by Kat Spears
“I’m not sure if that’s an interesting existential argument, or just depressing.”
“That’s the point. The ultimate meaning of life is just to be a host for these bacteria. It got me thinking. He could be right. It could be that all of this”—I pause and gesture at my body, moving my hands in circles as if washing myself—“is just an ecosystem for bacteria. Nothing more. Which would mean that everything we do is ultimately meaningless.”
Ms. Guinn sits still, her plastic spoon poised above the cottage cheese container as she looks critically at the curds within. “Dane, as your adult role model, I have to tell you that if you are using recreational drugs, you should stop. It isn’t good for your brain development.”
“I am on drugs, but not for recreation. Off-brand Prozac. And Klonopin for acute anxiety attacks. But my therapist has been reducing the amount of antidepressants I take. I’m practically normal.”
“So, what are you trying to tell me?” she wants to know. “Everything is meaningless because we’re all just ultimately hosts for flesh-eating bacteria?”
“It’s something to think about.”
“I suppose. But even if that’s true, so what? You still have to have a job. You still have to get out of bed in the morning and eat to stay alive. If life is truly meaningless, well, we’re here anyway. Might as well enjoy ourselves.”
“Is that why you’re eating cottage cheese for lunch?” I ask her. “Because you love it so much and you’re just trying to enjoy yourself?”
“I eat cottage cheese because it’s low-fat and high-protein and a couple of months ago I saw a picture my niece posted of me on Facebook in which I had three chins.”
“You’re a slave,” I say as I cross my arms over my chest and shake my head. “Just like everyone else. I thought you were different.”
She tosses the cottage cheese container into the trash along with her plastic spoon. Then she places her hands flat on the desk in front of her and sighs. “No, Dane. No. I’m not different from anybody else. Maybe you think you’re special. That your life has to have some special meaning the rest of us don’t have. But I know that life is just what you make it. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
I sit forward suddenly and put my elbows on my knees. I want to make her understand. No one seems to ever be able to understand what I’m saying. It’s so frustrating. “What I’m thinking is if we’re just hosts for bacteria, then maybe Earth is just a host for us. And the earth is floating out in space among all these other planets that are just hosts for other life-forms. Always and forever without end. Do you see what that would mean? It would mean that the entire universe is meaningless.”
Ms. Guinn holds my gaze for a long minute—she doesn’t say anything, but doesn’t break the connection, either. Maybe she really is thinking about what I’m saying.
Finally, she says, “I’ve noticed that you seem to have an interest in Ophelia Marcus.”
I appreciate the fact that she says “an interest” instead of “an infatuation,” or “a crazy dream that a girl like Ophelia might want you, when she could have any guy she wants.”
“Is it that obvious?” I ask.
“Mm. Painfully,” Ms. Guinn says, then quickly adds, “though probably only to me because of my perspective at the front of the room.”
“We skipped school together yesterday. We spent the whole day together. Now I’m hiding in here hanging out with you because I’m too embarrassed to see her again. I’m afraid that after she spent a whole day getting to know me, she regrets ever leading me on.”
“Jesus, what’s wrong with you?”
“It’s crazy, I know. I know she’s too good for me.”
“That’s not what I meant. A girl like Ophelia doesn’t skip school to spend the day with you if she doesn’t like you. I mean, I don’t know her that well, but I know she’s never skipped school before. She did it just so she could be with you.”
“You think?” I ask, refusing to be convinced.
“I know. And maybe that could be your meaning of life for you. At least for right now.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I mean that maybe endeavoring to be good enough to deserve Ophelia, that could be your raison d’être.”
“Impossible,” I say, irritated by how little Ms. Guinn seems to understand the situation. It’s too late. I’ve already pissed away high school on skateboarding and smoking weed.
“Well, God, if there’s no use in even trying to make up for lost time at eighteen, then I am absolutely and truly screwed. I might as well give up right now.”
“I don’t blame you,” I say.
“Get out,” Ms. Guinn says, pointing toward the classroom door. “Get out and go find Ophelia. You don’t have to tell her you’re in love with her—in fact, definitely don’t tell her that. Or at least don’t lead with that.”
* * *
I still have half of a lunch period to find Ophelia.
There are vending machines in one corner of the cafeteria, so my plan is to get a drink, casually survey the room, and if I see Ophelia on the first pass, I’ll go talk to her. If I don’t, well, I won’t have made a fool out of myself, and I can exit with my tail between my legs and no one will know I almost made a fool out of myself.
The vending machine steals my money without delivering my drink and now I’m worrying about whether I should try to pay again or just give up on the drink. I’m hoping that no one has noticed that the vending machine, like life, has tricked me into a false sense of optimism. As I’m standing there, deciding what to do, I see Eric enter the cafeteria with an entourage of guys wearing khakis and collared shirts. Rich guys can get away with wearing all kinds of things that would get you beaten up anyplace else—pants with some kind of embroidered animal on them, like ducks or whales, sometimes with a canvas belt. It’s almost as if they’re making a statement with it. Like, I’m so rich I can wear this absolutely ridiculous article of clothing and nobody will challenge my right to do so. I mean, my family is rich, too, but if I showed up anywhere dressed the way Eric and his friends do, Joe, Mark, and Harry would beat me up just on principle.
Eric and his entourage come into the cafeteria while I am still managing my anxiety about the vending machine. He is looking around, searching for something. And I think, son of a bitch, he’s looking for Ophelia. That fucking squirrel is looking for Ophelia.
And then he finds her.
I follow Eric’s gaze as it locks on to Ophelia’s curls, somehow more beautiful now than ever before. She is sitting at a table with a couple of the girls from the field hockey team.
Eric is making his way toward Ophelia and my heart starts to beat hard in parts of my body where you don’t usually feel a heartbeat—the tips of my fingers, the backs of my eyelids. I head toward Ophelia, the prey, who is still unaware that she has been singled out as a victim, like a newborn wildebeest with a false sense of security within the herd.
I hurry to be the first to arrive at Ophelia, and Eric and I arrive at the table at the same time.
Ophelia’s expression is deadpan as all conversation at her lunch table stops. You wouldn’t know she has any particular feeling about either one of us by the look on her face.
“Hey, Ophelia,” Eric says, doing his best to ignore my presence.
“Hey,” Ophelia says. It comes out like a question as she looks up at Eric, then casts her eyes in my direction.
“What the fuck, man?” Eric says to me. “Can I help you?”
“You’re evil and need to be stopped.”
Eric takes a deep breath and lets out a sigh, as if dealing with me is the biggest inconvenience he’s ever had to face. “I’m talking to Ophelia,” he says, his condescension rich enough to make a meal out of it. “It’s none of your business.”
That’s fair. Technically, Ophelia is none of my business. After all, she isn’t my girlfriend.
I appeal to her with my eyes, waiting—asking—for her to tell Eric he is a piece of shit and
to leave her alone.
But she doesn’t. I mean—what the hell? Ophelia doesn’t take shit from anyone. Or, to be more precise, she doesn’t take any shit from me. But I assume that means she doesn’t take shit from anyone else, either. But here she is, waiting to hear Eric out, to listen to what he has to say. She doesn’t give him a Drop dead look and put him in his place, which is what Ophelia does best.
It’s disturbing. As if the universe as I understand it is suddenly turned upside down.
“You should leave her alone,” I say.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Eric asks. He looks at Ophelia and her friends, making sure his audience is paying attention. “Look, Dane, you were out of line the other night, but I’m willing to let it go.”
“Let it go?” I ask, incredulous.
“Ophelia,” Eric says, ignoring my comment and turning his full attention to her, “can I talk to you? Alone?”
“Don’t do it,” I say to Ophelia.
“I don’t need your permission to do something,” Ophelia says, directing her gaze at me, as if Eric doesn’t exist, as if the entire cafeteria doesn’t exist.
The steady stream of adrenaline slows to a trickle, then a drip, as Ophelia waits for me to acknowledge what she has said. “I know,” I say. “I’m not telling you what to do.”
She turns her attention to Eric then and says, “I don’t want to talk to you, Eric. I want you to leave me alone.”
Eric’s eyes go wide and he makes a sound that is a mixture of surprise and disgust, as if he’s choking on his disbelief. Instead of being embarrassed or disappointed in himself, he’s indignant. And then the thin veil of his public face vanishes and the evil within is naked to the world.
“You’re not hot enough to act like you’re some kind of prize,” Eric says to Ophelia.
If his words inflict any wounds, they are invisible on Ophelia. Her eyebrows twist in silent judgment, then she dismisses Eric by breaking eye contact and turning back to her friends.
I am amazed by her restraint. If she feels anything about Eric, anything at all, then it is hidden from the rest of us.
“You’re a bitch,” Eric says.
Ophelia’s blush is obvious, but she doesn’t lose her shit. She turns back to look at Eric and says, “You have to take advantage of girls who are drunk to get any action. So, looks like you’re the bitch.”
Ophelia’s friends laugh and so do a couple of Eric’s friends. I’m sure this moment is confusing for him, because Eric is used to being treated like a god. But Ophelia doesn’t believe in gods. His hands ball into fists and when he opens his mouth, the words that come out are so hate-filled and filthy that at least one person gasps. I might be the one who gasps.
Without conscious thought, I pick up the hard-plastic lunch tray in front of one of Ophelia’s friends, gripping two corners on the long end of it, then swing the edge of it into Eric’s face. In what seems like slow motion, green beans and macaroni and cheese and half a dozen fish sticks that are pressed into the shapes of gaily leaping dolphins fly into the air, then fall like rain onto Ophelia and her friends. There’s tartar sauce, too, and ketchup, and it falls in fat drops into their hair and onto their clothes.
The girls scream with disgust while Eric screams with rage and pain, though it sounds like more pain. I wasn’t thinking as I swung the tray, and when it connects with his face I instinctively let go of it. I drop the tray so I can hold up my fists to ward off the punch I think is coming, but it doesn’t arrive.
Eric’s hands are covering his face and there’s blood seeping through his fingers. He reminds me of an abstract painting, the kind my mom prefers to decorate our house. His friends are stunned and can’t seem to decide if they should comfort their friend, or avert their eyes and try not to notice him as he sobs.
Ophelia and her friends are looking at the USDA-approved lunch items that dot their clothes and hair and the tabletop. The scene reminds me of a movie I saw once, about these kids who had the ability to stop time. They could move through the world as everyone around them were rendered statues. We are now all quiet and motionless. Except for Eric.
My attack on Eric is so sudden and savage that no one knows how to react. Even though Eric has used the forbidden and universally reprehensible C-word, people in the cafeteria are looking at me like I am a murderer.
The silence is broken as one of the vice principals storms into the fray. Our school has three vice principals, which is excessive, and they rotate the unlucky assignment of cafeteria monitor. Today it is Vice Principal Maples, who totters around school on high-heeled shoes and wears pencil skirts. She doesn’t stand a chance in a footrace with a student. Her face is a mask of alarm, as McLean High School is definitely not a place where students fight in the lunchroom. “What is happening?” she shouts as she waves her arms for Eric’s friends to step away.
“Oh, God!” Eric is saying over and over. If there is a God, I hope he isn’t the kind that would answer Eric’s prayers.
“What is your name?” Vice Principal Maples shouts at me. I ignore her and turn to walk away. “Hey. Hey!” she shouts at my retreating back, but I think she isn’t sure whether to come after me or help Eric, who is still moaning and carrying on about his pain. I feel two hundred pairs of eyes follow me through the cafeteria and out the fire doors into the main corridor.
I am halfway down the hall when Ophelia catches up to me at a run and puts a hand on my arm. “Dane! Where are you going?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Are you okay?”
“Me? Yeah, I’m fine. That was crazy. You’re going to be in big trouble.”
I shrug and it isn’t just for show. I really don’t care. “I don’t care all that much.”
“Well, you should. What were you thinking?”
“I guess I wasn’t. Or,” I say as I think about it, “I guess I was thinking that Eric shouldn’t be talking to you that way.”
“That’s … sweet,” she says, her voice rising as if it is a question. “I guess. But I can take care of myself, you know. I’m worried they’re going to expel you.”
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t need their piece of paper. They can keep it.”
“You don’t mean that,” she says. I do mean it, though I don’t correct her. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’m running away.”
“They’ll catch you.”
“You’re helping them,” I say, and she laughs at that.
I start to leave her then but she says my name again and it stops me. When I turn back she puts her arm around my shoulders and pulls me into a kiss. Everything falls away, the universe collapsing back into the nothingness it was before the Big Bang. The school hallway speeds past us like a train moving along the track and we are transported to our own place in time, where nothing can touch us. With sudden clarity I can see that the universe has no beginning or end. There is nothing except for this moment. This kiss. This girl.
I pull away first, overwhelmed by the moment. “Listen, I’ve been thinking,” I say, and before even a second goes by, the cafeteria door at the end of the long corridor bangs open and I hear the click of Vice Principal Maples’s shoes on the stone tile. “There’s not much time before graduation. And, you know, maybe for the next few weeks we could just be together. Like yesterday, only all the time. We can be together for as long as it’s good.”
“What are you saying?”
“I mean, like you said, you set a date to break up from the beginning. Just be boyfriend and girlfriend during the functional part of the relationship.”
“The first couple of months,” Ophelia says, and her face softens with understanding and what looks like happiness, and her voice sounds kind of thick, like maybe she’s going to cry.
“Yeah, the golden time,” I say with a nod.
“Sure. Yeah. Okay. You want to … pick a date, I guess?”
“I—uh—I gotta go,” I say. “Tonight. Maybe tonight we can talk.”
“Okay,” she says, still grinning. I figure she’s my girlfriend now so it’s okay if I lean in to give her another kiss before I run.
* * *
I don’t stay a fugitive for very long.
It turns out that Eric’s front teeth are knocked loose, his face split open, which is going to make him look a lot less like an Abercrombie model if they can’t fix it. An ambulance is called, which triggers a lockdown for the school. Everyone has to stay put until the paramedics have come and gone.
There is no reluctance on the part of my schoolmates to rat me out. I am an outsider, after all—a new kid even though I have lived in McLean for most of my life. Our audience all wants their turn to tell the story, but Ophelia, Eric, and I are the only ones who know what prompted the fight.
At least no one had a chance to capture it on video. I hit Eric without warning and that first blow was the beginning and end of the fight.
The school security officer finds me just outside the front entrance. It occurs to me that if Ophelia had not stopped me to talk then I could have made a clean getaway. Really there is no place to get away to. No matter what, they’re going to catch me eventually. Which is why I don’t even bother to protest as the security officer escorts me to the office.
The school calls my mom about the attack on Eric, and I wait for her to arrive in the reception area of the office. There is nothing I can say to defend myself, so I remain silent when Mom and the principal ask me why I attacked Eric.
Mom tries to make excuses for me. She says that I have been troubled since the death of my father, which is true, but irrelevant.
Eric’s injuries aren’t life threatening, but they are face threatening. He might have to go the rest of his life without being devastatingly handsome.
