by Schow, Ryan
“Yeah,” Brayden adds, “his family owns a string of mortuary/crematorium businesses across the east coast. They’re practically connected, though.”
A mobster’s kid?
“That’s funny, guys,” he says, totally at ease, “but I’m not connected. And I actually do work in the family business. When I’m not at school, anyway.”
“Tell her your nickname,” Brayden says.
Caden blushes, which I thought would be impossible for someone looking like him, and he says, “That’s just for the boys.” The way he isn’t breaking eye contact with me has me thinking things no respectable sixteen year old girl should be thinking on her first day of school.
“The Crypt Keeper,” Brayden blurts out. “It’s like a dark avatar.”
“What’s an avatar?” I ask, my eyes taking in every last detail of the new kid.
“Like an alternate persona. Imagine you could be exactly who you always wanted to be. Give yourself a new name and a new look, and that’s your avatar.”
“What if I am who I’ve always wanted to be?” I say.
“Uh, I’m happy for you?” he says, not expecting me to say such a thing. “Anyway, a guy who has an avatar, he isn’t who he always wanted to be so he creates a new persona for himself and he feels better looking, more confident, more interesting to himself and those around him. Basically, for people less perfect looking than Caden or Damien here, or even yourself, an avatar is like a trigger to be your best self.”
My full attention is now on Brayden, how much he’s changed, how confident he now seems. “What’s your avatar?” I ask, smiling because I know he doesn’t have one.
“Enigma.”
“Whoa, what?” I guess he does have one.
“Yup. When I’m out at the clubs or whatever, I’m Enigma.”
“Since when did you go to clubs?” I hear myself saying, laughter in my voice.
They all just kind of stare at me and I’m like great, not being me is a hell of a lot harder than I thought it would be. “Okay, so I’m not doing so good at this first impressions thing. Can we try later?”
“What do you mean?” Damien asks.
“She means we should leave and let her get back to getting to know Maggie,” Brayden says. Now he’s intuitive as well?
I smile and they all smile back and I’m feeling uncomfortable all the sudden, like the only dessert at a buffet table surrounded by over-eaters. But it’s me, not them. I’m feeling more uncomfortable thinking if I wasn’t such a prude, and they were into it, a three-way totally wouldn’t be out of the question. Holy crap, did I just think that?
My face burns red.
“You look like you want to say something,” Caden says, zeroing in on me, but not like a stalker, or some obsessive creep. Already I’ve decided it’s going to be impossible to not like him.
“Nothing,” I say, blushing even harder.
They all get up from the table, but before Damien leaves, he leans down and kisses Maggie on the cheek, near the mouth.
When they leave, I ask why she doesn’t sit with them and she says, “Sometimes it’s just better alone, you know?”
“Do you want me to go?”
“No. You’re the only one here I have a clean slate with.” Ha! Little does she know. Little do any of them know!
“Clean slate from what?” I ask.
“I’m a musician, but my step-sister got a hold of one of my first YouTube sessions where my voice control was off, my falsetto was sharp, and my smile looked painted on, like I knew I sucked but I was trying to improve the whole experience by being really excited to be singing on the internet. Anyway, Blake emailed the video to everyone in school, then hacked the PA system and played it twice on the first day of lunch. You can’t imagine what it’s like to have an entire school laughing at you.”
I’m thinking, wanna bet?
“That sounds bad.”
“Yeah.”
I’ve never heard her so despondent. It’s a good thing I’m here.
Rise of the Nymphomaniac
1
Being the new girl again absolutely sucks. My new class schedule consists of the same classes, but some of the classes are at different times now, which means the familiarity of last semester is gone. Jeez, I hate being new! Even though my teachers are similar, and the subjects feel similar, I still feel like I’m starting over. Plus, I’m practically a month behind. Hopefully I’ll find Georgia, Bridget and Victoria today. Inside, however, I’m totally panicking.
I’ve barely even started the day and already I’m falling apart. Then, fortunately, my stronger, more confident side kicks in and says, “Quit being such a baby, whatever happens, you’ve suffered worse.”
Okay, I can do this.
Politics is first period. The thing I know about Professor Verdine Pearce, other than she doesn’t look her age, is that she could give a crap about a seating chart. At sixty-five (though she looks and acts like she’s in her forties), where you plant your ass in class just isn’t something she cares about.
I take a seat near the window. The only other open seat is right behind Cameron freaking O’Dell who starts mad dogging me the moment I step into the classroom.
The window seat is an easy choice.
When Damien breezes into class as the bell is ringing, I’m not surprised. He spends most of his time in his head, not being personable, which is maybe a carry over from losing his step-sister Kaitlyn over two years ago, even though she’s now alive and at home.
Damien looks at the last seat available, the one behind Cameron, his ex-girlfriend, then he looks at me, the blushing new girl, almost desperate. He walks straight for me.
He walks over to me and says, “Excuse me, Abigail, but I’m afraid you’re sitting in my seat.”
Looking at him, I’m thinking, holy sh*t, he said the same thing to me last semester! The fat, Savannah version 1.0 me, I mean. I bark out a sharp “Ha!” that startles him and gets everyone else’s attention.
He reels, then looks back and forth between me and Cameron and I’m like, “She’s more your type than me,” I say. I’m looking right at her and she’s looking right at me and this has her face all scrunched up and defensive. Secretly, I’m beaming inside. She deserves to be embarrassed.
Lowering his voice because Professor Pearce is about to address the class, he says, “She’s not my type.”
“Whatever, pretty boy. This seat’s taken.”
“Seriously. Professor Pearce likes us sitting in the same seat for—”
“No she doesn’t. I asked around.” Teasing, I say, “It’s not my problem you can’t ever be on time for anything.”
Standing up straight, his eyes are bouncing back and forth from me to Cameron to Professor Pearce, then back to me. In a hushed, almost argumentative voice, he says, “I’m not late to things.”
“Whatever.”
“No offense, but we barely even met,” he says, still speaking in a severely hushed whisper. “You know nothing about me.”
Leaning forward, whispering, I say, “Ah, but I do. For example, I know you sort of have a crush on Maggie Jaynes, but she isn’t the dating kind, that you look like a playboy but you have all the assertiveness and personality of a band geek, and that, of course, you once dated that blonde skank over there.”
The way his features slowly turn red, it’s hard watching him deflate. No longer is he trying to get my seat. No longer is he acting like he’s got the upper hand.
“Tell you what,” I say, putting on my sexiest face, “why don’t you go and sit by your girlfriend, and when you get your nuts back, then come talk to me.”
“Wow,” he says, not trying to be quiet anymore. “I didn’t expect that from you.”
“What did you expect? A timid new girl, so desperate to be accepted she let herself get walked over by the likes of you? You’re cute, I mean devastatingly cute, but looks aren’t everything, Damien. I prefer boys with substance.”
“What’s going on back t
here?” Professor Pearce says, more curious than irritated. “Sit down Damien and leave the new girl alone.”
“Yeah, Damien,” I say out loud, half laughing, “leave the new girl alone.”
Like a spanked child, he skulks his way over there and sits down, suffering the hard looks of his disgruntled ex-girlfriend every step of the way. You know what they say: You always hurt the ones who won’t love you back. Either that or the gene sequence in my DNA is structured for maximum, playful snarkiness.
Last semester’s more Hispanic version of me was nice to Damien, understanding about Kaitlyn, even semi-assertive, yet Damien responded to none of it. And now, me looking better than ever, he is still trying to push me around like I’m that fat girl from the start of last semester. No way, José. Not anymore. Basically, somewhere inside me, in the string of bonds between sugars and phosphates called nucleotides, the genetic coding that made me a freaking pushover is gone.
Whatever the case, I turn my attention to Professor Pearce, who is excitable about the election process considering we’re coming up on an election year. Our analysis of the past Presidency includes a number of largely unreported violations of the Constitution, which Professor Pearce says should be no surprise to anyone studying politics. She challenges us to speculate why these treasonous actions won’t be brought up in the debates, and together—in an open forum—we draw some interesting, varied conclusions.
When Timothy Rockefeller suggests the President is a puppet and the political system is rigged anyway, Professor Pearce doesn’t just wave him off. Instead she smiles and says, “Why doesn’t it surprise me that you would say something like that?”
“Because I’m a Rockefeller,” he replies, and a knowing grin passes between them.
My next class is Personal Finance with Professor Nolan Beswick, a thirty-something with a penchant for three-piece suits, expensive looking haircuts and the kind of slick, sexy look of a well appointed Wall Street executive. Over the winter break, he traded in his small round glasses for a pair of slim rectangular glasses with a more pronounced frame. They look good on him. Especially good. Perhaps too good. Wow, the way my body’s responding to him, how it’s not exactly love at first sight, but maybe it’s the need to taste his lips, it kind of creeps me out. The guy’s twice my age! I shake off the feelings, try with the force of will to control my hormones and tell myself there are other girls in class making a big deal about him, too, so I’m not all that perverted.
Third period I have Physical Education and Diet with Tuesday Hunnicut, the over-tanned, dimpled workout goddess with perfect teeth. Some people, like me, get their perfect looks and gorgeous body by paying tens of millions of dollars to have their old DNA hijacked, manipulated and altered into something better. Other people, people like Miss Hunnicut, spend a lifetime eating right and working out just to get the look they wanted. I’m almost ashamed of myself around her. Okay, I’m definitely ashamed of myself around her. I feel like a cheater. A tourist. Someone who will never ever need to eat right or work out as long as I have Gerhard on speed dial.
I see Miss Hunnicut, but instead of giving me a workout regimen and eating schedule like last year when I was the Pillsbury Dough Girl, she says, “I’ve got boys for weight training and conditioning, and Miss Autumn LeBeau has the girls for diet and aerobics.” The way she says it, Miss Hunnicut isn’t all that pleased about splitting up her class with the new teacher.
“The name sounds familiar,” I say. Miss Hunnicut frowns, which she almost never does.
Just then, I see Miss LeBeau and I know exactly why the name sounds familiar. She was one of the Ford Modeling Agency’s runway models from about five years ago. Back in the days when I suffered from harmaceutical-induced insomnia, I’d watch the Style channel all night long, especially during Paris Fashion Week. This is where I first saw her. Where I was first mesmerized by her.
She introduces herself to me and I can’t stop staring. I’m a bit star-struck, but I’m also curious about the real woman behind the former runway sensation.
Miss LeBeau isn’t Gerhard’s version of pretty, but if she were an alien—and she just might be with those cheek bones and that emaciated looking body—she would be the loveliest alien ever. And those eyes! They’re emerald colored with flecks of dark browns and deep greys. On closer inspection, even the emerald color is really just shades of the same color, almost like striations, or rippled water.
“Where are you from Abigail?” she asks, her face smiling, her skinny arms holding a clipboard with a pencil and eight names including mine and Maggie’s step-sister, Blake. Great.
“All over really. But I’m here now, so that’s what matters.”
When my father was prepping me for being someone else, he told me to learn the art of saying nothing while saying everything, and I was like, “That’s a political thing, right, dad?” He kind of smiled and said, “It’s the art of answering questions in a way that sounds vague and unspecific, so yeah, I can see how you might think that.”
“You obviously look fit,” Miss LeBeau says, “and healthy. Why exactly are you taking this class?” If concern is a normal, human expression, then her concern looks otherworldly. Like her mouth is saying one thing but her face isn’t saying a freaking thing. Could it be Botox? Or did she starve her facial muscles away?
“Diet and health are important not just now,” I hear myself saying, “but later in life, right?” Miss LeBeau nods, her hitched up smile looking photo-shopped onto her stretched tight skin. “And even though I might not need this information now, who’s to say I won’t need it when I’m in my thirties or forties? Especially after crapping out a few kids?”
She laughs at my joke, but the laugh sounds hollow, contrived. “You do realize you’re speaking in generalities, don’t you Miss Swann?”
“Generalities are the new specifics, Miss LeBeau. By the way, I’m a huge fan of yours.”
Her smile vanishes in between blinks and all that sparkle and dazzle simply disappears. It’s downright creepy how quickly it happened. Like someone hit the pause button on her and she just stopped functioning. I double blink thinking it’s me, but it’s not. She double blinks back to life and I’m like, “Miss LeBeau, are you having an out of body experience?”
Suddenly the life pours back into her and her smile returns. Outside I’m totally composed, but inside I’m like, holy hell, what the frick was that?
“Very well, please join the other girls for roll call.”
The girls are clustered together in their little workout outfits, which are much cuter and much sexier than mine. I try not to be too hard on myself because, hello, I spent the better part of my teenage years stuffed in fat girl clothes.
I join the others and right away Blake comes up to me. I guess, technically, we’re the new girls.
“Feeling less antagonistic?” she says.
“I’m not really antagonistic as much as I’m a fan of the underdogs.”
“My step-sister’s a dog alright,” she says.
“If I had a sister, I would stick up for her,” I say. “You always protect your family. Even if they suck.”
“You’re taking Psychology, right?” she asks. I remember her peeking at my schedule.
“Sixth period.” Same as last semester.
“Let me sum up my youth, then you can analyze it over the next few weeks. My mom meets and falls in love with Maggie’s dad. They get married and move in together. My mom does whatever Maggie’s dad wants while Maggie’s dad goes and hands his beautiful, beloved daughter the world on a platter. And me? I’m treated like window dressing. Like the fourth wheel on a tri-cycle.”
“You’re just as pretty as Maggie, but different,” I say. Like Maggie, she has black hair, but it’s shorter and much shinier. Some girls would assume it’s a factor of the product she uses, but what those same girls don’t know is Maggie is like me, a Genetically Modified Kid. So where Maggie has large hypnotic eyes and classic features, Blake has good features that mostly come
together right. In any other school, Blake would be beautiful and popular, but here, she’s just another face in the crowd of too-beautiful faces. “Of course, at this place, everyone’s pretty so looks don’t really matter.”
“Didn’t you hear me? It’s not about looks, it’s about mattering, and I stopped mattering around Maggie. She’s beautiful. She can sing. She doesn’t cause problems. Oh, and what can Lil’ Blakey do? She’s good at being a twat, that’s what. Speaking of twats, isn’t Miss LeBeau an effing weirdo?” Except she doesn’t say effing. She just drops the f-bomb like it’s no biggie.
I reel at Blake’s use of foul language thinking, does the word sound that ugly and hostile coming out of my mouth? Girls are always cussing because it makes them feel cool and rebellious in that teenage angst kind of way, but maybe it’s not cool at all. Maybe dropping the f-bomb is just you being uglier than you already are.
“That’s such an unattractive word,” I say. Or maybe it’s the perfect word.
“Oh, don’t be such a prude.”
2
After a brutal session of cardio kickboxing where the alien ex-runway model shows all us younger girls up, I meet with Maggie for lunch. I ask about her music career and she shrugs her shoulders, saying, “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. When people say it’s all about hard work and sacrifice, it’s mostly about sacrifice.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
The cafeteria is packed and people are running loud and loose at the mouths, and we still have half the table to ourselves. The way Maggie is talking, however, it’s like she doesn’t want anyone overhearing us.
“It just takes a lot of practice, and every song you write out of love becomes this thing you can’t get right, even though it came from you. And when it is right, because it’s right, everyone in the free world will overplay it and turn that one beautiful expression of yourself into an annoyance. So really, that one special song inside of you, you’re trading it for dollars and airtime only to see it shit on in the end.”
