On a scale of worst first days ever, I would say that my first day at BWH was right up there with the best of them. After the fire alarm, the day had kind of deteriorated. The fire alarm had actually been a false alarm. Don’t get me wrong, I was ever so grateful it had gone off when it had, but what followed was almost equally awful. The entire school was made to stand in the blazing sun at the bottom of the field, while Tasandra (yes, that was her name—with a T) and other members of the evacuation squad ran around clearing each room, one by one. For most students, this didn’t seem to be a problem. In fact, they seemed to be having the time of their lives. A few now-shirtless guys were playing an impromptu game of rugby. Some of the girls, Amber and her gang, were lying in the sun, skirts hiked up catching a tan. Me? I was wearing black and sweating like a pig. I could feel the moisture gathering in all my folds: stomach folds, neck fold, and worst of all, big underboob fold. I was hot, and wet, and uncomfortable, and I wished I’d put on more deodorant.
After being finally allowed back into school, the next unpleasant thing happened. And it happened in isiZulu class. I’d quickly discovered that the only available seat in class was in front of Tasandra, Teagan, and Thembi (now known as the Three Ts in my head), and behind water polo Jake and his two friends. And this, I soon learned, was a special kind of hell. Because every five minutes I was tapped on the shoulder and given a note to pass. This went on for the entire class, and by the end of it, I was sure I had whiplash and seriously wished that Mrs. Ndlovo hadn’t forced us to put our phones in a box at the start of class. Old-school messaging was hard work; a carrier pigeon would have been preferable.
But this still wasn’t the worst part of the whole experience. During one of the routine passes, I stretched my arm too far, too hard, and heard a familiar noise. I looked down just in time to see one of my shirt buttons bounce on the floor and then skid under a desk. After this unfortunate mishap, I was forced to figure out a way of hiding my bra, which was now on full display. And it wasn’t a pretty bra either, oh no. It was one of those double strength sports bras with extra wire and thick straps that desperately attempts, yet dismally fails, to defy the inevitable pull of gravity. So, for the rest of the day I had to walk around awkwardly clutching a book to my chest. Which might not have been so bad if I hadn’t then proceeded to do ten thousand steps with Teagan, who insisted on showing me around the entire school: “. . . toilets, janitors’ closet, you can make out there . . . storeroom, you can also make out there . . . gym, science lab, bleachers, also make out, but be careful—last month Amber and Jake were caught by the hockey coach. But Jake’s not really into Amber anymore because she kind of went ballistic when she caught him DMing Nina-M, ‘only as friends!’” She threw some dramatic air quotes around, and I wasn’t sure I got their meaning. Were they just friends, weren’t they just friends? The social structure of this habitat was so foreign to me, I wished this was a National Geographic documentary and David Attenborough was narrating the ins and outs of it all, so I could better understand it. “I think Jake made out with her because she’s number one on the Hot List, though . . .” she said. “He kind of makes his way down the list. Mind you, Amber is the one who publishes the list on our WhatsApp group, so she could have put herself at one, since no one knows who makes the list every year.” The Hot List, I discovered, was a list that came out once a year, rating all the girls from hot to not. Thank goodness I wasn’t going to be around next year.
The tour, and Teagan’s enthusiasm, seemed never ending, and it was boiling, especially with a book pressed to my chest. “And that’s Vuyo, you probably recognize him, he’s TikTok famous, the video of him flying down the stairs in a shopping cart and then wiping out got one million views, so cool . . . and that’s Nina-M I was telling you about, she thinks she’s this big beauty blogger because Kylie Jenner liked one of her posts or something, but really, she’s not.” I looked over at Nina-M; she was lying on the grass pouting at a selfie stick. I was getting a real education from Teagan all right. But it had nothing to do with the geography of the school and everything to do with getting a better glimpse into the characters that I was now forced to cohabit with.
And it was for all these above reasons that I now found myself sitting on our cool kitchen floor after school, listening to my favorite artist, Grimes, while eating ice cream straight out of the tub with the biggest spoon I could find.
“Hey, Captain Zac Sparrow.” My brother, Zac, walked into the kitchen, and I smiled up at him. I still called him Captain Sparrow sometimes, a throwback to his pirate obsession phase. Kids on the spectrum tend to develop obsessions with things. But as quickly as they develop, they suddenly change. One day it’s pirates, and the next . . . who knows.
“Want some?” I passed him the spoon and patted the floor next to me. Zac is probably the only person in the world who isn’t going to judge me for eating ice cream on the floor, unlike my mother, who scrutinizes every morsel I put into my mouth. She rarely says anything, though, which makes it worse in a way.
Zac took the spoon from me and immediately scooped up some vanilla ice cream. We only have vanilla in the house because Zac only eats white foods: plain yogurt, pasta, potatoes—not the healthiest diet. We make sure to give him a vanilla “milkshake” everyday, which is really a vitamin-enriched drink, because he refuses to eat anything with colors. He says he can feel the colors fighting each other in his stomach. This idea that colors could possibly be alive and interacting with each other has always intrigued me. In art there’s a concept called simultaneous contrast; it refers to the way that two different colors affect each other when placed side by side. It’s an illusion where one color can change how we perceive the other one. But I’ve often wondered if it isn’t an illusion for Zac, whether he is somehow capable of experiencing things in life that no one else can.
“How was your day?” I asked.
“I built a mousetrap that I think can actually catch mice when I put cheese in it to lure them in but I don’t know what kind of cheese they like yet and I only like the white cheese but maybe they like the yellow cheese or the one with holes but I don’t know where to get that cheese from so I’m going to experiment with the white cheese first.”
“That sounds cool. What are you going to do with the mice you catch?”
“I was thinking I could train them like they train those dogs at the airport that sniff the luggage for drugs and stuff on the conveyer belt but I wouldn’t train them to sniff I would train them to be undercover spies like they have in the CIA.”
“Spies. Wow.” I smiled. I loved the way my brother’s brain worked. While other kids were playing with toys or kicking balls around, he was engineering intricate traps, building solar-powered devices, and making electrical currents from potatoes and lemons. He’s a total genius in so many ways, but ask him to do something simple like brush his teeth and it falls apart; the toothpaste tastes too strong, the water is too wet, the bristles are too hard.
“Maybe I could take the mice to my new school, and they could spy on the people there?” I offered thoughtfully and then watched him for a while, trying to gauge what kind of a mood he was in. It was always hard to interpret his moods. While the angry moods were easy to read, the subtler emotions in between were trickier. But his shoulders were relaxed, he wasn’t flapping or clicking his fingers, he was eating, so I broached the subject tentatively. “How was school today? Did you try to escape again?”
“It was better,” he mumbled. “Escaping was not necessary.” He shoved another spoonful into his mouth and I smiled to myself with relief.
“Maybe I could make microscopic cameras that we could strap onto the mice’s heads that no one can see and they can film everything that happens at your school and then we could download it onto my computer and watch it like a movie and make popcorn,” he said through a mouthful of ice cream.
I laughed. I wanted to pull him into a hug, or kiss him on the cheek, but didn’t. He’s not great with touching; you can only touch him if he initiates it. Sometimes I crave any kind of physical contact with him.
“Ice cream in the afternoon!” We both looked up as my mother swanned in. “Not very nutritious,” she added. “Besides, milk is not actually good for us. It’s basically antibiotic-laden pus. You should google it.”
“Really?” I tried to hide the sarcasm in my voice, but wasn’t sure it was working. By her own admission, she’d gleaned this little nugget of info from Google. She’d probably also dipped her toe into the pool of fake Facebook junk that swirled around us on a daily basis. The kind that had people believing that the earth was flat, and that humans were being secretly microchipped by aliens. My mother buys into all of it. She never used to, but in the evenings when she’s all alone, you can find her frantically googling and watching YouTube videos about how the world government is made up of reptilians. I’m always amazed by her propensity to believe in the utterly unbelievable. Dr. Finkelstein said she’s probably unable to sit alone at night with her feelings, so grabs hold of any distraction she can find. Well, I could think of at least ten other, healthier distractions she could choose.
“It’s not like there’s much in the fridge,” I offered up flatly.
“It’s not like I’ve had any time to go shopping!” She sounded snappy now, and I decided to back off. No use in pointing out that the fridge was mostly empty and the house was still largely unfurnished since the second furniture delivery truck hadn’t arrived yet. It felt like we were living in a vast, hollow cavern; squatting in emptiness, waiting for our lives to begin. Our lives, which only a few days ago had been packed up into boxes, labeled, and loaded.
She sighed loudly. She did this a lot and it always made a flicker of guilt break through the general anger I felt toward her. “I’ll try to go to the shops tomorrow. I wanted to get Zac settled first, and I have all these new business meetings.”
“Sure,” I muttered quietly, almost to myself. I didn’t really believe her. I’d probably be the one buying the groceries, phoning the logistics company to track down our furniture, and filling out all of Zac’s forms for his new OT and speech therapists.
“What are you doing now?” she asked.
“Mmmm, I’ll have to look at my busy diary and get back to you.” I shoved an extra-large spoon into my mouth, pus or no pus.
“Lori Palmer. No need for that tone!” She put her hand on her hip and raised her eyebrows at me. They barely peeped over the rims of her big, designer sunglasses.
“Lori Palmer,” Zac repeated. He usually repeats words when he gets overwhelmed, when things around him aren’t completely calm, and suddenly, I felt bad for being sarcastic. Not because it was directed at my mom, but because it had unsettled Zac.
“Why? Would you like me to do something?” I asked as sweetly as possible.
“I’ve got that shoot here today. We’re shooting an ad for my business. It will only take about an hour.” She pulled her glasses off and looked at me.
“Mom! What’s . . . why . . . what have you done?”
“Just had a little thread lift around my eyes.” She reached up and touched them gently. They were a completely different shape than what they’d been this morning. “But don’t worry, the doctor assured me the redness would be gone in an hour. Besides, it’s nothing my bangs can’t cover.” She fluffed her bangs and put her sunglasses back on, and her newly taut eyes disappeared.
I tried not to shake my head disapprovingly. But honestly, I still wasn’t used to this new version of my mother. The woman who came home with a new face every so often. About a year ago she’d come home with lips that were twice their normal size, and then a little while after that, a forehead that no longer moved. It reminded me of a sculpture—flat, smooth, unmovable marble. I’d overheard her on the phone telling one of her friends that she wanted the forehead of a twenty-seven-year-old. Funny, that was the exact same age as my father’s girlfriend, Maddy.
“Maybe you and Zac could go out and have a real snack somewhere?” She passed me her credit card; it was a dismissive gesture. The kind that told me she didn’t want us here lest we interfere with the stupendously important ad for her real estate company, Palm Luxury Realty.
She’d gotten half of my father’s money in their long, messy divorce, and ever since then, she’d rebranded herself as the queen of luxury real estate and cosmetic enhancement.
“Thanks, Lori. I owe you one.”
One? In my opinion, she owed me more than one. She owed me a couple of thousand, one for every single day since that day. The day the doves cried.
I stood up and gestured for Zac to follow, just as my phone beeped.
DAD: How was your first day?
I put it back into my pocket without answering. I was angry with him too.