Chapter 5
The Lows of Paris High
“You’ll be okay,” John said to Jacob’s back. “I went to school here when I was a kid. Good people here.”
Jacob scowled at the carved wooden sign that read Paris High School. The square brick building looked more like a prison than a school. He did not acknowledge John’s comment but stared at the double doors and tried to remain numb.
“So, come to the shop after school. Just walk down Main Street and you can’t miss it.” Jacob could hear the note of frustration creeping into his voice. He didn’t care. John could make him do this but he couldn’t make him like it.
“Remember to check in at the office. I preregistered you but you’ll need to get your class schedule from Betty.”
Jacob nodded toward the school. His neck itched from the wool jacket John had given him to wear. He ignored it and took a slow step forward.
John sighed. “Okay then. See you later.” The old blue pickup whined as he shifted it into gear. Jacob turned only when he saw, out of the corner of his eye, the flash of blue leave the school’s circular drive.
Sure, it was only a matter of time until Jacob had to go back to school. He expected as much. Since it was the end of the holiday break and the beginning of a new semester, it made sense that he started now. But after all that had happened, he just didn’t expect it would be so soon. Going to school felt settled and he didn’t want to feel settled.
He joined a pack of students as they filed into the building, a machine of murmurs and sideways glances that churned to mustard yellow lockers. It wasn’t a large school, maybe two hundred kids, but he had the oddest sensation of being in a fish tank—watched with curious indifference. He ducked through a windowed door under a black plaque with white font that read, “Office.”
The short, mousy woman behind the desk typed vigorously, her square bifocals fixed on the computer screen. Her tight bun shifted slightly as she raised her eyebrows and turned toward him.
“Well hello!” she said in a high-pitched nasal twang. “Are you Jacob?”
“Jacob Lau. This is my first day.”
“Welcome. I’m Mrs. Whestle, the school secretary. It’s very nice to meet you.”
“Yeah, uh, you too,” he lied.
“Let me just find your paperwork.” She thumbed through a pile of manila folders on her desk. “Here we are, Jacob Laudner.”
“That’s me but Laudner is my uncle’s last name—mine is Lau.”
“Yes, I see your uncle filled out these forms. John Laudner, such a nice man. He’s been a friend of my husband, Herbert, for years. Anyway, here you are, Jacob Laudner.” Mrs. Whestle squared the manila folder in front of him.
“Um, but my last name isn’t Laudner, it’s Lau. Can you change that on the paperwork?”
“But your uncle…” Mrs. Whestle’s mouth pulled into a tight line. A nervous giggle parted her lips. “You are registered as Laudner.”
It was clear to Jacob that Mrs. Whestle thought he was messing with her. Of course it didn’t make any sense why his name was different than his uncle’s. Hell, he didn’t understand completely himself. But he wasn’t going to let the circumstances rob him of his last connection with his real family. John and the social worker could force him from his home, but he was keeping his name.
“My name is Lau,” Jacob said firmly. He could feel his ears getting hot.
“Okay, hon.” Mrs. Whestle looked flustered and more than a little confused. “We can change it. Do you have a copy of your birth certificate?”
“Yes, right here.” Jacob handed her an envelope. In order to enroll, John needed a copy of the original from Oahu. His name was Lau, legally.
“Well, here it is in black and white,” Mrs. Whestle said. “Jacob Lau, son of Charles and Lillian Lau.” Her brow wrinkled. “How odd,” she added under her breath.
She turned back toward her computer and began to type, longer and more furiously than he would have thought necessary for a simple name change.
“Oh say, now this is interesting. It says here you’re Chinese?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t look Chinese.”
“Well, my father was Caucasian,” he drawled, thinking they’d just covered his family history.
“Do you know you are the very first Chinese person ever to attend Paris High School?”
“No. I didn’t.”
“Well, this is exciting!”
Jacob scowled. What the hell was that supposed to mean? Like he was Paris’ token Asian? He wanted to tell her that the lack of minorities was only half as exciting as the overrun of idiots but thought better of it since it was his first day. Nonetheless, Mrs. Whestle seemed to get the hint. The smile drained from her face and she cleared her throat.
“Er … You will start in Mrs. Haney’s class, classroom 208, for World History. She is right out that door, up the stairs and two doors to the left. Hold on a minute, honey, and I’ll get Principal Bailey to show you the way. He’s going to want to meet you.”
The mousy woman left briefly and returned with a man who looked as though he had recently graduated high school himself. His brown hair was spiky and his skin, tan. Since it was January and there wasn’t a sunbeam in sight, Jacob got the impression that Mr. Bailey tried hard to fit in with his students.
“Hi, Jacob. Welcome to our school,” Principal Bailey said through a smile. He pumped Jacob’s hand a few times. “Follow me and I’ll show you to Mrs. Haney’s.” He pointed toward the door and Jacob led the way into the hall. “I think you will like Mrs. Haney. She is one of our more, ah, experienced teachers.”
He climbed a short flight of stairs. Mr. Bailey paused at the top. “Jacob, I had a talk with your uncle about your unfortunate circumstances. I want to tell you how glad we all are that you’re here. I certainly understand you might be feeling a broad range of emotions right now. That’s totally normal in circumstances such as yours. I just want you to know, you can talk to me about anything, anytime.”
Jacob blinked at the man and shifted uncomfortably. Why did everyone want to talk? There wasn’t anything to talk about. His dad was dead, his mother was missing, and he was stuck in this freezing hole of a town. He couldn’t think of anything to say about that to Mr. Bailey, so he just nodded stiffly.
“Well then, right through here.” Mr. Bailey pushed open the door and strode to classroom 208. “You’ve got your schedule?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. There’s a map of the school on the back.”
Jacob flipped the goldenrod schedule over and saw a blueprint-style drawing of the school.
Mr. Bailey motioned for him to wait while he poked his head inside the door. He repeated Mrs. Haney’s name three times before she finally bellowed, “Mr. Bailey! How nice of you to stop by!”
“We have our new student, Mrs. Haney,” Mr. Bailey yelled and opened the door wider. “Okay. Well, bring him in!” The words trickled out of her mouth between cackles. Jacob entered the room toward the decrepit old woman standing in front of the chalkboard. He was already sure she was half deaf. By the thickness of her glasses he supposed she was half blind, too.
“You must be Jacob. Class, this is Jacob Laudner, our new student. Jacob, you are the spitting image of Charlie! Do you know I taught your father here as well?”
“My name’s not Laudner. It’s Lau,” he said.
“What dear?” Mrs. Haney turned to watch his lips.
“My last name is Lau,” he repeated, louder this time.
“But aren’t you Charlie Laudner’s son?”
It would have been easier for Jacob to just go along, to pretend his last name was Laudner. Nobody there would’ve known the difference. But it was the principle of the matter. There were only so many things a person could lose before they clung to what they had left.
“I am, but my last name is Lau!”
The class and Mrs. Haney stared at him blankly. Mr. Bailey motioned to Mrs. Haney to step outside of th
e classroom and she promptly complied. Through the door, he heard Mr. Bailey attempt to discreetly explain what he knew about the name, which couldn’t have been much more than what Mrs. Whestle had told him. Unfortunately, with her hearing as it was, Mrs. Haney was incapable of whispering and Jacob heard frequent and embarrassing outbursts from the conversation that left the class giggling in his direction.
Mrs. Haney reentered the classroom and apologized to the class for the interruption. “Jacob … Lau then, you will sit right here.” She pointed to a desk at the front of the room.
As he sat down, the weight of fifteen pairs of eyes bore into him. Mrs. Haney turned to the board and continued a lesson on the French Revolution, pointing at a map and droning on about the civil constitution of the clergy. With her back to the classroom, the other students began to talk openly with each other. Jacob wasn’t the only one who had figured out Mrs. Haney was hard of hearing.
“So, what kind of name is Lau anyway?” the boy next to him asked. He was big, built like a running back, but the gel in his brown hair made it look like he spent too much time in front of a mirror.
“It’s Chinese.”
“So what, you want people to think you’re Chinese? Going for some Kung Fu rep or something?”
“No, my name is Chinese because I am Chinese.”
“You don’t even look Chinese.”
“Well, you don’t look like a prick either,” Jacob snapped. “But I guess you can’t tell a book by its cover.”
The boy’s expression melted into a glower.
“Dane Michaels, please come to the map and show us the area where King Louis XVI was arrested.” Mrs. Haney turned toward the class, silence flooding the room like she’d flipped a switch. The guy rose, waiting until the last second to break eye contact, and walked to the board.
Jacob leaned back in his seat. “I think I’ve made a friend.”
“It’s best if you don’t call attention to yourself,” whispered a voice from behind him. Jacob turned to see the rich russet skin of an East Indian girl, a long black braid flipped over her shoulder. Her brown eyes connected with his and she raised an eyebrow. “You’ll only make it worse.” She looked down at her book as if it was the most interesting thing she’d ever seen.
The bell interrupted any ideas he’d had about talking to the girl. In seconds, she’d swept up her books and drifted into the hall. He checked his schedule and headed down to the gym for P.E.
The boys’ class was playing basketball and by luck, or lack of it, Dane and a boy named Mike Gibbons were chosen as team captains. Jacob waited while everyone else was picked first and then ended up on Mike’s team by default.
Mike was the kind of kid that looked traditionally bad at sports, thin and pale, like he spent too much time watching television. Jacob took the opportunity to step up his game. He’d always been a natural athlete and he thought winning might be a way to break the ice, maybe even make a friend. His team was ahead sixteen to twelve when Mike called a timeout.
“What the hell are you doing?” Mike said into Jacob’s ear. He was standing in a circle of frowns—the rest of the team.
“I think I was winning the game for us,” Jacob replied.
“Do you see that guy?” Mike said, pointing at Dane.
Jacob nodded.
“I don’t want to beat that guy. Let him win.”
He had to admit Dane was intimidating. Either the guy had filled out early or he was held back a grade. Dane was at least six foot and broad, maybe two hundred pounds of solid muscle.
“Look, this is real simple, Lau. Don’t beat Dane.” The rest of the team nodded.
But as much as Jacob wanted to, he couldn’t force himself not to try. He held back and watched Dane score but at the change of possession, he took a three-point shot at the bell for the win. The P.E. teacher, Mr. Schroeder, gave him a knuckle bump as he headed for the locker room. But Mike flipped him off.
“You’re a real asshole, Lau,” he said.
The upside was that Dane looked furious, an outcome Jacob wasn’t completely opposed to.
Biology was just as interesting. Since Jacob was starting in the middle of the year, everyone already had lab partners. Everyone except the Indian girl who sat at a table by herself. He pulled up a stool across from her and opened his book to a random page.
“Have you figured it out yet?” she asked, without looking up.
“Figured what out?”
“Obviously not,” she said.
“What? Tell me.”
Her eyes lifted to his. They were the color of melted chocolate and she smiled the first genuine smile he’d seen all day. “The people here have enough friends. They all know each other, grew up together. Well, everyone but us.”
“I’m Jacob, Jacob Lau.”
“I heard, in history.” She nodded. “Can I call you Jake?”
No one called him Jake, but it sounded good when she said it. “Sure.”
“I’m Malini … Gupta.”
“Can I call you—I don’t know, how do you shorten your name?” Jacob grinned.
“I don’t, but it’s not hard. Say it MAHL-in-NEE”
“Malini.”
“Good,” she said, looking pleased.
“You’re not from here, are you?”
“Ah, no.”
“Me either … obviously.”
She giggled and Jacob could feel himself relax at the sound of it, like the knot inside of him had loosened a little. There was something about her that seemed honest and trustworthy. Maybe it was that she didn’t wear any makeup and smelled clean like soap rather than the typical fifteen-year-old girl stench of cheap perfume. Maybe it was the way she squared her book in front of her and actually knew what page Mrs. Jacques would lecture on. Whatever it was, Jacob felt like he’d found a friend.
Mrs. Jacques began her lecture on the components of a human cell but he found himself phasing out. He reached over to Malini’s notebook and wrote in big sloppy letters lunch?
Yes, she wrote back, beaming.
After a grueling lecture, the bell finally rang. Jacob noticed that Malini had taken three pages of notes on mitochondria, while his notebook simply had the word, mitokondrea misspelled at the top of the page. He didn’t remember a thing Mrs. Jacques had said.
“Um, maybe we could study together?” Jacob mumbled.
“Sure,” she said, a hint of pride in her voice. He stacked his books and followed her into the hall.
The cafeteria was an elongated rectangle of picnic-style folding tables, with orange trays stacked near the doors and two lines of students divided along the east and west walls. One line was for a salad bar and was made up mostly of girls, and the other was for hot lunch. Jacob couldn’t see what they were serving but headed for the hot bar. Malini opted for a salad.
A group of guys cut him off and the orange tray he was holding slammed into his chest, eliciting a twinge of pain from his healing bruise. Dane and Mike glared at him, daring him to do something about it. Obviously his win in P.E. and the comment in history weren’t going to be forgotten anytime soon. He let it go.
The tables were filling up fast and Jacob wondered where he and Malini would sit. Everyone else seemed to understand the social ecosystem of Paris High School, but Jacob wasn’t speaking the language. Once he made it through the line, he was relieved that Malini had already sat down and there was plenty of room at her table. Plenty of room as in it was totally empty besides Malini and her tray.
“I hope you don’t mind. This is my usual spot.”
“No, not at all.”
“Good. So, what do you think of your first day?” she asked and for the first time he noticed a hint of a mottled accent. He started to answer but was distracted by voices behind him. The group of people at Dane’s table spoke in half-hearted whispers.
“Looks like P.S. has a new friend,” Dane said.
“Awww. Now she doesn’t have to sit alone anymore,” Mike said.
“Righ
t. She can sit with kung fu wannabe,” Dane added with a laugh.
Jacob squinted at Malini. “Why did they call you P.S.? What does that mean?”
“I’d rather not talk about it,” she whispered.
“Like, who does he think he is?” a girl’s voice said. Jacob glanced over his shoulder and saw a tall girl with long brown hair whisper incredulously into Dane’s ear. “Come on, he doesn’t even look Chinese.”
“Amy, I know, and what’s with that shirt? It’s all like ‘surfer dude,’” a blonde girl said, holding up her thumb and pinky finger.
“Don’t listen to them. They’re all idiots,” Malini said. She grabbed Jacob’s arm. “I like your shirt.”
As soon as Malini touched him, he felt warm to his toes. He caught himself staring at her and compensated by looking down at his shirt, suddenly self-conscious. It was his favorite from home—a red Matsumotos’s Shave Ice T-shirt. It wasn’t appropriate for the January weather but he’d layered it over a black turtleneck and some heavy jeans.
“Who are they?” Jacob asked.
“The one with the brown hair and the big forehead is Amy Barger. She goes out with Dane. Mike Gibbons is on his left and the guy on the other side of him is Phillip Westcott. They pretty much hang together all the time. The blonde who looks like she ladles her makeup on in the morning is Missy Hatfield.”
“So, what is it with these people?” Jacob asked. But the voices interrupted again.
“I heard from Rob that he’s actually related to the Laudners but his dad changed his last name to Lau,” the one called Phillip said.
“Why wouldn’t he just use the name Laudner? I mean it’s like he wants people to know he’s a gook.” It was Dane’s voice this time.
Malini’s eyes pleaded with Jacob to ignore the racial slur. His jaw tightened until he thought he might snap his own bones.
“Did they just say what I think they said?” he asked her.
“Yes, but let it go. It’s not worth it. Trust me.”
The blonde girl’s voice again … Missy, “I don’t know. He’s got nice hair.”
“Well, he’s not bad looking, but who wants to date an egg?” Amy replied.
“An egg?” Dane asked.
“You know,” she lowered her voice, “white on the outside and yellow in the middle.”
The table burst into laughter. Jacob shot a glance at Dane and his hands tightened into fists. Malini grabbed his arm again, her delicate fingers on his wrist draining all aggression out of him. For some reason, he didn’t want to make a scene in front of her. He was afraid if something happened, a fight, she might get hurt. Plus, she seemed above all this, and he wanted to be too. He turned back toward her.
“Are they for real?” he asked Malini.
“Hmm. I’m afraid so.”
“I guess, where I’m from … in Hawaii, no one would ever use that word.”
“I know. Not where I’m from either.”
“Where are you from?”
“All over really, but London last. I was born in India.”
“I don’t get it, Malini,” Jacob said. “I mean these people act like it’s 1950. They don’t even know me.”
“Most of these people have been here since well before that.”
He laughed but then realized she wasn’t joking. “What do you mean?”
“Well, take Dane Michaels, for example. His family settled here around 1900. His family has lived on the same land for over a hundred years. And Amy Barger, her family has lived in the same house for four generations. This town is like an island; all they know is each other. They grow up in the same houses, doing the same things as their parents.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“No. Think about it. Who would move to Paris? I mean besides us, and we didn’t have a choice. There’s not much here. Logically, if you grow up here and you are open minded, you go to college and never come back. If you like it here, which means that you are happy living in the same house, with the same people, with the same thoughts and ideas as the generation before, then you stay. If you stay, you marry someone just like you. It’s like inbreeding.”
“How do you know all of this, Malini? I mean about the town history.”
“My dad. He’s the only insurance agent in town. Houses, cars, life insurance policies, you can learn a lot about people by what they insure. That’s why we’re here. State Benefit decided to embrace diversity and hello Paris, Illinois. You know, he took over because the last State Benefit agent died.”
“He died?”
“Yeah. He was ninety-six years old and still working. Died in his office. Weird huh?”
“Weird.”
“But good for us. There’s no competition so, whatever these people think, if you want insurance in this town you see Jim Gupta.”
Jacob opened his mouth to respond but was drowned out by the sound of the bell and the subsequent clatter of trays and chairs.
“Do you want to study later then?” Malini asked.
“Definitely. Bring your notes,” he said, “please.”
She gave the proud smile again, lifting her tray and carrying it to the conveyor belt near the kitchen. Jacob collected his things and turned to follow. He was halfway there when something hard pegged him in the back, knocking him forward. On the floor near his feet, pieces of hard-boiled egg lay broken. He whipped his head around and met Dane’s cold gray eyes. A red tide of anger washed over him.
Jacob glared at Dane with wordless hate and, as he locked eyes with the guy, he thought of ten different ways he could attack him. The fork on his tray had promise. He could do it; tear off the lid to this thing coiled inside of him and loose it on Dane. He might even enjoy it. He may not be as big as Dane but he was fast and he knew how to fight. More importantly, he had nothing to lose.
Then he thought of Malini. She lingered by the door, watching the drama unfold with her books clutched against her chest like a shield. What would she think of him if he started something?
No one moved. The cafeteria was so quiet he could hear the ice machine running. Time seemed to slow as Jacob stared, unblinking, at Dane. Finally, one of the lunch ladies cleared her throat, breaking the silent tension and Jacob backed down. The thing in his stomach coiled tighter like an unsatisfied hunger as he made for the door.
No sooner was Jacob’s back turned than the cafeteria burst into laughter.
He had to find a way home. If he didn’t, this might be the longest year of his life.