Even When You Lie to Me

by Jessica Alcott

  Class was her first mistake. They didn’t like being addressed as class.

  “Where’s Morgan?” someone called out. Sean Varniska—he was obviously thrilled at the chance to unsettle her.

  “Mrs. Morgan is on extended medical leave. I’m Ms. Anders and I’ll be your trigonometry teacher for the foreseeable future.” She seemed to gain confidence as she spoke, but her eyes darted around the room, never settling on anyone.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Sean asked. He was sitting on top of his chair, his legs splayed like his balls needed ventilation.

  “That’s not really important, is it?” Ms. Anders still wouldn’t look at Sean. “Let’s just get started with what we have to learn this year. We’ve got a lot to cover.”

  “Well, I want to know and I think most of the class does too.” Sean looked around at a few other amused faces, silently massing them against her. I kept my head down and drew circles in my notebook. If I made eye contact with her, I’d only confirm her humiliation. I hated her for being so stupid, for not being able to pull herself out of this.

  Ms. Anders gripped the binder. “What’s your name?” she asked, finally looking at Sean.

  He considered her for a moment, clearly deciding whether to lie. “Sean Varniska,” he said finally, straightening up.

  “Sean, if you’re really interested, can I suggest that you ask Principal Crowley in your free time?”

  Sean sucked in a breath. A soft “ooh” went up from the class. “Are you saying you don’t care about my teacher’s health? Her health is very important to me and, I think, to the rest of the class.”

  Ms. Anders looked at the floor, then the wall. She stepped back as if she’d been rocked by a wave and then turned and began writing on the board. “Okay, let’s get started with some fundamentals. Who can explain the Pythagorean theorem?”

  But the class was murmuring again, and Sean was laughing now. “Um, Ms. Anders, is there a reason you don’t want to answer my question? Is Mrs. Morgan having private lady problems?”

  The dam broke and the class burst into giddy laughter. A few kids still sat looking down at their desks, not meeting Ms. Anders’s suddenly desperate gaze.

  “Sean, please settle down and take your seat,” she said, but her voice was shaky again. “We need to move on from this.”

  Sean grinned. “I guess I will take this up with the principal.”

  “Sean,” she said again, but it was more of a defeated sigh.

  He slithered down into his seat, satisfied. The class buzzed with noise again. Ms. Anders went back to the board, but by then it was too late: she’d lost us and she wasn’t going to get us back.

  I looked at the wall clock. Only six hours left.

  —

  I found Lila in the hallway as we each made our way to our new English class.

  “How’d the morning go?” I asked, dodging another entwined couple by the lockers.

  “The usual,” she said as she hitched up the books on her arm. “On the plus side, I think I learned a few nuclear codes. What about you?”

  “Study hall and history were fine. Trig was terrible. We had a sub. Sean nearly made her cry.”

  “Ouch,” Lila said. “What happened?”

  We’d reached the door of our classroom; Lila led the way in. It looked different than it had the last time I’d seen it. The walls were bare, and our seats were arranged behind a horseshoe of tables rather than desks. There was a bank of computers against one wall, all of which were grimy and gray with coughs and fingerprints. Lila grabbed a chair in the corner and I slid down next to her.

  “General anarchy,” I said. “She lost control a few minutes in and no one paid attention after that. I wanted to tell her to stop arguing with them, but obviously…”

  “Obviously,” Lila said. “That’s a shame.”

  “It was. On the other hand, I didn’t have to learn any math.”

  “Bonus.”

  “Yeah. I guess trigonometry was the real loser today,” I said, cocking an eyebrow at her.

  “Quite,” she said, stroking her chin.

  I heard someone huff and looked toward the battered desk at the front of the room. I’d thought we were the first people to arrive, but the new lit teacher was there already, leaning over a sheaf of papers. He was smiling, clearly listening to us, but he didn’t look up.

  I exchanged another raised eyebrow with Lila.

  Katie McManus arrived, and Frank Gowser, and—oh, fantastic—Sean from my math class, as well as a couple of new kids we’d been introduced to on our induction day: Asha Madhani and her twin brother, Dev. I smiled at them, and Asha sat down a few seats away and smiled back. The bell rang, and more kids wandered in, and then after a minute our teacher stood up, shut the door, and settled himself on the edge of his desk. A couple of people were still chatting, but they stopped when they realized that everyone else had turned their attention to him.

  “Hi, guys,” he said when everyone had gone silent. “I’m Mr. Drummond, and I’m your AP English Lit teacher. First I’m just going to check that everyone’s showed up here and we don’t have a bunch of people desperately attempting to take this class without permission. Let me know if you like being called by your given name or a nickname.” His voice sounded confident, but the paper he was holding vibrated slightly.

  When he reached my name, he called out, “Charlotte Porter?”

  I raised my hand. Lila poked me in the arm and said, “She goes by Charlie.”

  Mr. Drummond looked at me. I smiled, because it was the only thing I could think of doing. “You look more like a Chuck,” he said.

  The class laughed, and I felt my face heat up. Why had he singled me out? Was he making fun of me?

  When he was finished taking attendance, he reached into his bag and pulled out a thick old book, bloated with age. The spine was so creased it was almost entirely white.

  “I’ll pass around a syllabus in a second,” he said, “but first I want to find out what your favorite books are and tell you about mine.”

  Lila smirked. Mr. Drummond turned to her and said, “Lila? Did you want to say something?”

  Lila looked straight at him and said, “I was just wondering what your pick was.”

  “We’ll get to mine,” he said. He leaned back on the desk so his arms were propping him up. “So what’s your favorite book?”

  “Um, probably The Cat in the Hat.”

  A few people laughed and my heart started kicking in my chest. It was happening again: Lila was goading him and in a minute everyone would turn. I silently begged her to stop talking.

  “All right,” said Mr. Drummond. “I can’t dispute a classic, especially one written in anapestic tetrameter.”

  “Coincidence!” Lila said. “That’s why I picked it.”

  “I suspected as much. Any other reasons, besides your appreciation for poetic meter?”

  “Um, probably because it’s the last book I actually read for fun.”

  “Really? You never read Judy Blume or J. K. Rowling or From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler?”

  “Okay, I read some of those,” Lila said, putting her hands up in surrender. “But the general point is that mostly what I read now is for school, not for fun. I can’t remember the last time I read a book because I wanted to.” I understood suddenly that she was flirting with him. I looked at him: was he handsome? Not really, though he was young for a teacher. Was she just bored?

  He wasn’t flirting back, but he didn’t look put off either. “Luckily for you, Lila, that’s what I wanted to talk about today. But let’s ascertain what everyone else’s choices are first.” He turned to me. “Chuck?”

  The class laughed again, and again I wasn’t sure whether they were laughing at me or with him. The knot on my head throbbed. “Um…can you skip me?” I said. “I need a minute to think.”

  He nodded and turned to Asha.

  Lila passed me a note. Asshole but I kind of like him, she’d scrawled i
n large looping letters.

  I scowled at her, but she didn’t seem to notice. More kids gave him their favorites: Harry Potter, 1984, Superfudge, The Shining, A Scanner Darkly, The Da Vinci Code, and three votes for The Catcher in the Rye. I hated The Catcher in the Rye.

  Finally it was back to me. Mr. Drummond nodded again.

  I still couldn’t think of anything. “Um…The Brothers Karamazov?” I blurted it out. I’d never read it. I knew it was famous, and I’d always had a hazy idea it was about acrobats in turn-of-the-century Russia. I’d only ever seen it on my parents’ bookshelf, its spine cracked like the bark of an old tree, looking foreign and imposing.

  “Really?” Mr. Drummond said. He looked unconvinced. “That’s a tough one.”

  “Mm,” I said vaguely.

  “Did you read it for class or for…pleasure?”

  “Uh, over the summer. I thought we might cover it in class, so I wanted to be prepared.”

  “I admire your initiative.” He paused and I prayed he would move on. Instead he crossed his arms and tilted his head at me. “Which part was your favorite?”

  I cleared my throat. “The part in…Russia.”

  He tried not to laugh; he brought his fist to his mouth and pretended to cough, but he was smiling underneath his fingers. I’d embarrassed myself already. If he hadn’t thought I was dumb before, he certainly did now. I looked down at my notebook.

  “I can’t argue with that,” he said finally. “Okay, guys, I guess at this point I have to reveal my favorite book. It’s the one we’re going to be reading first this year. I realize that’s not very democratic of me, but it’s one of the only benefits of being a teacher besides the incredible pay: I can force you to read stuff I like.”

  He held up the book—Catch-22. The class was quiet. “No takers?” he said. “Silence. All right. Well, let me tell you why this is my favorite book and why I’ve forced you to admit that you’ve never read anything better than The Cat in the Hat—or maybe just that your reading skills haven’t improved since you did.”

  Lila’s mouth dropped open and she slapped her hands on the table in indignation. I winced; this was exactly the kind of attention she wanted. Mr. Drummond glanced at her sideways as the class started to vibrate with shocked laughter, but fortunately he continued before she could say anything.

  “I first read this book when I was a senior in high school like you guys, back when people marked time by pointing at the sun and grunting. Before that I’d enjoyed books, but I’d never felt understood the way I did when I read this one. It was like someone I’d never met knew me and was saying something about the world I thought only I had noticed. I hope you connect with it too, but if you don’t, don’t worry, because I also want you each to choose one of the books that someone else mentioned as a favorite. Yes, including Superfudge”—he frowned at Frank—“and The Brothers Karamazov”—he shook his head at me—“and even, God help me, The Da Vinci Code.” He looked at Sean, who shrugged.

  “Two books at once?” Katie said incredulously.

  “You can read someone else’s favorite book at any point during the semester. I hope that’ll encourage you to read some of the longer books, but if you all want to read The Cat in the Hat and write an excellent ten-page paper on it”—he waited a beat as we groaned—“then I won’t stop you.”

  He put the book down on his desk and folded his arms. “Every book is an argument. What I’m asking you guys to do is to respond to that argument. Liking a book or disliking it is a good starting point, but it’s not enough. I want you to learn how to make your own arguments. I want to hear your voice. I want you to tell your own stories.” He looked at me. “So good luck with Dostoyevsky, everyone.”

  “His name’s Tom,” Lila said when I answered my phone that night.

  I paused. “Who is this?”

  “Charlie! That joke does not get funnier on the thirtieth outing.”

  I scratched the spot between Frida’s eyes that she loved the most. “You do know comedy,” I said. “Is it just Weird Al’s greatest hits that you’ve paid actual money for, or his complete works?”

  “ ‘Eat It’ is a classic—you know what, I’m not even going into this with you again. So I found out. Drummond’s first name is Tom. Or Thomas, I guess, but the secretary called him Tom.” She said this in a way that implied the secretary had a crush on him.

  “Oh,” I said. “Okay. Well, it’s good his name isn’t Marvin or something, I guess.”

  “Marv,” Lila said. “Or Ralph.”

  “So why were you so interested in this information that you sought it from the administrative staff?”

  “You’re not interested?” she said.

  I waited to see if she’d elaborate, but she didn’t. “Not particularly. I mean, I wasn’t wondering.”

  “Even though he was flirting with you in class?”

  “He was not! He was making fun of me.”

  “No, he wasn’t, Chuck. He liked you.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about. What was he implying with that nickname?”

  “He was implying that he thought you were funny, you dork.”

  “He thought you were funny. If he likes anyone, it’s you.”

  “Whatever,” she said. “I don’t know why but I do kind of like him. It’s not like he’s hot, plus he clearly thinks he’s the cool teacher. And he’s kind of a jerk. I couldn’t believe he called me out like that.”

  “You wanted him to! You were asking for it.”

  “I was not! I just wanted to see what he was going to be like as a teacher.”

  I sighed; arguing with her was pointless. “Okay, so you have a disgusting and shameful crush on a teacher. Why do you think I do?”

  “When have you not crushed on a teacher? I thought he’d be right up your alley. He talked for like twenty minutes about how much he loves Catch-22. I thought you’d have a book boner for him, at least.”

  She was right, as much as I hated to admit it. I’d had crushes on teachers since the sixth grade. And English teachers were the worst—they liked books as much as I did, and I always got As in their classes. But the crushes were fleeting things, moments of gratefulness for the kindness and attention they showed me.

  “Well, I don’t,” I said. “He was mean to me from the minute we walked in.”

  “Will you listen to me? He was teasing you because he liked you!”

  “Great, so he’s a perv.” I knew my joke was more about the idea of a grown man lusting after a teenager. I didn’t have to worry about teachers getting ideas; it wouldn’t cross their minds to consider me.

  “I’m not saying he’s a perv. But he did nearly crack up when you lied about reading The Brothers Karamazov. Bold choice, by the way.”

  “God, I don’t know why I did that. I panicked. It was the only book I could remember. Like literally out of all books.”

  Lila snorted. “I picked The Cat in the Hat. At least yours had chapters.”

  “I wouldn’t call it your proudest moment,” I said.

  “The worst part is that I can’t read it, since I picked it. Maybe I’ll go for Superfudge.” She sighed. “Oh, I forgot to tell you about PE. You didn’t have it today, did you?”

  “Nope.” We only had it three days a week, and I’d gotten a study hall on the other two days.

  “Well,” she said, “bring a pillow.”

  If there was a class I hated more than math, it was gym. It baffled me that people actually chased after the ball as if they wanted to catch it instead of nonchalantly stepping back when play got too close, or, if pressed, loping after it halfheartedly until someone else got to it first.

  Our gym teacher, Mrs. Deloit, surveyed us with the tired, watery eyes of a woman who had supervised far too many sessions of listless square dancing. “We’ve got a new activity this year, girls,” she said. “This semester you’ll be able to take yoga. There are only twenty places, but the boys won’t be joining us.”

  The other activit
ies were basketball and soccer. I knew yoga was probably what Lila had been warning me about, but I couldn’t pass up an activity that didn’t involve either boys or sweating. Once we’d all chosen, Mrs. Deloit said, “All right, lap first, and then the girls who are taking yoga can come with me.”

  We headed outside, where the boys were already trudging around the far end of the track. I started jogging with the others, moving somewhat faster than usual so the guys who finished first wouldn’t be standing there watching my breasts parabola as I ran. As I neared the end of the track, I noticed with a jolt that Mike from the pool was standing near the back of the group of boys. He saw me looking at him. He hesitated for a minute, and then he started to move toward me. I froze, but a boy clapped his shoulder and he turned away, distracted.

  I looked around to see whether I could find anyone to talk to who would make me look a little less desperate. I didn’t want Mike reporting to Austin how vulnerable I was without Lila. I noticed Dev and Asha from my English class talking to each other, but once everyone finished their lap and the boys left, Asha was alone too. I’d only ever said hi to her, though, and the thought of starting a conversation just for it to stall out was enough to keep me away. Why would she want to talk to me anyway?

  Once we were back inside, Mrs. Deloit said, “All right, ladies. Everyone go get a mat and then we’ll begin.” She sat down in a plastic chair and started the music. She already looked exhausted.

  I could see why Lila had warned me. The recording was some old relaxation guide, probably something Mrs. Deloit had found at a garage sale. There were wobbly panpipes on the sound track, and the instructor was vaguely British. A few girls exchanged smiles, and by the time we were doing a downward dog to the echoes of whale song, some had broken into cautious giggles. When it came time to relax our bodies and the instructor urged us to loosen our groins, a gale of laughter shot out. By that point Mrs. Deloit was half asleep.

  I glanced at Asha, who was on the mat next to mine. She gestured at Mrs. Deloit’s drooping eyelids. That small invitation was enough. I nodded and whispered, “She must have really relaxed her groin.”