Love and First Sight(9)

“Now, don’t get all mushy on me, Will. I wasn’t trying to be nice. I just didn’t want you to have any excuses if you turned in your first paper late.”

? ? ?


After English is biology, and then journalism. There’s a restroom right outside Mrs. Everbrook’s classroom that Mr. Johnston showed me yesterday, and I stop to use it. I slip into my desk about ten seconds after the bell rings. At the school for the blind, our teachers didn’t mind if we arrived a little late. But that’s not the case with Mrs. Everbrook.

She stops midsentence and addresses me. “Will, do you have a note for being late?”

“No,” I say. “I was, uh, using the restroom.”

“For today, I’ll just give you a verbal warning. Next time, make it come out faster, or I will have to mark you as tardy.”

Mrs. Everbrook returns to discussing story assignments.

“We’ve got two events that need a photographer this week. The first is the touring Vincent van Gogh exhibit that just came to PU.”

PU is the unfortunate, but widely used, abbreviation for Plains University, the institution of higher learning that keeps the economy afloat in our little city. The marketing people at the school are always trying to “rebrand” it as PSU, as in PlainS University, but it never sticks. Everyone keeps calling it PU. It doesn’t help that the school has an agriculture department that does something with fertilizer and stinks up the whole town a few times per semester.

“I know none of you probably give a hoot about art, but Toano’s a pretty small place, and van Gogh’s a pretty big deal, so I think it’s worth covering. Cecily, you know more about art than the rest of your philistine classmates put together, so you’ll be shooting that.”

Cecily—the girl from yesterday. Who thought I was staring. The one I made cry.

“All right,” says Cecily. “Thanks.”

“We need a staff writer to accompany Cecily and cover the event. Volunteers?”

No one speaks. No volunteers. Why not? Then I wonder: Is it because of me? Is it because I stared at her yesterday and made her cry, and now everyone thinks she’s weird? I start to feel sorry for her.

The seconds stretch like minutes, each sharp tick… tick… tick of the wall clock ringing painfully in my ears. I consider how she must feel.

She probably hates me for what I did to her, for embarrassing her like that. And I can’t stand the thought of someone hating me. The art museum visit would be a chance to win her over, to prove that I’m a nice guy, a guy people like if they get to know me.

“I’ll go,” I say.

“Great, thanks, Will,” says Mrs. Everbrook. “This will be for the news section.”

A few minutes later, I hear someone approach and sit down at the desk beside me. I wait. Nothing happens. And then I feel a single finger brush the outside of my hand, requesting my attention.

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” she says. “It’s Cecily, by the way.”

“I know. I know your voice,” I mean. “Sorry. It won’t happen again.” I say.

“You mean because you’re wearing sunglasses today?” she asks.

So she noticed. I absently push them up the bridge of my nose.

They feel clunky and awkward on my face. They are as tall as my thumb on the front and the sides, only tapering at the part that sit on my ears. It’s like a megaphone calling attention to my blindness. But yesterday I realized that what Mom has always told me was correct: I should always wear my sunglasses. My eyes do make people uncomfortable. People like this girl Cecily.

“Yes, that’s why I’m wearing them.”

She shifts in her seat.

“If you want, I can drive us,” she offers. “To the museum.”

“You have a car?”

“My mom does. How about maybe we go tomorrow?”

“It’s a date,” I say, immediately cringing at my word choice.

As I head from journalism to lunch, I wonder if I will be able to sit with everyone from yesterday. I mean, if they decide they don’t want the blind kid joining their table on an ongoing basis, it would be oh so easy for them to just happen to sit at a different one. I’d have no way of ever knowing where. Or why.

At the school for the blind, the loners moved silently, rarely giving away their voiceprint and remaining mostly unknown to all but their roommates. The opposite, having everyone recognize your voice, meant you were either notorious or popular. I happened to be popular.

At this school, though, I have no idea how many people have even noticed me so far. And if they have, it’s probably only because I’m an anomaly.

I notice how much less obstructed my path is now that I’m walking alone, as opposed to when Mr. Johnston was guiding me through the hall yesterday and my cane was folded and hidden in my back pocket. Then I was merely a new student. Now I’m obviously a blind new student.

I walk to the same table as yesterday and set down my lunch bag.

“Hey, guys,” I say, pretending I’m confident, that I’m not worried I might be speaking to an empty table.

“Yo,” says Whitford.

“What’s up?” says Ion.

“You’re back!” says Nick.

They’re still here, I think with a great sigh of relief.