“I’M THINKING OF BUYING A new table,” Mom announced at breakfast the next day, throwing the words down like a gauntlet.
Dad lowered his newspaper, and I tried to refocus my thoughts, which had been trained on planning when to ask Mr. Matthews about signing up for track. Lunch, I’d thought, might work best.
“A new table for the living room?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “Although maybe we should replace that one too. I meant this one.” She tapped her finger on the square kitchen table we were all sitting at. “A round one might be nice.”
All three of us looked over at the empty fourth side of the table, where Anna had always sat. Where none of us had been able to bring ourselves to sit since.
“Right,” Dad said. “Sure. A round one sounds good.”
I’D PLANNED TO EAT MY sandwich quickly in the bathroom at lunch, as usual, and then try to find Mr. Matthews in his classroom. At 12:01, I was about to turn into the bathroom when I heard someone call out, “You heading to the cafeteria?”
I turned to see Sarah close behind me.
“Yes,” I said, conscious of the weight of my lunch bag in my hand. “Just heading to the bathroom first.”
“Okay,” she said. “I need to grab my lunch from my locker, but could you save me a seat?”
“In the cafeteria?” I hoped there was some other interpretation for what she was saying. Not that one really sprang to mind.
“No, in the bathroom,” she said, with a laugh. “I’ve been eating backstage so I can listen to my music in peace and not smell like the caf for the rest of the day, but now the drama kids are doing rehearsals there during lunch. Anyway, it feels like maybe I should just suck it up and eat at a table, you know?”
I thought about how I’d been eating, cross-legged on a closed toilet seat, balancing my lunch on my lap.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll save you a seat.”
IN MY HEAD, I’D BUILT up the cafeteria as this huge, imposing space, loud and intimidating. In reality, it really wasn’t that big or that loud. I did wish Sarah hadn’t mentioned the smell, though. I’d never noticed it before, but now the weird meaty smell assaulted my nose, leaving me a tad nauseated.
I claimed an empty table at the edge of the room and began to relax. This wasn’t so terrible; plus, it was nice to be able to lay out my lunch in front of me on a flat surface, rather than crouching over it like a dog guarding a bone.
Sarah arrived a few minutes later. “God, it smells terrible in here,” she said as she sat down. “I should bring an oxygen tank into this place so I don’t have to actually breathe the air.”
“You wouldn’t be able to eat, though,” I pointed out.
She gave me a quizzical look.
“With an oxygen tank,” I added.
“Right,” she said. “I suspected there might be some flaws with that plan.”
With that, she unzipped her bag and pulled out a large paper bag, which held a seemingly endless number of small containers.
“What is all that stuff?” I asked.
“My mom’s an amateur nutritionist,” she said, with a roll of her eyes. “She goes on these kicks about different ‘super-foods,’ freaking out about how junk food—like anything with carbs or actual flavor—will rot my insides, and this is the result.”
“Is any of it good?”
“Good is a strong word. I’d say that some of it’s at least relatively normal, like blueberries and yogurt. But other stuff is vile—like wheat germ and cold, unseasoned tofu.”
I looked at my apple and sandwiches.
“Guess I should be glad my mom doesn’t take that active an interest in my diet.”
“Yes,” she said. “You should be very grateful.” She opened one of the containers, which contained a substance that looked like seaweed. Then she looked over at my lunch.
“What’s with the two sandwiches, though? You one of those people with the hummingbird-style metabolisms?”
“No, it’s just that the one my mom made is less than appealing.” I lifted one of the pieces of bread on the one Mom made, showing Sarah the slick coating of bright yellow against the white bread.
“Ugh,” she said.
“Yeah. Though I should pack more food in anyway—halfway through the afternoon, I’m usually starving.”
“Poor you,” she said. She paused and looked down at her own lunch. “Well, could I interest you in some kale chips?”
“God, no,” I said without thinking.
Her eyebrows shot up and I worried that I’d offended her.
Then she broke out laughing.
SARAH PROVED TO BE A slow eater, so I ended up going to Mr. Matthews’s class only after calculus ended, hoping that he hadn’t headed right out as soon as his last student left. Luckily, he was still there, sitting at his desk, head down, straightening papers.
For a few moments, I stood watching him. Was he someone Anna had actually found attractive? I tried to see him through her eyes, tried to see him as a random guy rather than as a teacher. There was a certain wiry energy to him even as he sorted papers, and he had nice hair, I decided—dark brown and wavy—that was longer than you’d expect for a teacher, and it made him seem younger, more approachable. At the same time, his ears were on the large side, and while there was nothing wrong with his face, there wasn’t anything terribly memorable about it either. Overall, he definitely wasn’t ugly, but he was hardly a Greek god either.
I coughed to get his attention. “Mr. Matthews?”
He started and glanced up. When he saw me, he looked confused, even upset, before he managed to plaster on a more neutral expression.
“Jess. How can I help you?”
“I would like to join the track team,” I said. “Please.”
He looked at me blankly. “You want to join the track team?”
“Yes.”
“Oh,” he said. “Actually the sign-up time is over….” He trailed off.
I kept standing there quietly. The sign-up period was indeed over, and yet here I was.
He straightened himself in his chair and rubbed his forehead. Stalling.
This was unusual. If anything, I’d found people had been more accommodating of me recently, more likely to bend the rules in my favor. I began to wonder if his apparent unease with my joining the team was an indication that something really had happened between him and Anna. Maybe he felt uncomfortable with me being around. Maybe I was an unpleasant reminder of what he’d done, what he’d lost.
Then again, maybe he just didn’t want to deal with the logistics of a late sign-up.
Finally, he nodded. “Sorry, of course. I can make it work. We’d be happy to have you.” He paused. “Uh, do you know what events you would be interested in?”
I did not. It hadn’t occurred to me that I might need to feign some interest in and understanding of the whole thing.
“No,” I said. “Maybe running?” Running and shot put were the only trackish things I could think of, and I couldn’t even pretend to be interested in shot put.
“Five-hundred meter? Hundred meter?”
This time it was my turn to give him a blank look.
He backed off. “That’s fine. We can see what suits once you get started.”
I nodded.
“Well, practices start in two weeks.” He furrowed his brow and fingered the worn fabric at the elbow of his sweater. “You can pick up the athletic forms from the main office. Once we get those back, we can order you a uniform—I guess you can wear your own stuff until it arrives.”
I nodded again.
He attempted a smile. “Great. It’ll be good to have you on the team, Anna—” He froze. His face turned white and then bright pink.
My eye twitched. Other than that, I remained perfectly still.
“Jess,” he said carefully. “Good to have you on the team.”