She turned back to the board, the lovely pink fading from her cheeks as she searched for a way to reassert her professionalism.
I ached for her. She was only twenty-two. At her age, I spent several nights a week in bars drinking and discussing literature with my wannabe beatnik friends until all hours of the morning. We were crass and loud, opinionated and absurdly full of ourselves, but that was our right. We were young and free and still learning about ourselves. Why did Jody have to be so together? Why did she expect to have all the answers? Compared to the age of a high-school student, twenty-two was light years ahead, but in retrospect, the distance seemed trivial.
“I’m writing some major themes on the board to try to stimulate class discussion this morning,” Jody said, clearly trying to reappropriate her teacher voice. But a softness in her tone came up just short of authoritative. “I haven’t been able to get the class to take over the conversation, and I don’t want to be the kind of teacher who does all the talking.”
“All right,” I said, wishing we could discuss something more personal, but I’d meet her wherever her heart was. “What are the topics?”
“We’ve reached the part in The Things They Carried where we get the sense we’re not dealing with the most reliable of narrators.”
“Yeah. A lot of these kids will have a hard time with that concept. For them things are still very black-and-white. Something is either the God’s honest truth or an outright lie.”
“Right, but that sort of thinking limits their worldview, which is why I want to start exploring the idea of what’s real versus what’s true.”
Jody might be naïve, but no one could accuse her of lacking ambition. “Pretty weighty subject for a group of students who want you to give them a reading quiz.”
A deep crease appeared in her brow. “I know. I need to draw the connection with something they’re more familiar with.”
“What have you got so far?”
“I thought I might use the Bible as an example, since the vast majority of the students here believe the Bible’s overarching message is true.”
I nodded, hoping she wasn’t going where I thought she might.
“But most people also believe in evolution, so we could talk about the overarching truths of the creation story even while we agree it didn’t actually happen in seven days.”
Yup, she went there. I tried to hide the horror on my face. What a terrible idea. To keep things in Biblical terms, the students would crucify her. This wasn’t technically the Bible Belt, but you’d never know that without looking at a map. People in Darlington used the Bible more as a bludgeon than a guidebook, and while I wanted Jody to realize she didn’t belong here, I didn’t want her to take a beating in the process.
“I’ve got an idea,” I said. “Why don’t you let me make that point?”
“Why?”
“Well, I agree with it. I get the concept, and I’m a student, so maybe if I start the discussion, more students will jump in.”
Jody considered the offer, then smiled so sweetly I would’ve agreed to catch a grenade for her. “You wouldn’t mind?”
“Not at all.” I faked nonchalance. “The book sort of hinges on them understanding the difference between truth and reality, but it’s a complex concept.”
“And yet you already seem to have a pretty solid grasp on both subjects,” Jody said, sounding both impressed and a little suspicious. “You’re got a lot more on your mind than most of your classmates, don’t you?”
I met her eyes and said, “That may be the understatement of the year.”
*
After Jody did her morning classroom-maintenance routine of taking attendance and collecting homework, she had us rearrange our desks in a circle. I understood her reasons for doing so, but I silently cursed her dedication to student-centered teaching. A circle offered me nowhere to hide and heightened my suspicion that I was about to step into a gladiatorial area. I’d heard Christians were traditionally the ones fed to the lions, but I’d begun to wonder. Then again, didn’t the Bible say, “Love knows no greater one than he who lays down his life for his friends?”
Maybe I was getting overly dramatic.
My life wasn’t on the line here. I merely intended to give the mob more reason to make my life miserable. I hoped Jody would realize the significance of my gesture and maybe conclude I was also capable of more than friendship.
Jody introduced the topic of what’s real versus what’s true and then opened the discussion to the class. They responded with utter silence. Not even the sound of crickets chirping would disturb the students’ absolute unwillingness to engage her. I looked around at my classmates. Were they dense? Surely not all of them. Were they apathetic? Possibly. It was only eight in the morning, and most of them had likely not yet discovered the joys of espresso. Still, they were used to being up at this hour. Were they afraid to speak? Afraid of Jody? Or more likely afraid of each other? I hardly blamed them for fear of public censure. At almost thirty, I still feared being called on the carpet. I probably wouldn’t have said anything either if I were them. But I wasn’t one of them. I had something greater at stake. I had my future on the line.
I met Jody’s expectant azure gaze and suddenly felt like a tragic hero prepared to fall on my sword for her. “I think it’s very possible for something to be true without actually being real.” I started tentatively. Then, as if ripping off a Band-Aid, I screwed up my courage and plowed through in a rush. “Like the creation story in the Bible. I believe it’s true a loving God made the world of His own will and then pronounced it good, but He didn’t do it in seven days. So even, while the account in Genesis might not be real, scientifically speaking, it’s still true.”
I sucked in a huge breath and braced for the impact but refused to make eye contact with anyone other than Jody, who was currently looking at me like I was the sweetest, cutest, most articulate little puppy she’d ever met. I basked in her approval for the long, shocked minute it took my so-called peers to process the argument I’d just made.
As usual, Deelia struck first. “Are you an atheist?”
Amazing, really. She never seemed very clever when it came to comprehending a legitimate argument, but she was a mastermind at distorting one.
“No,” I replied calmly. “Hence the part of my statement where I said God made the world and everything in it.”
“You called the Bible a lie.”
“Again, no. I explicitly said what the Bible says is true.”
“You said God didn’t create the world in seven days.”
“Correct. That statement deals with what’s real, not what’s true.”
“Real and true mean the same thing,” one of Deelia’s minions said. “Don’t they, Miss Hadland?”
“Actually, it’s not that simple. They can certainly overlap, and most often do, but truth is a much bigger concept than reality.”
Deelia’s head swung from me to Jody as if it were a mounted machine gun. I had to do something fast to draw her fire back in my direction. Without thinking, I took Jody’s original point and began to spin it out with my own touches. “Something can be true without being real. That’s why we read fiction in the first place. We learn truths through stories like the ones in the Bible.”
“So now the Bible is fiction?” Deelia snapped back, assuming her ever-present pissy pose, pursing her lips and folding arms across her chest.
“The Bible is filled with stories, Deelia,” I said, my voice rising despite my best attempt not to care about her opinion. “Jesus used stories all the time to make His points. They’re called parables.”
“I know what a parable is.”
“Did you know Jesus used them over forty times? Probably because, unlike you, He understood storytelling is a better way to help people see the truth than impersonal facts and figures.”
“Did you call Jesus a liar?”
I threw up my hands and sat back in my chair. “No. You called Jesus a liar.”
Deelia’s nostrils flared, and she raked her overdone nails across the top of her desk like she wanted to claw my eyes out. “I did not! You take that back.”
“No. Everyone heard you. You said if stories didn’t really happen, they’re lies. And Jesus told stories all the time. So, Deelia, you called Jesus a liar.”
“Miss Hadland.” She whined like she always did. “This lesson violates my freedom of religion.”
I laughed outright. “You need to stop using words and phrases you don’t know the meaning of. Freedom of religion doesn’t mean everyone has to agree with your religion. It means we’re all free to believe whatever we want.”
“I’ve never been more offended in all my life,” she said. I found that pretty hard to believe, but she was no longer addressing me.
She fired her next salvo right over Jody’s bow. “You should expect a call from my mother, or maybe she should call the school board.”
“Or maybe she should call me.” I leaned forward as far as my desk would allow, forcing myself between Delia and Jody both physically and metaphorically. “I’m the one who said everything you found offensive. Attacking Miss Hadland for something I did makes about as much sense as calling Jesus a liar for teaching truths through the use of parables.”
I rested my case, leaving Deelia scowling but tight-lipped as I turned my attention back to Jody.
Her complexion had grown as pale as I’d seen it since the night in the locker room, and her normally clear eyes were covered with a cloud of confusion and disorientation. For a moment I worried she’d cracked completely, but she merely blinked a few times and cleared her throat. “Maybe we all need a few minutes to cool off. Why don’t we table the discussion? I’d like for each of you to write a reflection on the difference between what’s true and what’s real for tomorrow.”
Nice save. She did a convincing job of pretending she’d had the assignment in her back pocket all along, and maybe she had, but she hadn’t wanted to resort to it so soon. Maybe I’d pushed Deelia harder than I should have. Even I hadn’t expected her to go quite that crazy. Jody obviously hadn’t either. Apparently, even after all we’d both experienced during our high-school careers, sometimes the extent of the venom could still come as a shock. Maybe that meant we hadn’t resigned ourselves fully to living in their world.
My hands shook as the aftereffects of adrenaline pushed through my system. I tried to remember any other time I’d willingly confronted another person but couldn’t recall one. The high was actually kind of exhilarating, but I found the comedown mildly nauseating. How did people like Rory face confrontation every day? Did they not feel the fear? Did they grow used to it with time? Or maybe their righteous indignation offered a reward greater than the risk.
As I packed up my things after class, Jody walked by my desk and said, “Don’t forget you’ve got a detention today. You can serve it during your study hall if you need to.”
Deelia snickered. “Looks like you’re going to get what you deserve after all.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, trying to hide my smile.
This time I hoped Deelia was right.
*
Word of my morning antics must have made their way around the school quickly, because by the time I got to keyboarding class, several people stared and whispered. So much for laying low. I’d drawn more attention to myself in the last few days than I had in my entire four years of high school the first time around, and when I flipped on my computer screen I remembered why. The words Jesus-hating dyke splashed across my Word document.
Kelsey sat down at her workstation with little more than a glance at my screen. “You had to see that coming.”
I shrugged. “I suppose. It could’ve been worse.”
“It’ll get worse,” she said, with about as much emotion as one would give when asked for the time of day. “Hope it was worth it.”
“Me too.” I set to work on knocking out the day’s assignment in ten minutes, then e-mailed my work to Kelsey so she could copy and paste it into her document.
“I’m trying to learn here,” she whispered.
“I know, but I want to talk about Jody.”
“Then write that in the e-mail instead of cheating.”
I rolled my eyes. Mr. Glass never even looked at our assignments. He just asked if we did the work, then put a check in his grade book. Besides, did copying and pasting a page about my dear Aunt Sally’s trip to the grocery store count as cheating? Probably.
Why did Kelsey have to be so damn good? Aside from her quirks and her weird views on the intersection of science and fiction, she should have been seen as one of Darlington’s best students. She was obviously brilliant and thoughtful and diligent, and she didn’t want to make trouble for anyone. Why was she an outcast when goons like Michael Redly were considered Darlington’s finest?
Because she didn’t look the part?
Because she couldn’t throw a football?
Sometimes life sucked.
“Hey, wanna go out to lunch with me and Nikki?” I asked.
“I can’t.”
“Sure you can.”
“I have to eat in the cafeteria.”
“Are you banned from open campus?”
“Kind of,” she whispered, sounding embarrassed.
“Why? What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything, I just…” She lowered her voice even further. “I’m on the free-lunch program.”
I recognized the code name for the high-school equivalent of food stamps. “No big deal.”
“It is a big deal.” She let her dark hair fall over her eyes like a child who believed if she couldn’t see someone they couldn’t see her. “So don’t tell anyone.”
“I’d never do that, but it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I know. We haven’t always been like this,” she said so quietly I barely heard her. “My parents’ store got burned down in St. Louis. They spent what little insurance money we got to move here. They wanted me to live some place safer, but it’s taken longer than expected to get the new store off the ground.”
My heart broke for her and her parents. They just wanted a better life for their kid, and they were sinking everything they had into it. Wasn’t that the American way? Why should Kelsey be rewarded with trouble at home and trouble at school?
“Lots of people need a hand from time to time. Half the kids in here benefit from farm subsidies. How’s that any different?”
“It just is.”
“Right. Farm subsidies cost about three times what free lunches cost and give back to a much smaller group of people.”
She shook her head. “You just don’t know when to stop, do you? You’re going to get your ass kicked if you say that any louder.”
She was right. I’d never win this argument here, and I’d only make life harder for both of us. But that didn’t stop me from feeling frustrated about it.
*
There was no sneaking up on Jody this time around. She was clearly waiting for me. She stood with her back against the whiteboard, a smile on her lips and dark circles under her eyes.
“Stevie,” she said, as soon as I took a seat, “I don’t know whether to hug you or choke you for the stunt you pulled this morning.”
Please pick the hug, I prayed. But honestly, I would’ve settled for any scenario that involved her hands on me. I trembled at the thought of her slender fingers cupping the back of my head and pulling me toward her.
“What were you thinking?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, afraid she’d read my inappropriate thoughts.
“You knew Deelia would snap, didn’t you?”
“Oh, that.” I laughed nervously. “Yeah.”
“I didn’t.” She covered her face with her hands for a second. “Her reaction didn’t occur to me at all. It was just a frame of reference, and I thought it would affirm their faith, not offend them.”
“You’ve got a lot to learn.”
“Obviously.
And not just about Deelia.” She eyed me seriously. “You surprised me every bit as much as she did. I didn’t know you had that in you.”
“Really?”
“I wasn’t surprised by your logic, which was flawless, by the way. I know you’re intelligent and capable beyond your age, but you’ve been in my class for two months and I can’t remember hearing you say more than two or three words to one of your peers.”
“Yeah. I don’t talk a whole lot in big groups,” I explained, worried I’d given too much away. I’d been so concerned about sharing some little detail that would reveal my secret, I hadn’t stopped to worry someone might notice something like a complete personality transplant.
Then again, until this morning I hadn’t acted any different from my first time in high school. I’d mostly stuck to the same patterns of sitting quietly in the background just trying to slide by until I could get out of here. That was the Stevie Jody knew. Hell, that was the Stevie I knew. I hadn’t changed much over the next eleven years. Should that bother me? Should a twenty-nine-year-old see the world the same way she had at eighteen? “It’s not that I don’t have things to say. I have opinions, but it’s just never been worth the fight to share them around here. I’m not real big on conflict.”
“Then why did you do it this morning?” Jody asked, coming close enough for me to detect the scent of wildflowers in her perfume. “Why expose yourself, especially in a fight that should’ve been mine?”
I shrugged. I didn’t have an easy answer, at least not one I could explain fully, even to myself. And yet I did want to tell her something true. “I guess I did it because you wanted me to.”
She didn’t smile like I’d hoped. Her lips parted slightly, and her chest rose and fell a little faster. I tried to read the cues her body broadcast. Had I said something wrong? Or had I said something right?
“I feel guilty,” she finally said, “for leading you into such a mess, for pulling you into all of this.”
“All of what?”
“All my problems, all my insecurities, all my…all my…” She bit her lip so hard the subtle pink turned bright white. “My emotions.”
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