by Sarah Bannan
TAYLOR LYON She didn’t even take those pills
TIFFANY PORT whole story was fake
TAYLOR LYON She was caught stealing from Abercrombie after Christmas
GEMMA DAVIES No WAY. The dikes on swim teem say shes a cutter
TIFFANY PORT how COOL ;)
BROOKE MOORE If I hear one more person say that they feel sorry for that PATHETIC DRAMA QUEEN, i’m going over to her Pottery Barn house on D’Evereux Drive to cut her myself
GEMMA DAVIES Carolyn Lessing is a fake, a boyfriend stealer and a slut. Let her cut herself if she wants to
brooke moore Let her slit her wrists for all I care
Chapter 24
Andrew had already asked Carolyn to prom. He didn’t do it in one of those big public ways – the way a lot of the guys did it – writing out the letters in shaving cream in a front lawn, organizing a boat trip along the river, writing a song – stuff that was probably all ripped off from Laguna Beach and Super Sweet 16 or whatever, but stuff we still fantasized about. Miss Simpson told us our expectations had been “warped” by television and the internet and that we should really not “invest so much” in the event. We knew what this was code for: she had never been to her prom, the fat lesbian.
Three days after Andrew asked Carolyn to prom, the clip with her and Shane – that one in the car – was posted again on YouTube. Nobody recognized the poster’s username and, at the time, people said that Carolyn posted it herself. Later, when the police were investigating, we heard that it was posted from the office at the Stripline Baptist Church. Shane posted the video to Andrew’s Facebook page, and Andrew took it down twenty minutes later, and we heard he was freaking out. Maybe he hadn’t seen it before – though we didn’t know how that was possible – or maybe he just felt differently about it now that he was with Carolyn, now that they were boyfriend/girlfriend. Maybe he was jealous, thought he couldn’t trust her, didn’t know her. We didn’t know. Whatever the case, right after he took down the clip, he changed his relationship status from “in a relationship” to “single.” And then Gemma posted on his wall: “I used to like you until you got a girl . . . but I still think you are so cute. Text me sometime.J”
When people say that Andrew didn’t have anything to do with anything, that’s only partly true. He wanted to help Carolyn, but not enough, not in the end. He couldn’t watch the clip, couldn’t watch her cum, couldn’t watch her body shake, couldn’t watch Shane press into her, her mouth open, skin white. He had known before she wasn’t a virgin, or at least this is what he said, but the physical proof seemed too much for him. He couldn’t have her. Not like this.
We were there the day he broke it off with her – we were walking out of class after English. Miss Simpson had given us a lecture on narrative agency – she never quit – and we had texted each other during class that Carolyn looked thin again. She’d obviously laid off the fried pickles.
Andrew was waiting for her as we left the classroom – he must have run or else gotten a pass to leave before the bell rang, ’cause he was right there, outside the door. He was looking down, examining his phone or his cuticles or maybe even his shoes, but he didn’t look up, not even when Carolyn was right in front of him. We said later how weird it was that he didn’t kiss her – they were so majorly into PDA – so we weren’t that surprised when we heard what happened next. We stayed close behind them – they were going our way anyway. She talked about her dress, about not wanting to take it back, about the money she had spent, about how this dance would be better than Homecoming, more fun, less stress. He didn’t care. Or at least he didn’t act like it.
“I’m just too busy to go.”
“You weren’t busy two weeks ago.”
“Things have changed.”
“What’s changed?”
“You have.”
“I don’t get it.”
He waited a while. And then he inhaled.
“I’m just tired, Carolyn.”
“Why are you being mean?”
He let out a breath.
“I’m not being mean. I wish you wouldn’t say that.”
“Why won’t you go with me?”
“I’m just tired. It’s lame.”
“It’s that clip thing, isn’t it? With me in the car.”
We couldn’t see her face, but we said later that she sounded like she was crying.
“Whatever.” He was mad, or depressed, or something like that.
“That was, like, forever ago.” Her voice had started to shake and she had pulled her sleeves over her fingers and was trying to hold onto his hands. He pulled them away.
“I just don’t want to fucking go.”
She had her head on his chest. She was leaning her body into him, pushing against him. He lay against a locker.
“Jesus. Stop it, Carolyn.”
“Please don’t be mean.”
He got up. “Quit saying that. Quit it.”
“Sorry.”
“This is just too intense. I can’t do this.”
“Are you back with Gemma?”
“What? Who said . . . ? No.” He sighed.
“I just saw. On Facebook?”
“What? Are you, like, stalking me?” He said this loudly. People were staring.
He turned to walk away and she called after him: “Drew.”
Everything in the hallway stopped. From their lockers, people turned and looked. The teachers stopped talking, they fixed their eyes on Andrew, on Carolyn.
Andrew stood still. His face was red, his eyes bloodshot – he could have been crying.
“What?”
“When will you call me?”
He looked around and let out a breath. He looked up at the ceiling.
“When you calm down.” He looked around again. “When this whole fucking place calms down.”
Honors English – Miss Simpson
Carolyn Lessing
30 April 2011
Transcendentalism Final Essay: Persuasive Write
Writing Prompt: You just finished reading Walden, about Henry David Thoreau’s famous two-year stint living in solitude alongside a Concord pond. Consider whether or not you think such an experiment is a good idea. Write a persuasive essay convincing me, your teacher, as well as the rest of your classmates that we either should or should not recreate such an experiment this year. Your essay MUST also include at least three of the rhetorical strategies we have studied so far this year.
In Walden, Thoreau says: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” In his essay, he argues that living in solitude allows a person to live more fully as one can concentrate on nature and one’s self. I would argue that such an experiment is selfish and dangerous, because it cuts a person off from others. Connecting with other people helps us feel sympathy and, ultimately, helps us help one another.
As a girl, when I was six or seven years old, my mother, father and I went to live for a summer in a farmhouse in upstate New York. My father was researching a book, and we were allowed to live in the house for three months while he wrote. The house was remote – a twenty-five-minute drive from the nearest town – and did not have a telephone or a television. We were surrounded by rich forest, thick with trees, green as far as the eye could see. My mother and I spent our days going on long walks, taking trails up to the top of small mountains, and sometimes we brought a packed lunch of bread and fruit and cheese. When we finished eating, my mother might read to me or we might take a nap in the sunshine. On days when it rained, we stayed indoors and read and listened to soft music. My family and I were content and fulfilled, comfortable living simply and in nature. Even though I was very small, I have vivid memories from this time, and it was very peaceful.
While we were away, my mother’s father became very ill. Because we did not have a telephone, my aunt was unable to contact us a
nd, by the time we returned to New Jersey, my grandfather had passed away. We attended the funeral, but my mother was very upset that she had not had the opportunity to say goodbye to her father in person. My mother and I have spoken about this very little, but I now understand that she must have been extremely angry that she was out of touch during this important time.
As a twenty-first-century teenager, it is hard to imagine living like Thoreau. To me, he seems like a Scrooge, lacking in empathy and feeling for other people. While his writings point to the benefits that he gained from living in solitude, he does not address how his decision to live this way could be deemed selfish. Living in solitude does not allow one to help another person. Out in the woods, I wouldn’t be able to talk to my friend about a problem she’s having at home. I wouldn’t be able to volunteer at the Salvation Army. I wouldn’t be able to watch the news and understand that there are bigger problems in the world than my own. All of these things are part of what it means to be a person and to be humane.
The great thing about living in solitude is that one concentrates only on oneself. The terrible thing about living in solitude is that one concentrates only on oneself. Thinking about yourself all the time is pretty self-indulgent, even if adults accuse teenagers of doing it all the time. In reality, I think it’s important to talk to other people, because it helps you understand that you’re not alone and that other people have experiences both similar and different to your own. Thinking about yourself all day would be just plain boring.
Thoreau cites the many distractions that we encounter in everyday life, but this seems very limiting. Are other people simply distractions? Isn’t it true that some of them are friends? Family? These are relationships that are important to me and, even though they are hard sometimes, I wouldn’t give them up to spend more time with “myself” in the woods.
While I accept that we all spend too much time looking at screens nowadays, things like Facebook and Skype are very good ways to keep in touch with people who are far away. How else would I talk to my father? To my best friend Kourtni in New Jersey? These connections help us remember that we are part of a community, and that people rely on us for certain things. Herman Melville was quoted as saying, “We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.”
All that being said, I would accept that screens and Facebook and iChat can sometimes make us feel more isolated and alone. Instead of meeting up with friends at the mall or for coffee, sometimes we just text or stare at a screen, which isn’t the same. An email isn’t the same as a handwritten letter. Also, because people find it so easy to send emails and texts and post things on Facebook, it makes it easier for people to be mean to each other. When people are posting stuff online they forget that they are talking to other people, forget that they are still part of a “community.”
All in all, I think Thoreau acted selfishly and inhumanely and his is not an example that I think we should follow. We are part of a larger community and everybody plays a role in the community. While it would be easier in some ways to live alone, to not worry what other people thought of us, and to just concentrate on making ourselves better as individuals, I think this is ultimately wrong and not what life is about. Connecting with other people is what human beings were meant to do. The more people realize that this is true, the better off we’ll be.
Grade: B-
The writing is still very strong in this, Carolyn, but you have received a lower grade because of the misuse (and lack of citation) of quotation. You have misattributed “You cannot live for yourselves” to Herman Melville (author of Moby Dick?), when in fact this is a quotation from Henry Melvill, a 19th-century priest of the Church of England. I believe you have relied in a lazy way on the internet and Google for your sources and even the quality of your writing can’t overcome this. Please come and talk to me about this. I am disappointed.
MAY
Chapter 25
The day it happened, nobody was prepared. Carolyn had been in the library, working on an essay – we had seen her there, head down, three or four books open. When the bell rang at three o’clock, she didn’t look up.
Carolyn was special: that’s what we’d say later. Some days, she’d smile and laugh and wave at you in the hall, almost skipping as she walked through the buildings. Other days, she looked worried and concerned, black circles under her eyes. The marks on her body were hard to look at and, even though she was thin, some days it was too much to watch – to see her throw away a tuna sandwich at lunch, give her Oreos to some obese underclassman, and nibble on a rice cake for forty-five minutes. She would say she had no appetite, that she was really full from breakfast, that she’d eaten eggs and bacon. But nobody believed her, not really.
She didn’t understand the cliques. She thought she could move from one to another and then back again, and not upset anybody along the way. But school was like checkers. Once you jumped over somebody else, they were cleared off the board, and you were topped with somebody else. There were consequences to every jump, and she didn’t seem to know this. She didn’t even care.
When the bell rang we waited a few beats and then we pushed the doors of every building open, punching the metal bars hard to make them bang, and we all came streaming out, in clumps and clusters, in twos and threes and fours and fives. In May, the hot air outside would be a shock after a day of raw air-conditioning. We could feel the beginnings of a sweat underneath our arms, around the waist of our jeans, on the backs of our necks, hair curling underneath. We would move fast to get out of the heat if we had anywhere to go.
The last week of May, the parking lot was lethal. No tree cover, no wind, just black tar melting under the sun. Car mirrors would blind you. We tried to open our car doors without burning our hands, tried to put the key in the ignition without singeing our fingers, turning the air-conditioning knob to full, windows down. You’d have to wait five minutes before you even thought about getting in.
It was because of this that Shane and Brooke were hanging out in the parking lot, under the shade of an oak tree, trying to stay out of the heat. It was because of this that Shane and Brooke had such a good chance, that there was so much temptation in their way.
Adam Simmons had been smoking up in his car since fifth period, so he was there in his driver’s seat, asleep under his Roll Tide baseball cap, seat reclined halfway back, air conditioning on full blast, his Outback staring at the back of Shane’s Explorer. He had the driver seat window open a crack, and when Shane beeped his car door open, the sound melted into Adam’s dream, and he twitched awake. He said that, in his dream, the cops were shining a light into the driver’s seat, making him open the glove compartment and hand over his stash. And the beep was coming from him.
“I had some kind of fucking laser gun in my hand and I was getting ready to fucking shoot the assholes. Only then I kinda opened my eyes and saw Brooke’s ass right in my face and I was, like, why the fuck am I dreaming about that bitch? And that woke me up fucking quick.”
Brooke was leaning into the trunk, grabbing at something – a cooler, Adam said – and she couldn’t reach it, not really, so she had to lower her body in, and as she leaned, her skirt went further and further up, so that all that Adam could see were her legs – tanned and smooth and long. And then she leaned in to grab again, her arm stretching her body out so that her skirt was non-existent. She was wearing a purple lace thong, he said, which we found unbelievable – her skirt was white. There was no fucking way.
Adam said he thought it might be beer, and he would have gotten out and asked to have one, only he was completely baked, and he’d get suspended if he was caught drinking or smoking on campus again. He laughed at this, since that day Coach Cox had passed him and knocked on the window as he’d rolled his first joint. Adam said he gave him a thumbs up and that made Cox’s day, so he just walked right by. We didn’t believe this either.
Brooke didn’t drink beer – obviously – and Shane was in training, so we figured
it was Dr Pepper – the kind that you got at Bud’s in the glass bottles, they were doing some promotion. Adam testified later that it was beer, or maybe he didn’t testify, but that’s what he told the cops, and that’s what the newspapers said. But we found it kinda hard to believe.
Brooke took a couple bottles out, handed one to Shane and they sat in the back of the Explorer, Brooke holding the bottle against her chest, Shane rubbing his on his neck. Adam said he was so low in the seat they must not have seen him, ’cause he said he was staring right at them, and he said he could almost hear what they were saying. But he couldn’t remember anything.
He said they sat there for fifteen minutes or maybe even more, and Shane had taken out some dip and started to pack it. Brooke had already gotten another drink, and had taken out some ice cubes, which she threw down Shane’s shirt. They were flirting hard, Adam said, and he thought about starting his car, only now he was worried he looked like a fucking perv, he’d been sitting there so long. It was only that he was too stoned to go anywhere that he hadn’t left, that he hadn’t gotten out or even waved or honked the horn.
The parking lot had pretty much cleared out – just some teachers’ Volvos and Coach Cox’s mini-van and the band bus, which sat in our parking lot every day and every night – nobody had ever seen it leave the campus. If there had been more cars on the lot, Adam said, they wouldn’t have even seen Carolyn. She could have slipped away and walked home or to the mall or to the movies or to wherever she was going.
Since her car had been keyed, we saw Carolyn walking all the time. We would see her coming out of her subdivision on a Saturday morning, walking along the Stripline on her way to school, walking through the Halls’ field at eight or nine o’clock. Nobody was sure why this was – it was just another weird thing that she did. Everything in our town was too far away from everything else for her to literally be walking everywhere – but that was how it seemed, and that’s what people said. Taylor Lyon said she did it to keep her figure, and we thought that this could be true. She was disappearing in front of us and we came to know her skeletal structure: her collarbone looked thick and we said that if you reached at her chest, you could grab hold of that bone, it jutted out so far it was like a handle. Her elbows were sharp; the small bones on her wrists cut through her skin and looked like they could break her silver Tiffany charm bracelet if she moved too quick. She was thin before, and she was thinner now – we tried to get the guys to say it was gross, to say that they liked to have something to hold onto. But they didn’t say much and deep down, or maybe not even that deep, we wanted her body to be ours. To know what it would be like to be that light, to be that invisible, to be weightless – that was something we wanted to know.