My Life as a Rhombus

by Varian Johnson

  I zipped down the hallway, a hall pass from my homeroom teacher in one hand and a thin, brown envelope in the other. I had never been in such a hurry to get to our school library. Of course, maybe if I had spent more time there, my SAT Verbal scores wouldn’t be so abysmal.

  As I turned down another corridor, I noticed Sarah, surrounded by what looked like the entire wrestling team, heading my way. I looked at her out of the corner of my eye, and even smiled a little when she got within speaking range.

  Sarah didn’t even look in my direction as she passed by. I must have blended in with all the other short, black, female math tutors that occupied the hallway.

  Not that I expected anything different. My life at school seemed to resemble something like this:

  I brushed off Sarah’s cold-shoulder routine and entered the library. Gail sat behind the checkout desk, her face hidden by a huge novel.

  She peered over the top of her book as I neared her. “What are you doing here?”

  Instead of answering immediately, I dropped my bookbag and pulled a letter out of the envelope. I slid my glasses farther up my nose and cleared my throat.

  “Dear Ms. Lee,” I began, sounding like I was a spokesperson in a toothpaste commercial. “On behalf of the Georgia Institute of Technology, we are pleased to inform you of your selection as a finalist in the President’s Achievement Program, one of our—”

  “Oh my God! Let me see!” Gail snatched the letter from me and pressed it to her face.

  “Do you girls mind keeping it down?” Mrs. Brooks, the librarian, poked her head out of her office. “Don’t forget where y’all are.”

  “Sorry,” Gail whispered back, her eyes still on the letter, oblivious to the fact that Mrs. Brooks had already returned to her office. “Rhonda just found out she got a full scholarship to Georgia Tech.”

  “I haven’t been awarded anything yet.”

  “It may as well be official,” she said. “Now shut up so I can read this letter.”

  As Gail continued to read, I glanced around the room. I started to head toward the New Arrivals section, but stopped once I noticed Christopher McCullough and Tina Robbins, a freshman, browsing through the books. Christopher leaned over and whispered something to Tina, and just as I expected, she smiled, giggled back at him, and playfully slapped his arm.

  I shook my head. Ever since Christopher and I broke up, I had made it my mission to avoid him as much as possible. I could almost sense him—it was like I had some type of radar. Whenever he was near, my skin began to crawl and my stomach began to boil.

  “Rhonda, are you okay?” Gail asked, nudging my arm.

  I snapped back to attention. “Yeah. Why do you ask?”

  “Because your fist is balled up so tightly, your knuckles are turning white. If that envelope was alive, you would have choked it to death.”

  I looked down at my hands and relaxed my grip.

  “I guess you noticed Christopher,” she continued.

  I nodded.

  “Forget about him—you’ve got better things to think about.” Gail handed the letter to me. “I’m so excited for you. Why didn’t you call me this weekend and tell me the good news?”

  “I didn’t open the letter until late last night. I spent Saturday night and most of Sunday at Helen’s house, and before that I was tutoring—”

  “When did you start tutoring on the weekends?”

  “Just last week.” I focused my gaze on the stack of books piled behind her. “He’s just a middle school student. No one you know.”

  Why in the world did I just lie? Was it because I was protecting the fact that Sarah was getting tutored? Or was it because I didn’t want to hear a lecture on how I shouldn’t be fraternizing with the enemy?

  Compared to public high schools, our class was pretty small. There couldn’t have been more than one hundred and fifty of us—we all knew each other by name. But there was still an invisible line that divided those that came from normal backgrounds, and those that came from the “upper echelons” of society. Gail had had her own issues with the in-crowd at her old school, and she now avoided them as much, if not more, than I did.

  Gail pointed at me. “I don’t care when you opened that letter, you should have called me. We’re supposed to be best friends. We’re supposed to tell each other everything …” Her voice trailed off as she frowned and peered around me. “Listen, I’d love to discuss this further, but we’re about to have an unwelcome visitor.”

  I turned around to see Christopher heading our way. His gaze locked with mine, and he hesitated.

  For a second, I remembered how it used to be, when he’d stay up all night listening to me drone on about something. Or when he’d cut class just to see me during lunch. Or when after we’d sleep together, he’d hold my hand and let me snuggle beside him.

  Then he winked at me, and I suddenly remembered that he was an ass.

  As he started toward us, I grabbed my bookbag and threw it over my shoulder. “I’m not in the mood for a rendezvous with the ex,” I said, already heading for the exit. “I’m out of here.”

  “Rhonda, don’t run off.” Gail rose from her seat. “You can’t avoid him forever.”

  If I wasn’t so busy walking toward the door, I would have stopped to correct Gail. I didn’t have to avoid Christopher forever—only for six more months.

  I walked into the community center and was immediately swarmed with a barrage of hugs.

  “Hey, Rhonda,” the twins yelled.

  Every Monday, I tutored my favorite students, twins named Keisha and Tasha. They were like a two-headed monster sometimes, the way they eerily spoke in unison and finished each other’s sentences. With their hair full of little black plaits, glass beads, and multicolored ribbons, they brought color and energy to the drab, gray building.

  I glanced toward the corner where their mother sat quietly, reading a paperback. She looked over the top of her book, flashed me a smile, and went back to reading. The chairs at the center were uncomfortable, but Mrs. James looked as if she could have been at a spa, she seemed so relaxed.

  After I settled the girls down, we began to go over their math problems. It was a tedious process, going through each problem repeatedly. The two hours I spent with those girls was more tiring than running a marathon—backward. With their constant questions and non-stop fidgeting, it was a battle just to get through one problem, much less ten.

  I loved every minute of it.

  It was nearing the end of the tutoring day, and Sarah still hadn’t shown up. She had left me a phone message saying she would be by to drop off something I left at her house last weekend. I didn’t think I forgot anything, but I was in such a rush to leave, there was no way of really knowing.

  As I glanced at my watch for the one-hundredth time, I heard a raspy voice behind me. “Sorry I’m late.”

  I looked up to see David Gamble standing over me. For a second, both the girls and I were quiet. It was probably the first time the girls had been completely still and silent since they were conceived. But a second later, their usual chatter burst through.

  “Who are you?”

  “Are you here to get tutored? You have to wait, ’cause Monday’s our day.”

  “Are you Rhonda the Rhombus’ boyfriend?”

  I didn’t know who blushed more, him or me. I cleared my throat. “Girls, this is David. I’m tutoring his sister. I’m not his girlfriend.”

  “Then can he be my boyfriend?” Keisha asked.

  “No fair, I saw him first,” Tasha replied.

  I wanted to point out that I saw him first, but the last thing I needed to do was get into an argument with a pair of feisty twins.

  “Why don’t y’all share,” I said, smiling.

  The girls frowned for a second, before sticking out their tongu
es and making gagging sounds.

  David squatted in front of the girls. “And what are y’all’s names?”

  “I’m Keisha—”

  “And I’m Tasha—”

  “And she’s Rhonda the Rhombus.”

  David frowned and looked up at me. “What?”

  I shrugged. “They’re learning geometry.” It wasn’t much of an explanation, but it was the best thing I could come up with. I wasn’t exactly happy with the girls associating me with such an unusual shape, but if it helped them with their homework, I’d get over it.

  As if on cue, the girls began chanting my name in a singsong fashion. It was very cute, although it was safe to say the girls were no better at music than they were at math.

  “Okay, I think it’s time to go,” Mrs. James said, in the midst of the third verse. Thankfully, most of the other students at the center had grown accustomed to the twins’ constant singing and unruliness, so it wasn’t that big of a deal.

  “Bye, Rhonda,” they said, their faces in a pout. They linked arms with each other and walked over to the corner, where their coats were piled.

  David sat beside me. “They’re full of energy.”

  “This is a good day. Most of the time, they’re bouncing off the walls,” I said. “Because of their ADHD, it’s difficult for them to pay attention in class long enough to grasp concepts. They need a lot of extra help with their homework.”

  “How long have you been tutoring them?”

  “Long enough.” I paused to wave to the girls as they exited the building. “You’re pretty smart,” I continued, turning back toward David. “You ever thought about tutoring?”

  David shook his head. “I wouldn’t be a good tutor. Didn’t Sarah tell you about how my previous tutoring experience went with her?”

  “Just because you don’t know how to tutor doesn’t mean you can’t learn,” I said. “All you need is practice.”

  He winked at me. “And are you going to give me lessons?”

  “Maybe.” I felt my lips curl into a smile. “I bet I could teach you a lot of things.”

  Oh my God, was I flirting with him? I didn’t even think I remembered how to flirt.

  “I bet you could,” he said.

  There were a few seconds of silence between us that seemed more like hours. I dropped my gaze to the table and began stuffing my bookbag.

  “Anyway, I came to bring you this.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a check. He slid it across the table and under my fingers.

  I took one look at the check and wanted to plant a kiss on his cheek similar to the one he put on Sarah a few days ago. “This is for fifty dollars.”

  “If it’s not enough … ”

  “Not enough? I was tutoring your sister in trigonometry, not teaching her how to disarm nuclear weapons.”

  “According to her, you’re worth every penny.” He smiled. (God, he looked so much better when he smiled rather than frowned. It should be against the law for guys as cute as him to frown.)

  “Plus, if Sarah has to be tutored, I’d rather she be taught by someone pretty as opposed to the sixty-year-old man with the bad breath and potbelly that Mom was threatening to hire.”

  Did he just call me pretty? I began to smile, until I realized he was saying the same types of things Christopher used to say.

  “I’d better go,” I said. I stood up so fast I knocked my chair over. I cringed as it crashed against the floor. Why couldn’t I slide out of a chair with elegance and grace, like skinny chicks?

  Oh, I know, because I’m clumsy, awkward, and overweight.

  David jumped to his feet and scooped up my chair. I hadn’t realized how fast he was until now. He must have been a great athlete.

  Christopher was a pretty good athlete as well.

  “So when are you coming back over to the house?” David asked as he followed me out of the community center.

  “Tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Good. Maybe you’ll finally meet Mom.”

  From the few snide comments Sarah said about her mother, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to meeting her. She made the devil sound like a saint.

  “Sarah and your mother don’t get along very well, do they?”

  “Well …”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” I brought my hand to my mouth. “I don’t mean to pry. It’s none of my business. Forget I asked.”

  “No, it’s not a problem,” he said, his teeth chattering. He quickly blew on his hands. “Mom and Sarah don’t see eye to eye on most things. Mom has her issues, just like the rest of us. But her bark is worse than her bite.”

  All too soon, we were at my car. I opened the door and dumped my bag onto the backseat.

  “Thanks for walking me to my car.”

  “Thanks for tutoring my sister. You’re very good.”

  I laughed. “You don’t have to thank me. I get paid to be a good tutor.”

  He shrugged. “Everyone deserves recognition once in a while.”

  “I wish my dad felt the same way,” I said.

  David blew on his hands again. All the while, he kept his gaze on me. “Fathers have a tough time seeing all the good in their children,” he finally said. “They can be real assholes sometimes.”

  “The way you talk, I’d think you dislike your father as much as Sarah dislikes her mother.”

  David’s face contorted into a grimace. “Maybe I do.”

  “Why?”

  David looked at me, with eyes as dark as blood. “You’d better go. I don’t want you to catch a cold.”

  David’s answer to my question wasn’t the conversation ender I was looking for, but I figured it would have to do. Between the cold air and David’s icy demeanor, I would end up a human pint of ice cream if I talked to him any longer.

  Then David flashed me a smile that could have made December feel like June. “Goodnight, Rhonda the Rhombus.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Now I guess you’re gonna go around calling me that for the rest of the year.”

  “What’s wrong with being a rhombus?”

  I couldn’t believe I was actually debating the merits of a geometric shape with David Gamble. “Most people don’t even know how to spell rhombus, much less how one looks.”

  “I think the title fits you well. It implies that you’re unique.”

  “You mean weird.”

  David laughed. “Hey, you’re the math whiz. What’s another name for a rhombus?”

  “A parallelogram.”

  He shook his head.

  “A rectangle? A square?”

  David continued shaking his head as he walked toward his car.

  I pouted and placed my hands on my hips. “A lozenge?” I yelled. “A kite?”

  He opened his car door. “You’re thinking too hard. But don’t worry, it’ll come to you.”

  I watched David peel away, before jumping in my car and doing likewise. I turned off the radio and recited every mathematical term I had ever heard. I almost ran two red lights, I was so caught up in thought. Later that night as I plowed through my homework, doing my best to push David’s puzzle out of my mind, Xavier called.

  “I need some advice,” Xavier said. “I think I’m ready to ask Michelle Jacobs out on a date.”

  Xavier had had a lot of crushes on a lot of different girls, but no one compared to Michelle Jacobs, his next-door neighbor. Xavier had been pining after her ever since he could walk. And to be honest, I wasn’t really sure why. The only thing Xavier and Michelle had in common was their zip codes.

  “Why are you now all of a sudden ready to ask her out?” I asked.

  “Because she just broke up with her latest boyfriend. He was a drummer, of course.”

  Michelle attended a performing ar
ts high school. She couldn’t sing or dance, but she could play the hell out of a xylophone.

  “According to you, Michelle is always breaking up with her boyfriend,” I said. “What makes this time any different?”

  “Because this time, he was the one that broke up with her. It’s usually the other way around.”

  “So you want to be the rebound guy.”

  He was quiet for a second. Finally, he sighed. “I’d rather be the rebound boyfriend than not a boyfriend at all.”

  I thought about David and wondered would a guy still be considered the rebound boyfriend if there had been a three-year gap between relationships.

  “And have you talked to Gail about this?” I asked.

  “Of course not,” he said. “I think Gail wants us to date the most boring, bland people on the face of the earth.”

  “She just doesn’t want us to get hurt.”

  “I’m seventeen years old and I’ve never even been on a real date,” he said. “I think I’ll take my chances.”

  I laughed. “Well, I haven’t been on a date in a while, so I’m not sure how much my advice is worth, but if you really want to date her, just ask her out. All she can do is say no.”

  “You know what, you’re exactly right. I’m gonna ask her out tomorrow.” He paused. “Well, maybe next week. Or now that I think about it, maybe I’d better wait for a few weeks, just to make sure she doesn’t hook back up with the drummer.”

  I shook my head. I knew it would take Xavier at least another month to build up the nerve to ask her out. “Hey, before we get off the phone, let me ask you a question. Do you know another word for a rhombus?”

  I began to repeat all of the terms I had already ruled out, but Xavier interrupted me halfway through my list. “Sorry, but I don’t even know what a rhombus is.”

  I finished my conversation with Xavier and got back to studying. But after spending three hours poring through my textbook and not retaining any information (and still not thinking of another term for a rhombus), I conceded defeat and headed to bed.

  And then, at 3:14 am, it finally hit me.

  A rhombus was also called a diamond.