by Mary Pagones
Why are Calvin’s grades pretty mediocre? He can do the work. But he only cares about knowledge as it relates to theater. He knows obscure trivia about the American Revolution, the Paris sewer system, and the end of the Vietnam War because of Hamilton, Les Misérables and Miss Saigon, but he can’t be bothered to read an easy but boring book he’s going to be tested on in American literature like The Red Badge of Courage. Because he’s so used to being treated like an adult at the community theater where he performs as an actor and works as an ASM (assistant stage manager) during the summer—and he functions as a third parent to his younger sisters—Calvin tends to treat teachers more like amusing colleagues versus people who have power over his future. This is not conducive to a high GPA.
“The plays they put on at Rutgers are mostly for theater majors,” says Calvin. “Certainly the leads. Plus, I’ll have to work more during the school year and summer to pay for books, beer, and cigarettes. I need to make more than I’m making at the theater, so I should probably quit being an ASM after this summer. I’m thinking maybe I should find a job waiting tables, preferably at a restaurant frequented by old, desperate men willing to tip well.” He grins at me. He always looks a little bit evil in a cute way when he smiles. He stubs out his butt on his boot and throws it in a trash can. I will say, Calvin is a neat and considerate smoker, even though I don’t approve of his habit.
“Beer money? Don’t join a fraternity and become an idiot,” I say. “You could quit smoking.”
“Nah, I’m going to be commuting from home, which will be a bitch.”
“Same here, if I go to Rutgers. I wish more schools gave full scholarships for creative writing and drama.”
He shrugs. “But they don’t.”
“No arts for the poor,” I say in a British accent. Unlike my father, Calvin doesn’t protest that we’re not poor. When my father talks about poverty and says, “Liss, we’re not poor,” he looks at the whole world. When I talk about poverty, Calvin, Jacqui, and I only look at our high school. “It’s just such a shame, because you’re so talented.”
“Ditto with you and dance.”
“No, not at all. Dance is a hobby.”
“I saw what you did with Peter Pan. You saved that show.”
“Wow, thanks,” I say. “But I didn’t do anything special.” The drama teacher doesn’t know much (anything) about dancing. I’ve helped out with the choreography of the school play the past two years. It’s a little embarrassing, because everyone will say you’re so talented when I’m just demonstrating basic steps. Even Calvin’s an actor and a singer, not a dancer. Except for Calvin, drama and the arts in general are not Rosewood’s strong suit.
What I’m focused on right now is my writing. After giving it a lot of thought and seeing all the interest on Facebook at Pemberley, I’ve started to write my own sequel to Pride and Prejudice. But with a twist. I worked on it all last night.
Wickham watched Mary’s fingers caress the pages of her book. It would be good fun. He had already learned what it was like to overcome a woman with no scruples quite easily and profited. Even if she lacked Lydia’s comeliness, this type of woman would be a new and different kind of challenge.
I think about what Calvin said about my not having a grip on reality. Well, reality isn’t much fun, is it? You can hardly blame me.
“Are you still going to study English?” asks Calvin.
“Dance is for fun. English literature is my passion.”
“Honestly, Liss, isn’t that kind of a waste?”
“What, reading and writing books?”
“Trying to make a fictional living off of fictional characters. Even I’m not that unrealistic.”
I quicken my pace to match that of the border collie. It’s not fair to walk so slow for him, I think. He can’t help it that it’s his nature to run. Why did someone living in the suburbs here buy a dog like this, that’s never going to be happy confined to a yard?
“Slow down, Liss, I’m wheezing.”
“Your own fault for smoking so much. You’ll ruin your voice.”
“What does it matter after this year?” he asks.
“So, happier news. I met a guy,” I blurt out. “His name is Hugh. His father’s working in England for a year, so he’s spending his senior year in New Jersey.”
“British?”
“I wish, but a boyfriend having parents that live part of the time in the UK is almost like dating a real British person! His dad is a professor like my dad, only at Columbia University. Hugh is Catherine’s nephew and he’s staying with her. He’s dark-haired and handsome, unlike you.”
“If he’s your dance teacher’s nephew, I wouldn’t play with fire. There could be consequences if the two of you break up.”
“I’ll take the risk.”
“I guess the phrase, ‘Don’t spit where you eat,’ doesn’t show up in Jane Austen a whole lot?”
I smile and start to jog with my dog. His white-and-black butt is straining ahead of me, and my arm is a straight line from my shoulder to his leash. Calvin pants to keep up and his dog trails behind us all.
Calvin catches up and I slow back down to a walk. “Do you have this guy’s phone number yet? Have you hooked up?”
“Um…no. I told him I’d see him in school when I learned he was going to South. And gave him my phone number.”
“Has he called you?”
“He’s just settling in. I’m sure he doesn’t want to seem desperate.”
“Weak. Weak.”
“I don’t have the time or patience to wait much longer for my Mr. Darcy.”
“Is he your Mr. Darcy?”
“You know what I’d like to name this new dog? Wickham.”
“Huh?”
“I can’t believe that you still haven’t read or at least seen one version of Pride and Prejudice, after all of these years of friendship,” I say. “Improve your mind through extensive reading, my darling boy.” I put on a plummy accent again. “Wickham is the dashingly rakish antihero who marries the lusty Bennet daughter Lydia in Pride and Prejudice.”
“They had sluts in nineteenth-century England?”
“Oh, absolutely. So you’d fit in perfectly.” Calvin takes a deep drag of his cigarette and shakes his head, as if he’s not sure I’m making this up as I go along. I continue, “Wickham only marries Lydia after Mr. Darcy pays off Wickham’s debts. Lydia has been—gasp—living in London with Wickham. Unmarried! In sin! Darcy preserves the reputation of Elizabeth’s family, though Wickham also tried and failed to elope with Darcy’s sister Georgiana.”
“Busy guy, this Wickham.”
“You have no idea.”
“Let’s compromise and call the dog Wicked.”
“You just want to name him Wicked because it’s the title of a musical,” I say.
“I’m sorry, I’m not the scholar of classical literature that you are. No one else but you knows or cares what a Wickham is, and the dog won’t get adopted with a stupid name like that.”
“Okay, Wicked it is.”
“I wish we were doing Wicked, I might fucking get a decent part in it,” he says. “At least Spamalot.”
I start to sing, “Spam, spam, spam,” only unlike Calvin, I don’t have a great voice, so he interrupts to shut me up.
“So I have a question. What’s so wonderful about Darcy, again? Since I will actually have fake-read the book at some point for AP English Lit this year, most likely.”
I give him the full rundown for the umpteenth time. “Like I keep telling you, Pride and Prejudice is about the Bennet family. Mr. Bennet has five daughters who can’t inherit his estate because they’re all, well, women. His wife’s always trying to get his daughters married off to rich men for the family’s survival. Darcy is this kind of socially awkward, broody type who hates dancing and hates people in general, unless he knows them well. When he sees the second-oldest daughter Elizabeth at a ball, she overhears him judge her ‘tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me.’
To dance, that is. Elizabeth hates him on sight and thinks she’s in love with Wickham, the rake.”
“You’re the only person I know who uses words like ‘rake’ to describe guys, Liss.”
“Shut up and let me finish. Because she’s the only woman who’s not into him, Darcy is intrigued and falls in love. Elizabeth isn’t as pretty as her sister Jane, but she’s fiercely intelligent and witty. The book is basically how she overcomes her disgust at Darcy’s pride, while he overcomes her prejudice. A good character wins a woman a good match, though Elizabeth’s not a perfect person or conventionally beautiful. Darcy learns to be a better man because of his relationship with Elizabeth.”
“Sounds extremely complicated. My motto is simpler: ‘When someone tells you who he is, believe him.’ No second chances. Look how Mark screwed me over. That bullshit covering up our relationship for a year. Then he dumps me when things get difficult. Bet he comes out in college and has sex with half the Stanford swim team by the time the first semester’s over.”
“He didn’t screw you over—you let him screw you over. You should never have consented to the closeted bullshit, I agree.”
“The point is, Mark always made other people’s opinions the priority, not me. It fit a pattern. There’s always a pattern to how people behave. Your whole Mr. Darcy thing, a total turn-around, is not real life.”
“First of all, you have to read the book because that just isn’t true.” I’m actually getting kind of annoyed, which I always do when people make assumptions about Jane Austen. I’m also finding it hard to defend Darcy. That makes me uncomfortable. Sometimes I feel that Calvin has this feral intelligence I don’t possess. Perhaps he has learned something profound about humanity from playing so many horrible people and dental cavities ever since he started acting in grade school. No, he just needs to read the book. That’s the answer to every misunderstanding.
“Men who go around insulting random women don’t generally turn out to be awesome people,” says Calvin.
“Darcy saves Elizabeth’s family from ruin. He uses his money and his influence to prevent Elizabeth’s sister Lydia from being disgraced.”
“The Wickwhatever rake? Does he have money?”
“No, he’s poor because…”
“Oh, now I get it. Gee, who should Elizabeth choose, the poor asshole rake or the rich, quiet guy who helped her family? And the rich guy’s actually nice, even though he comes across at first like a total shit. That’s convenient.”
“You have to read the book. It sounds like that, but it’s not like that.”
“It’s actually more entertaining watching you get mad about something no one else cares about, Liss.”
Chapter 6
The Efficacy Of Poetry In Driving Away Love
AP English Literature is my first period class and therefore also my homeroom. My first day back, I immediately spy a poster with a pen-and-ink sketch of Elizabeth Bennet holding a book. The poster reads: The Improvement Of the Mind By Extensive Reading.
“Yes! I love Pride and Prejudice.”
“How nice to hear so much enthusiasm so early in the morning.” The teacher, Mr. Clarke, seems surprised.
I only know Mr. Clarke by sight—and sound. Mr. Clarke was born in England and he has a British accent, although it’s not quite like the accent of the upper-class characters of my beloved BBC period dramas (not like the lower-class characters either, though). Regardless, if one teacher was going to be from the UK at your high school, you’d half hope he’d have at least a little bit of Pemberley lake scene fantasy potential. (Though I know Darcy’s infamous swim is not in the sacred book.) But you’d be hoping in agonized vain. Mr. Clarke has pale, damp skin and pale, colorless hair that’s always brushing the back of his collar, except when he gets a haircut like, once a month and has too much hacked off. He’s clean-shaven and wears round wire glasses; in fact, he’s built like a series of circles stacked on top of one another.
Mr. Clarke always wears a tie, even when it’s a billion degrees outside in early September. Regardless of where he was originally from, he’s been living in the United States for years, teaching at Rosewood South forever. He’s the kind of teacher kids make fun of behind his back all the time, but never to his face.
I know he took a leave of absence last year. Mr. Clarke’s one of the few teachers at the high school with a PhD—admittedly only from Rutgers—which makes me even less excited about possibly going to my state’s public university. I’m not crazy about the idea of becoming a high school teacher, especially at a New Jersey high school.
Still, the fact Mr. Clarke likes Jane Austen wins him immediate respect. “Pride and Prejudice is my favorite novel. Favorite, favorite. Be prepared for lots of opinions when we discuss it,” I say. “Actually, just be prepared for lots of opinions in general on the subject of English literature.”
Mr. Clarke looks at me quizzically. “Thank you, Ms. Tennant, I have been duly forewarned.”
I hear Calvin groaning, “Great. She’s getting encouragement.”
There are posters all over Mr. Clarke’s walls, but not of the movie or television adaptations of literary works English teachers usually hang up when they’re desperately trying to make the books they’re teaching seem cool. One is the famous painting of the Lady of Shalott, who has bags under her eyes almost as big as Mr. Clarke’s; she’s on her barge, going down the river to her death in a beautiful white nightgown of a dress. Another is of a man in armor being knighted by a woman. There are some vintage posters of Shakespearean productions from long ago. Not movie versions, but posters from the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre of London, and other theater companies with names I don’t recognize. The wastebasket near Mr. Clarke’s desk has a picture of a man wearing a crown and is emblazoned with the quote: “I wasted time/And now doth time waste me.”
The poster right behind Clarke’s desk is another Pride and Prejudice pen-and-ink image, this one of Mrs. Bennett. It reads: You Have No Compassion For My Poor Nerves.
After class officially begins, Mr. Clarke hands out the syllabus. I look at the list of full-length novels and plays and grin. Pride and Prejudice is required; so are Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights: The holy trinity, as far as I’m concerned, of British novels.
The other kids turn first to the list of full-length assignments. I can tell because I hear groans while I’m ticking off in my mind all the books I’ve already read and loved. Eventually, I turn the page, too.
The list of written assignments is admittedly extensive. I’ve never had to write a fifteen-page paper before, certainly not two. And that’s only the beginning. There are papers or tests scheduled every week.
I hear Calvin whisper one very soft “fuck.” It’s unintentionally audible, because everyone else has fallen silent. We’re all kind of collectively terrified for a split second.
“It’s always gratifying when my students use elevated Anglo-Saxon vocabulary,” says Clarke, beginning to write on the whiteboard in red. “Arse and bollocks, for example. ‘Fuck’ has Germanic roots. Since this class is focused on the British literary canon, if you wish to express your displeasure, calling me an ‘ass’ would be more appropriate. But please do research some other Anglo-Saxon words if those don’t suit you. ‘You taught me language, and my profit on ’t. / Is I know how to curse.’ Can anyone identify this quote?”
I can tell he thinks no one will. I thrust my arm up in the air. “The Tempest. Caliban to Prospero,” I blurt out.
“Correct, Ms. Tennant. A student living up to her boast on the first day. I am impressed.” He sounds amused and maybe the teeniest bit surprised (but not very).
Hugh is sitting in the back, I notice…notice too late, after I’ve already situated myself up front, as I always do in English classes.
I wait for Hugh and follow him out. “So far, how does this compare to your high school in New York?”
Hugh’s in the exact same black and white clothes as when I met him at Catherine’s dance
studio. I assume he’s washed them since. He shrugs. “I went to a progressive school in the city. We didn’t have to read books like this, we had self-directed learning. Like, I created my own fake hedge fund for my econ class and designed an app for computer science. English class is where I made the short films I’ll be submitting as part of my portfolio for film school. I’ve managed to avoid reading Shakespeare.”
“Oh,” I say. “Did you get grades at your progressive school?” I have no idea what “progressive” means in this context. I’m envisioning no chairs and people dancing in the hallways. Except for Hugh, who doesn’t dance.
“Yeah, we all got As so long as we turned in some work.” He grins at me. “The big advantage was that the school was flexible when my parents were traveling a lot. I could hand in work on my own schedule. Do independent study for credit.”
“Rosewood South might be a teeny bit of a culture shock,” I say.
“Well, that English class was. I hate writing and reading.”
“Um, how are you going to write your own films if you don’t write and read?”
“Film is a visual medium,” he says, very authoritatively.
“I’m going to pre-calculus next. I’d love to turn in a film for my first homework assignment, but I doubt that will be acceptable.”
“I have a tutor already for the SAT, so I’m sure they can bring me up to speed,” he says. “It’s only English class, it’s not brain surgery. I guess it’s useful for me to go to a more normal school before college, like my parents said.”
Apparently, I’m the only person in the world who still studies on her own.
I understand the first day of my math class because it’s mostly review. I don’t expect instantaneous comprehension of numbers to become a habit. Then I have AP American History. Normally I like history, but this class, unlike Mr. Clarke’s AP English class, seems primarily focused on preparing us for the AP exam—according to the syllabus, there are tests almost every two weeks, and only a few, short written papers.
