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2:30 P.M., WEDNESDAY, Sept. 4, 2013, Medford, Oregon — Blair Williams was sitting in a chair in a small room too big to be called a closet, too small to be a conference room. Her feet didn’t quite reach the floor, so she was swinging them back and forth. She sat straight, her back almost rigid with anger. She was so very angry.
She had been sitting here for over an hour. Nothing to do but to sit and think, the angry teacher had said when he escorted her here. “You need a time out,” Mr. Nelson said. “You’re a smart girl, I’m sure you will figure it out.”
She had it figured out, all right, she thought angrily. She folded her arms across her chest. A chest that was starting to have breasts. Her mother was making her wear a training bra, and she hated it. It rubbed under her arms, and the band was tight. She heaved a big sigh.
School this year sucked. She was 13 years old, and this was the second day of the eighth grade. The teacher, Mr. Nelson, had chastised her for answering a question when she hadn’t been called on. Well, it was the fifth period, and he hadn’t called on her yet. Not for any question. Not even in math, which was not her best subject.
So it was history, and she really liked history. She’d been silent all day. All day! So when he asked who the first settlers in Oregon were and she had just read a book about that, she blurted out, “Mexicans.”
There had been silence. “That’s not the correct answer, Blair,” he said condescendingly. And she hated that tone of voice. She did. “You should wait until you’re called on in this class. And you should be sure you know the answer before you raise your hand.”
She had been incredulous. Ignoring the rest of the instructions, she said, “But they were! Mexicans explored this region long before the settlers came from the East Coast to this area. Of course, Native American tribes were here first. Did you know there are 13 tribes in Oregon alone? But you said settlers, and the first ones to this area came here from Mexico!”
“That’s enough, Blair!” he snapped. “I will not tolerate your disrespect in this classroom, no matter who your father is. Wait in the hall. I will be out shortly.”
Blair glared at him. There was some laughter as she stomped out of the room.
“The first pioneers to reach Oregon were missionaries sent west in the 1830s,” Mr. Nelson was saying as she opened the door. She turned and glared at him.
“Spaniards from Mexico founded San Francisco in the 1780s,” she informed him. “And they explored further north up into this area, 50 years — years! — before the missionaries.”
She slammed the door. She’d learned from her father how to get the last word in. And a slammed door always worked. She was so angry she was pacing. Stupid teacher. She was going to have a stupid teacher all year. Again.
Mr. Nelson came out of the classroom and grabbed her by the arm. “Let’s get something straight right now, Blair Williams,” he said firmly. “You will not argue with me in front of other students. You need to learn to show respect. And you will learn to act like a young lady in my classroom. Do you hear me?”
She didn’t say anything. She wasn’t allowed to use foul language, and right now that was all she could think of. Mr. Nelson was a ratfink bastard.
“I asked if you heard me,” he ordered.
She glared at him.
“Fine,” he said. He kept a hold of her arm, and given that he was probably a foot taller, it pulled her up and it hurt. He marched her toward the principal’s office. He went into the office, and told the secretary, “Call her father. He can deal with her.”
And then he stuck her in this room.
He acted satisfied. As if he had scored a point. She rolled her eyes. So here she sat. If they’d called her father, he wouldn’t be here for a while.
So she practiced her meditation. Her mother had taken her to a counselor to help her deal with her anger issues. The therapist was actually nice, Mrs. Jorgensen. She’d taught her some things to do when she was angry. Deep breathing meditation. Going for a walk. Smiling.
It was hard to stay angry if you are smiling, Mrs. Jorgensen had said. So Blair smiled at the blank wall in front of her. And then she took some deep breaths. And Mrs. Jorgensen was right, she was calmer.
But then she started thinking about how stupid Mr. Nelson was. Everyone knew the missionaries and the fur trappers were not the first settlers to invade Native lands in the West. And he wasn’t even that old! He should know better.
That got her hyperventilating again with anger, and so now she was meditating.
Breathe in, two, three, hold, two, three, breathe out two, three, pause, two, three.
She settled into the rhythm. She liked meditation.
She was still meditating when the door open, and her father entered.
Her father was tall — a good-looking man, people said. He had blonde hair like she did, a little browner. She was very blonde. He was wearing a suit, a gray one that had a faint crosshatched pattern to it, and a white shirt, with navy-blue tie. Her mother bought his clothes, and she let Blair pick out ties to go with them. That was fun.
“You’re grounded for two weeks,” he said.
“But he was wrong!” she protested.
“That is not your call, Blair,” he said quietly. “You know how to behave in a classroom. Interrupting a teacher? Arguing with him? That is no way for a young woman to behave.”
She folder her arms across her chest again and scowled at the floor.
“Come on,” he said. “It’s time to go home.”
“Good night, sir,” the office secretary said to him as they left.
“Good night, Margaret,” he answered. Blair walked along beside him. She was careful not to stomp. Her father didn’t like it when she stomped.
“Your mother and I have been talking,” he said. “We think being in the public school district where I am the superintendent is too difficult. Difficult for you, difficult for your teachers. I have found a private school that I think will be better for you. It emphasizes some important lessons you need to learn. It’s an all girl’s school. You’ll start there on Monday. If we see improvement in your attitude and behavior, you can return to Medford High School for your freshman year.”
She said nothing. It didn’t matter what school she went to, as long as it had a library.
“You’re smart, Blair, scary smart. But you have to learn to fit in, or your life will be miserable, and you will make everyone around you miserable,” he said. He beeped open the car doors. “So I’m forbidding you library privileges for the rest of the month. You need to learn other things besides books. Today is a prime example.”
“You haven’t even asked me my side of things,” she said quietly.
“I don’t need to,” he said. He drove smoothly and at the speed limit. She liked to watch him drive. “Mr. Nelson was very clear about what happened. You were rude. It doesn’t matter whether you were right or wrong. You were rude.”
She sat silently, looking out the window. A month without books? She would go crazy. She would have to think about how to get around that.
“God gave you a brain,” her father said. “And that’s a mixed blessing. You must use it to figure out how to fit in, not stand out. No one likes a smart girl, Blair. No one.”
Blair felt tears at that last statement. She blinked them back. She wasn’t sure why she had tears now. She hadn’t felt any desire to cry before then. She silently followed her father into the house.
Now she’d get the mother-daughter talk. She grimaced. Really, it might be easier to fake it, she thought. She would still know about Mexican explorers and Native tribes. She could learn to smile and stay silent.
She was pretty sure her mother was every bit as smart as her father. She was an attorney after all. But she never argued with him. Never talked about her work at home. Which was too bad, Blair thought, because she’d been reading the newspaper this last year. And her mother’s name was in some of the articles. Her mother was pretty and she smiled a lot. And her father loved her: I adore your mother, he would say.
Blair was the youngest of four children. The other three were much older than she was — a menopause surprise baby, she’d heard her mother tell her friends once. Really, you learned a lot if you stayed quiet and listened.
You’re a smart girl, you’ll figure it out, echoed in her head.
“No one likes a smart girl,” her father had said.
She frowned. She had a year to figure it out, she decided. And then? When she went to high school, no one was going to know she was a smart girl.