Haters

by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez

  “Everyone, this is Pas . . . Pas . . .” Mr. Big tries to read my name. How is he the English teacher? I wonder. Shouldn’t he have slightly better reading skills than that?

  “Paski,” I say. “Just call me Paski.”

  He looks at me and grins. He’s not bad-looking for an old guy. I bet he sleeps with students. I mean, I bet there’s no shortage of willing students. I mean, I wouldn’t do him, obviously, but I’m sure someone around here would. Not that I know he would also be willing, but it’s hard to tell. Back in Taos, there was a writing teacher sleeping with a couple of students. They do that, some teachers.

  “Paski,” he says. “Paski Archuleta. She comes to us from Taos, New Mexico, and this is her first day. I’d like you all to say your names so Paski can get an idea of who we are. First and last. Andrew, let’s start with you.”

  The teacher points to the same boy who pushed into Keoni as I was entering the classroom. The stereotypical surfer-looking California boy who, I am starting to realize, doesn’t look all that much like most of the people around here. I think Janet would dig him, even if he pushes geek boys around. Maybe if I didn’t know how mean he’d just been to Keoni, I might even think Andrew was hot. I mean, he is hot. No question. But if he was nicer, I might be interested in him.

  Andrew is very tall, probably six-two, and very buff, with a square jaw and nice cheekbones. He wears a blue-and-red-striped shirt and ripped jeans. His short sandy-blond hair is messy in a way that looks good. He and Chris Cabrera share a look that tells me they’re friends. Of course they are. They also happen to be the two hottest guys at school. Or at least they’re the two hottest guys I’ve seen so far. I wanted to think better of Chris, though. Now I can’t, because not only is he a flirt behind his girlfriend’s back, but he’s friends with a mean guy who pushes defenseless chess geeks in the hall. Maybe my instincts about Chris — that he’s very cool and kind — are way off.

  Andrew smiles at me in a way that lets me know he thinks I’m cute. He winks. That’s so cheesy. So why am I actually flattered by it? I’ll write it off to the fact that I’ve got the first-day jitters. I can feel a couple of the girls in the class getting tense about Andrew’s apparent approval of me. They want him. And he knows it.

  “I’m Andrew Van Dyke,” he says, like this should mean something to me. “And I’m very single.”

  Mr. Big interrupts. “You know, Andrew, it would be good if you could say a little something more useful about yourself, such as what you like to do, or a hobby, so Paski can have a sense of who we are as people.”

  Andrew Van Dyke laughs out loud and rubs his chin with one hand as he sort of wiggles his hips in his seat. His sleeves are rolled up, and I can see the muscles of his forearms tense and relax. Wow. He’s got to be some kind of athlete. He says, “Mr. Big, I can’t tell this poor girl what I like to do. It wouldn’t be appropriate.” He pantomimes pulling a girl’s hips into his own, pumping his arms. Another cute guy, this one buff and Asian-looking with a big, strong chin dimple, leans across the aisle to Andrew and gives him a high five. The kids in the class laugh the way they do when a popular guy says something mildly funny, like they’re afraid not to.

  Mr. Big looks at me. “Don’t pay attention to that, Paski. Andrew’s a joker and a dork.” To Andrew, he says, “I’ll tell her something. How about that? I forgot you guys are scared of making asses of yourselves in front of each other.” Asses? Did the English teacher just curse in front of his students? Back in Taos, a teacher could get fired for that. “Andrew here is on the soccer team,” says Mr. Big. “And, for the record, I’m the soccer coach.”

  “And he sucks,” says Andrew. Everyone laughs again. “Just kidding, Bigsy.” Who calls their teacher Bigsy and gets away with it? Again, weird.

  “We’re regional champions,” says Mr. Big. “Don’t listen to Andrew.” I smile like this champion garbage impresses me, because the teacher clearly wants me to be impressed. But honestly, I’m trying to figure out why schools always let the coaches teach subjects like English. Shouldn’t coaches stick to coaching? It was the same in Taos. The wrestling coach was my math teacher, and he spent the whole time talking about competitions and stupid things like that. He always flirted with the cheerleaders, too.

  “Who’s next?” asks Mr. Big. He looks at the cute guy who high-fived Andrew Van Dyke and says, “Tyler?”

  Tyler looks like that actor from One Tree Hill, the buff one with the cleft chin. At mention of his name, he sort of blushes, which I find adorable. “Uh,” he says. “I’m Tyler Ma. I play soccer. I like the beach.” He looks at Mr. Big like he doesn’t know what else to say.

  Mr. Big says, “Tyler’s parents are from China, right, Tyler?”

  “My grandparents,” says Tyler. “But it’s no big deal. Oh, I have a girlfriend, and I’m the only guy at this school that’s not a player.”

  “Oh, please,” says the pretty girl from the Lexus.

  “Shut up, Jessica,” Tyler says to her.

  “Whatever,” she says.

  “Okay, that’s enough of that,” says Mr. Big. “Thank you, Tyler. Now you, Mr. Cabrera.” He looks at Chris.

  Chris Cabrera laughs to himself like he doesn’t want to participate in this game of introductions. He leans back a little in his seat and spreads his feet a little wider. He smiles that cocky grin at me, his eyes bunching up like he’s going to laugh, and I get a flash vision of me kissing his belly as he leans back like that. He is beyond hot. He’s burning. I erase the fantasy vision from my mind, and he’s still grinning at me. I don’t want to feel like my heart melts in my chest, but I do. He is still the most attractive guy I’ve ever seen, even if he flirts behind his girlfriend’s back.

  “Me,” says Chris, with a laugh in his eyes. Like he’s embarrassed but loving it, if that makes sense. “I’m next, huh?”

  “Yes, Mr. Cabrera,” says the teacher. “Please amuse us.”

  Chris clears his throat and gives me a secret smile before saying, “I’m Chris Cabrera. I ride motocross, and I play on the soccer team, too.” For whatever reason, he doesn’t pronounce his last name with a Spanish accent this time.

  Everyone waits in silence, as if they usually expect more from him.

  “That’s it?” asks Andrew, turning to look at his friend. “Dude, that sucked.”

  “Dude,” says Tyler to Andrew. They high-five each other again, and everyone sort of laughs. These must be the popular boys.

  Chris folds his arms on his chest, shrugs, and lifts his eyebrows like he doesn’t have anything to add. He’s not bothered by Andrew’s criticism, not one bit. Chris is the most confident being I’ve ever seen.

  Andrew turns to me. “Here’s what you need to know. Chris is the freakin’ man. Every girl in the school wants him. That’s what he forgot to tell you.”

  Chris looks embarrassed but handles it by saying, “That’s just what Andrew tells people so they don’t notice he’s the one that really wants me.” Chris makes kissy lips at Andrew.

  Everyone laughs, even the teacher.

  Weird. This place is so weird.

  “Okay, next,” says Mr. Big. He points to the pretty girl with the Lexus. She adjusts the ski-cap thing on her head and sighs. She glances at me like I make her tired. I can see her nostrils flare. She’s blinking too fast, like she hopes I’ll disappear if she flutters her eyelids hard enough. She sits up and purses her lips, like the last thing in the world she wants is to talk to me.

  “Uh, I’m Jessica.” She has a thick California-girl accent, the kind of accent my dad would call “Valley girl.” She says “Jessica” like “Jessicaaaahh,” the last part coming out like something a crow would say.

  “Jessica Noo-yen,” says Mr. Big. “But you spell it with a silent G, right, Jessica?”

  “Yes,” she says with a roll of her dark eyes directed to the teacher. She looks at me again and smiles insincerely. “I’m Jessica Nguyen.” She reaches forward and touches Chris Cabrera’s shoulder in a territorial way.
“I race motocross, too. Like my boyfriend, Chris.” She wants me to know that he’s hers and hers alone. Chris leans forward until her hand falls off of his shoulder.

  “You’ve probably heard of her,” says Mr. Big with a smile of admiration. “Jessica here is the national motocross champion for her age group.”

  I get the sense that Mr. Big is in love with her. Or at least in lust.

  “Wow,” I say. I am impressed, though even as I say it, the vision of her in a body cast or traction comes back to me. What is up with that? I close my eyes and concentrate the image away. I hear sirens, too, emergency sirens. Like I’m supposed to tell her to look out. I’m not ready for it. I don’t even know this girl. I usually don’t see violent events unless it’s someone I know well. Or if it’s super-important. I say of her fame, “That’s really cool.”

  Jessica nods. “I know,” she says with a toss of her hair. “It’s very cool.”

  “Modest, she’s not,” says Tyler. He rolls his eyes at Jessica.

  “Shut up, Tyler,” Jessica tells him.

  “Forgive them,” says Andrew. “They have issues.”

  “Oh, please,” snaps Jessicaaaaah. “I’d have to care to have issues with Tyler.”

  “Okay, children,” Mr. Big inserts. “Moving on.”

  Andrew says, “Tyler’s just pissed that Jessica dumped him for Chris. That’s the secret here. That’s why he was all ‘Oh, look at me, I have a girlfriend,’ because he wanted to piss her off.”

  “Please, dog,” says Tyler, screwing up his face like he smells something foul.

  “Guys, chill,” says Chris. “You’re friends, remember? Jesus.”

  So, Chris, Andrew, and Tyler are buddies. The hot trio. Does everything here have to come in threes? Anyway, I can tell you, if three seriously hot guys who looked like Chris, Andrew, and Tyler showed up at Taos High School, I can’t even imagine what all the girls would do. There aren’t guys like that in the entire state of New Mexico, much less three in one class. I feel like I’ve landed in a parallel universe.

  Chris stares into my eyes with that weird half-smile and doesn’t say anything. It’s like he isn’t even paying attention to what these people are saying. I can almost hear his thoughts, and they’re not clean. His thoughts involve me and him, our lips, together. I like his thoughts. Sometimes it’s a blessing to be able to feel what people are thinking about.

  Mr. Big gets the rest of the kids to tell me their names and their stories, but I don’t pay much attention. I keep looking back at Chris, who stares at me without flinching, transmitting his nasty thoughts like a radio tower. He blinks at me slowly and with passion and conviction. I have the uneasy, pleasant sense that Chris Cabrera is looking into my soul, right in front of his girlfriend.

  Before I know it, everyone has introduced themselves, and Mr. Big says, “Okay class, now that we all know each other, let’s get to the reading assignment. Do I have any volunteers to share books with Paski?”

  For a moment, I’m terrified no one will raise a hand. Like they’re going to have to call up my peer mentor and ask him or her to share with me. But almost as if on cue, Chris raises his big, perfect hand. As he does, Jessica’s mouth drops open. Chris looks at her and shrugs. “I tried to tell you,” he says to her. Her face reddens in anger.

  “Chris,” says Mr. Big. “Hey, thanks, buddy!”

  The teacher helps me move a chair toward Chris’s desk. I don’t want to feel the whole butterfly-in-the-tummy thing as I approach him, but I do. I’m way attracted to this guy, even if he’s a jerk. I avoid eye contact with Jessica, but I know she is glaring at me. I know because I can feel her ice in my veins.

  9

  I have physics before lunch, and the teacher tells me to wait in the room for my peer mentor. She has the decency to tell me in a written note, so that the other students who are packing up their books and leaving the room won’t have a reason to laugh. I consider not waiting, because I don’t want to start my new life with the reputation of being the chick who needed a peer mentor. But then I think of the terrible way that guy Andrew Van Dyke treated poor little Keoni, a kid who was just trying to help me, a guy whose only crime was that he liked chess, and I realize that if acting like Andrew is what it takes to be popular at Aliso Niguel, I don’t want to be popular.

  I take a seat near the back of the classroom and pretend to be interested in the diagram on the blackboard. I didn’t understand a thing when the teacher was explaining it, but I haven’t quite figured out how to tell her. Our physics class back in Taos was somewhere else in the universe, apparently. Not sure what to do with this stuff. The teacher looks up at me like she really feels sorry for me, which is awful. Even the teachers know that kids who need peer mentors are losers.

  A couple of minutes later, a very tall, very skinny, very pasty and pale girl peeks her head in the door. She’s wearing all black, trench coat included, and reminds me of a ghost from a Harry Potter movie. Her hair is a very Bismol shade of pink and sticks out in little spikes all over the place. She has so many holes and metal objects in her face and ears that I think she knows what it feels like to be a pincushion. She has a big white anarchy symbol stenciled onto her black backpack, and a large drawing pad under one arm with something scribbled on it in pencil. She wears purple combat boots. At least they’re not black. How nice, eh? The administration took one look at my father and decided that the best match for me was Little Miss Vampire herself.

  The teacher looks up and smiles at the girl with no small degree of fear. “Hello, Tina,” she says. “Can I help you?”

  “Uh,” says Tina. She looks at a piece of paper in her hand. “I’m supposed to meet a girl named Pasquala here.” Tina has a deep voice. Amazingly, she says my name right. She even uses a slight Spanish accent. The teacher points toward me.

  “That’s Paski right over there,” she says. “Waiting for you.”

  Not knowing what else to do, I wave weakly at Tina the Human Pincushion. “Hi,” I say. Tina smiles. I don’t know why this surprises me as much as it does. You don’t think of Goth kids as the smiling type. We only had a few of them at Taos, but I have to confess I never bothered to get to know any of them all that well. They sort of scared me.

  “I’m Tina,” she says. I notice that in spite of all the unfriendly clothing choices, she is a really pretty girl. And even though she’s pale, there’s something about her that seems black to me. Something about her face reminds me of Halle Berry. Like maybe Tina’s an albino black girl or something.

  We nod at each other. She takes a seat in a desk near mine. We’re awkward, and neither of us can seem to think of anything to say. Finally, I break the silence. “So, thanks for agreeing to do this.”

  “No problem,” says Tina.

  “You don’t have to,” I add quickly. “Anyway. It was my dad’s idea.”

  “I want to,” says Tina, surprised. She smiles again, and I can’t believe a nice person lurks beneath that outfit. “I’m all about building bridges, in the Eric Wolf sense.”

  “That’s good,” I say. What else is there to say, really? Oh, I know. “Who’s Eric Wolf?”

  “One of the most brilliant anthropologists of all time.” She gets a distant look in her eyes. “Famous because he didn’t believe peasants were insignificant. He believed everyone mattered and that it was only the powerful ruling elites who wrote the theories that effectively wrote the powerless out of history, even though they were there all along, contributing just as much as everyone else.”

  “Oh,” I say. Huh?

  “So you could say I’m the Wolfian Wolverine,” she says. I stare blankly at her. She smiles to herself and explains: “The Wolverine is the Aliso Niguel mascot.”

  “Ah,” I say.

  “Don’t tell me you haven’t seen the hideous wolverine-vomit mural on the front of the school?”

  I remember it now. The wolverines in it look anorexic and drunk. “Yes,” I agree. “It’s pretty bad.”

  “I’m an art
ist,” states Tina, holding up her drawing pad. “Bad art pisses me off, especially in public.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “I’m an artist and an anthropologist. Like Gauguin, only I won’t sleep with underage girls.”

  “Yeah,” I say. I have no idea what she’s talking about.

  “So I’m all about respecting everyone, peasant and ruler alike, at this school, which, if you think about it, is just like a microcosm of the nation, or the world, and history.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “People don’t realize it, but human nature doesn’t change all that much no matter what you do. There are those who rule and those who get ruled. The most you can hope for in life is that if you’re the ruled, you can change social castes before it’s over. Your life. Before you die, I mean.”

  I nod and try to think of something to say. There’s nothing, however. Well, nothing polite. I’d like to say “Please come back to Earth now,” but that seems awfully direct.

  “So, you wanna get some lunch?” she asks, all at once cheerful.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I’m actually starving. I couldn’t eat this morning.”

  “Nervous about your first day?” She has a listening face that reminds me of my dad’s. She leans in to her listening, like she really, actually cares what people are saying. She’s so nice now that I can’t believe I was afraid of her a minute ago.

  “Actually, sort of,” I admit. “I didn’t know what to expect.”

  “Come on,” she says as she stands up. She raises her arms over her head to stretch, and she looks like a ballet dancer. “Let’s go see what to expect. I’ll fill you in on everything around here.”

  I stand and follow Tina, the multiply punctured Wolfian Wolverine, to the cafeteria.

  10

  The Aliso Niguel cafeteria is a lot like the Taos High cafeteria, only bigger. This has been my experience all day. That everything seems somehow familiar but larger than life. The cafeteria smells like Tater Tots and cheap pizza. Does every school dining hall have to smell like that?