Speak

  He is warming up for a full-fledged rant when the bell rings. Some teachers rumorwhisper he’s having a breakdown. I think he’s the sanest person I know.

  LUNCH DOOM

  Nothing good ever happens at lunch. The cafeteria is a giant sound stage where they film daily segments of Teenage Humiliation Rituals. And it smells gross.

  I sit with Heather, as usual, but we are off by ourselves in a corner by the courtyard, not near the Marthas. Heather sits so her back is to the rest of the cafeteria. She can watch the wind shift the drifts of snow trapped in the courtyard behind me. I can feel the wind seep through the glass and penetrate my shirt.

  I am not listening too closely as Heather ahems her way to what is on her mind. The noise of four hundred mouths moving, consuming, pulls me away from her. The background pulsing of the dishwashers, the squeal of announcements that no one hears—it is a vespiary, the Hornet haven. I am a small ant crouched by the entrance, with the winter wind at my back. I smother my green beans with mashed potatoes.

  Heather nibbles through her jicama and whole-grain roll, and blows me off while she eats her baby carrots.

  Heather: “This is really awkward. I mean, how do you say something like this? No matter what … no, I don’t want to say that. I mean, we kind of paired up at the beginning of the year when I was new and didn’t know anyone and that was really, really sweet of you, but I think it’s time for us both to admit that we … just … are … very … different.”

  She studies her no-fat yogurt. I try to think of something bitchy, something wicked and cruel. I can’t.

  Me: “You mean we’re not friends anymore?”

  Heather: [smiling with her mouth but not her eyes] “We were never really, really friends, were we? I mean, it’s not like I ever slept over at your house or anything. We like to do different things. I have my modeling, and I like to shop …”

  Me: “I like to shop.”

  Heather: “You don’t like anything. You are the most depressed person I’ve ever met, and excuse me for saying this, but you are no fun to be around and I think you need professional help.”

  Up until this very instant, I had never seriously thought of Heather as my one true friend in the world. But now I am desperate to be her pal, her buddy, to giggle with her, to gossip with her. I want her to paint my toenails.

  Me: “I was the only person who talked to you on the first day of school, and now you’re blowing me off because I’m a little depressed? Isn’t that what friends are for, to help each other out in bad times?”

  Heather: “I knew you would take this the wrong way. You are just so weird sometimes.”

  I squint at the wall of hearts on the other side of the room. Lovers can spend five dollars to get a red or pink heart with their initials on it mounted on the wall for Valentine’s Day. It looks so out of place, those red splotches on blue. The jocks—excuse me—the student athletes, sit in front of the hearts to judge the new romances. Poor Heather. There are no Hallmark cards for breaking up with friends.

  I know what she’s thinking. She has a choice: she can hang out with me and get the reputation of being a creepy weirdo who might show up with a gun someday, or she can be a Martha—one of the girls who get good grades, do nice things, and ski well. Which would I choose?

  Heather: “When you get through this Life Sucks phase, I’m sure lots of people will want to be your friend. But you just can’t cut classes or not show up to school. What’s next—hanging out with the dopers?”

  Me: “Is this the part where you try to be nice to me?”

  Heather: “You have a reputation.”

  Me: “For what?”

  Heather: “Look, you can’t eat lunch with me anymore. I’m sorry. Oh, and don’t eat those potato chips. They’ll make you break out.”

  She neatly wraps her trash into a wax-paper ball and deposits it in the garbage can. Then she walks to the Martha table. Her friends scootch down to make room for her. They swallow her whole and she never looks back at me. Not once.

  CONJUGATE THIS

  I cut class, you cut class, he, she, it cuts class. We cut class, they cut class. We all cut class. I cannot say this in Spanish, because I did not go to Spanish today. Gracias a dios. Hasta luego.

  CUTTING OUT HEARTS

  When we get off the bus on Valentine’s Day, a girl with white-blond hair bursts into tears. “I Love You, Anjela!” is spray-painted into the snowbank along the parking lot. I don’t know if Angela is crying because she is happy or because her heart’s desire can’t spell. Her honey is waiting with a red rose. They kiss right there in front of everybody. Happy Valentine’s Day.

  It’s caught me by surprise. Valentine Day’s was a big hairy deal in elementary school because you had to give cards to everyone in your class, even the kid who made you step in dog poop. Then the class mom brought in pink frosted cupcakes and we traded those little candy hearts that said “Hot Baby!” and “Be Mine!”

  The holiday went underground in middle school. No parties. No shoe boxes with red cutout hearts for your drugstore valentines. To tell someone you liked them, you had to use layers and layers of friends, as in “Janet told me to tell you that Steven told me that Dougie said Carom was talking to April and she hinted that Sara’s brother Mark has a friend named Tony who might like you. What are you going to do?”

  It is easier to floss with barbed wire than admit you like someone in middle school.

  I go with the flow toward my locker. We are all dressed in down jackets and vests, so we collide and roll like bumper cars at the state fair. I notice envelopes taped to some lockers but don’t really think about it until I find one on mine. It says “Melinda.” It has to be a joke. Someone put it there to make me look stupid. I peer over my left shoulder, then my right, for groups of evil kids pointing at me. All I see are the backs of heads.

  What if it is real? What if it’s from a boy? My heart stops, then stutters and pumps again. No, not Andy. His style is definitely not romantic. Maybe David Petrakis My Lab Partner. He watches me when he thinks I can’t see him, afraid I’m going to break lab equipment or faint again. Sometimes he smiles at me, an anxious smile, the kind you use on a dog that might bite. All I have to do is open the envelope. I can’t stand it. I walk past my locker and go straight to biology.

  Ms. Keen decided it would be cute to review birds and bees in honor of Valentine’s Day. Nothing practical, of course, no information about why hormones can make you crazy, or why your face only breaks out at the worst time, or how to tell if somebody really gave you a Valentine’s card on your locker. No, she really teaches us about the birds and the bees. Notes of love and betrayal are passed hand over hand as if the lab tables were lanes on Cupid’s Highway. Ms. Keen draws a picture of an egg with a baby chick inside it.

  David Petrakis is fighting to stay awake. Does he like me? I make him nervous. He thinks I’m going to ruin his grade. But maybe I’m growing on him. Do I want him to like me? I chew my thumbnail. No. I just want anyone to like me. I want a note with a heart on it. I pull the edge of my thumbnail back too far and it bleeds. I squeeze my thumb so the blood gathers in a perfect sphere before it collapses and slides toward the palm of my hand. David hands me a tissue. I press it into the cut. The white cells of paper dissolve as the red floods them. It doesn’t hurt. Nothing hurts except the small smiles and blushes that flash across the room like tiny sparrows.

  I open my notebook and write a note to David: “Thanks!” I slide the notebook over to him. He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bouncing to the bottom of his neck and back up again. He writes back: “You are welcome.” Now what? I squeeze the tissue harder on my thumb to concentrate. Ms. Keen’s baby bird hatches on the board. I draw a picture of Ms. Keen as a robin. David smiles. He draws a branch under her feet and slides the notebook back to me. I try to connect the branch to a tree. It looks pretty good, better than anything I have drawn so far in art. The bell rings, and David’s hand brushes against mine as he picks up his books. I bolt f
rom my seat. I’m afraid to look at him. What if he thinks I already opened his card and I hate his guts, which was why I didn’t say anything? But I can’t say anything because the card could be a joke, or from some other silent watcher who blends in with the blur of lockers and doors.

  My locker. The card is still there, a white patch of hope with my name on it. I tear it off and open it. Something falls to my feet. The card has a picture of two cutesy teddy bears sharing a pot of honey. I open it. “Thanks for understanding. You’re the sweetest!” It is signed with a purple pen. “Good Luck!!! Heather.”

  I bend down to find what dropped from the card. It was the friendship necklace I had given Heather in a fit of insanity around Christmas. Stupid stupid stupid. How stupid could I be? I hear a cracking inside me, my ribs are collapsing in on my lungs, which is why I can’t breathe. I stumble down the hall, down another hall, down another hall, till I find my very own door and slip inside and throw the lock, not even bothering to turn on the lights, just falling falling a mile downhill to the bottom of my brown chair, where I can sink my teeth into the soft white skin of my wrist and cry like the baby I am. I rock, thumping my head against the cinder-block wall. A half-forgotten holiday has unveiled every knife that sticks inside me, every cut. No Rachel, no Heather, not even a silly, geeky boy who would like the inside girl I think I am.

  OUR LADY OF THE WAITING ROOM

  I find Lady of Mercy Hospital by accident. I fall asleep on the bus and miss the mall completely. The hospital is worth a try. Maybe I can learn some pre-med stuff for David.

  In a sick kind of way, I love it. There are waiting rooms on almost every floor. I don’t want to attract too much attention to myself, so I stay on the move, checking my watch constantly, trying to look as if I have a reason for being here. I’m afraid I’ll get caught, but the people around me have other things to worry about. The hospital is the perfect place to be invisible and the cafeteria food is better than the school’s.

  The worst waiting room is on the heart-attack floor. It is crowded with gray-faced women twisting their wedding rings and watching the doors for a familiar doctor. One lady just sobs, she doesn’t care that total strangers watch her nose drip or that people can hear her as soon as they get off the elevator. Her cries stop just short of screaming. They make me shiver. I snag a couple of copies of People magazine and I am out of there.

  The maternity ward is dangerous because people there are happy. They ask me questions, who am I waiting for, when is the baby due, is it my mother, a sister? If I wanted people to ask me questions, I would have gone to school. I say I have to call my father and flee.

  The cafeteria is cool. Huge. Full of people wearing doctor-nurse clothes with college-degree posture and beepers. I always thought hospital people would be real health nuts, but these guys eat junk food like it’s going out of style. Big piles of nachos, cheeseburgers as wide as plates, cherry pie, potato chips, all the good stuff. One lone cafeteria worker named Lola stands by the steamed-fish and onion tray. I feel bad for her, so I buy the fish platter. I also buy a plate of mashed potatoes and gravy and a yogurt. I find a seat next to a table of serious, frowning, silver-haired men who use words so long I’m surprised they don’t choke. Very official. Nice to hang around people who sound like they know what they’re doing.

  After lunch I wander up to the fifth floor, to an adult surgery wing where waiting family members concentrate on the television. I sit where I can watch the nurses’ station and, beyond that, a couple of hospital rooms. It looks like a good place to get sick. The doctors and nurses seem smart, but they smile every once in a while.

  A laundry-room worker pushes an enormous basket of green hospital gowns (the kind that shows your butt if you don’t hold it closed) to a storage area. I follow him. If anyone asks, I’m looking for a water fountain. No one asks. I pick up a gown. I want to put it on and crawl under the white knobbly blanket and white sheets in one of those high-off-the-ground beds and sleep. It is getting harder to sleep at home. How long would it take for the nurses to figure out I don’t belong here? Would they let me rest for a few days?

  A stretcher pushed by a tall guy with muscles sweeps down the hall. One woman walks beside it, a nurse. I have no idea what is wrong with the patient, but his eyes are closed and a thin line of blood seeps through a bandage on his neck.

  I put the gown back. There is nothing wrong with me. These are really sick people, sick that you can see. I head for the elevator. The bus is on its way.

  CLASH OF THE TITANS

  We have a meeting with Principal Principal. Someone has noticed that I’ve been absent. And that I don’t talk. They figure I’m more a head case than a criminal, so they call in the guidance counselor, too.

  Mother’s mouth twitches with words she doesn’t want to say in front of strangers. Dad keeps checking his beeper, hoping someone will call.

  I sip water from a paper cup. If the cup were lead crystal, I would open my mouth and take a bite. Crunch, crunch, swallow.

  They want me to speak.

  “Why won’t you say anything?” “For the love of God, open your mouth!” “This is childish, Melinda.” “Say something.” “You are only hurting yourself by refusing to cooperate.” “I don’t know why she’s doing this to us.”

  The Principal ha-hums loudly and gets in the middle.

  Principal Principal: “We all agree we are here to help. Let’s start with these grades. They are not what we expected from you, Melissa.”

  Dad: “Melinda.”

  Principal Principal: “Melinda. Last year you were a straight-B student, no behavioral problem, few absences. But the reports I’ve been getting … well, what can we say?”

  Mother: “That’s the point, she won’t say anything! I can’t get a word out of her. She’s mute.”

  Guidance Counselor: “I think we need to explore the family dynamics at play here.”

  Mother: “She’s jerking us around to get attention.”

  Me: [inside my head] Would you listen? Would you believe me? Fat chance.

  Dad: “Well, something is wrong. What have you done to her? I had a sweet, loving little girl last year, but as soon as she comes up here, she clams up, skips school, and flushes her grades down the toilet. I golf with the school board president, you know.”

  Mother: “We don’t care who you know, Jack. We have to get Melinda to talk.”

  Guidance Counselor: [leaning forward, looking at Mom and Dad] “Do the two of you have marriage issues?”

  Mother responds with unladylike language. Father suggests that the guidance counselor visit that hot, scary underground world. The guidance counselor grows quiet. Maybe she understands why I keep it zipped. Principal Principal sits back in his chair and doodles a hornet.

  Tickticktick. I’m missing study hall for this. Nap time. How many days until graduation? I lost track. Have to find a calendar.

  Mother and Father apologize. They sing a show tune: “What are we to do? What are we to do? She’s so blue, we’re just two. What, oh what, are we supposed to do?”

  In my headworld, they jump on Principal Principal’s desk and perform a tap-dance routine. A spotlight flashes on them. A chorus line joins in, and the guidance counselor dances around a spangled cane. I giggle.

  Zap. Back in their world.

  Mother: “You think this is funny? We are talking about your future, your life, Melinda!”

  Father: “I don’t know where you picked up that slacker attitude, but you certainly didn’t learn it at home. Probably from the bad influences up here.”

  G.C.: “Actually, Melinda has some very nice friends. I’ve seen her helping that group of girls who volunteer so much. Meg Harcutt, Emily Briggs, Siobhan Falon …”

  Principal Principal: [Stops doodling] “Very nice girls. They all come from good families.” He looks at me for the first time and tilts his head to one side. “Those are your friends?”

  Do they choose to be so dense? Were they born that way? I have no friends. I
have nothing. I say nothing. I am nothing. I wonder how long it takes to ride a bus to Arizona.