Enter Title Here

by Rahul Kanakia

  The three courtyards are distinctly different places. I don’t know much about the south courtyard and the east courtyard. The south has all these white plastic tables with umbrellas on them and the ground is made of these wooden planks, like a boardwalk. The athletes hang out at one end, near the gym and the playing fields, but mostly it’s freshmen and sophomores mingling around down there, since that’s where most of their classes are.

  The west courtyard belongs to that undistinguished rabble of juniors and seniors: people who don’t matter—the ones who never spoke to anyone but the three friends they’d made on the first day of freshman year; the ones who found a boyfriend during sophomore year and stopped talking to everyone else; the ones who’ve been playing video games on Saturday night with the same two guys for the last three years; the ones who don’t do anything or seem to want anything.

  I call them the invisible two-thirds.

  But most of the school’s advanced classes—the classes I’ve been taking since freshman year—are clustered around the east courtyard, where we have three sorts of people:

  • “Study Machines” want to win. They get good grades because they work all the time and have a relatively limited social life. They’re rescued from the invisible two-thirds because they’re usually also pretty involved in extracurricular activities (although they rarely rise to the highest leadership positions).

  • “Smart Slackers” pretend they don’t care about winning. They take advanced classes and appear to be intelligent, but don’t get good grades. Half are white and half are Asian. They tend to put most of their energies into extracurricular activities and, on occasion, they’ll rise into leadership positions.

  • “Perfects” are afraid of losing, so they pretend the game doesn’t exist. They’re preppy kids, mostly white or halfie, who dress well, party hard, get good grades, take advanced classes, and attain most of the leadership positions in our school, i.e. school president, newspaper editor, lead in the school play, honor society president, etc., etc. And they’re pretty much the rulers of the hagiocracy that is Bell High.

  As for me? There were, like, thirty seconds during freshman year when I tried to be a perfect, but I eventually realized that all of that I’m so perfect posturing was preventing me from getting ahead. So instead I’m the queen of the study machines, obviously. First in terms of grades, but runner-up in everything else. Layout editor instead of editor-in-chief. Honor society secretary instead of president. The one who organizes canned food drives and leadership conferences and essay contests, but never the one who gets the credit for them. Always the mule, never the driver.

  I realized I’m never going to finish my novel if I only work on it at home. And, unlike all of the rest of my work, this doesn’t require textbooks or computers, so I’m writing this in English class while pretending to take notes. Why would I want to take note of anything Ms. Ratcliffe says? I hate her so much.

  So yeah, let me take you back into the unfathomably distant past of…this morning, when I was in chemistry class.

  I love chem. Actually, I couldn’t care less about the subject itself. But I love my chem teacher.

  Most of my teachers don’t like me, because I am very vocal in my opinion that A+ work deserves to get an A+, but Ms. Lin is the exception. She’s a tiny Taiwanese woman with big bouffant hair and gnarled little hands. At the beginning of class she struggles up onto a tall stool—her feet dangle a foot above the floor—and never comes down. She doesn’t write equations on the board or conduct showy experiments. She talks in a whisper-soft voice, so you’re always leaning forward to hear her. And she waves those stubby arms in a choppy, impressionistic way, like she’s sketching out particle flows in the air in front of her. I think her husband used to be a government minister in Taiwan, but, for some reason, they were forced to leave.

  And then she points at you and whispers a question like, “How many covalent bonds are in a CH4 molecule?” If you don’t answer correctly, then you get extra homework. And if you do answer correctly, well, then, you get those A+’s.

  I always answer correctly.

  Anyway, this morning, I was having trouble concentrating because I was sitting at the front of the class, with my knees crossed, hoping that nothing was showing.

  I blame the denim skirt I was wearing, which I’d bought at Hollister last night. I’d blushed bright red as I paid. It’s so short! And my T-shirt—also from Hollister—is tight and pink. It says HAPPY IS and then a picture of a seagull. Happy is a seagull.

  When I came downstairs this morning, Mom raked me over with her eyes and said she was making an appointment for me with Dr. Wasserman.

  I was also wearing ninety-dollar Sperrys that I bought after typing “What shoes do girls wear?” into Google. Usually, I wear flip-flops everywhere. My toes felt constrained, even as air brushed past parts of my legs that were normally hidden by any of my twelve identical pairs of blue jeans. At least the denim of the skirt was heavy enough that I was somewhat sure I wasn’t going to be exposed by a random gust of wind.

  But this ridiculous outfit was serving its purpose, because my potential boyfriend had just flipped me another sidelong glance.

  I turned my head in time to see Aakash look away. Ever since I’d met him—he’s a copy editor on the paper—he’s done his best to sit next to me in all my classes. Aakash is an Indian guy, who wears his shirts with two buttons undone and constantly taps at his protruding collarbone in a way that produces an audible sound. He’s not exactly ugly, but he is a little scrawny and an inch shorter than me.

  A year ago, he signed a red heart and slipped it into my locker on Valentine’s Day. I’ve never acknowledged it.

  And now I had to get him to ask me out.

  All the Indian girls at Bell are the target of at least one silent Indian nerd-boy crush. Most of us—even the ones who are desperately lonely—know, with unspoken female intuition, that if we were to acknowledge one of these boys for even a second, we’d end up trapped in the mire of their saccharine devotion for years. Which isn’t really that appealing. But I only have twenty-six days to get a boyfriend!

  Even so, it was hard for me to smile and brush his elbow with my fingers and ask him if I could borrow a pen. I was marking myself as someone who couldn’t do better than an Aakash.

  And Alexandra Sorenson, one of the founders of the perfects, was sitting in the back of the class and watching everything from underneath her perfectly plucked eyebrows. I glanced back. She collected her blond hair in the cradle of her thumb and forefinger and threw it over her shoulder. Her nails were long and pink, with little white stars painted into the corners. Alexandra is probably the closest thing I have to a friend. Which isn’t that close, because she’s not actually my friend at all: she just sells me Adderall sometimes.

  I looked back at her and raised an eyebrow. Then she smiled with half-lidded eyes, as if she’d just taken a large, fiber-packed shit.

  When the bell rang, covers slapped against covers and pages were torn free. Aakash threw his books and his notes into his bulky black backpack. He zipped it up and rubbed his forehead with a hand. Damn. He was about to bolt.

  “Hey, Aakash,” I said.

  He threw his head back and his chin outward and looked all around like he wasn’t exactly sure where my voice was coming from.

  “Umm.” I held the pen out to him. “Thanks for letting me borrow this.”

  Chattering people flowed out of the room around us, but Alex hung back, standing by the door. The world was fuzzy, like I was viewing it through a layer of plastic wrap. And it was good. The plastic wrap was the only thing keeping my insides from spilling out. The room was empty and almost quiet, except for Alex, laughing by the door with a junior perfect—she looked like she was 70% composed of skinny jeans—who’d been summoned to her side.

  Aakash’s voice emerged from somewhere down deep in his stomach. “That’s…err…no. You keep it.”

  I reversed the pen and stuck it behind my ear. Was th
at sexy? I’m still not sure. My instinct is no.

  He put a palm on the desk, and shifted upward, like he was about to lever himself out, but then said, “Hey…I’ve been meaning to tell you that you did a great job laying out Rachel’s article the other day.”

  “It was a thoroughly ordinary job,” I said. “But thanks.”

  He leaned in. “No…I, uhh, it looked beautiful,” he said. I could hear the staccato tapping of his index finger on his chest.

  Then the room changed. The laughter got louder and rougher. Shoulders slapped against each other. A boy in a letter jacket tussled with another boy, and when he broke free they chased each other around the room. Ms. Lin’s forehead acquired a slight crease. But then one of the letter jackets—a three hundred pound guy in a 49ers shirt—jogged up to her and tried to coax her off her chair to stand next to him while a girl—her breasts almost bouncing out of her halter—laughed and pointed her phone’s camera at them. Ms. Lin pursed her lips in a way that was almost like a smile!

  The athletes were always around. I mean, they were so big that you couldn’t help seeing them in the halls. But I never saw them in class. I have my set paths through the school, from AP class to AP class. And I mostly see other people—study machines like Aakash or perfects like Alex—who are on the same trail. But there’s a shadow trail and a shadow set of classes that I’d slipped over into. This must be regular chem—not even honors.

  Aakash was still talking. I took his hand. I thought it’d be sweaty, but it was surprisingly cool and smooth. His skin was a few shades lighter than mine.

  “I need your help,” I said. “I’m not getting this covalence stuff.” Ms. Lin glanced up at us. “Do you think you could come over to my place sometime and explain it to me?”

  “Sure…I…It’s pretty ea—” Then he fell silent. Aakash knew that twenty minutes ago I’d correctly answered a question about this.

  A strand of hair caught in the pen when I pulled it out with my other hand. I extricated it and pressed the tip to the back of Aakash’s hand. The ink didn’t want to flow onto skin. I pressed harder and he winced slightly. Then his eyes flicked down, for a second, to my exposed thighs, and it hit me. My first time was going to be with this…this geek.

  And why? So I could get into Stanford.

  After moving the pen in a series of straight lines, I finally managed to write out my phone number in a blocky, childish script. “Call me,” I said.

  The bell rang.

  Aakash grabbed the neck of his backpack and ran off without even zipping it. Alex looked down the hallway at Aakash’s retreat and swung her eyes back toward me. Then, incredibly, she smiled—a huge, open smile—and gave a big wave!

  Shocked, I waved back, but I realized she wasn’t looking at me. I glanced over at the guy to my right.

  The wiry athlete sitting next to me? It was George! He waved back at Alex—how did they know each other?—then ran a hand through his hair, which went down past his ears. The corner of his mouth twitched.

  “Hey, Resh,” he said. “Who was that guy?”

  “I, umm, no one.”

  “No one. Got it.” His eyes lingered on my skirt for a moment, and he gave me a quick wink. “I understand how to maintain the party line.”

  I could feel the warmth spreading across my face and shoulders as I headed out into the hall. Was I blushing? I couldn’t believe he’d seen me in these clothes. Why was he even here? Why didn’t he go to his own school? I tried to zip up my bag with some of the savagery of emotion that I felt, but the zipper got caught on the hem of the backpack and I had to saw it back and forth a few times before it popped free and I could finally get the thing closed.

  Today was a complete failure.

  I spent the whole of chemistry smiling at Aakash and asking him questions about the material and tapping him on the back of the hand to show him I was just so interested. When class ended, I stood very close to him and looked into his brown eyes, and I was absolutely sure that he was going to ask me out right then and there. But instead he quivered and ran for the door.

  Later on, I saw him in the hallway and tried to get closer, but he dashed away.

  Then, during lunch, Alex yelled, “Hey, Resh!”

  I tried to ignore her, but she raised her voice.

  “Loving your nerdy little courting rituals.”

  She was sitting with Tina and Chelsea at their table in the cafeteria, looking down at me from a raised dais, as if they were lords of the school.

  Alex tapped her pink fingernails against the table. “And don’t worry about wearing the same skirt two days in a row,” she said. “Aakash isn’t the type to notice.”

  I blinked and searched for a comeback, but all I could think to say was “Mind your own business.”

  “Oh, is that how it is?” she said. Then she shifted positions and I could see what was in her hand: her keychain. There was a little pill dispenser on her key ring. With a careful twist, she uncapped it and shook one orange pill out onto the table, right within sight of everyone.

  For me, owning that pill would be illegal, but Alex has a prescription. She was warning me that she could cut me off whenever she wanted, so I turned on my heel and stalked away from her while she laughed.

  The perfects are always nice. That’s part of what makes them perfect. But Alex has always had trouble with that, and this year she seems to have lost control and become completely evil. Which is not necessarily something I disapprove of, except when it’s directed toward me.

  When I got home, I spent a few hours brainstorming who I could get to be my friend. I do know a few people, I guess. I’m not completely pathetic. But they’re so uninspiring. Does anyone really want to read a novel about an Indian girl who becomes friends with Jenny, the girl with the gratingly harsh voice who serves as secretary of the World Leadership Council? Or with Eileen: the completely nondescript girl who shared a room with me at math camp when I was in eighth grade?

  No, because the truth is that a friend isn’t just someone who hangs out with you. A friend is someone who understands your real self. And that wasn’t going to be Jenny. If I ever showed my real self to Jenny, she’d run screaming.

  And then, as I was sitting in my room compiling lists of potential friends, I got this weird e-mail from Chelsea:

  From: Chelsea Blahnik

  To: Reshma Kapoor

  Subject: Coordinating early action / early decision choices

  Hey, Resh—

  I’ve been talking it over with a few of the other top-ranking kids at Bell, and we’ve come up with a really simple system for avoiding last year’s Princeton pile-up disaster. Basically, only one person is going to apply in the early lottery to each college. That way, we avoid getting in each other’s way. This doesn’t really constrain you, since as valedictorian you would of course get the first pick: if you tell me which school is getting your early application, I’ll make sure no one else applies there. We’re hoping to settle this at lunch on Tuesday. Do you think you could give me an answer by then?

  —CB

  From: Reshma Kapoor

  To: Chelsea Blahnik

  Subject: RE: Coordinating early action / early decision choices

  I’m sorry, but that’s private information.

  At first I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I knew what she was talking about. Last year, for some absurd reason, eight of our top ten kids applied early to Princeton, which only took one of them and left the rest to fend for themselves in the spring regular-decision pool. And of course the perfects would be traumatized by that kind of uncertainty. They like things to be tidy and straightforward and rule-bound, and the idea of not getting into a top school because of some fluke confluence of factors would be intolerable to them.

  But why would they think I’d participate? I don’t care how many of them apply to Stanford: I’ll beat them all.

  After stewing on it for half an hour, I heard the front do
or open, and before my mom could put down her laptop bag, I stormed down to show her the e-mail.

  “Can you believe her?” I said. “I mean, she has to know that I don’t get anything out of this. She’s just trying to neutralize me.”

  “Why play such games? It doesn’t matter if two or three or five of you apply to the same school. If you are good, then colleges will take you. There’s no need to worry about competition from Chelsea.”

  I grunted. Why was she always so obtuse? “Come on, Mummy. Do you really think I’m afraid of Chelsea? I’m not afraid of Chelsea! I’m better than her! And she knows it! This is what they always do. She wants to make sure that she never faces me in a head-to-head matchup, because that way I can never say I won and she lost.”

  “Please, beta. You and Chelsea will both be very happy and successful in life, because you are both very smart and very hardworking, and that is what truly matters.”

  I stared at her. I just…There was so much that was wrong with that statement.

  “Come on, Mummy. You know that’s not true.”

  I explained myself very slowly, in very quiet words, as if I were talking to a child. I knew it was insulting, but I didn’t care, because I couldn’t believe that after all I’d done, my mom still thought I was worried about Chelsea.

  “Mummy. I’m not worried about anyone else at Bell High. If I wasn’t the best at Bell, do you think I’d have even a hope of Stanford? No. I’m worried about all the other kids at all the other schools. The other Bell High kids are nothing. They are beneath me. This is just a ploy to make sure no one else will ever know how badly I’ve beaten them.”

  I hoped I might get through to her, but as I spoke she looked more and more shocked, until finally she said, “But is this truly how you think? This competitiveness is not right. What matters is to do good work.”

  And that’s when I almost lost it and told her that I’d learned from her mistakes, and that I was going to make sure that what’d happened to her and Daddy wasn’t ever going to happen to me. They’d trusted the wrong person, and she’d stolen their company right out from under them. And I wanted to tell my mom that it made me sad—like, really fucking depressed—when she said or implied that people got what they deserved in life, because she knew that wasn’t true.