The Lesbiana's Guide to Catholic School(9)

“Hi, I’m Jenna!” says the cute blonde. “This is Emily and Karen.” She points to her friends, who smile as she introduces them. Karen has strawberry-blond hair and a ton of freckles. Emily’s short brown hair barely fits into her ponytail. While they’re all white, Karen has a pretty obvious spray tan, and Emily’s dark brown hair contrasts with her vampire-looking skin, which looks to have never seen the light of day. All three of them have matching blue ribbons as hair ties.

“I’m Yamilet.” I hold my hand out to shake Jenna’s before I realize this is not a business meeting. I don’t know. It feels like everything should be formal when you’re in uniforms.

“Oh my God, she’s so cute,” Jenna says.

“What?” I feel like I’m blushing.

Emily giggles. “It’s cute that you do handshakes.”

It’s cute that you think I care you’re leaving. I remember how Bianca’s laugh salted the wound. How I froze up in front of my boss and the customers, who all seemed to be enjoying the show. We’re not friends anymore. Go ahead and run away to Catholic school.

“What?” I swallow. I know I missed something.

“How do you pronounce your name again?” Jenna asks.

“Yah-mee-let,” I repeat phonetically. But the look on their faces tells me they’ll never be able to pronounce it. “But if you want, you can call me Yami.”

“Yummy, that’s adorable,” Karen says, scooting on top of my desk.

“Thanks.” I try not to sound annoyed that she couldn’t even pronounce my nickname.

“So where are you from?” Karen asks. All three of them lean toward me like it’s some kind of secret.

“Rover . . . it’s a public school. You’ve probably never heard of it. It’s kind of far.”

“No, I meant, um, like, I like your accent. Where are you from?” She squints and cranes her neck. Emily’s face goes red.

Oh.

“Phoenix.” I force a smile. I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of telling her what she really wants to know. Who does that?

“Oh my God, Karen, you can’t just ask people where they’re from!” Emily scolds.

The next bell rings, and I take a deep breath. This is going to be a long day.

The teacher, Mrs. Havens, is tall, overly fake-tanned, and platinum blond. After running a quick roll call, she turns the TV on, and the script for the Pledge of Allegiance is displayed on the screen. Everyone stands, puts their hands on their hearts, and starts chanting.

My dad always told me I don’t have to do or say anything I don’t believe in; he only stood for what he felt was right. “Liberty and justice for all” never applied to people like us. The last time I saw him in person was at a protest. There was this anti-immigration law getting passed that would make racial profiling legal and my dad wasn’t having it. I thought his green card would keep him safe, but I was wrong. He got arrested at the protest, and I haven’t seen him since.

After that, I stopped standing for the pledge.

I was never the only one sitting at Rover, but things are different here. Richer. Whiter. Here, sitting like I used to would be admitting what an outsider I am. I stand but don’t say the words. It’s the closest thing to protesting I can do without causing a scene. My dad would be ashamed.

Mrs. Havens notices that my mouth isn’t moving, and she gives me a look. I want to stare deadpan back at her and continue to say nothing. But I’m too chickenshit for that level of confrontation, so I start mouthing the words “watermelon, watermelon, watermelon.”

What’s worse than making us do the pledge every morning at school? Making us pray every morning. It’s not that I have anything against prayer, but it’s weird that it’s a required activity at school. Everyone mumbles the same prayer, some of them with closed eyes. Something about God’s love for us and our duty to serve him? It’s nice that so many people feel loved like that, but I can’t relate. If the God I grew up learning about is real, I seriously doubt he loves me. Why else would he make me gay and then send me to hell over it? I left that abusive relationship a long time ago. I would have left it earlier if Mom let me, but it wasn’t until Dad got taken away that she had to really hustle by selling jewelry on top of her full-time call center job. Even though she still believes harder than anyone I know, that’s when she stopped having time to take us to church. That’s probably why I’ve never heard of the prayer the class is all reciting from memory, so I just stand there looking like a dumbass.

“All right, welcome to Grade Eleven Language Arts. I hope you’ve all had a productive summer. I want to get right down to it, since you were all already sent your syllabi. Who wants to present first?” Mrs. Havens doesn’t waste any time.

The summer assignment was to do a persuasive presentation on a topic of our choosing. I did mine about how much of a buzzkill homework is. Only one person volunteers to go first. From what I can tell, she’s one of, like, four East Asian kids at the school. I hear a couple of murmurs and hushed laughter when her hand shoots up, and I’m intrigued.

The teacher doesn’t seem happy, either. She looks around the room, as if trying to find another raised hand. The girl smiles victoriously when no one volunteers.

“All right, Ms. Taylor. What’ve you got for us?” Mrs. Havens sighs out loud.