The first thing I saw when I entered my beloved high school was Kate, leaning against her locker and talking with Adam.
There it was, right in front of my face: “Kate, leaning against her locker and talking with Adam!” And what did I do? Did I tell them they simply had to try a fabulous fruit drink? No, I just went up and talked to them. I never would have suspected that they would have done something so low. And Friday night:
“Kate and Adam, but not really a couple, just dancing together; Adam looks drunk.”
But when I saw them yesterday, did I even suspect? NO! Instead I apologized for breaking up all these new couples:
“I’m sorry I had to break up all these new couples.”
Kate smiled, put down her wineglass, and leaned back and kissed Adam. “Not all of them,” she said.
I hate that: “‘Not all of them,’ she said.” So fucking smug. I should have known, all along. It wasn’t like all this dancing together and talking while leaning against lockers should have clued me in; there was a fucking clue. A clue, dangling in front of my face, like a flag. Here it is on Wednesday. Follow it as it changes hands, like some secret item passed between spies:
Kate took a navy blue handkerchief out of the pocket of her navy-blue blazer.
And then:
EXPOSURE SEVEN: Guitar: twang-a-twang-a-twang. Successful attempt to capture Adam on his way to choir. Raising his eyebrows and smiling at something a perky second soprano is telling him while wiping his brow with a navy-blue handkerchief.
But that wasn’t enough; it was practically rubbed in my face and I missed it. Thursday:
Adam had a cold and was blowing his nose with a navy-blue handkerchief when I approached him. Before I could help myself I touched his neck, and he smiled until the handkerchief came off his face. Then he frowned distractedly like I’d woken him up.
Friday:
Adam had his mouth full and was wiping salsa off his chin with a navy-blue handkerchief.
The handkerchief, the fucking handkerchief, there it is, laughing at me. She gave him her handkerchief. And who knows what he gave her. Adam, I love you so–Adam and Kate, I hate you both. I have taken Kate’s navy-blue sweater down from the secret shelf and I am staring at it, finding myself howling out loud, alone in my room.
THE HANDKERCHIEF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Vocabulary:
FORSOOTH
COURTESAN
ANTICLIMACTIC
PRECARIOUSLY
CENTRIFUGED
UNTHRILLED
PHILANTHROPIC
SELF-INFLICTED
Study Questions:
1. When you drive by somebody’s house late at night, what are some clues that would tell you if the person is home or not?
2. List the pros and cons of having a Festival Internationale in your high school. Do you think there’s enough supervision at events like this? They should be safe for students and teachers, or it’s not really fun.
3. Do you think Mr. Carr did the right thing with Flannery? Do you think Flannery did the right with Mr. Carr? Do you think Natasha did the right thing with Mr. Carr? Do you think Natasha did the right thing with Flannery? Do you think Flannery did the right thing with Natasha? Do you think Adam did the right thing with Flannery? Do you think Adam did the right thing with Kate? Do you think the Basic Eight did the right thing with Fiannery? Do you think Mrs. State did the right thing with Flannery? Do you generally do the right thing? Questions like these will be repeated several times throughout this journal, but write down an answer each time, so it’s fresh.
4. Did you spot the handkerchief earlier? If not, why not? If so, then what did you do about it? Nothing, right? God I hate you.
Monday October 18th
I should have read the script more carefully. I was unprepared. Was everyone watching me, or are Kate and Adam so involved they’re ignorant of what they’ve done to me? Fat chance. Particularly Kate: fat chance. Ron gave a long speech about jealousy and love and when I heard Kate giggle at some little joke I wanted to die. “She’s a courtesan, she’s a courtesan,” I kept repeating to myself while Ron went on and on: “You guys I’m sure have complicated love lives, but you must begin to enlarge your own scenarios in your mind, until they reach epic, tragic proportions.”
“Oh, they do, Ron, they do,” Kate said, and I wanted to slap her. Everyone giggled and I forced myself to roll my eyes at Gabriel. He grinned and puckered his lips at me, quietly. Help me.
Anyway, I thought it would get better once we actually started reading the script, particularly when Ron had the central characters sit in an inner circle of folding chairs so Kate had to sit on the outskirts. He put me next to Adam and far away from Gabriel; even the Fates know how it should work out. And then it happened, Act III, scene 3:
Iago: How now? What do you here alone?
Emilia: Do not you chide; I have a thing for you.
Iago: A thing for me? It is a common thing–
Emilia: Ha?
Iago: To have a foolish wife.
Emilia: O, is that all? What will you give me now for that same handkerchief?
Iago: What handkerchief?
I just sat there, saying my lines on cue, doing everything that was expected of me in the script, and what happens to me, in the last scene? Well, I hate to give away the end of this tragedy, but Adam stabs me. When the curtain falls, Adam has been revealed as the villain, but that’s something the audience knew all along. Kate’s still a courtesan. But me, innocent until the end and full of good intentions, me, I’m dead.
Tuesday October 19th
Homeroom started with a blast from the past on the intercom: “Flannery Culp, please report to the principal’s office.” In second grade, Sara Crain and I had stood in the girls’ bathroom, shrieking with laughter as we discovered that paper towels, soaked at the sink and wadded into balls, will stick to the ceiling like moist stalactites. We had checked to see if the coast was clear as we left, sneaking back to handball and thinking we were safe. We hadn’t counted on the resonance of second-grade laughter in the bathroom. Apparently one of the balls had eventually slipped onto Mrs. Parrot’s unforgiving head. “Flannery Culp and Sara Crain, please report to the principal’s office.” This time around, Sara’s name wasn’t called, of course; she died in a fourth-grade car accident. I’d refused to leave my room for three days when I found out. We’d had a club whose membership was limited to us and some stuffed animals. You know how it goes.
Medusa showed me in without saying a word. Bodin was at his desk holding this plastic inflatable globe he has, about the size of a cantaloupe. He likes to toss it into a small basket and headboard he has on his wall, which I guess is supposed to be inspirational or something but instead looks terribly destructive.
“Hello,” I said, and he looked at me but said nothing, just sat there twirling the globe. Jean Bodin is a big gross man.
“Small world, huh?” he finally said, holding up the cantaloupe of continents. I winced, like you probably did when you read “cantaloupe of continents.”
“Yes it is,” I said blankly, looking at it. “It is a small world.”
He put it down on his desk. “Sit down,” he said, and I sat down and he looked at me and said nothing again.
“What seems to be the problem, Officer?”
“The problem,” he says, “is that we have a biology teacher in serious condition. Your biology teacher.”
I remembered what he’d said to me the last time we’d had a conversation about my biology teacher. “That’s not a problem,” I said, “it’s a challenge.”
He smiled thinly. “Rightly so.” Rightly so? “But Mr. Carr is in very serious condition. Do you know how serious?”
“Well,” I said carefully, “I was at the festival–”
“Festival Internationale.”
“Right. Festival Internationale. So I saw him when it happened.”
His eyes were quick. “When what happened?”
“Well the thing.
Whatever it was. The, um”–what had Jennifer Rose Milton said?–“the stroke.”
“It wasn’t a stroke,” Bodin said. He picked up the globe again.
“What was it?”
“An overdose of drugs.”
“What?”
“They’re not sure what, but it’s an overdose of drugs. I’m only telling you this because there’s going to be an official announcement about it at an assembly tomorrow. An all-school assembly.”
“Oh.” He was only telling me this because everybody was going to know tomorrow?
“So that’s my problem. My challenge,” he said, smiling at me. He leaned back in his chair and tried for a basket. The globe bounced off the rim and landed on the floor near my chair. “But what I’m asking you is, what do you know about it?”
I looked down at the world. A rusty thumbtack was next to it, vicious side up. “What?” I said.
“You heard me,” Principal Bodin said.
“What are you accusing me of?”
“Nobody’s accusing you of anything,” he said. “It’s just that I have a biology teacher who will be out of commission at least for the rest of the semester–you have a substitute teacher coming in tomorrow, by the way, and I want you and your classmates to be on your absolute best behavior, so spread the word–I have a biology teacher who will be out of commission at least for the rest of the semester, and it’s a biology teacher who you were in conflict with.”
“With whom I was in conflict.”
He looked at me for a second. “With whom I was in conflict,” he said. “Now, there were some people who thought you were responsible for the little fruit fly prank last month. Remember that?”
“Yes.”
“Yes what?”
What did he want? “Yes, Principal Bodin.”
“Yes, Principal Bodin, what?”
“Yes, Principal Bodin, I remember. I mean, I remember that people thought I did that, but it turned out to be the student teacher.” I thought of her, fired, raising kids, all she needed was some more shit thrown at her. But it was my skin or hers. He just kept looking at me. “It was the student teacher, remember?”
“Yes,” he said. “I remember. But no one really knows, do they?”
“Look,” I said. I stood up.
“Sit down.”
“Look,” I said. I sat down. “Look. I’m sorry about Carr, OK? But if he was taking drugs, it’s not my problem.”
“I didn’t say he was taking drugs,” he said. “I said there was an overdose of drugs involved. He could have been taking them, or they could have been given to him.” He leaned back in his chair and regarded me.
I didn’t say anything.
“All I’m asking is if you know anything about it,” he said. “I know that you and Mr. Carr had your difficulties together, and you and your group of friends–well, you’re sort of fast.” He coughed into his hand.
“You mean quick,” I said. “Me and my friends are intelligent, intellectual people. But you wouldn’t know what that meant, would you? Oh, forget it. Just leave me alone.” I stood up and turned to leave.
“Look, young lady,” he stood up and walked over to me. He took my arm. “We aren’t done here yet.”
“Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!” I screamed. He took another step toward me and tripped on the globe which rolled onto the thumbtack. The world popped. He looked down at his feet and I turned to go. When I was halfway out the door I felt his hand on my arm again. “Don’t fucking touch me!” I screamed, there in the waiting area, and he let go like I was just out of the oven. Let his fear of sexual harassment lawsuits keep him off me. Even Medusa was gaping, and when I turned around and saw the other people in the waiting room, they were gaping too. Well, mostly. Jennifer Rose Milton and Lily Chandly and V__ and Douglas and Adam, they were all gaping. Gabriel had his hand over his face so I couldn’t see his expression and Kate was looking both incredulous and mildly triumphant, like she’d known everything I was going to do, all along.
Of course, with all my friends waiting to be interrogated I found I had no one to turn to so I was alone in the hallway, upset, panting.
“Sounds like you did OK,” said a sudden, dry voice, and I turned around. Natasha was there, with her hair in two long braids like a milkmaid. I’ve never been happier to see anyone. I hugged her, hard and long, and when I was done I stepped back and then just hugged her again.
“Where have you been?” I said.
“Sorry,” she said. “I just lay low for a couple of days.”
“I was worried,” I said. “You could have been lying in a ditch OD’ing or something.”
“There aren’t any drugs around,” Natasha said. “Carr’s taken them all. What a drug hog.”
I looked around to see if anyone was listening, but Roewerites are so used to Natasha that they walked by like she was my invisible friend. “We shouldn’t talk about it,” I said. “I think Bodin might be onto us.”
“How did it go in there? I only heard the ending,” she said.
“I don’t know,” I said, and then realized who it was that got me in this mess. “Just be grateful I didn’t turn you in.”
“Like anyone would believe you,” she said, and her eyes sharpened at me. “I did it for you, Flan. How can you even think of turning me in? Plus, I’ve never even had Carr.” She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. That’s why it’s perfect that I did it instead of you. No one can imagine it being me.”
“Well, Bodin’s imagining something,” I said. “The whole gang is in there now. I’m surprised they didn’t call you in.”
“I’m officially absent today,” she said.
“How are you ever going to get into college?”
“I have better things to worry about this week,” she said. She sounded like she’d never worried about anything in her entire life. “Like how my new hairdo will go over.”
“It’s certainly–different,” I said. “Very Norwegian.”
“That’s the look I’m going for,” she said. “Like Heidi gone mad. Was Heidi Norwegian?”
I was suddenly, looking at her smiling at me, moved to tears. “If you want her to be,” I said quietly. “Anything you want, Natasha.”
She smiled and kissed my cheek. “Anyway, it was a little milkmaid hairdo like this that convinced Flora it was OK to cut school today. She’s waiting for us by the lake. We’re going to lunch and a movie.”
“No way,” I said. “She’s all I need today.”
“What you need today is Flora not talking to Jean Bodin. The others we can count on, but Flora could blow the whistle any time. She’s terribly frightened, Flan.”
“She’s frightened.”
“Yes,” she said, and looked at me. “When I heard Medusa call our names to go see Bodin–was that a second-grade deja vu trip or what?–I knew we had to enact Baker’s Rule again. So I found Flora before she got to homeroom and convinced her to cut with us. Hopefully Bodin will forget all about talking to her.”
“Since when did she suddenly become one of us?” I said. “She’s not my friend, for God’s sake, she’s–I don’t know, she’s–”
“Someone who we have to make sure won’t squeal,” Natasha said. We had reached the side entrance. “Now, take a little sip from Mama’s flask, dear, and put on a good face. Lunch and a movie.”
I took a sip; this time it was water. “It’s not even ten yet,” I said. “A little early for lunch.”
“So we’ll buy shoes or something,” Natasha said. “Sky’s the limit.”
I looked up and saw she was right. We were crossing the street to the lake and above me the sky was enormous and bright, like a bunch of presents you haven’t unwrapped yet and you just know are going to be great. Bright bright blue with bright bright clouds streaked across it, it was a truly glorious sky. Birds were chirping, if you can believe it. Flora was there waiting and when she waved and smiled the scene was so perfect even she looked good.
The bubble only burs
t when the three of us stood at the side of the lake watching some ducks fight over something. Whatever it was–food, or maybe another duck–it suddenly sank deep and fast, and the other ducks were first confused, then bored and sheepish. They gave a few more halfhearted pecks at one another and then just began gazing into the water like always. I could almost feel myself falling. I could almost see what it would be like to be staring up at the surface of the water, with the ducks silhouetted against the sunlight streaming in. I realized no one would rescue me if I started sinking. Everyone would just gaze into the water like always, waiting for whatever was next. I felt smaller and smaller, and then I saw something eerie. I don’t know if it was the angle of the water or the sun’s rays creating some sort of a blind spot or whatever–I’ve cut too many science classes in my day to know–but when I looked down at our reflections in the water there were only two figures standing there. I quickly looked around me, but Natasha and Flora were both still right there on land, but in the water there were only two people. Because the water was still rippling from whatever had sunk, I couldn’t tell who was missing in the reflection, but somebody wasn’t there. Somebody was missing, Flora or Natasha maybe, or maybe me.
Wednesday October 20th
Lawrence Dodd was suitably somber this morning, considering he was wearing a tie with hula dancers on it, when he announced that we should all proceed “directly and quietly” from homeroom to a memorial assembly for Jim Carr. It seemed a little premature to me to have a memorial assembly for someone who wasn’t dead, but when I got there it was much worse.
Jean Bodin got up and began talking into the microphone, but we had to wait a good thirty seconds before the whine of feedback had run its full course. He looked around, wincing, and continued. That’s right, he continued even though no one had heard the first thirty seconds. Natasha, sitting next to me, got out her flask. Kate, on the other side, got out a book.
The Basic Eight Page 21
