking of clothes …”

  I’m tucking the gift card into a pocket of my backpack when she pulls it out of the shopping bag: the scary red blazer that I purposely left on the chair in my room with the tags still on.

  “You forgot this! I figured you’d need it in case it’s chilly with the AC on,” she says.

  Is there a wicked glint in her eye, or is it my imagination?

  “Uh … I think I’ll be okay,” I stammer, desperately looking around for someone to signal to for help. “I should probably save that for temple, right?”

  “Well, I think you’re responsible enough to take care of it for one day. Put it on—I want to see you all dressed up in front of your new school.”

  She’s basically shoving me into the jacket; I figure struggling is futile, so I shrug it on and plan to stash it in my locker ASAP.

  And then, just as I’m fully encased in blazery ugliness and Mom is tugging at my sleeves … Jordan Rothman walks by. Oh, God—he’s even cuter than he was at the end of last year! His dirty blond hair is a little longer now and he keeps brushing it out of his eyes, which just happen to be the bluest on the planet. I swear, they’re like lasers that just zap you the second he looks your way. I think he’s definitely grown a couple of inches over the summer, too. He’s with a bunch of guys from our grade, and there’s just no contest—he is the hottest, sexiest, best-looking one there.

  Swoon.

  I come back down to earth and realize that I have to hide myself immediately before the blue lasers catch sight of my hideously
updated ensemble.

  “Mom, I really have to go. Thanks so much for the gift card, and—”

  “Ooh, is that Jordan Rothman?” she whispers loudly. “He’s turned into quite the hunk! I wonder if his mom still—”

  I turn frantically and see Jordan snickering to his friends. Oh, God.

  “I have to go, Mom! See you later, love you, bye!” I dash off as fast as I can before she can start talking to Jordan about his mother or anything else, pausing only when I almost trip over some guy taking pictures of his friends by the front door.

  Well, that was an auspicious beginning.

  4

  I’ve been in high school for three days now, and thus far it’s been a complete and total suckfest. Were all the teachers at this school forbidden to watch TV or eat candy growing up? Why are they so mean? Have they made some kind of pact designed to torture innocent kids who just want to text each other during homeroom?

  I can’t believe how much more work there is compared to middle school. I mean, pop quizzes? Really? On the second day of school? And in what world is it okay for my econ teacher to assign us partners for a project instead of letting us choose our own? What happened to spending the first week getting to know each other and talking about our summers? And I got paired with, of all possible choices, Danny Zifner, who has smelled like old meat since third grade. What if it’s contagious in close proximity? What if the whole year is like this and I have to do tons of work and it ruins EVERYTHING?

  But right now, for the next few hours, I have soccer tryouts—time to slap on my new positive attitude. Let the shining begin!

  I quickly change clothes in the girls’ locker room and head out to the field. The ground is nice and firm and it isn’t too hot out—I’m feeling really good. We start with stretching, and in between toe touches I suss out the competition. Most of my middle-school teammates are here, of course, and a lot of girls I don’t know at all—mainly upperclassmen, I guess. I recognize a couple of older girls who I know are the big varsity stars and make a mental note to try to end up in their group if we do a scrimmage.