by Amanda Adair
I arrive at your apartment building and hurry upstairs. I copied your key. It’s easier than most people think. You just take a picture of a key, pay the guy in the shop a little extra and he copies it. Et voilà, a few minutes later I had a key to your house. I walk down the corridor. Dana Isabella is in her room and plays with her dolls while Kye sits on her bed, absorbed in a book. When I enter your bedroom, you sit on the ground, looking exhausted and wrecked. In your face I see a mixture of emotions. You look sad and pissed, melancholy and grumpy. Your mascara is smeared and makes you look like you have extra dark circles under your eyes, like you haven’t slept in days. You’ve smashed your phone on the ground. Its screen is covered with deep scratches. You must have thrown it onto the parquet.
“You need to cancel all of your plans for the weekend,” you say. “We have to drive to my family.”
Back to where it all started.
part II
20
10 years earlier
I grab my azure blue backpack and walk to the white door of our perfect suburban dream of a house, just that this place isn’t even suburbia. It’s a super small town far away from any type of actual civilization. It’s my first day of high school in Maywood. We just moved here from Toronto because of my Dad and his new job as a postdoctoral researcher at a small local private university. I’m not Canadian, I’m American, but so far I’ve only lived a few years in the United States. I was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, but shortly afterwards we moved to The Golden State, California. Back then it was for my Mom’s job. I grew up in the wonderful city of San Francisco, Outer Richmond to be precise, until I turned seven years old. I miss that time so much. I haven’t been to San Francisco in a while. Growing up there is one of the things I am most grateful for in my life. It’s the perfect city to spend your childhood in. You get that small-town intimacy and its big city flair. Only five days after my eighth birthday we moved to Toronto, Canada. I went to middle school directly in the city center. I was supposed to go to a high school for theater and performing arts afterwards. My Mom’s an actress, that’s why. She was pretty successful until she married my Dad and got pregnant with me, Samantha Goldinger. She still refuses to leave us for more than two weeks in a row. Her child and her marriage, that’s her priority now, it is not acting anymore. She doesn’t do as much filming as before. It doesn’t matter how often I tell her I’m old enough to take care of myself. But I get it why we had to move here. This job is a great opportunity for my Dad. He can finally work on his habilitation. That’s what he always wanted. My Dad is some kind of a nerd. He’s interested in everything scientific and spends a lot of time in libraries. He’s often busy but I’m grateful to have such a creative and outgoing Mom and a nerdy scientist as a Dad. Mom took me to theaters, art classes and operas, and my Dad visited museums, science fairs and zoos with his daughter.
“Let’s go, Mom,” I say. “I don’t want to be late on my first day.”
“Okay, honey,” she says and hurries to the white front door but stops as soon as she reaches the doorframe. “Forgot the car keys. Sorry. Just a second.”
Mom never wore anything business-like, obviously, since she doesn’t have an average nine-to-five job. I mostly see her in blue jeans and white shirts. Her hair is just as copper red as mine. It’s obvious that she’s my Mom. People keep telling me I just look exactly like her, like a younger version of her, an exact copy. I have seen photos of her, in her childhood and teenage years, and it’s true. She looks like me, not only today but even more when she was my age.
“You look exactly like Amy,” is what relatives tell me, my grandparents, old friends of my parents, neighbors, basically everyone.
“Okay, ready,” Mom says.
Together we walk outside and get in the car. It is one of those late summer days where the sun is still out and shining but it’s also windy and cloudy. Autumn is arriving. We drive about fifteen minutes, then the car stops. Outside the window I see the school building of Maywood High. From the outside it looks very much like every other high school, with its American flag, the red and beige-brownish bricks, however, it is a little smaller than all the other schools I went to. At Maywood there are only about two hunded students.
“Have a great day, sweetie,” Mom says and puts her hand on my shoulder. “Have fun, make friends and learn lots of things.”
“Sure,” I say and get out of the car. “See you later.”
I turn around and watch her silver Tesla drive away. There’s a huge meadow on each side of the path that leads to the main door. The red brick building is quite flat and there’s an American flag right in front of it, just like the Canadian flag in front of my middle school in Toronto. I don’t really miss my school but the city. I guess in most ways all schools are alike. But moving from a city with almost three million people to what looks like a tiny village is a big step. Jennifer, one of my classmates in Toronto came from Georgetown, South Carolina. She told me it is very different there compared to Toronto. She said everyone knows each other, most of them are even related in some way or another, and nothing ever happens. I knew it would be boring to live in a small town on the east coast but it is worse than expected. There wasn’t much to do during the last week. I unpacked all of the moving boxes, decorated my room, and we also met a few neighbors. That’s it.
A few other students walk towards the building, just as I do. Inside I look for room number 1.034. That’s the number I’m supposed to be at eight. It’s the room number that’s on my schedule. My first lesson today is math. I walk past 1.015, 1.019 and suddenly I come across room number 1.030. I get excited but also nervous as I come closer to my classroom. I am used to being the new kid and thankfully my parents always move at a strategically smart time, mostly right before the start of a new school year. Everyone has their first day of high school today, not just me. Most of these student have probably also attended middle school in this town. Maywood is pretty small. Even if this is the first day of high school I’m still going to be the new girl in town. I look at my watch. It is 7.52 am. I guess it’s not too late and not too early to just walk in.
“Tammy,” someone screams as I walk inside the room.
Half of the seats in this room are already taken.
“Wait,” says the girl who must be Tammy. The girl with medium blonde bangs and a messy bun stands in front of the blackboard and draws something on there. Is it a butterfly? A flower? I can’t tell, her drawing skills aren’t exactly advanced. It could be anything. Maybe an airplane or the skew outline of Europe.
In my middle school in Toronto we had smartboards and not these old-school blackboards with white chalk. I haven’t seen them in a while. I look around and think about where to sit. The tables are arranged in a not exactly creative way, they’re just lined up. Everybody’s facing the front. That’s something we also never did at my middle school. There they preferred a U-shaped arrangement or group tables, simply a more creative arrangement, so we could talk to each other, share our knowledge and make the lessons more dynamic.
“Good morning, everyone,” says a middle-aged woman who just enters the classroom.
I decide to sit down at a desk in the second row, next to a girl. She looks at me, then looks towards the front of the room.
“Hi,” I say to her, but she doesn’t say anything back, she just nods. Her hair is chocolate brown, medium-length and braided. It looks like two dutch braids. She looks nice. I actually rather sit next to a girl than a boy on my first day. It’s easier to become friends with girls. It’s the same with teachers. Most female teachers were easier to handle. Male teachers are always more relaxed but they’re not exactly sensitive or pedagogically talented. When I first got my period I was in school, on the way to the indoor swimming pool and I didn’t have anything with me to handle the bleeding. The only one that was around to help was a teacher, a male teacher to be precise. So I had to tell him that I’m bleeding down there and that I can’t go swimming right now. He looked at me completel
y overburdened and confused, then he said, “okay, you can go.” I didn’t know where, I couldn’t ask the other girls for tampons because they were swimming, so I got dressed and used toilet paper to prevent the blood from discoloring my light blue skirt.
“My name is,” the teacher says and turns towards the blackboard, “Ms. Downing.”
She writes her name on the board and turns around. Ms. Downing looks like an average forty-something female teacher. She’s wearing navy blue slacks, a cream white shirt and some blazer in the same color as her pants. Her face is wrinkled but she tries to cover it with make-up. By now most seats in the room are taken. People keep walking in. There’s just one seat empty, next to a slim boy with glasses in the first row.
“I’m your math teacher. I know lots of you have already been in middle school together,” she says. “Raise your hands if you’ve already attended Maywood Middle School.”
I look around. All of them raise their hands except me. Surprisingly I feel uncomfortable as most of them now start turning around.
“Interesting,” Ms. Downing says and looks at me. “You’re not from Maywood?”
Seems like no one ever moves to Maywood. I understand why. It’s a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. It takes three hours to get to Philadelphia, almost four to get to Pittsburgh. There’s barely any jobs or anything else to do besides going to school, being a stay-at-home mom or dad.
I shake my head. “No.”
The other students now put their arms down.
“What’s your name?”
Everyone is staring at me now.
“I’m Samantha,” I say and smile.
“Where are you from, Samantha?”
Do I say Toronto, San Francisco or New Orleans? Does she mean where I attended middle school, where I grew up or where I’m originally from? It is sometimes difficult to move so often since you then get confused where your home actually is. What is home anyway? Isn’t it where you are happiest, where your friends and family are, no matter where that is on a map. Can’t it be more than one place? Can’t it be twenty percent New Orleans and forty percent San Francisco and Toronto each.
“Toronto,” I finally answer. “I moved here from Canada last week.”
“Canada, interesting.” She stops staring at me. “So, before we start doing some math, we are going to play a little game, to get to know each other.”
Game? As in icebreakers? Isn’t that something you do in middle school and not high school? I’m used to those games because of the theater club at middle school. We do lots of games and so-called icebreakers. They are useful for our concentration, memory and creativity. It’s what we do to strenghten our imprivisation skills.
“I suggest we all introduce ourselves first.” She looks at the slim boy with glasses. “Do you want to start?”
He shakes his head and the rest of the class starts laughing.
“Why not? Tell us something about yourself.”
“I’m Bran,” he says with a weak and shaky voice.
“Great, Bran.” Ms. Downing leans on her desk. “Let’s all say something about ourselves besides our names. What’s your favorite movie, Bran?”
Normally I’m quick at coming up with an answer but this time I cannot think straight. There’s so many movies that I like. Of course, I love every movie that Mom worked on, but I also like many others. It’s so hard for me to pick just one.
“I don’t know,” says Bran.
Again the room is filled with laughter.
“Everyone has a favorite movie. Mine is Amélie. Come on, tell us a movie you like to watch.”
It takes a while but then Bran says, “Star Wars.”
Again, some girls giggle.
“Okay.” Ms. Downing looks at the girl who sits at the table next to Bran’s. “Next one?”
“I’m Alanna and my favorite movie is La La Land. My favorite actress is Emma Stone. She’s awesome.”
I think Alanna and I are going to become friends. She has a great taste. I like that movie as well.
“And she is so pretty,” the girl next to her adds.
“That is great, Alanna, thanks for your answer but I’ll come up with a different question for each of you. What’s your favorite subject?”
It’s definitely more fun to have a new question for everyone of us. The most common icebreaker probably is: Describe yourself in three words. I’m prepared for that. It’s the most boring and unnecessary icebreaker ever. It doesn’t even help to grow your imprivisation skills. My answer is: Happy, outgoing and organized. Depending on who I’m with I say ambitious instead of organized, simply because it sounds more exciting. But seriously, no one is that onedimensional to be described in just three adjectives. Oh, another quite common icebreaker is: Say your name and an adjective with the initial letter of your name. Something like lovely Lili or talented Tamara. This one’s also quite boring and it’s always the same procedure. In my mind I’ve already figured out I’d say smart, sarcastic or shy, but then there are two or three other girls with names that start with the letter S before it’s even my turn. Then I say something like sleepy. I could’ve just said strong or stylish, but no, my mind just freezes and that’s what comes out of my mouth.
“Definitely music,” Alanna says. “I love music and I want to be a musician.”
Though my favorite subject is math we’re definitely going to coma along well. I’ve played the piano for almost six years now. Maybe I’ll join the school orchestra. Most of the time they have enough pianists since it’s the most popular instrument right after the guitar. I’ll ask Alanna if she’s also part of the orchestra.
“Music, nice! What instrument do you play?”
“I sing,” Alanna says and leans back. “I was in the school choir.”
Okay, maybe I’ll ask someone else. I wouldn’t say I have the greatest singing voice. I’m really more into playing the piano and acting. Singing isn’t for me.
“Me too,” says the girl sitting next to Alanna. Why does she keep intervening? Probably one of those girls who always needs attention, a little attention addict. But I guess people who like acting are too, in some way, attention addicts.
“Great, are you planning on joining the choir this year, Alanna?”
Both girls nod heavily, then Ms. Downing turns towards the girl next to Alanna.
“And you are?,” she asks.
“My name’s Nora.”
“Let me think of a question for you, Nora.” Ms. Downing looks out of the window for a second. “Early bird or night owl?”
“That’s boring,” Nora says. “Most of us are night owls. I hate getting up early.”
“Me too,” Alanna says.
I’m neither an early bird nor a night owl. I’m something inbetween. I love to get up at eight or nine, which is not really late or early.
“Okay then, what subject would you like to have, which isn’t taught at this school?”
“Sleeping.”
Now everyone starts to laugh, even Bran. He looks funny when does that, as if he has hiccup.
“Nice try,” Ms. Downing says with a serious voice. Ms. Downing doesn’t seem to be witty. “You can do that at home. What actual subject would you like to have?”
“Fashion or pedagogy,” she says.
It takes about fifteen minutes for everyone in the front row to introduce themselves. Then Ms. Downing starts questioning us in the second row. As soon as it’s my turn I freeze. What will she ask me?
“Sorry, I forgot your name.”
“Samantha.”
“Okay, Samantha, what are your hobbies?”
An easy one, thank god. Also, I can tell them about my acting classes. Maybe there’s a theater club at Maywood, which I can join. Maybe there’s someone else who’s into acting.
“I love doing gymnastics, reading and acting. I went to several acting camps in middle school.” I look around and smile since everyone’s staring at me. “And I play the piano.”
“Acting, nice and ve
ry creative. Unfortunately we don’t have a drama club but maybe you can help establishing one.”
“Sure,” I say.
“And next to Samantha sits…”
“Penelope.”
“Penelope, if you could have three wishes granted, what would they be?”
“Isn’t that a bit unrealistic?,” asks the girl next to Penelope.
“Well,” Ms. Downing say. “Wait for the question I have for you.”
“Then I’d want to be super rich,” Penelope says. “I want to have a huge villa, I want to move to Los Angeles just like Lauren Conrad, and I want to be famous.”
“Famous for what?,” the girl next to her asks.
“Nothing, just famous.”
“Like Kim Kardashian?,” shouts a boy sitting in the row behind us.