“There she is,” Stevie whispers, nudging me. “Bushy pussy, huh?”
I giggle, and then hold my fist out for a bump.
“Where were you on Monday, Miss Decker?” Nicole shouts out. “I wanted to come find you, I have information on who Sarah-Jane Zdanski is interviewing tonight. Were you ill, Miss Decker, on Monday?”
“No, Nicole,” Decker says, as she leans down to place her bag beside her desk. “I wasn’t ill.”
“Then where were you, Miss Decker?” Hawkins asks.
“I was… I was otherwise engaged.”
“She was getting an AIDs test,” I blurt out.
And then the whole room falls silent. Normally I get a laugh. Or sometimes the students will make an “Eewww” sound. But right now everybody is silent. Everybody. Even Stevie.
Then Decker’s shoes click off the floor, and slowly make their way toward me.
“Brody, I wanna see your mother up here first thing in the morning,” she says.
“No, Miss… you can’t.”
“I want to see your mother!’” she grunts, with her teeth closed, “In my classroom first thing in the morning. Do you understand?” She bends over me as I fold myself into my desk, resting my head on my arms.
“Yes, Miss Decker,” I mumble.
“I’ve warned you about how you speak to me.”
I glance up at her. She looks really angry with me; her mouth is turned down and her face is all red. Then she finally spins on her heels and makes her way back to her desk.
“Lover’s tiff, huh?” Stevie whispers. And then he coughs into his elbow again.
“Okay,” Decker shouts, just as the bell rings to signal the start of class. “You were saying you think you know who Zdanski is interviewing tonight, Nicole, huh? I think I might know, too.”
“Who is it, Miss Decker?” Caoimhe shouts in her cool Irish accent from the back of the classroom. Caoimhe’s actually pretty cool; certainly for a chick with lotsa freckles. I enjoyed being around her and Wendy and Kai the other night. We sat by the monument talking for over an hour. Though they haven’t said anything to me or Stevie in school this week. Maybe they didn’t like us. I don’t know. I liked them, though. Sitting around talking was actually pretty cool.
“Well… let’s just keep it a secret, shall we, Nicole?” Decker says, winking before she turns to begin writing on the chalkboard.
“Nicole looks hot today with that ponytail,’ Stevie whispers to me. “Think I might fuck her again.”
“Did you fuck her?” I whisper back. “Thought you said she just gave you a blowie?”
He shrugs his shoulders.
“Been with too many chicks to remember, dude,” he says.
Then he coughs into his elbow again.
CAOIMHE LARKIN
I slide into the seat next to Meric and stare at him, just to see if he’ll glance back and offer one of his awkward smiles. But he doesn’t. He just keeps his eyes down at the edge of the desk, like he doesn’t know who the hell I am.
I feel bad that I haven’t spoken to him all week. I’ve just had too much going on, especially with Wendy’s Mom. We’ve been up to the hospice every evening after school. Except for Saturday. That’s when we hung out with Kai and Brody and Stevie down by the center monument.
Nicole shouts out, distracting me from my memories of giggling on Saturday.
“Where were you on Monday, Miss Decker?” she asks.
As Miss Decker turns to answer her, I take the time to nudge at Meric’s elbow.
“Hey,” I whisper. He looks up at me through his fringe. “Have ya had a good week?”
He huffs through his nose. Then it goes silent before Miss Decker erupts. I’m not sure what’s happened. All I know is she has stomped her way over to Brody’s desk and is shouting at the top of her voice at him, her finger pointing in his face.
“What he say? What he say?” I whisper to Meric.
Meric shrugs. And then he goes back to staring at the edge of his desk again while Decker lets Brody have it; her face red, her pointed finger now shaking.
“Did you have a good week?” Meric whispers to me.
“Yeah. Well. No. Kinda,” I whisper back.
“How did your psychic reading go on Saturday?”
I don’t answer, because Miss Decker has spotted us whispering and is staring down at us, just as she was about to start the lesson by discussing the Sarah-Jane Zdanski interview that’s on tonight. Apparently she and Nicole already know who’s being interviewed. Sure beats the hell out of me, even if me and Wendy and Kai and Brody and Stevie had about fifteen guesses each on Saturday. Brody tried to tell us with a straight face that he thought Sarah-Jane Zdanski was going to interview Michael Jordan because that’s how much build up these interviews have had. Then we all fell back on the grass into fits of laughter, even though it wasn’t really that funny.
“Well?” Meric says.
I turn and lean toward him.
“I forgot all about going to the psychic,” I whisper.
“Excuse me!” Miss Decker calls out. “Caoimhe and Meric, what are you two talking about?”
I decide to take the hit, only because it’s so unusual for Meric to talk in class. And it was me who started talking to him anyway. All he wanted to do was stare at the edge of the desk.
“Sorry, Miss Decker,” I say, standing up. “We were just talking about… about, well....” I pause.
“About what?” Miss Decker asks, holding her hands to her hips while everybody twists their necks to stare back at me and Meric. I don’t want her to shout at me like she just shouted at Brody. And I certainly don’t want my Mam called up to the school.
“Ehh... about psychics,” I say as I hide my neck by dipping it into my shoulders.
Everyone laughs. At least it sounds as if everyone is laughing.
“Psychics?” Decker says. And as she says it, her lips twitch into a half-smile. “What about psychics?”
“Well…” I say, staring down, like Meric does, at the edge of the desk. “I was supposed to go to one on Saturday night and I forgot. I was just telling Meric that I forgot to go, that’s all.”
“Do you believe in psychics, Miss Decker?” Nicole shouts out after shooting up her hand.
“’Course not,” Miss Decker says.
“Huh?” I say, lifting my gaze.
“Well, listen,” she says, brushing down the creases of her blouse, “I don’t want to tell people what they should or shouldn’t believe in. Each to their own. Do you believe in psychics, Caoimhe?”
I look around the class at all of the heads turned toward me and decided to just shrug my shoulders.
“Dunno,” I say.
“Out of interest, how much does the psychic charge you to be able to tell you your future?” Miss Decker asks.
I shrug again.
“Forty dollars.”
“Forty dollars?” she says, her voice going all high-pitched. “Listen Caoimhe, if somebody could really tell the future of another human being, you think they’d just charge forty bucks?” Then everyone laughs again, and I sit down feeling mortified. “Trust me Caoimhe, if somebody could really tell the future, they’d be on Oprah sharing their phenomenon with the world, they wouldn’t be working outta some rented tent somewhere, charging forty bucks.”
Most of the students turn back around, but some continue to stare at my red face.
“Hey,” Miss Decker says, pointing at me and winking. “I like you Caoimhe. I think you’re awesome and bright and super intelligent and I love having you in this class. In fact, I like you so much I’ve just saved you forty bucks.”
Everybody laughs again. And so I join in this time. And as I laugh, I feel relieved. Not relief because I can forget about rebooking an appointment with Madam Aspectu. And not relief because my embarrassment has magically flushed itself away. But relief because for a flash of a moment there I thought I might have to not like Miss Decker. When I love Miss Decker. Really love her. I think she�
�s an awesome teacher. I love how she teaches. I love how she has just taught me in the space of two seconds there how bullshit psychics are. How did I never cop that on? Forty bucks for having a super power? Of course that doesn’t make any sense.
“Anyway...” Miss Decker claps her hands twice. “Let’s move on with the lesson. The Sarah-Jane Zdanski interviews are on tonight and I want you all…”
WENDY CAMPBELL
Sure is quiet here without Momma breathing so heavy and Sally’s cartoons blaring loud from the TV.
I lean over the sofa and turn on the lamp to hear the sizzle of the bulb as it strains to shine. Then I look around our tiny home and can’t help but compare it to the one I’ve just been in.
We went back to the Larkin’s to have dinner this evening after me and Caoimhe spent two hours up with Momma in the hospice straight from school. She wasn’t sitting up today and didn’t speak so much, but she is still doing a lot better than she was when she was lying here on this stinking makeshift bed.
Sally is loving life with little Aine. I think they might be best friends the rest o’ their lives. A bit like me and Caoimhe. When I was over in the Larkin’s house earlier, Sally and Aine were playin’ hide and seek in the backyard, only stopping to take bites out of the burgers and fries Mrs. Larkin had made for us all before they were back out running and giggling and hiding again. I know we’re gonna lose Momma real soon, but I can’t help thinkin’ we have so much to look forward to. Momma might not, but me and Sally sure do. We have our whole lives ahead of us.
I press my finger on the television and hold down the button until the screen flashes all the way up to channel number nine. Then I sit back into the fold-up sofa that I thought Momma was gonna die on, before I lean a little forward to snatch at my school notebook and pen. Even with all the drama going on around me, I’m actually excited for this. I enjoy Miss Decker’s classes. She makes learning really interesting; makes me think differently like no other teacher does. Me and Caoimhe and Kai and Stevie and Brody had a good laugh talking about American History last Saturday down by the monument. In fact it was this very moment we were talking about for almost an hour, until it got dark and we all decided it was time to go home.
“Coming up in two minutes,” Sarah-Jane Zdanski says straight into the camera, “my exclusive interviewees will finally be revealed. Stay tuned, and don’t go anywhere.”
KAI CHAYTON
I drape my new yellow dress across my bed and then step back three paces so I can take it all in.
It’s so cool that I don’t feel nervous. I’m just gonna do it. I’m gonna wear that sexy little number into school tomorrow and become the new me for the very first time. I’m a little nervous to see what some people’s reactions will be, but mostly I’m just excited about it. I’m looking forward to my new chapter. My new life. My new me.
I spoke with Miss Decker today. She held me back after class, told me she was proud of how I was holding up after I’d returned to school this week. She said I look much happier. She’s right. I do. I know I do. I can see it when I look in the mirror. In fact, I don’t even need to look in the mirror to see it. Because I can genuinely feel the happiness inside of me.
“Kai, you just need to be the person you want to be. Don’t let anybody hold you back,” she said to me as she rubbed my shoulder. She’s an awesome teacher. Always has been.
So, I decided, there and then, that I was gonna be the person I wanted to be. To hell with what anybody else thinks. I’m gonna dress how I wanna dress. Starting the moment I get dressed for school tomorrow morning.
“Kai,” Momma yells out as I’m standing with my fingers stroking my chin, lost in how pretty my yellow dress is.
“Yes Momma?”
“It’s about to start.”
I race down the stairs to see Poppa in his armchair, staring over the evening newspaper at me. I pause in the doorway and nod at him and I think he kinda nods back. It looked like a nod to me.
“Thank you, Momma,” I say.
I turn to my backpack in the corner of the room, and take out a notebook and a pen.
“So who do you think she’s interviewing?” Momma asks.
“No idea,” I reply.
“I heard everybody in town talking about it today,” she says. “You know Winnie Deffley who runs the catering company? Well, she seems to think Sarah-Jane is interviewing somebody local; like from Lebanon. Cos there sure is a lotta whisperin’ goin’ on.”
I smile at Momma as I stretch over her to reach for the remote control, then I sit back into my favorite armchair — opposite Poppa — from where I turn up the volume on the TV.
“Well, we’re about to find out, Momma,” I say.
The news jingle blares loudly, so loudly, that I take the volume down, and then there she is: Sarah-Jane Zdanski—looking so darn sexy in a low-cut dress that Poppa folds over his newspaper and sits more upright in his chair.
MERIC MILLER
The page is still blank. All bright. All white. Well… mostly white. I’ve scribbled two words and have drawn a small box in the corner, but that’s all I’ve managed all week. And now that I’m comin’ so close to the deadline, I can’t concentrate with Mom snoring all up in her bedroom. I’m supposed to have this newspaper written and printed before first class starts tomorrow morning. But I just don’t feel as if I’m in the right mood for it this week. It’ll be the first time I’ll have let Principal Klay down since he gave me the job as editor. But what’s the point at this stage? Ain’t nobody read the darn newspaper anyway.
I normally have the sports section all done by Wednesday. But I didn’t have the concentration this week to get a quote from Coach Quill. Prolly ’cause I kept thinkin’ bout Caoimhe the whole time. I just kept playin’ over and over in my head how her psychic reading with Aspectu mighta gone. Though now I know she didn’t go. And that she will never go again. Not now after what Decker said to her in class today. Maybe I should write about that on the front page of the newspaper for tomorrow: Miss Decker is a cunt! Or perhaps I could write the same about Caoimhe. I saw her last Saturday when I was riding back from Esbon; sitting in the grass by the monument, laughin’ and jokin’ with Stevie and Brody and Kai. In fact I keep seeing it over and over again in my head. S’why this darn newspaper hasn’t been written this week.
I ball my fists up, then grab the page and bunch it up into a ball before throwing it across my bedroom. My breathing is scaring me. It’s gettin’ really noisy. Almost as noisy as Mom’s snores. So, I snatch at my door and walk straight into the living-room. To drown out the noise of the snores comin’ from Mom’s bedroom, I punch my finger at the button on the TV, and before I even have a chance to sit down I can already hear her sexy voice. I forgot this was on tonight. Not quite sure how I forgot, ’specially as Decker didn’t shut the hell up talkin’ about it in class. Though I guess all’s I was doin’ in her class was staring down at the edge of the desk, seeing Caoimhe laughin’ and jokin’ with Stevie and Brody and Kai over and over in my mind again.
“Well, the work you have been doing is absolutely incredible,” Sarah-Jane Zdanski says, beaming a smile at the luckiest dude in the whole world who is sitting next to her. Her knees are almost touching his. He’s gotta have a hard-on. Who wouldn’t if they were that close to SJZ? “Do you feel burdened by the expectation, Senator, or is that something you thrive on?’” she asks.
“Well,” the gray-haired man says, rubbing at his chin. “I have to say I am conscious of the expectation but…”
Who the hell is this guy? This is the interview everybody’s been gossiping about for weeks? Some ugly, old-ass gray-haired dude I never saw before my whole life?
“Well, we are so grateful for all you do.” I tune back in when Sarah-Jane begins to speak again. “So now is the time for you to make your big announcement, Senator Edgar Owen. Are you ready?” She stands up, waves her hand for this Senator dude to follow her toward the camera. Jeez, she looks so good in that dress. It’s so tight.
So tight it’s as if I can see all of her.
“Okay,” the Senator dude says to the camera, “it now gives me great pleasure to announce that the school chosen by all members of the State committee to win the Kansas State School Grant for an overseas trip to Europe, 1997, is…. It’s Median High School, in Lebanon, North Kansas.”
“What the fuck?”
“Congratulations students of Median High School,” Sarah-Jane says. “We will be adding — to our panel here — the lucky Principal of that victorious High School after this quick word from our sponsors. Don’t go anywhere.”
I ball my fists up again. Only because I know they’re all gonna have so much fun in Europe. I shudda stolen four hundred bucks from Mom’s purse or some old lady in Esbon and gone on the trip. Though what would the point of that have been? Me traveling thousands of miles and spending hundreds of dollars just to be ignored by everyone—like I am in school every day…
Motherfuckers.
I breathe in and out through my nose, making almost the same noises Mom is with her fuckin’ snoring.
Then I snap at the TV, turning off the commercials because I can’t concentrate, not with the annoying noise of my own breathing.
In. Out. In. Out.
They’re getting faster. And louder. Gruntier. My hands are beginning to sweat.
I turn quickly on my heels, then push at Mom’s bedroom door to see her grunting her loud snores from the back of her throat with her mouth wide open. Then I bend down, pull at her oversized pink purse, taking all of the money out of it and tossing it on to her bed. I feel for the cold steel of the butt of her gun. Then I storm back out to our living room where I stare at the blank TV screen that I can actually see myself in while I press the barrel of the gun against my temple.
In The Middle of Middle America Page 23
