I go in. Everyone stares.
Including Julian.
Mrs. Yuknis comes over. I give her my late pass.
“¿Tiene la tarea?”
I admit that I don’t have my homework.
“¿No? ¿Por qué no?”
Somehow I think Because I didn’t feel like doing it isn’t a good enough reason.
Eyes are still on me. I’m still standing in front of the whole class like Exhibit A of a dork display.
Mrs. Yuknis goes off on a tirade about how it’s only April and we need to stop acting like the year is already over and get off our lazy butts and do our homework. Or something like that. Of course I had to come in late on the day she’s having a snit fit.
I can feel Julian’s eyes on me.
I take my time walking to my desk. Then I turn slowly before sitting down so Julian can see the way this top clings to my curves. Not that I have major curves. But at least now he can see that I have some.
I spend the entire class hoping that Julian will come up to me after. When the bell rings, I put my things away slowly.
“Hey,” Julian says.
“Hey.” I can feel the heat of him next to me. I have no idea what is preventing my desk from bursting into flames.
“You look nice.”
I look up at him. How many times have I looked up at Julian like this, with him so patiently by my side? Why is he even talking to me? I totally rejected him. It’s like nothing fazes this boy.
“Thanks,” I say.
“New shirt?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought so.”
I get up and sling my bag over my shoulder. My shirt rides up. I tug it down. It clings to my breasts. Which seemed like a good idea in the dressing room. But now I’m embarrassed.
Julian and I are like two inches apart. I can feel him breathing. I can also feel him looking at me. I can only look at the floor.
“Can I get by?” a girl coming in for the next class says. We’re blocking the aisle.
Julian touches my arm. He guides me to the door. I let him walk with me touching my arm for the nine steps it takes to get to the door. They are quite possibly the most daring nine steps I’ve ever taken.
“See you later,” he says.
“Yeah. Later.”
When Julian walks away from me, all I can think about is getting close to him again.
I triumphantly stride past the cafeteria on my way to lit mag. I even give it the finger. Well, I give the wall the finger. Doing it in the doorway would be a bad idea. With my luck, Warner Talbot would see and think I’m giving him the finger.
There are two girls working at computers in the lit mag office. I think one’s a sophomore. She doesn’t look up from her screen. The other girl is Darby. I’ve never really talked to her outside of class. She seems like a loner. So she totally catches me off guard by smiling right at me.
“Hey, Noelle,” she says. “Congrats on the coeditor gig.”
“Thanks.”
“How are you liking it?”
“It’s good.” I’m not about to admit that I’m only here to get out of lunch. Actually, it’s not as bad as I expected. Some parts are even fun, like getting my own desk and correcting people’s typos. The best part is that it feels really comfortable in here. Like a safe zone.
“Cool,” Darby says. “Just let me know if you need anything. I can be found glued to this very station.”
I notice Darby’s wearing the same shirt I got at the mall a few months ago. Which throws me off all over again. I’m not used to seeing anyone wear the same clothes I do.
“Did you get your shirt at Delia’s?” I ask.
“On sale for nine ninety-nine, just the way I like them.”
“Me, too.”
“Righteous. I hate when I’m stalking something, waiting for it to go on sale but then I panic that they’ll sell out, so I buy it anyway and it goes on sale like the next day.”
“I know!”
Darby shakes her head. “Tragic,” she confirms.
It’s so weird how connecting with someone in a different setting can bring out this whole other side of them. Like how certain places inspire us to act in ways we normally wouldn’t. If Darby wasn’t on lit mag, we’d probably never talk like this.
A pile of submissions to be edited is waiting for me on my desk. Everyone has to hand in a hard copy of their work, then submit a final version by email after they get their edits. There’s a Post-it note stuck on top of the pile:
I get out a purple pen to edit the first short story. When I’m a teacher, I won’t be using red pens to grade papers. Red pens will forever be associated with criticism and bad grades in my mind. I don’t want this person to get their short story back with harsh red pen marks all over it. Purple is much friendlier.
I’m on the third page when Simon arrives.
“Lunch!” he announces. He’s carrying a tray piled high with good things to eat. Grilled cheese sandwiches, fruit, bottles of water and iced tea, chips, brownies, and cookies. “I got way too much as usual.”
“Sweet!” Darby says. “Thanks, Simon.”
Simon puts the tray down on the big table in the middle of the office. Darby goes over and takes an apple and a cookie.
Sophomore girl is still oblivious that anyone else is in the room.
“Help yourself,” Simon insists. “I usually bring a tray in for whoever wants. So you don’t have to worry about missing lunch or anything.”
“That’s awesome,” I say. “Thank you.” As usual, I’m starving. The grilled cheese smells so good. And the peanut butter cookies look amazing. It takes a massive amount of restraint to not attack the tray and inhale everything on it.
“I’m a fan of grilled cheese,” Simon informs me.
“Same here. But I thought you weren’t allowed to take trays out.”
“They let me anyway. The older lunch lady likes my ties. And I always bring the trays back after school.”
We work. I have a grilled cheese sandwich. I have some grapes. Then I have two cookies. I’m paranoid that everyone will think I’m taking too much. But no one’s noticing. They’re busy with their own work.
Everyone else leaves a few minutes early. When the bell rings, it’s just me, the office, and the lunch leftovers. I shove two bags of chips in my bag. It would be a waste to leave them behind.
Simon’s lunch tray was a sharp contrast to our kitchen. The only time we have enough to eat is when mother gets food stamps. But after a week or so, it’s back to starvation city.
The first time mother got food stamps, she dragged me to the grocery store with her. It was a little while after we moved into the apartment, so I was twelve or thirteen. I didn’t know why she was taking me. She always went shopping alone.
Mother liked to shop at the upscale gourmet grocery store instead of at the more reasonably priced one a few towns over. She was determined to shop where everyone else did. I pushed the cart while mother selected items from the shelves. Elevator music played. Everything was so clean and shiny. Items were neatly lined up on the shelves. Even the floor gleamed, reflecting rows and rows of perfectly packaged food. I watched a lady switch one box of cereal for another just because the first box was slightly dented on top.
Real moms pushed packed shopping carts past us. Their children riding in the shopping-cart seats had bright, colorful toys or beeping devices to keep them entertained.
We went up to the fancy deli counter. The glass display case gleamed under the bright lights as perky Muzak continued to play. Carefully arranged plates of stuffed artichokes and pesto salad and sautéed portobello mushrooms taunted me. Prepared chickens awaited selection. That deli counter was wrong in so many ways. How could tons of styled food be there for anyone who could afford it, while people around the world were dying because they didn’t even have clean water?
Moms were stopping to talk with other moms. None of them even said hi to mother. It was like they knew that even though mother
was trying to fit in by shopping there, we were still poor. And Poor was a disease you could catch if you got too close.
Mother has this thing where she gets totally fake in front of other people. I call it her Normal Mom Act. She thinks she can trick people into believing that she’s a good mom if she acts like she cares. Sometimes people say that we look more like sisters than mother and daughter. Which makes mother get even phonier, pretending she didn’t hear them so they have to repeat it. But no one was even giving her a chance to bust out the Normal Mom Act that day. It was like everyone in the grocery store had made a pact to ignore us.
We got to the checkout line. Mother pushed me in front of her. I was sucking on a lollipop and bit down hard on my tongue when she pushed me. She took our items out of the cart one by one, handing them to me to put on the conveyor belt. When the cart was empty, she moved up near the cashier.
“How’s your day going?” she asked him with a bright smile. The Normal Mom Act was in the house.
“All right.” He smiled back at her. “How’s it treating you?”
“Can’t complain,” she said. As if she ever stopped complaining.
The cashier scanned our items. Mother was being all flirty with him. Which was creepy because he was clearly in high school. I was relieved he didn’t know me.
Mother said something I don’t remember. The cashier laughed.
“Your total is seventy-three oh seven,” he said.
She gave him some coupons. Except they weren’t coupons. The cashier had been smiling at mother. But when he saw what she gave him, his smile instantly vanished.
He looked at me. He looked at her. He looked back at me.
My tongue throbbed where I’d bitten it.
Then the cashier yelled, “Need a manager on four! Food stamps!”
All the moms in the other lanes turned to see who was using food stamps.
Audrey’s mom was three lanes over.
I could see a light of recognition in her eyes. This was back when Audrey and I were friends. I could tell her instinct was to come over and say hello.
But she didn’t come over. She just turned around like she didn’t even know me.
eleven
friday, april 29
(35 days left)
I try to avoid school bathrooms as much as possible. It’s agonizing to be in the bathroom when a bunch of other girls are using it. I really don’t need to hear them gossiping with their friends and checking their phones.
One thing about being bullied is that you quickly learn how to avoid the people who make your life miserable. I never use this bathroom. This is the one Carly uses. But if I tried to fight my way up the crowded stairway to the safer bathroom, I’d be late for class.
Of course Carly comes in as I’m washing my hands.
With Audrey.
“Hi, reject,” Carly says. “Having a good day?”
A girl I don’t know is at the mirror. I’m mortified she’s seeing this. I yank a paper towel out and dry my hands, heading for the door.
“What’s the rush?” Carly blocks the door.
“I have class.” I hate the panicky ache I always get whenever I see Carly. I keep promising myself I won’t let her upset me next time. But when next time comes, it’s always like the time before.
“You have class? Or you have an ugly bracelet?”
My bracelet is not ugly. It has delicate, transparent beads strung with an elastic. Sherae gave it to me for my birthday last year. She puts together the most amazing gift bags.
“I think she has an ugly bracelet,” Audrey chimes in.
They’re still blocking the door.
“Excuse me,” I say, trying to get by.
“Oh, excuse her!” Carly shrieks to Audrey. “Noelle is so much better than us! It’s beneath her to even be in the same bathroom!”
“At least she’s using the bathroom,” Audrey says. “Half the chairs in this school are smeared with her blood.”
The bell rings. The girl at the mirror hurries out. She throws me a disgusted look.
“Can you guys move?” I ask.
“Sure,” Carly says. “How’s this?” She gets right in my face, grabs my wrist, and yanks my bracelet off. Then she stretches the elastic like a rubber band and flings it over a stall door.
“Nice one!” Audrey praises. They actually high-five. After they leave, I can still hear them laughing down the hall.
I open the stall door that Carly flung my bracelet over. I scan the floor for those pretty beads. But I don’t see them anywhere.
Panic clutches my stomach.
I peek into the toilet. My bracelet is sitting at the bottom.
Part of me wants to take it out, wash it, and put it back on. But even though I love that bracelet, I can’t make myself reach into the toilet for it.
It sucks that Carly gets away with stuff like this. And it sucks that Audrey is part of it now.
Audrey and I were best friends back in fifth grade. After we moved out of Lewis’s house to our tiny apartment, everything changed. Not overnight. But gradually, mother became more distant. She shut down. She stopped looking at me or talking to me or taking care of me in any real way. And it’s been getting worse ever since.
Audrey and I stayed friends after we moved. But everything changed on Valentine’s Day when we were thirteen. She was stoked because Corey Smith had given her a big, heart-shaped box of chocolates. She had a massive crush on Corey Smith. Until he gave her the chocolates, she wasn’t sure if he liked her back. Audrey had only eaten three pieces. I couldn’t figure out how she resisted eating the whole box.
I went over to Audrey’s after school. We were playing Sorry! on Audrey’s bed when her mom called her down to try on a dress for this wedding she was in.
“Do I have to?” Audrey groaned down to her mom.
“Yes! It needs to be hemmed!”
“Can I do it later? We’re in the middle of a game.”
“No, I need you down here right now!”
Audrey made a face. “I’ll be right back,” she told me.
But she didn’t come right back. She was down there for a long time. And I was alone with her Valentine’s Day chocolates.
I only meant to have one piece. I didn’t think Audrey would care. So I snuck a piece. Then I got Tiger Eyes off her bookshelf because she kept telling me I had to read it. I ate another piece of chocolate while I was reading. And another.
The broken version of Mother After Lewis never bought sweets. She thought she was fat. Which was weird because she was so skinny you could totally see her hipbones jutting out. We didn’t even have sugar in the kitchen. I craved sugar so much it was ridiculous. I’d never seen a box of chocolates that big. Each one had a different filling and shape and texture. It was like I was in a trance or something, just reading and eating. I really don’t know how it happened, but I ended up eating most of the chocolates.
When Audrey came back upstairs, she freaked.
“Who said you could eat my chocolates?”
“I was—”
“Oh my god you ate the whole box!”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Why did you eat all my chocolates? Who does that?”
I had no idea.
“I knew you were jealous Corey liked me, but you didn’t have to go and eat all my chocolates!”
“I’m not jealous!”
“If you were happy for me, you wouldn’t have eaten my entire Valentine’s Day present!”
That was the moment Audrey and I stopped being friends. It wasn’t just about me eating her chocolates. I’m sure my other friends were noticing how strange I had become. People were looking at me differently, like I wasn’t one of them anymore. Everyone found out I lied about mother. And then Audrey told them about the chocolates. People were telling Audrey that she’d be unpopular if she stayed friends with me.
Audrey took their side. She didn’t want to look back on this time in her life as the worst time ever. The way I already
know I will.
Top line of a flyer found in the English hallway:
Are You a Team Player?
I’m just minding my own business going to class when I turn a corner and there’s Julian.
Talking to Jolene DelMonico.
Gorgeous Jolene DelMonico with her straight, shiny blonde hair.
Jolene leans in close to Julian. Apparently, she’s unable to hear what he’s saying unless part of her body is touching part of his. She laughs at something he just said, tossing her head back so all of that long, smooth, silky hair swings luxuriously behind her. I’ve always been jealous of Jolene’s hair. But I haven’t been insanely jealous until now.
Of course Julian is talking to her. Even their names are cute together. Julian and Jolene. Jolene and Julian. Jolian. Maybe he used to like me, but I pushed him away.
Losing the genetic lottery sucks. I’d give anything to look like Jolene. To get up in the morning and not have to worry about what I’m going to do if my skin is all broken out or if my eyes are puffy or how I’m going to make my hair look decent enough to walk out the door. I wish my hair glinted sunlight and moved in the breeze the way Jolene’s does.
If I have to endure my spastic hair for one more day, I’m seriously going to lose it.
Sherae thinks she’s driving me home after school. But when she comes over to my locker I say, “I really need to go to the mall.”
“What for?”
“This.” I point at my head.
“Could you be more specific?”
“Hello! My hair? It’s ridiculous! I can’t stand it anymore!”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know yet.”
We go to the expensive hair place at the mall. I call it Fancycuts. I can never afford to go there. I always get my hair cut at Supercuts. But Sherae’s insisting that I borrow money and she won’t take no for an answer.
I’m not about to protest.
Sherae leaves to scope out this new book we’re dying to read. I get whisked into Fancycuts, then seated at one of the stylist’s stations. The counter in front of me has some glossy magazines neatly fanned out and swanky bottled water. They even ask if I want tea.
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