The common room was a new privilege, just for years eleven and twelve. Each year level had its own room, in different buildings, and people used them to have lunch in if the weather was bad, or as a place to hang out during a spare period; some people—the ones with a high noise tolerance—even worked in there. They were allowed to play music, and there was a massive bulletin board where people could post “appropriate” material.
School had tried to make the common room feel like a relaxing retreat. They’d even used the word chill in the literature, which was unfortunate. Sofas and comfy chairs and coffee tables had been donated by students’ parents, creating a mismatched informality. A teakettle, a microwave oven, a fridge, and a sandwich press made for more comforting food options than the usual lunchbox fare.
The room overlooked a small garden area, a dead-end wedge created when the new library building (the Redmond Information and Technology Center) was connected to one of the old buildings. It had a low-grade background smell of instant noodles and bananas, which wasn’t unpleasant, but which, over time, they would no doubt come to associate with the stressful work requirements of the year.
The one thing that no one liked about the common room was that it had a CCTV security camera in one corner of the ceiling. Cameras were dotted all over the school, but it seemed like an invasion to have one right inside this particular room.
Pippa, whose older sisters had all gone through the school, always had the scoop on the whys, wherefores, and deep history. She said, They had no choice—it was just a smokers’ den before the camera went in. I guess they were worried they’d be sued for passive smoking injury.
Vân Ước had to steel herself to go into the common room. She wouldn’t have bothered if it hadn’t been for the CCTV camera. Her scholarship was for general excellence, and that had a community component. Imagine if someone checked through the footage and noticed that she never went into the most community-specific space that the school had created for her year level. On one hand it was ridiculous to think that anyone had the time to waste on a check like that. On the other hand, why not play it safe? She was used to jumping through hoops that were put in front of her.
The room didn’t feel like hers in any way. It was a distillation of the exclusion she expected to feel, a concentration of the in-ness of various friendship groups. Worse than walking out into the playground glare of unpopularity, here you had to walk through a doorway. All eyes flicked up upon each entry. People were greeted with enthusiasm. Room was made for them to sit down. Or, in cases like hers, eyes flicked down again, and the silence screamed in her ears. It wasn’t that she minded it particularly, but she did mind other people witnessing it. And she dreaded teachers getting wind of it, and maybe finding awful, inventive ways for her to join in more effectively. She had decided her strategy would be to make a cup of tea—BYO tea bags—and sit down and pretend to study, or really study if that were at all possible.
So before class, on this hot and thundery Wednesday, a week into term, she made her second visit to the common room. Disturbing sounds of occupation and hilarity were bubbling into the corridor. Fun? It wasn’t much past 8 a.m. A couple of lengths of the corridor, arm swinging and deep breathing, and she dived in. Not a splashy dive from a height, more like entering already underwater and hoping not to be noticed. But rather than being able to make her way inconspicuously to the coffee- and tea-making area, she was immediately pounced on by Billy. Not physically—he was standing at the most centrally located coffee table in the middle of a Jenga battle with Vincent.
He called from the door, “Vân Ước, come over here.”
She froze.
“Vân Ước!”
The whole room was quiet. Billy’s friends looked at him like, What? Why the sudden interest in her? They were as mystified as she was. Her couple of scholarship cronies shrank as deeply into their seats as possible, hoping not to be called on for any impossible rescues.
Billy looked around. “Hey, I like the silence—finally some attention. Because I’ve got an announcement…” He turned a slow circle, making sure everyone was looking at him.
Might she actually throw up, right here, right now? Please, no. Her eyes flicked around nervously. Where was someone like Lou when you needed her?
Billy continued, “Vincent Linus Cronin is about to eat a dick.” He looked at the Jenga tower with complete concentration, slowly pulled out a rod without causing the structure to crash, and roared with satisfaction. Vincent was sweating—they really took it this seriously? He removed the next rod. The tower remained standing.
“And that was his undoing…” Billy looked around for her again. “Vân Ước, come over and help me—I need physics expertise for my final move.”
Billy’s friends—and particularly Holly—were again doing a double take. She walked over to the game and stood nearby. What was she going to do? Withhold a Jenga opinion?
“Thank you!” said Billy. “I’m thinking this one.” He pointed to a rod down toward the base layer. Vân Ước did a quick assessment of the structure and nodded. It was the one she’d choose.
It was as though one of her weird Billy dreams had come to life: Billy noticing her. Billy talking to her. Billy wanting her opinion. Everyone seeing that Billy liked her.
Billy extracted the rod. And again, the structure held.
“You’re fucked now, buddy,” he said to Vincent, who clearly agreed, admitting defeat in a sour smirk.
Vincent pulled a rod out, and the edifice went smashing down over the coffee table, spilling onto the floor. Billy stretched both arms up, triumphant. He punched his own chest. “Jenga king,” he yelled. People laughed, rolled their eyes. Everyone was used to his hyperexuberance. He turned to Vân Ước, punching the air and chanting, “I am the Jenga king. I am the JENGA KING.”
She flinched; it was as though he were about to charge through her, but instead he picked her up, spun her around in a circle, put her down again, and continued his lap of triumph around the common room. He stacked two chairs on the table closest to the CCTV camera, climbed up them, and said into the camera: “I AM JENGA in this school!”
“Dude, there’s no audio,” said Ben.
“Then they can READ MY LIPS,” Billy shouted into the camera before jumping down, chairs crashing behind him.
By now everyone was laughing—except Vân Ước. She couldn’t decide whether fury or mortification would win the day. Whatever Billy Gardiner’s game was, and however she fitted into it, she wasn’t available to be picked up and put down like a doll. She forgot about her cup of tea and walked out.
When Billy called to her, she was striding through the parking lot near the science building and still angry.
The morning’s rain had eased, but it was warm and thundery still; lightning arced and flicked across the mauve-clouded sky.
He caught up to her. “Why’d you run off? You brought me good luck.”
“Why are you following me around? Why are you speaking to me out of the blue like this?” she asked him.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because you never have before. You didn’t even seem to know who I was until last week.”
“So, call me stupid. I know who you are now.”
“Good, then you can leave me alone now.”
A fork of lightning flashed bright white nearby, and between them, right onto the hood of Dr. Fraser’s silver hybrid, a bird fell with a thud, dead, its tiny bundle of entrails exploded out, a thread of smoke rising in a spiral from its broken chest.
“SHIIIIIT!” said Billy. “Wow. How cool is that?”
She couldn’t believe her ears. He thought it was cool that a small bird got electrocuted right in front of them? Just great. She had a psychopath following her around.