Corliss

  “Well, no one really can tell you why someone like Corliss comes about. It has something to do with the mystery of genetics, I suppose. The point is, we have to recognize that she’s special,” Dr. Fromer stressed. I was beginning to hate the word. “But,” he quickly added, maybe because he saw the expression on my face, “don’t make her feel odd. I see enough of that with ordinary brilliant students.” He shrugged and smiled at me. “As intelligent as anyone who’s been through this school may have been, Corliss is at least ten times as intelligent, Mr. Simon.”

  “You don’t say.” My father looked at me strangely again. His eyes widened, and the skin on his forehead tightened with his new concentration. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. “Well, that’s something.”

  I don’t think my father ever looked at me the same way since that meeting. Sometimes I wish we had never had it. I knew, later on when I was older, that both my parents felt bad about not being able to provide more opportunities for me, the least of which was a private high school with extra attention. It wasn’t a big secret that the public school I attended was barely keeping its head above state requirements. The classes were very large, the building in disrepair, and the teachers generally discouraged because of the lack of support and the discipline problems.

  I also knew that I was something of an educational oasis for all my teachers. Navigating through the desert of students who were disinterested, tired from staying up too late, and otherwise unmotivated, my teachers sometimes clung to me in embarrassing ways. Many times, during my English and history classes in particular, my teachers would act as if there were only two people in the room, they and I. I knew how much the other students resented me because of that. Even though they showed little interest in the subject being discussed, they hated being ignored.

  There was nothing worse than being treated as though you were invisible. Many saw that enough in their own homes. I knew that was why they acted out so much, but one thing I tried to avoid was diagnosing the behavior of my classmates in front of them. Even a side remark would result in my being called “Dr. Corliss.” They’d chant it after me in the hallways or write it in lipstick on my hall locker.

  Over time, my classmates came up with all sorts of terrible names for me, born of their resentment of all the attention I got. Maybe I was merely a living reminder of how they were becoming failures. If you consistently received fifties or even forties on tests, you didn’t want to confront someone who never received anything less than a hundred.

  “Egghead” wasn’t a satisfactory name for me. Instead, they would call me “Suck-Up” or “Bun Kisser,” even though I didn’t have to do anything extra to win my teachers’ respect.

  Brenda Thomas actually went to the library to do some research so she could come up with something more clever to call me and impress not only me but also her friends. She waited for the right moment after English class one day and then stood in the doorway as I approached and said, “Here comes our very own proctologist, our anal-cavity expert.”

  Some of those who laughed obviously had no idea what that meant.

  “Very good, Brenda,” I said. “Someday when you go for a colonoscopy and they put a camera up your rectum, you’ll think of me.”

  She stood there with her mouth open as I smiled and walked by. She had no idea what a colonoscopy was, but I didn’t really feel very good about putting her down. It simply reinforced their resentment.

  I never felt good about being left out of things, isolated in school, avoided in the streets, rarely invited to parties, and generally ignored by boys, except for Jackson Marshall lately. I knew I wasn’t unattractive. If anything, I was often compared to Beyoncé. I was five foot ten and had a good figure. It seemed I had everything anyone could dream of having, certainly enough to be popular with boys. Almost daily throughout my school life, I could see the hesitation in their faces. My brain was too threatening to them. Boys didn’t want to feel inferior to the girls they might date. Problem was, I couldn’t be dumb just to please some boy who looked attractive. My tongue wouldn’t let me dumb myself down.

  However, there were many times when I was in the middle grades when I deliberately did poorly on tests and pretended I didn’t know the answers to questions so boys wouldn’t reject me so quickly. My teachers all knew I knew better and bawled me out when they could get me alone after class. At one point, I was sent to the school psychologist and guidance counselor, who gave me a lecture about wasting my gifts.

  Everyone kept assuming that I would win a pile of scholarships, but I had no interest in a career yet. All that seemed way off in some distant future. If I didn’t win the scholarships, I imagined I would go nowhere special. Mr. VanVleet, the high school guidance counselor, warned me that the better colleges liked to see what they called an all-around student and not just a genius. I belonged to no clubs or teams. He was continually after me about it, but my home duties took up too much after-school time, and my interests didn’t lean toward any clubs, teams, or even dramatics. Students plucked out of the poorer communities and given full scholarships to top universities were rare, anyway. The bottom line was that we had no money for a special private college where my gifts could be fully developed.

  To my way of thinking, I was still simply an oddity, a person of some interest for my teachers, someone who could help them get through their difficult times, but there was no one who could help me get through mine, not really.

  I was so tired of it.

  My head was full of facts and information. Okay, I was gifted, but when would the gifts begin to make me feel better about myself?

  Would they ever?

  Was I cursed or blessed?

  Now I left the girls’ room and, feeling defeated, walked across the gym with my head down, avoiding everyone. The music was loud, and the words were distorted because of the poor acoustics, but apparently, no one really cared. Lily and the other girls were already into their highs from their ecstasy and were carrying on as if it were midnight on New Year’s Eve. Jackson Marshall, the high school senior who was practically the only boy who would dare talk to me these days, was waiting for me. We hadn’t come to the party together, but he had come over to me the moment he saw me.

  Jackson wasn’t intimidated by me. He was in a battle to be valedictorian this year. There were two others in his class half a point behind him. He was leaning against the wall near the refreshment table. With a shock of buttercup-yellow hair that he kept neatly styled, dreamy blue eyes, and high cheekbones, he was also one of the better-looking boys in my school. His uncle was an Episcopalian minister, and I knew from what Jackson had told me that his mother was hoping he would become one, too. I didn’t think it was his dream, but he was what I would call “religious conscious.” He was good at quoting the Bible and very aware of the potential for sin. But he wasn’t preachy. He was just . . . aware.

  Jackson had a slim build and wide shoulders and stood just over six foot three. He was very good at tennis, something few boys at our school played. We didn’t have a court at our school. There was a neighborhood court by his house that he could use when he had someone to play against, usually one of his older cousins. One afternoon, I went by to watch him, but he didn’t notice me, and I didn’t make myself known.

  I saw that Marsha and Brenda had been talking to him, but when they saw me coming, they quickly walked away.

  “You all right?” Jackson asked, practically having to shout so I could hear.

  I nodded.

  He handed me the cup of punch he had waiting for me on the table.

  “Thank you.”

  “Marsha was telling me how the girls were giving you a hard time,” he said. “She was more like bragging about it.” He had his lips so close to my ear that they touched in what would almost be a kiss.

  “They tried.” I drank some punch. My throat had gone dry from how tense I was in the bathroom, something I hadn’
t wanted to show them.

  “It’s getting wild out there,” Jackson said, nodding at the kids on the dance floor. “Some idiots are trying to get the others to make a mosh pit.”

  I nodded. I could see some kids deliberately knocking into others. Funny what amuses kids my age, I thought. Should I be amused by the same things? Did intelligence, intelligence like mine, whether you liked it or not, age you the way Lily accused me of being aged?

  The music was turned up a few notches.

  “I’m not sure I can take much more,” Jackson said, practically screaming to be heard.

  I nodded again, punctuating it with a grimace of pain. I drank some more punch. I didn’t want to shout back and strain my voice. Truthfully, I wouldn’t have come to the party if my mother hadn’t insisted. She was feeling guilty about my having to come right home after school to look after my brother and sister and was now blaming herself for my lack of a social life. I tried to explain why it wasn’t her fault, but she was convinced that if I just got out a little and did what other girls my age were doing, I’d start having fun.

  If she only knew what many of the girls my age were doing in the name of fun.

  I finished my punch, thinking we might just leave and go for a walk. No one would care that we had left. I was about to suggest it when one of Jackson’s friends, Ted Scott, started talking to him excitedly. Ted was laughing, but Jackson just nodded.

  It was probably a dirty, disgusting joke, I thought. Like me, Jackson hated dirty jokes. I hated them because they were usually quite juvenile. He hated them because he was brought up in a home where no curse word was accepted and taking the name of God in vain was really considered a sin. I knew that just listening to these jokes made him feel guilty. I was feeling sorry for him but suddenly began feeling sorrier for myself.

  The first indication that something was wrong with me was the way the music began to sound. It seemed to be going in and out, the notes elongated, the bass very low, and the high notes shrill enough to shatter glass.

  The second hint came when the crowd in front of me began drifting out of focus, some of the students dwindling and some widening. Their faces ballooned. Their laughter was like rolling thunder.

  Despite all this, I felt a strange uplift in my spirits. I wanted to laugh, even as I also wanted to cry. I moved back and forth from depression to elation, as if I were on a roller coaster of emotions. I could feel the pounding start in my heart and realized I had begun to break out in a sweat.

  For a moment, I thought I could see a terrific storm heading my way. Windows rattled, and the pathetic gym decorations seemed to be floating in some wind. A small tornado was coming. I wanted to shout a warning.

  Before it hit hard, I remember looking at the empty cup and then at Marsha, who stood off to the side with Brenda and the others.

  They were all standing there with identical idiotic smiles on their faces, watching me.

  Between these insane visions, I had a realization: Jackson had handed me my glass of punch, but Marsha must have distracted him so Brenda could put something in it.

  Was it X, or was it worse?

  I was losing control and soon wouldn’t even be able to explain why.

  The music got louder and louder. I dropped the cup and put my hands over my ears.

  I heard the voice of someone shouting, screaming. It was terrifying.

  And then I realized why.

  It was my own voice.

  I was the one screaming.

  2

  Mrs. Turman, our school nurse, called an ambulance to get me to the nearest hospital immediately. I should have been grateful that she just happened to be one of the chaperones that night, but later I would be embarrassed and quite ashamed, even though it wasn’t my fault.

  Afterward, I wished everyone would simply ignore me the way they usually did. However, my behavior had been wild, and there were many who enjoyed reenacting it with great exaggerations. I couldn’t walk through a hallway without someone going into an out-of-control Saint Vitus’s dance, their arms and body twisting awkwardly.

  I had panicked at the party because I knew exactly what was happening to me and what could result.

  They said I was swinging my arms madly to keep everyone away from me.

  I spun around so much that I fell backward, first ungracefully on my rear end and then out flat. Jackson was at my side, holding my hand and saying something to me, but his voice sounded as if he were talking through a tunnel. Mrs. Turman was there next to him. She was taking my pulse and then shouted to someone.

  I think I blacked out and woke again while someone was putting a cool cloth on my forehead. What seemed like moments later, I felt myself being lifted and then rolled out of the school on a stretcher, Mrs. Turman beside me and holding my hand. I was trembling terribly and crying. I must still have been swinging my free arm madly again, because they stopped the stretcher so someone could strap my arms in and then strap in my feet as well.

  Later, I had a glimpse of my father’s face as they wheeled me into the emergency room, but a glimpse was enough to understand that he wore an expression that was a mixture of concern and rage. The school had contacted my home immediately, and he had just gotten back from his shift at the production company. My mother was standing beside him, holding my brother’s and sister’s hands, all three looking absolutely terrified. My family had arrived at the hospital quickly, but they couldn’t come into the examination area right away.

  The paramedics pretty much confirmed what Mrs. Turman had believed and what I knew: I was suffering from a serious drug reaction.

  The question none of them could answer at the moment was: Did I take the drugs willingly, or did someone spike my punch?

  Once I knew that was the issue, I immediately felt sorry for Jackson, since he was the one who had handed me the cup of punch. He was sure to be the person of most interest to the police in determining if this was my doing or someone else’s. They might even think it was he. An incident like this required that the police investigate, and that would have repercussions at school, where Dean Becker and the principal were surely going to pursue their own inquiry. The school had a no-tolerance rule for drugs. If you were caught dispersing any, you were expelled and charged with the crime. Using could have the same result.

  I had a fitful night at the hospital, with crying jags and periods when my body seemed to freeze. It took all night and into the late morning before I was really able to converse relatively intelligently with anyone. My mother remained in my hospital room for the whole night, holding my hand. When I opened my eyes again, she was asleep in the chair but still clinging to my hand.

  The moment I moved, she woke up. “How do you feel?” she asked immediately.

  I was still trying to figure out where I was and how I had gotten here. I shook my head. “What happened to me?”

  “We’re not sure yet, honey, but it has to do with drugs. Your daddy took your brother and sister home.”

  “They were here?” Everything that had happened afterward was lost in a fog.

  “He wanted to stay, but it was better that he be the one to go home. He would be making everyone uncomfortable, not least of all me.”

  A tall, dark-haired nurse who looked a few days short of retirement came in to check on me. It was clear from the expression on her face that she thought she had more important nursing responsibilities than attending to another teenager who had overdosed on some party drug. She checked my blood pressure and pulse, checked my temperature, and then muttered something about sending in some breakfast.

  My mother was displeased with her indifferent behavior but thought it better not to complain. Apparently, one of Lily Putney’s more credible lackeys, Toby Morgan, had told the police she had seen me take a pill in the girls’ room. When they pressured her to tell them who had given it to me, she gave them the biggest lie possible, tell
ing them, “No one. She had it on her. In fact, she tried to give one to me.”

  After my mother told me all this, I started to cry. Maybe it was a residual effect from the drugs, but I couldn’t help it. All my emotions still seemed heightened, and I hated it. I don’t think there was anything I hated more than not being in control of myself. That was why I would never take drugs, nor would I want to get drunk. I wouldn’t even take a puff on a joint. I often wondered why those in my school who did take drugs weren’t concerned about losing their self-control and being at the mercy of others.

  I knew this was an even bigger reason the other girls thought I was so different from them. It wasn’t only my IQ. That they could stand. What they could not abide was being made to feel inferior because of what they wanted to do, what made them happy, what they thought was important. I had come to believe that no matter where I was or who was with me, I would always make others feel inferior. How’s that for a curse?

  And my teachers and the school administrators were telling me I was blessed, exceptional, and full of potential.

  Potential for what? Unhappiness?

  “She’s lying, Mom. I never took any drugs. Where would I get them to give to someone else? How would I have money for such things?”

  “I know, honey,” she said, but there was that small hesitation, that movement of her eyes to look away. She was my mother; she knew how depressed I was feeling lately. Depressed people often turned to drugs.

  But I couldn’t imagine my mother would believe I had deliberately done this to myself. After all, I was the above-genius daughter, larger than life, who had never broken a rule, someone who not only knew right from wrong but also knew the consequences, the statistical risks of deliberately making such mistakes. How many times had she heard me explain to my brother and sister why things were the way they were and why they should never be tempted? So often she had turned to me to “help your brother and sister understand.” It was their nature to be constantly coming back with why this, why that. After a hard day’s work, my mother didn’t have the patience to defend her decisions.