Jagged Little Pill, page 4
She shrugs, then weaves her way through the chairs and desks. I glance around and realize the only free seat left is right next to me, and it sends my lonely heart racing. She is . . . dauntingly beautiful. And for a moment, just a moment, her eyes flit up toward mine, and I look away so fast I feel my neck crack. I take a quick glimpse at her as she settles into her seat, placing some of her books on the desk.
There’s a weathered copy of Great Expectations and books of poetry by Maggie Smith and Janet McNally, which both look equally beaten up in the way loved books often are. There’s the sound of someone clearing their throat, and I glance up from the books to see her staring at me.
“Sorry,” I mumble, looking away.
“Frankie,” she says, and I turn back. She nods at me a little. “You new?”
“Yeah,” I say, and she snorts out a little laugh. “What?”
“Welcome to Thunderdome.” She shakes her head. “You sharing anything from in there?”
“Oh.” I tap the Moleskine, thinking of the poem I was fussing over during lunch, tucked away in my notebook from home. “No, Miss Rishi just gave it to me. She seems nice.”
“Yeah, everyone here loves her.” Frankie nods and then smirks. “Can’t speak for the rest of the class being nice, though. Buckle up.”
She gets out her own notebook, which is stickered in a wide array of symbols and slogans that I can’t quite make out, looking like a graffitied wall that’s been painted over again and again. She pulls out a gorgeous brass fountain pen and gives it a little shake, and I feel my eyes go wide. Saundra had a similar one back at home.
She starts to write with it and jerks her hand back, sucking at her teeth.
“Ugh!” She holds a hand up, ink splashed on her palm. She smears it and it leaves a streak of dark blue.
“You, um”—I lean over—“have to avoid touching the feed?”
“What?” she asks, looking over at me, brow furrowed.
“It’s the . . .” I awkwardly point, and she holds out her pen. I take it, and it has a lot of weight to it. “Wow. This is nice. But here.” I turn the pen toward her, pointing at the nib at the end. “See under here? This is the feed for the fountain pen, where the ink flows and a bit gets stored. But it’s a sensitive area. If you press too hard, it can stain you.”
“Huh,” Frankie says, reaching out and taking the pen again. Our fingers brush in the exchange, and my heart flutters again. She points the pen at me. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” I smile and look down at my hand.
It’s stained with ink.
I rub the leftover ink between my fingers. Oh, I really want to get to know this girl.
“All right, let’s get started,” Miss Rishi says, sitting on her desk at the front of the classroom, snapping me back into the here and now. Everything about her screams “cool writing teacher,” from her jeans that have enamel pins along the pockets to what looks like a band T-shirt. She adjusts her thick glasses and shuffles some of the papers in her hands, grinning at the classroom.
“So . . . any volunteers?” Her smile goes wide and she pulls a single sheet out, her eyes scanning it. “Today, we’ve got Jeff, Megan, Frankie, and Stephanie for peer review. But before we start all that, we’ve got a new voice joining us. I’d like to welcome Phoenix Vargas. Stand up, Mr. Vargas. Tell the class a little about yourself.”
Everyone shifts in their seats again, and my heart catches in my chest.
I look over at Frankie, a smile on her perfect face.
“Uh . . . sure.” I swallow and stand up. “I’m, uh, Phoenix. I moved here from Danbury about a week ago, we’ve been getting settled in, I guess. I like writing a lot, which is why I signed up to be in here for my only week of the year. I read and skateboard, but not at the same time.”
Frankie snorts out a laugh. No one else does.
Tough crowd.
“And yeah, I just spend a lot of time with my mom and sister when I can. I’m a little boring, I guess.”
“I doubt that,” Miss Rishi says, smiling. “And what do you like to write?”
“Poems, mostly. Some short stories.” I curl my toes up in my sneakers, starting to feel a bit anxious. “Sorry, I don’t have anything to share, really.”
“Maybe you’ll find something.” She glances back at her paper and then up at me. “Thank you for sharing a bit about yourself, though. That counts and takes courage. And we’ll see if maybe we can work you into this class in the spring, if you want. We’ll talk about it.”
I sit down feeling a little warmer. A splash of hope in the Connecticut winter.
There’s an awkwardly long silence as Miss Rishi’s gaze swivels around the room, an expectant look on her face. She glances at her nails and then at all of us. Her eyebrows move up; she looks at her nails again. A few people squirm in their seats in front of me.
“Fine, I’ll go,” Frankie grumbles. She grabs her journal and walks up to the front of the class, and Miss Rishi walks toward me and, surprisingly, takes Frankie’s seat. She glances over and smiles at me before looking ahead. A lot of the kids jostle out notebooks and pens, the sound of turning pages and scratching nibs filling the class.
“This is the part where you take notes, to share when she’s done,” Miss Rishi says, leaning across the little space between our desks.
“Oh!” I open up the new notebook and click my pen.
I’m ready, I guess.
“This piece is called ‘Ironic,’” Frankie says, and then exhales. I feel swept up even before she speaks.
An old man turned ninety-eight.
He won the lottery and died the next day.
It’s a black fly in your chardonnay.
It’s a death row pardon two minutes too late.
And isn’t it ironic?
Don’t you think?
“Hold up,” someone interrupts, and everyone glances over in the voice’s direction. Some kid with thick black hair leans back in his chair, a pen in his hand. He’s tapping it back and forth, like he’s considering his point carefully. “Wait a second. That’s actually not ironic.”
“Right?” a girl with bright red hair next to him chimes in, a scowl on her face. I’m not sure what it is she’s angry at. Who gets angry at a poem? “Considering the way irony is defined in Greek tragedy, I don’t see how, like, a fly in your beverage applies.”
Wow, I don’t like these people.
“Yeah, that’s not irony, that’s just, like, shitty,” the guy continues.
The redheaded girl nods, pointing at Frankie, and a couple kids in the class chuckle. I can’t help but feel like this is less about the poem and more about her.
A bit of rage boils in my chest, but I push it back down. We had a kid like that in our writing group, once upon a time. Always bent on tearing everyone down as opposed to finding ways to critique while uplifting. That’s how it’s supposed to work. He didn’t last long. Plus, everything he wrote was terrible. People who critique that way are often pretty bad.
“Can I please just finish my piece?” Frankie snaps, and looks toward the back of the class. Her eyes meet mine for a minute, and she tilts her head a little with a nod. And just like that, I think I understand what she meant by that Thunderdome joke. Is it like this for everyone else in the class, though?
“Continue, Frankie,” Miss Rishi says, waving her hand. “And remember, we share feedback and insight after pieces are finished.”
The teacher glares at the backs of the students in front of me, and it genuinely feels intense enough that maybe they can feel it. Frankie clears her throat and continues.
Mr. Play-It-Safe was afraid to fly.
He packed his suitcase and kissed his kids goodbye.
He waited his whole damn life to take that flight.
And as the plane crashed down, he thought,
“Well, isn’t this nice.”
And isn’t it ironic—
“It’s not, though,” someone else interrupts, and I can’t help but groan. I glance over and it’s some white kid on the other end of the room. A girl next to him is agreeing and nodding.
“Mike, I said—” Miss Rishi starts.
“It would be irony if the guy in the crash was, like, an airplane mechanic?” that girl interjects, and the dude, Mike, next to her nods vigorously. And I can’t help but notice neither of them is actually talking to Frankie. They’re chatting with each other about how wrong she is. There’s no real conversation happening, no real critique. I don’t think they’re interested in helping her, and that pisses me off.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Mike continues. “Or if the guy was—”
“Oh my God.” I slam my hand on my desk, and everyone turns around and looks at me. Frankie’s eyes go a little wide, and then she snorts out a laugh. “How about all of you guys just let her finish?!”
I look over at Miss Rishi, who is staring at me with a wild look of amusement on her face.
“I’m . . . not sorry.” I don’t apologize and look back toward Frankie. “Please keep going. I, for one, love it.”
Frankie smiles and flips to the next page.
• • •
“Hey, wait up!”
I turn around as I’m hustling out of that classroom, the rest of my time in there a solid forty-five minutes of hell, listening to the rest of those pieces. Frankie’s was amazing, but everyone else . . . I could have lived forever without listening to those hacks. Three of those terrible writers were students who called out Frankie during her “Ironic” poem, which, I suppose, is actually ironic.
I think?
Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Who cares? Language is fluid, it’s one of the first big lessons you learn in any writing class. Or, you know, from reading at least one book.
Frankie is holding her notebook to her chest, little sheets of paper sticking out of it, scrawled notes peeking at me. Her smile is outrageously gorgeous, and she runs her fingers along the side of her hair, tucking away a wayward curl.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she says, as someone pushes by her, knocking her notebook out of her hands. I bend down to help her pick it up, pieces of paper fluttering about. I snatch them out of the air and watch that first guy who called her out hurrying by, turning to look back at us just once.
“Hey—” I start, and move to get up.
Frankie grabs my arm, pulling me back.
“Come on,” she says, tucking the rest of her poems into her notebook. “That douche is definitely not worth it.”
But maybe you are.
I want to say that, but I absolutely don’t. I don’t even know this girl’s last name yet. Ease up there, heart.
“They can’t talk to you like that,” I grumble, standing up with her. “Does that happen all the time? That’s not how peer review and critiques should work.”
“Yeah, well, racists don’t care about getting feedback. They only like giving it.”
“Damn.” I laugh. “I can’t argue that one.”
“You’re new here, so . . .” She hefts her tote bag up over her shoulder a little more. “You’ll figure it out. Maybe in that class next year, if you take it and if you can take it, if you know what I mean. It’s never about your writing with people like that. It’s about your voice and how it scares them.”
“Is that why you’re in that class? You like scaring people?”
“Nah, I’m there because I like writing,” she says, her smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “But you know, there are perks.” She looks down the hallway and back at me. “What’s your next class?”
“Does it matter?” I ask. “I’ve got a week here before the break. Can I walk with you?”
“Depends.” Her head tilts to the side, and she gives me a coy look that sends my heart racing yet again. “It’ll cost you one poem.”
“What?!” I laugh, but she just stares at me. “Oh, you’re serious.”
“Afraid I am, Phoenix.” She grins, and then looks away, like we have all the time in the world in this hallway. I feel like if she had an apple, she’d lean against the lockers and take a bite out of it, like some sort of mastermind in a movie. “One poem, and you may escort me.”
“I, um, didn’t write anything,” I stammer out.
“I know you’ve got a little notebook in your bag.” She crosses her arms, her grin expanding. “Why don’t you show me what you got?”
“Aren’t you . . . we . . . going to be late for class?” I ask, trying to stall.
“It’s the end of the year. Like you said, we’ll all be on break soon, and no one even knows who you are yet.” She shrugs. “I’m not worried about being marked late, and you shouldn’t be worried about anything except getting me that poem.”
She nods at my bag.
I look around, and the hallway is almost entirely empty, just a few students at the doorways to classrooms. I glance back at her.
“Well?” she asks.
I take a step toward the lockers, sigh, and dig around in my bag as I lean against the cool metal behind me. I pull out my weathered notebook, and she makes a satisfied “hmph” sound and I give her a playful glare. She laughs, and oh my God, that laugh. I cannot handle it.
I flip through to the piece Ruby left a note on.
“Okay.” I hand her the notebook, and she steps back like I just tried to pass her a piece of rotten fruit. “What?!”
“Oh no, no.” Frankie shakes her head. “You heard me read. It’s your turn.”
“No way!” I look around; the hallways are entirely empty now. “We’re going to be—”
“I guess I’ll walk to class alone.”
“Fine, fine.” I clear my throat and take another quick look around before beginning.
How ’bout me not blaming you for everything?
How ’bout me enjoying the moment for once?
How ’bout how good it feels to finally forgive you?
How ’bout grieving it all one at a time?
The moment I let go of it
Was the moment I got more than I could handle.
The moment I jumped off of it
Was the moment I touched down.
I glance up at Frankie, and she’s staring at me, wide eyed.
“It’s . . . not quite finished yet.” I clear my throat again. “Does that get me a walk to your class?”
“Sure. Try to keep up,” she says, taking off, and I hurry after her.
One thing’s for sure.
I already don’t know if it’s possible to keep up with this Frankie girl.
But I think I’d really like to try.
Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you.
Chapter Four
Nick
I hear them fighting before I open the front door.
I close my eyes, exhaling. The overly warm December day has faded with the afternoon, and I can see my breath, clouds of white against the eggshell-blue door to our house. I lean against it, my fist against the wood, and listen . . . quickly realizing the shouting is one-sided. It’s just Mom, and she must be on the phone.
I’m so damn tired.
I have to be perfect. Flawless. A shining example in this disaster of a family, while they get to flip out on each other over breakfast and, now, on the phone. Me, I have to get the good grades, date the right people, get into the correct school, be this paragon, when all I want to do is cut class and maybe . . . I don’t know, do anything else. Spend the day at the shitty empty mall in the next town over or hide in someone’s basement playing video games. Just be like the rest of my friends. But that doesn’t keep Mom holding it together. Letting myself cut loose only threatens to send her reeling.
Just half a year more. Six months. Then I’ll be away and can be me, and not a parent to my parents. Six months to figure out how to not let the guilt of leaving overwhelm me and keep me rooted to the ground here. What happens when I go and leave Frankie behind with them? What happens to Dad and his quiet depression spiral? How long can he keep pretending, hiding in the dark only to explode when he’s brought into the light just a little? What more will it take before he just walks out the door and never comes back?
I take a deep breath. Okay.
Time to put on my own show.
I open the front door, and Mom is standing there in the middle of the living room, her cheeks red, eyes watery. She looks furious but also . . . there’s something else to it that I can’t quite put my finger on. She looks sick, sweating the way you do when you’re just getting over a fever, and she hangs up the phone, quickly tossing it onto the couch as she spots me.
“Hey . . .” I start, walking in slowly.
Her expression shifts quickly, a smile lighting up her face like someone just pasted it on there. She wipes at her cheeks and sniffles.
“What’s, um . . . what’s going on, Mom?”
“Hey, sweetheart,” she says, her voice gone hoarse. “Nothing, it’s nothing. Not feeling too great.”
“Yeah, okay, well, it doesn’t look like nothing,” I press. “Do you want me to run out and get you anything? I can pick up some cold medicine or—”
“No, no.” She shakes her head. “It’s fine.”
There’s a beat, a little pause, interrupted by her sniffling.
“Was that Dad?” I ask, breaking the silence.
“Oh, I don’t want you to worry about that,” she says, waving her hand around. Which means it probably was Dad, and the likelihood of him coming home tonight has dropped by a significant percentage. He’ll probably crash in his office and post a bunch of wildly depressing Instagram stories with quotes from bad songs about feeling alone, and I have no idea what I’m supposed to do when I see those.
“Was everyone just freaking out over you and Harvard at school?” she asks.
“No, not really.” I shrug, and she frowns. I know she wants everyone around me to be celebrating and lifting me up on their shoulders or something, but every other day someone gets into a random school. The local county college, smaller state schools, places that all sound great but make Mom wince when she hears their names. No, there are just quiet nods and congrats, leaving someone else to stress over whether they’ll be next to get a letter.
“I mean, some of my friends are hyped, I guess,” I say. “I found out Shaune from down the block got into Berklee on early acceptance—”
