Tell Me Three Things(6)

Are they laughing at me?

“Is she for real?” the blonder girl mock-whispers to her only slightly less blond friend, and then glances back at me. They are both pretty in that lucky, conventional way. Shiny, freshly blown yellow hair, blue eyes, clear skin, skinny. Oddly big boobs. Short skirts that I’m pretty sure violate the school’s dress code, and four coats of makeup that was probably applied with the help of a YouTube tutorial. I’ll be honest: I wouldn’t mind being lucky in precisely that way, being that rare teenager who has never stared down the head of a pimple. My face, even on its clearest days, has what my grandmother has always not-so-charitably called character. It takes a second, maybe a third look for someone to notice my potential. That is, if I have any. “Did you see that scrunchie?”

Oh crap. I was right. They are talking about me. Not only will I spend the next two years without a single friend, but all those 20/20 specials on school bullying will finally make sense. Somebody Nobody may be a prank, but he/she is right: this place is a war zone. I’m going to need my own personal “It Gets Better” video.

My face burns. I touch my finger to my head, a sign of weakness, yes, but also a reflex. There’s nothing wrong with my scrunchie. I read on Rookie that they’re back. Scarlett wears one too sometimes, and she won Best Dressed last year. I fight the tears filling my eyes. No, they will not see me cry. Scratch that. They will not make me cry.

Screw them.

“Shhh, she can hear you,” the other one says, and then looks back at me, at once apologetic and gleeful. She’s high with a vicarious bitch thrill. Then they walk on—sashay, really, as if they think there’s an audience watching and whistling. I glance behind me, just to make sure, but no, I’m the only one here. They are swaying their perfect asses for my benefit.

I pull out my phone. Text Scarlett. It’s lunchtime for me, but she’s just getting out of school. I hate that we are far apart in both space and time.



Me: I don’t fit in here. Everyone is a size 0. Or 00.

Scarlett: Oh no, don’t tell me we have to do the whole U R NOT FAT thing. The entire basis of our friendship is that we are not the kind of girls who have to do that for each other.



We have never been the types who are all, “I hate my left pinky finger! It’s just so…bendy.” Scarlett is right. I have better things to do than compare myself with the unattainable ideals established by magazine art directors who shave off thighs with a finger swipe. But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to noticing that I’m on the bigger side of things here. How is that possible? Do they put laxatives in the water?



Me: And blond. Everyone is. Just. So. California. Blond.

Scarlett: DON’T LET THEM TURN YOU INTO ONE OF THOSE GIRLS. You promised not to go LA on me.

Me: Don’t worry. I’d have to actually talk to people to go LA.

Scarlett: Crap. Really? That bad?

Me: Worse.



I quickly snap a selfie of me alone on a bench with my half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I smile instead of pout, though, and label with the hashtag #Day14. Those blondes would pout, turn it into an I’m so sexy picture, and then Instagram it. Look how hot I am not eating my sandwich!



Scarlett: Lose the scrunchie. A little too farm girl with that shirt.



I pull my hair loose. This is why I need Scarlett here. Maybe she’s the reason I’ve never been teased before. If we hadn’t met at the age of four, I’d likely be an even bigger dork.



Me: Thanks. Scrunchie officially lost. Consider it burned.

Scarlett: Who’s the hot guy photobombing you?

Me: What?



I squint at my phone. The Batman was looking out the window just as I took my shot. Not photobombing exactly, but captured for posterity. So it turns out Blond and Blonder did have an audience after all. Of course they did. Girls like that always have an audience.

My face flushes red again. Not only am I a big fat loser who eats lunch alone with an unironic scrunchie in her hair, but I’m stupid enough to get caught taking a selfie of this wonderful moment in my life. By a cute guy, no less.

I check the little box next to the picture. Hit delete. Wish it were that easy to erase everything else.





CHAPTER 4


“T. S. Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land.’ Anyone read it?” asks Mrs. Pollack, my new AP English teacher. Nobody raises their hand, myself included, though I did read it a couple of years ago, in what now feels like a different lifetime. My mom used to leave poetry books strewn around our house, as if they were part of some unspoken scavenger hunt, a scattering of convoluted clues leading to I don’t know what. When I was bored, I’d pick up the books off her nightstand or from the pile next to the bathtub and randomly flip them open. I wanted to read wherever she had highlighted or scribbled illegible margin notes. I often wondered why a certain line was marked with faded yellow.

I never asked her. Why didn’t I ask her? One of the worst parts about someone dying is thinking back to all those times you didn’t ask the right questions, all those times you stupidly assumed you’d have all the time in the world. And this too: how all that time feels like not much time at all. What’s left feels like something manufactured. The overexposed ghosts of memories.

In “The Waste Land,” my mother had underlined the first sentence and marked it with two exuberant asterisks: “April is the cruellest month.”