The instructor was young. He bounced with enthusiasm as he handed out a pile of papers. He was not a normal Boston Jefferson teacher. Jefferson teachers only smiled on snow days and, of course, on the last day of school.
“These vocabulary lists feature words that were in the last seven PSAT tests. If you memorize all of these, your verbal score will improve by at least 20%.”
“Did you hear that?” Johanne whispered to Meg, a smug look on her face. “20%! I told you this would be worth it.”
Meg briefly scanned the pages and pages of words that she would never use in a normal conversation. It all seemed so pointless. She looked around at the other students in the class, all leaning forward eagerly, looking for some magical insider knowledge that would secure them a coveted place at the college of their dreams. They were all certain of their futures. They wanted to be engineers or physicists or marketing moguls or doctors. Meg didn’t belong in a PSAT prep class. She was taking a valuable seat away from someone who would not only use this information but also be grateful for it.
The class broke into small groups to quiz each other on the vocabulary lists by using each word in an “appropriate, but imaginative” sentence. Johanne was in her element. She eagerly pushed her desk toward the other students and frowned when Meg excused herself to use the bathroom.
It was eerie being back inside Boston Jefferson.
Meg had hoped never to walk those halls again. She’d almost run away, shrieking in terror, when Johanne led her there for the first PSAT class. But the class was held in the evening, long after the school day ended. Jefferson was deserted. The small percentage of students who stayed for all their classes bolted as soon as the last bell sounded. They were outpaced only by the faculty. The teachers would grab their briefcases or purses, and race to their cars before their freshman home economics students could mug them.
The building was silent. Empty.
It was the first time Meg had ever felt safe at Boston Jefferson.
She was able to look at things, really look at them, in a way she been unable to when she was a Jefferson student. She walked past advertisements, posters, and, here and there, chunks of discarded pink chewing gum flattened against the wall. She remembered how it had all seemed so exciting and dangerous when she was a stupid, careless freshman. She had thought everyone was going to like her. Meg wanted to cry for that naive, mousy-haired little girl.
She found her old locker and wondered, fleetingly, if any of her belongings were still inside. She hadn’t had time to clean it out. There was no lock, so she opened it. It was empty, save for a few empty nips, but she could see traces of tape on the inside of the door. Tape she’d used to hold up pictures of friends.
Ava. Sophia. Keisha. Kimberlee.
Rose students weren’t allowed to decorate their lockers, so her new locker held only her books, a spare cardigan, and a mitten that’s mate she’d lost during the year’s first snowstorm. If decorations were allowed, she’d have wallpapered the entire locker with pictures of her new friends. Her new Facebook account, created with her brand new Rose school email addresses, was filled with photos of Lucy and Elena, but a virtual space never felt as real to Meg as a physical one did. It felt fleeting-like it could vanish completely from the cloud if you refreshed the page or forgot to charge your phone.
She tore at the tape, scraping it with her thumbnail until all traces of it were gone. She rolled it into a ball, tossed it on the dirty floor, and headed back to the classroom.
An hour later, the PSAT class broke up. Meg followed Johanne out to the hallway. Johanne was in her element, talking with other future doctors, nuclear physicists, anthropologists, and ambassadors.
Meg trudged along behind them, unable to keep up with their chatter or their ambitions.
“So, what do you have for your extracurriculars?” Johanne asked her new friends.
“The usual. Newspaper. Yearbook.”
“I’ve been a big sister for four years, and I run an activity center at two different nursing homes.”
“Volunteer work looks really good,” Johanne agreed.
“So do sports.” One girl frowned as she pushed open the double doors and held them open for the rest of the group.
“I don’t have any sports,” Johanne said, sounding worried.
“But you’re black,” the girl who volunteered said. She was pale with long blond hair. She was so white she was translucent. “You’re so lucky.”
Johanne just shrugged. Only Meg, who was starting to recognize Johanne’s facial expressions, knew that she was annoyed. After they’d finished exchanging phone numbers and grade point averages, the other kids scattered.
Meg watched the translucent girl walk off toward the bus stop. She felt an urge to chase her down and pull at her long ponytail until she squealed.
“Weren’t you offended by that, Johanne?”
“What? Her thinking that I’ve got an advantage, because of the color of my skin? Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.” She sighed. “It’s not my job to argue with her.”
The evening was clear, though brisk, so they decided to forgo the bus and walk to the train station. Johanne, still excited despite the translucent girl’s comments, bubbled with enthusiasm.
“That class was fantastic. I hope it changed your mind about college,” Johanne said.
“Maybe.” Meg was noncommittal.
“Maybe,” Johanne scoffed. “Why are you even at a college prep school, if you’re not planning on going to college?
“Because it’s safe.”
“It’s a waste. You’ve got a decent brain, Meg. You’re just afraid to use it.”
“You’ve vastly overrated my brain,” Meg muttered. Johanne shook her head. “College is so expensive. I’m not smart enough for scholarships.”
“So take out loans like the rest of the world,” Johanne said as she stepped over a patch of ice.
“What would I major in?”
“What are you good at?”
“Lying,” Meg answered truthfully.
“Politics all the way then!” Johanne thought she was joking and started to laugh. “I thought you wanted to be an actress.”
“Not exactly,” she admitted. Johanne wasn’t going to tell anyone. “Lucy suggested I should be one. Because I’m funny or something. I don’t think I could ever really act. I hate the idea of public speaking. I just really like movies.” She thought of the girl at the movie theatre. School might be fun if she was studying something that she loved. “Maybe I could go to film school?”
“Why not?” Johanne shrugged. “You just need to believe in yourself, Meg. You need to stop slacking off.”
“You sound like Sister Deirdre.”
“Sister Deirdre isn’t so terrible. She’s hard on us, but she’s got really good intentions, I promise. She’s helped me out a lot. In case you haven’t noticed, I stick out like a sore thumb at Rose. Deirdre has been the one person I can rely on. After Lucy decided I wasn’t worthy of her time.”
Meg didn’t press her to continue, though she longed to know more about Johanne and Lucy’s spectacular falling out. Lucy still glared at Johanne when she walked into the room and muttered curses behind her back. Johanne hadn’t given up hope that she could mend their friendship, even though Meg suspected it was a lost cause. Lucy was an unforgiving sort. Her friendship, once lost, was lost forever.
Meg suspected Sister Deirdre, despite her good intentions, had been involved.
“You need to buckle down. Seriously. A good college won’t even look at you if you’ve got Ds.”
“Why is college so important?” Meg wondered. Lucy was obsessed with getting into a good writing program, preferably in a city far away from her parents. Even Elena wanted to follow in her sister Marcella’s footsteps and pursue a business degree. “Would your parents freak out if you, I dunno, decided just to get a job or something?”
“My parents don’t push me on any of this stuff. They don’t care if I get good grades. They just want me to be happy. But I could never be happy with a life like they have. Scrounging for money. Always being worried. Thinking a church bingo game is a wild night out.”
“Bingo sounds fun,” Meg said. “More fun than my nights out lately.” When Johanne turned to look at her, Meg explained. “Scott? Lucy’s boyfriend. Well. Her sort of boyfriend? He’s in a band.”
“Of course, he’s in a band.”
“And he’s horrible! Nails against a goddamn chalkboard. He goes out on stage wearing a tuxedo vest with no shirt.” It was a relief to trash talk Scott. “He’s super cheesy.”
“Lucy is so generic. She says she likes artists, but she just likes jerks. I bet he calls her Babe.”
“He’s…” Meg struggled to think of something nice to say about Scott. “He does call her Babe.”
“If a guy refuses to call you by your name, he doesn’t value you as a person.”
“Or he’s forgotten your name.” They were nearing the trains station. Meg could see the orange lettering in the distance.
Johanne snickered. “Not fond of him either?”
“He’s not my favorite person. All we’ve been doing lately is watching him play. In his apartment or these little scummy clubs. It’s so boring. But that’s all Lucy wants to do. It’s like…”
“Like she’s disappeared?” Johanne smiled sadly. “Lucy pretends she’s so confident, but she’s just as insecure as the rest of us. She gets so wrapped up in these guys. These losers. It’s like her entire self-worth is wrapped up in whether a guy thinks she’s hot.”
“I bet a lot of girls are like that,” Meg said. She would have been thrilled with a little male attention herself. It would be nice to have someone think you were beautiful, or hot. It would be nice to be thought of at all.
“Yeah, but Lucy?” Johanne was wistful. Meg wanted to pat her on the shoulder or some other gesture to show she sympathized. She remembered what it was like to feel lonely. To miss your friend. “She’s better than that.”
“I hope Scott will learn to appreciate her.”
“It won’t last,” Johanne said, before skulking away down the subway stairs. “They never do.”