SIX
Okay, so my first day at Greenville High, and let’s say my general entry into Greenville as a whole, had not gone great.
And that was not entirely my fault, obviously. Like, I think the record will show it wasn’t just me. But I had also lost my temper and as a result gotten the cutting and accurate reprimand from Millie.
The next day when Lucy woke up, I had already prepared a stack of (store-bought mix) pancakes for her and made her coffee and packed her lunch with a sandwich and cut-up celery.
Lucy took the lunch bag from me and took a moment to eyeball my outfit. Which was probably my most notable to date. Because it was entirely. . .normal.
“Where did you get those clothes?” she asked, feeling the lunch bag on the sly for leaks because I have, in the past, packed Lucy lunches that leaked.
“My closet,” I said, pointing at the bag, “And I wrapped everything in there up, so don’t worry. No leaks.”
The shirt was actually Millie’s shirt, which she got from one of the many art festivals she attended. Most of these deals gave out shirts with logos so big and sticky feeling they were almost unwearable. This shirt, fortunately, was from a minimalist image festival called “I,” so the only logo was a tiny I on the left sleeve. The jeans were jeans I had originally bought to distress and acid wash, back when I was in a more acid wash phase.
Danny, who received a photo of this outfit before I made breakfast, had kindly taken the time to text me an encouraging message.
DANNY
Have fun giving up your individuality for Greenville’s Capitalist Shitheads!!!
Lucy looked me up and down with a tiny, worried frown on her face.
“I’ll see you at school!” I chirped.
Lucy, that day, was wearing another women’s suit thing, green, with, I would say, not entirely effective gold buttons. Before she took this job, there’s no way Lucy would wear a pencil skirt made out of wool. She certainly wouldn’t wear that two days back-to-back. Really what she would normally wear was something like what I was wearing, but with khakis. Because that’s Lucy’s specific gay.
But no, Lucy was wearing an undoubtedly uncomfortable, not in character outfit, and she was wearing it for Greenville, I’m assuming. To let them know she wasn’t a militant feminist. Or that if she was a militant feminist, she was at least willing to put in a little effort to blend. (Say this, though, isn’t a stiff fabric like the wool in these dress suits kind of similar to what you’d wear in the army? Maybe?) If Lucy could wear an ugly woman-suit for Greenville, I could wear white and tragically unadorned denim for Greenville.
Not that I had to explain this to Danny, who clearly wasn’t getting the context. I wasn’t fitting in or giving up. I was putting up. . .a white flag. I was chilling for a little bit so Lucy and I could get our footing at Greenville High. That’s all.
Although I’ll say this, who wears white? It’s so annoying. Like two seconds after I put it on, I already had a little spot of coffee on the bottom. You know what you can’t see coffee stains on? Orange. Blue. Floral patterns. You name it.
Right before I left the house I turned and spotted my reflection in the mirror Millie had just hung in the hallway, normally a mirror I used to take a moment to make a really weird face at before leaving the house. You know, just to keep myself in the practice. My orange hair, which that day had decided to retain a bit of a pouf, fluffed around my face.
I pulled a tie out of my pocket and tied it back into a boring ponytail.
I squinted at my reflection. “You can be normal.”
My reflection squinted back. Admittedly the me in the mirror didn’t look convincing or familiar.
“White flag,” I told myself. “It’s going to be fine.”
Me in the mirror blinked as if to say, Sure it is. Nice s hirt.
Roller-skating to school was my one concession, and necessary because Millie had to take Monty to the vet for a checkup. I wore my baby-blue roller skates with the pink stars on the toes for no other reason than the fact that I tripped over them getting out of bed that morning.
(Side note: I really needed to clean up my room.)
By the time I got to Greenville High, I’d almost forgotten about what I was wearing. That is, until, weaving between cars in the parking lot, I almost slammed into Principal Lynde getting out of her massive pickup truck. My toe brakes squealed louder than I wanted them to—and loud enough to fall under Lynde’s judgmental icy glare.
“Anne Shirley,” she snapped, spinning sharply to face me as I attempted to stay still without putting my hand on her car. “Roller-skating in the parking lot.”
“Uh, yes.” I looked down. “Mrs. Lynde. Principal Lynde.”
Lynde sniffed, like my skates smelled. (They did not.)
“I hardly think those are appropriate for school grounds.”
“Right, I just”—I pointed back from where I’d come—“was just. . .getting to school.”
Lynde narrowed her eyes as I attempted to stop sweating. Once again, her hair was a pillar of silver. Which made me wonder if Lucy was trying to do a similar helmety type thing with how she was doing her hair lately.
“I have spoken to your mother,” Lynde continued, raising her eyebrows and lifting her chin as she spoke, “as you know. We had great hopes for her here at Greenville. I’m sure you share your mother’s aspirations to make a good start at this school.”
“Yes,” I said. “Of course.”
“Of course.” Lynde’s gaze fell on my head. “That hair.” She leaned forward slightly to look at the top of my head, like there was a spider there she wanted to kill. “Why you would debase your body with such a pointless effort is beyond me. Given all you have to overcome.”
For just a second, I let my gaze narrow. All I have to over come?
Lynde raised an eyebrow. Was I glaring at her? Yes. I dropped my gaze to my skates. “Okay, well.”
“Students at Greenville High look their elders in the eye when they are spoken to,” Principal Lynde said.
I lifted my chin. Something inside me was ticking like those bombs you see in cartoons.
“Yes.”
“I know you are issuing an apology today,” Lynde continued. “Please make it a good one.”
And with that she pivoted and headed toward the school.
I had a flash image of me putting my skate through Lynde’s pristine windshield. The sound of glass breaking and the inevitable shriek of Lynde.
You want to see me overcome? HUH?
WATCH ME OVERCOME THIS GLASS!
Oh, and maybe I didn’t dye my hair brown, but I did wear ugly clothes to school on purpose, and clearly Lynde didn’t even car e!
“Hey.”
I spun around, and might have put my hand on or possibly through Lynde’s passenger window if Berry’s hadn’t reached out and grabbed my arm before I did a full spill.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” Berry gushed nervously. “I thought you maybe needed a rescue. From Lynde.”
Berry, I noticed, wore a variation of the same thing every day. Coveralls. Green hair. That day she was wearing a green-and-blue tie-dyed shirt under her coveralls with matching socks.
“Hey,” I said as she released my arm. “Thanks.”
“What did Lynde want?”
“She hates my hair.” I sighed, rolling to the front steps with Berry close behind.
I sat on the steps while Greenville High students flooded past, Berry sitting next to me, watching me unlace. Her stare was very intense. Which is maybe why it felt weird. Like, could everyone just back off for a moment?
“Are you okay?” Berry asked quietly.
“I have to go find Tanner,” I said, slinging my skates over my shoulder and charging into the school. “And no.”
“Oh,” Berry said.
Tanner was standing in the hall right next to the door to homeroom, wearing his signature soccer jersey and jeans. Soccer ball in hand. Waiting. He looked up and spotted me, his thick lips curling into a smile. Sarah stood on his left and Gilly leaned against the wall on his right, a book clutched to her chest.
“Well, well,” Sarah singsonged as I approached them. “It’s Pizza Girl.”
Popping the p like it was bubble gum.
I pulled my whole body into a fist. Held it tightly. I stopped in front of Tanner. Took a breath. “Tanner. I want to apologize for hitting you with a piece of pizza yesterday.”
Tanner’s mouth gaped open. “Uh-huh.”
“It wasn’t appropriate. So I’m sorry.”
Tanner nodded, his tongue poked into the back of his bottom lip. “Yeah and.”
The fist tightened. What was he getting at? I’d apologized. What did he want?
More.
“I won’t do it again,” I said, my voice small.
Me. Small.
“Yah.” Tanner smirked at Sarah, who smirked back. Gilly looked down the hall. Slow, like he was savoring each moment, Tanner draped his arm over Sarah’s shoulder. “See you don’t. Can’t have that kind of behavior around here.”
Crying is natural and healthy. Both my moms “have cries” and sometimes Millie even makes us watch sad movies so we will cry, if she feels we all need it. Lucy says it’s a natural human filtration system. But in the halls of Greenville, it felt dangerous, opening up my insides like a set of shutters so everyone could see inside my house.
So I uncried, which requires kind of disappearing from your body for a moment and going somewhere far away. I used to do it when I was really small, when I got scared. I’d float away. I called it “ballooning.”
I just sort of drifted off. And me in jeans and a white shirt floated into homeroom and then floated to Math. Then I floated to Biology, a dotted outline of a person. And that was pretty much me for the rest of the day.
I honestly hadn’t even noticed that the day was over until Berry poked me lightly in the shoulder as I was standing in front of my locker and asked if I wanted to skate around the parking lot after school.
“It might, you know”—she searched my face with her hazel eyes—“help to sort of shake the day off.”
The more she looked at me, the less I was an outline. It was like she was coloring me in with her eyes.
“I don’t know,” I said.
I noticed Berry had a freckle on her nose that looked like a heart.
On the left and right of us, kids relished slamming their lockers as loudly as possible.
“Big game tonight,” Berry added.
“Yeah,” I said, my head in my locker. “Look. I kind of gotta get out of here. Like now.”
Groups of kids were gathering outside, stripes of green swiped across their cheeks, green foam hats and fingers. Homemade flags with dragons.
I slammed my locker shut, turned down the hallway.
“DON’T! COME! FOR US!” they chanted. “WE! WILL! DESTROY YOU!”
I ducked under the noise and picked up my pace. It wasn’t even a decent chant.
Berry followed me, her skateboard tucked under her arm. “So. What are you going to listen to? Like on your way home?”
I scrolled through my phone. “I think I’m going to start with ‘Turn the Beat Around.’ ”
“Vicki Sue Robinson.” Berry nodded. “Good song.”
As I pulled my skates on by the edge of the parking lot, I watched Berry drop her skateboard and put her foot, which today for the first time was sneaker clad, on the deck.
“It’s really cool that you know all this stuff. About disco.”
“My dad.” Berry smiled. “He taught me how to skateboard, too. The full education.”
“My mom Lucy taught me,” I said. “How to skate and everything else.”
“It’s a good skill set. . .to have,” Berry offered. “For surviving in Greenville.” She hopped on her board. “I can follow you out. Okay?”
“Sure.”
Standing on my skates, for the first time since I’d taken them off that morning, I felt a little bit me. Popping my headphones in, I pressed play on my phone, leaned my head back, and let the drums and violins ring through my body. We rode for a block together, Berry on her skateboard rolling over the asphalt like a surfer, her body calm and steady, hand in pocket, her hair sticking up in a big green sprig like a happy green onion.
The whoops and hollers of Greenville High got smaller and smaller with every pump of my skates.
And the music took over.
At some point, Berry curved left and waved as she disappeared down the road.
I turned right and picked up speed.
A full person again.
It was a crappy day, but at least it was over. And if anything, at least one other person got that being in Greenville, right now, was surviving.