Weightless

by Sarah Bannan

  At 7.35 the first bell rang, and we walked to Mr Overton’s office. The Principal, Richard Overton – Tricky Dick – had graduated from Adams High twenty-four years ago, and had joined the coaching faculty four years after that. He was promoted from Baseball to Health to Civics to History until landing in the Vice-Principal’s chair in 2006. Several other alums were part of the staff – Coach Cox, Miss Simpson, Mrs Matthew – and there were a few who had taught him way back, he’d told us.

  “Some of them even tried to flunk me,” he routinely explained, laughing, as if this were funny at all.

  We imagined he wasn’t a good student then, and he wasn’t good at his job now. Especially now. We worked in his office every morning, had done this freshman year too, before homeroom and first period, for extra credit. And to keep our parents off our backs.

  “You kids move too fast,” he’d tell us. “Nobody enjoys the journey.” He wore glasses with a safety bar and a clip-on Auburn tie with short-sleeved dress shirts. He’d lost twenty-­five pounds last year with The Zone, and suggested we try it. Mr Overton was tall and tanned and our mothers said that he was “handsome” back in high school. His breath smelled like coffee and Fritos. We tried not to look at him straight in the eye.

  When we weren’t listening to Mr Overton, we checked our email and updated our Facebook statuses and studied our vocabulary and practiced for our SATs. And when we were done with that, we filed tardies and sick notes and did whatever we were asked to do. And then, if no one was watching, we snooped around.

  “Welcome back.” He grinned at us, as we stood in line in front of him. “My loyal assistants are here. What would I do without you girls?” He called Lauren “Lori” and Jessica “Jessie” and he ignored Nicole entirely, we were never sure why. “I have a little project for you girls this morning. We have a new student.”

  “We heard.”

  “Carolyn Lessing?”

  And he nodded and pointed to his office and we imagined Carolyn inside with her ear pressed against the door, or maybe just sitting and reading a book, or walking around and examining the weird collection of photographs in Mr Overton’s office, turning her nose up at his junior college degree. Mr Overton looked at us and he beamed – as if he were respon­sible for somebody new moving to our town – and we looked down.

  “If you could go ahead and print out her schedule and dig out her file from the cabinet, that’d be just great.” And he walked into his office. He turned back to us before he entered – debating whether or not he would shut the door, we guessed – and then he looked at our faces, still staring at him, and he shut it hard behind him.

  Our last new student was back when we were in eighth grade – Jennifer Bunn from Oklahoma. Before that, it was Brandy Benson, who had moved from Moulton or some place really close. That was back when we were in fourth or fifth, we thought, but nobody could really remember.

  Nicole looked Carolyn up on the database and the rest of us huddled around the filing cabinet and we found the hard copy folder with notes from teachers and a guidance counsel­­or. When we talked about it later, we said we wished we hadn’t seen it, that we shouldn’t have looked at it, that Mr Overton never should have asked us to look into those files. But they were just there and we were doing what we were asked to, and the cabinet wasn’t even locked. And, plus, nobody was ever new. We read what we could.

  Her transcript:

  English (Honors): A

  Algebra 2: A-

  Biology: A-

  History: A

  Civics: A+

  PE: B

  A letter from a guidance counselor:

  Re: Carolyn Lessing

  Skipped first grade, in light of strong reading ability. Teachers tend to agree that she is a hard-working student and attentive in class. She has exhibited some behavioral problems in the past number of months, and used profanity in the classroom following some provocation from . . .

  The office door opened, we stood still and Mr Overton walked out. Carolyn was behind him, her long brown hair covering half of her face. She looked like her pictures, we said later, only maybe she was prettier, if only we could see the rest of her. Her body was petite and she wore her clothes like a miniature Giselle and her skin was perfect – we all agreed. It was hard not to stare. He asked for the draft schedule.

  “I know you’d like to be in Honors English, but there are a lot of bright students here. We’ll have to see where you fit in.” They had her in classes with the remedial kids, but he didn’t say it.

  Carolyn stared at him. She opened her mouth but didn’t say anything, we though she kind of smirked, and we said later that this was weird. Maybe she was shy, or maybe she was conceited, or maybe she just wasn’t as smart as the transcript had said. He hesitated and his face softened. “You’ll have the opportunity to take some placement tests in a couple of weeks.”

  He turned to us, then back to Carolyn, then back to us again: “Lori, Jessie . . . uh . . . girls . . . this is Carol Lessing. She’s starting at Adams today.”

  Carolyn cleared her throat, reddened a little. “It’s Carolyn.”

  We nodded and smiled and somebody said they were glad to meet her. And then Mr Overton ushered her out the door.

  Carolyn’s first day of school was legend. What people had heard about her turned out to be true – she was beautiful, she was different, she spoke with a Yankee accent. She walked through the halls, seeming nervous and lost, looking down at her schedule and smiling when people passed – everybody said hello.

  We would see that she was trying to find her way and at every water fountain somebody would offer her directions, a place at their lunch table, a stick of gum, a Hershey’s Kiss. It was the girls that were most excited by her – probably down to Taylor Lyon’s endorsement – and we all wanted to be her first best friends, responsible for “discovering” her.

  She wore a blue sweater dress – from the cover of the first fall J. Crew catalogue – and thick black tights and patent leather ballet pumps – French Sole, we guessed – and she carried a Kate Spade bag, black and plain. Nobody carried real brand bags at our school and you could tell hers wasn’t a fake. Tiffany Port had been to Boston over the summer and had been to the Kate Spade store and confirmed that Carolyn carried the real thing. She probably thought what she’d worn would make her inconspicuous, but her dress, her hair, her skin, the perfectly matte, opaque tights, all of this made it impossible for anybody to look away. Plus, it was still 97 degrees outside – we thought she must be burning up.

  In study hall, Lauren Brink told us Carolyn had gone to a private school in New Jersey, and the girls were all “bitches” and “vindictive” and “insecure.” All the guys had been in love with her, and she had tried to make them stop asking her out, grinding with her at the semi-formals, but she couldn’t help it. Carolyn had told somebody that girls here were different. Less bitchy, less controlling, less insecure. We weren’t sure what this all meant, but we believed it. If only in the beginning.

  We heard later she was surprised by how nice everybody was, how interested everybody was in her moving, in being her friend. This wasn’t what you expected when you come to a small town, not at all, and she was happy, surprised, relieved when the day was over – things were different here.

  Internal Progress Report

  Carolyn Lessing

  Carole Matthew

  23 August 2010

  Carolyn Lessing joined the junior class this month, coming to Adams High School from a large, suburban New Jersey high school. Only one week into the school year, Carolyn’s class schedule already seems inadequate for her academic ability. For example, her English teacher (Stephanie Simpson) has indicated that Carolyn submitted an essay on the short story “The Most Dangerous Game” which demonstrated senior-level ability and aptitude (e.g. she referred to the “protagonist” and “antagonist” in the story even though these terms have not been introduced in vocabulary). I have spoken to Carolyn’s other teachers and, particularly in t
he areas of math and English, she is performing at a very high level. On this basis, I would recommend that Carolyn is moved into Honors English and Trigonometry as soon as possible.

  I understand that she has been encouraged to try out for the cheerleading squad later this year, and will be joining the swim team later this month (following try-outs with Coach Billy). I am happy to report that Carolyn is settling well into the junior class.

  No need for follow-up.

  SEPTEMBER

  Chapter 5

  What we knew of Carolyn was pieced together little by little those first weeks, day by day, minute by minute. She was pretty, that was clear, but whether she knew or understood this wasn’t. Her eyes were her best feature, but it was her hair we wanted the most – she looked like she’d had it professionally blown dry every day and then curled just so, like somebody on reruns of The Hills or Pretty Little Liars. She wore less make-up than anybody else, but her eyes, lips, cheeks, smile – they looked bigger, bolder, better. Our teachers called her a “breath of fresh air.” We followed her movements, watched her fall right into place. People who had lived here all their lives hadn’t achieved what she had in two weeks. She was a part of things.

  Her town in New Jersey was small, even smaller than Adamsville. The houses were older, there wasn’t any fast food, just restaurants and coffee shops. She complained that the bread in Alabama was too soft, that there wasn’t any decent Italian, and she said that Marshmallow Creme was called Marshmallow Fluff. When she told a story, her eyes got bigger, they looked right through you, and she smiled and laughed. It made you want to smile and laugh too. The cheerleaders told her she had to try out next semester – she laughed at that, and nobody understood why.

  Her voice was quiet – but her accent always took us by surprise. It was like nothing we’d ever heard before – and not harsh like people had expected, but soft and round. Over time, that changed. She started to talk a little bit slower, started to say “y’all” instead of “you guys.” Still a Yankee, but not as much.

  She turned assignments in on time, she never wore skirts or shorts too short, and everything she wore looked expensive. We tried to calculate what she cost from head to toe, tried to keep track of how many new things she wore, how many times she repeated her tops, her jeans, her boots. She wore skinny jeans that made her look even skinnier, but she still had an ass. And the guys really liked her.

  “Shane Duggan is into the new girl.”

  “I hear he dumped Brooke Moore.”

  “He’s taking Carolyn to the movies.”

  “He’s taking her parking.”

  “He just needs to get laid.”

  “He doesn’t even know her.”

  “They were together over the summer.”

  “How is that even possible?”

  “Just don’t tell Brooke.”

  “Yeah, don’t tell Brooke.”

  The third week of school maybe, Shane Duggan started meeting Carolyn at her locker every day, after first, third and fifth period. Three lockers down from Taylor Lyon’s. He was six foot tall, Carolyn five foot three. He towered over her and if he moved in the right way, you couldn’t even see she was there. We said later he must have liked that – and that it made a big change from Brooke, who was all legs and height and hair. He could make Carolyn disappear. Like magic.

  When we were freshmen, Shane Duggan’s locker had been near Lauren Brink’s and, on the first day, she couldn’t figure out the lock, had spent fifteen minutes trying to get it to open, and she turned red in the face and was getting all sweaty and freaked and afraid that she’d miss all her classes and everybody would see her and send her back to Fairview Middle. Then Shane came up behind her, asked her for the combination and opened it up in, like, five seconds. Lauren had smiled and said thank you, under her breath, and he kind of laughed and patted her on the head, like she was a little girl, his little sister. We’d had fantasies back then that he might ask Lauren out, that he had done that ’cause he liked her, liked the way she had grown her hair over the summer, had put in some caramel highlights, had lost a couple of pounds. And if Shane Duggan asked Lauren out, then Lauren would be able to tell us what his house was like inside, if his parents were as strict as we’d heard, if he worked out on a Nautilus to keep him looking like Taylor Lautner.

  Shane was tan all year round. Even in the winter, when everybody else was pasty and pale. He and his dad were “outdoorsy,” that’s what people said, and what that meant was that they hunted and fished and did things that good ol’ boys did, like they were auditioning for The Dukes of Hazzard. Shane wore his hair kind of long; it got in his eyes and it was brown but bleached by the sun in streaks. You would have almost sworn he had highlights, or that he poured lemon juice on his hair, only that wasn’t the kind of guy he was. Shane was tall and we thought he might be the strongest guy we’d ever seen: his muscles were like something from the cover of Men’s Health, like the guys who advertise Soloflex. You could see his biceps under long-sleeve shirts, if he got hot he’d wipe his face with the bottom of his t-shirt, and he had an actual six-pack. He might have been vain, we wondered about that later, might have thought he was too good-looking for his own good. We didn’t know, and we didn’t care. Shane Duggan was hot and his eyes were blue and they sparkled. Literally.

  After we’d heard Shane Duggan had been meeting Carolyn Lessing at her locker for over a week, we rearranged the way we walked from class to see if we could see them. And we stood around the water fountain and watched them and tried not to get caught. When Shane stepped away from her, when he let her out from underneath his arms, we could see her face. And she was making crazy eye contact with him, and holding it for what seemed like forever, like she was playing Blink. People talked about this thing she did: she always looked at people straight on, right in the eyes. Especially guys. He was talking to her really low, so low that we couldn’t ever make out what they were talking about, and Carolyn whispered things back. She looked happy. But, then, she always did. At least back then.

  Jessica filled up her water bottle and Nicole checked her watch and we said we needed to go and then Lauren got a text: Duggs driving new girl to school!!!!!!!!!!! But we knew this already. Nicole had seen her getting into his car a couple of days before. Weeks later, Dylan Hall posted on Facebook that Carolyn sucked Shane off every morning and that was why he did it – her house was totally out of his way. Whatever. We figured Shane drove her because she was pretty, and also ’cause it would piss off Brooke. And this is what we told people. But we didn’t know, not really. We didn’t know much of anything. But we said a lot of things, and, eventually, we sent them round and round and round, texting, tweeting, until everybody was sure they knew what was going on.

  It was a Tuesday the day Shane officially asked Carolyn out, and everybody saw it, and even if you didn’t, you still felt like you had. He crossed the cafeteria to where Carolyn was standing, at a table with Alicia Cooper and two other black girls. Carolyn didn’t seem to understand how it worked, didn’t understand that we sat in the same place everyday, we sat with people like us. Shane came over and said something to her and she laughed and started to sit down, and then he pulled her hand, and she was up again, following him. Alicia and the girls at the table rolled their eyes and then watched her walk away.

  Shane led Carolyn over to the center of the cafeteria: “Come with me.”

  “I left my lunch there . . .” Carolyn was looking back at Alicia, shrugging her shoulders.

  “Don’t worry – you can share mine.” He pulled Carolyn into him close, she turned away from Alicia again and her body disappeared against Shane’s.

  And then Shane whispered: “I’m rescuing you, you know?”

  Carolyn smiled. “Oh, I see.” And then she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. “Well, thank you.” She took her seat next to Shane, across from Taylor and Tiffany. She had arrived.

  Nobody was sure what Brooke thought about all of this – at least, not at th
e time. And people weren’t sure if she had dumped Shane, or if Shane had dumped her. Nicole said she followed Brooke into the bathroom that same afternoon and heard her crying in the stall, but that was nothing new. Brooke was always making drama – she didn’t need a break-up for that. No matter what Brooke felt, people thought Carolyn was lucky, thought Shane was cool for asking out the new girl. She’d only been at school a month and she was already dating Shane. This made her popular, even if nobody knew her.

  There are things that only make sense now – things that are only clear once the story is finished, once the past is the past. If we had realized what was happening, we might have stood up, shouted or at least cleared our throats. But you have to understand how quickly things move, how blurry your vision is as a car passes you by, how fast a balloon can fly out of your hands and get caught somewhere you cannot reach or even see – we didn’t know what we know now. We couldn’t have. If we had, things could have been – would have been – different.

  From: Ssimpson@adams.mccounty.edu

  To: Alessing@gmail.com

  Time: 19.42

  Date: 12 September 2010

  Subject: Re: Carolyn

  Dear Mrs Lessing

  I’m so sorry you were unable to attend the first parent–teacher conference of the Adams High School year. As part of our agreement with the Adams High Parents’ Teacher Committee (AHPTC), I am writing to you to provide an update on Carolyn’s progress as you were not in a position to attend the event on Monday evening.

  Carolyn is a bright, attentive and imaginative young person. As you may be aware, she moved quickly from basic Math and English classes to Trigonometry and Honors English within a couple of weeks at Adams. She demonstrated an above-average intelligence in all of her classes, and I felt she would be better served in more advanced classes. Since her schedule was adjusted, I believe that Carolyn is settling in remarkably well. She has a wide vocabulary and excellent writing ability, and it is evident that she is an avid reader of work of all kinds. (Carolyn mentioned her father is a published author, which is not hard to believe given her writing skills!) You will receive updates from her other teachers but she is a good addition to our English class and I understand from informal conversations with other teachers that this is the case across the board.