The next day in Con Lit we start reading The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison. Our teacher is named Ms. Ingall. She’s got light-brown hair and fish-white skin. I mean, she’s practically green. But there’s something about her. Something kind. You get the feeling she’s got to be a vegan or something. No one who ever ate meat could be that pale. I bet she has a “Free the Orcas” sticker on her car. Not that I mind that. I’d like to free the orcas, too. If I could, I’d free the dolphins as well. And the sea otters. Honestly, I’d spend the whole night going tank to tank, emancipating all the marine mammals and shouting, “Swim! Swim! Be free!” Why should they have to suffer just so people can ogle them and applaud on cue? If you want to see an orca, go on a boat. Or watch the Discovery Channel. Why does anyone have to coop up some poor marine mammal just so you can eat a waffle cone and point at it at the same time?
Ms. Ingall has kind eyes. There’s still a light in them. She’s not married. So maybe that explains the light. She’s wearing Mephisto shoes for comfort and a long, flowy skirt. Maybe she’ll never be married. Or maybe this is just her teach-wear. Maybe when she goes home she lets her hair down and puts on red lipstick and kills all the boys with her rapier wit and stacked heels. Or maybe she has a cat. Named Mr. Snuffles.
It is not lost on me that I may end up just like her one day. Alone. With a cat herd. If my station in this class is any indication, I’m a shoo-in. You see, I’m at the back of the room. All alone. Yup, that’s right. No one sitting next to me. Or even thinking about sitting next to me. All of my usual seats in the front row? Taken.
I might as well start naming the cats now.
Mr. Fritz. Senator Snuggles. Miss Whiskers. Chairman Meow.
There are going to be at least fifty, so feel free to add to the list. I’m sure I will run out of ideas anytime now.
“Excuse me? Is this Con Lit?”
The whole class turns and there in the doorway . . . is Remy.
The girl in front of me elbows the girl next to her and whispers.
“That’s the girl I was telling you about . . .”
Ms. Ingall shushes them.
“Yes, this is Contemporary Literature. And who, might I ask, are you?”
“Remy Taft. This is my class, I think. I should be on the roster.”
“Yes, you are on the roster. And . . . you were on the roster yesterday, when you weren’t here.”
“Oh, yeah, we just got in last night. Sorry.”
“Well, Miss Taft, I trust you will not get in late again. Take a seat.”
Remy walks down the row. There’s a silence. A trepidation. Even . . . a hope. I get the feeling Remy is a hot ticket. I get the feeling everyone is hoping she will bless them with her presence, her smile, her last name. Taft. Like the president.
And now she sees me. And now she smiles. And now she sits.
Next to me.
“Well, hey! It’s you. I can’t believe you’re in this class. Thank God.”
And the two girls in front of me, who were totally ignoring me and acting like maybe I had leprosy before, take a long look at me and decide it’s possible they should have tried to be friends with me. They look at each other. Dumbfounded. They are telepathically communicating with each other: Oh. We messed up.
I’m sort of having an out-of-body experience right now.
Remy sits down.
One of the girls leans in.
“Hi, Remy.”
Remy barely hears them; she looks up and gives a cursory “Oh, hey.”
“Do you remember me . . . ? We met last summer? Fourth of July, actually? The Hamptons?”
“Oh. Maybe. I was kinda drunk . . .”
The girl looks vaguely humiliated, a little disappointed. But she tries to cover.
“Oh, yeah . . . me, too.”
The girl doesn’t really pull it off.
Remy gives her a polite smile and turns back to me. And now I know.
Remy rules the school.
Of course she does. Her last name is Taft. She dresses like she just got out of the dryer. And she is a chronic, illegal, old-fashioned Junior-Mint smoker.
So, now that we’ve established that, the question is . . . why is she being so nice to me? I mean, seriously. Maybe it’s a trick. That could be. Maybe she’s playing a trick on me. To humiliate me.
“Hey, can we look off the same book? I sort of lost mine.”
It is the second day of school.
“What? Oh, yeah . . . sure . . .”
“Did I miss anything yesterday?”
“Um, no, we just kind of took these weird tests that had nothing to do with anything.”
This gets a laugh, although I’m not sure why.
And I wonder if she knows how nervous I am. Or how I feel like an idiot. Or the fact that my hands are practically shaking when I hold up the book to share with her. Ugh, hands! Stop shaking, you nerds!
My hands continue to be total nerds. Look at me. I’m a mess!
I can feel the eyes of the two girls staring at me. I can feel them trying to figure out who I am. I can feel them boring a hole in my blazer, but I don’t have the courage to tell them the truth. To tell them I’m no one.
And that I get the feeling, just at this second, that Remy has made me someone.