A boy dressed in all black, headphones in his ears, probably about 6'2'', a full foot taller than me, with a jaw a writer of the books in the romance section of Barnes and Noble might call "chiseled" (which is set at an angle that gives off that oh-so-original 'I'm angry at the world' vibe,) has just walked into the classroom, cutting me off in the doorway, and is now sitting in my seat. I walk up to the seat and pretend I am not intimidated as I clear my throat and say, "Excuse me." He looks up at me from a book tucked between his lap (geez, his legs are long...) and
my desk. I clear my throat again, ignore the thoughts entering my head which are informing me that his legs practically stretch to the rack of the desk in front of the desk in front of my desk, and say, "That's, um, my seat." Darn it. I tried to ignore those legs, but they got the better of me, and now my cover is blown, and I may as well take on the appearance of the extremely intimidated 5'2'' female that I am. He says nothing, doesn't apologize or roll his eyes or say something classy like "Not anymore". Instead, like the true 6'2'' half-gentleman he is, he stands up and moves, to the desk next to mine, the one closest to the wall. (He might be a full gentleman if he had said sorry before moving. And if he was shorter. It is lacking in chivalry to make girls feel so extremely tiny.) So, cool. Now, since this happens to be the only class I have ever had in all of my years in which the students are given one seat and kept in it all year long, 6'2'' and I get to be buddies all through our junior year.
Isn't that just ducky.
***
Great. I had the perfect seat- second to last row, second to last seat- but some girl had to come in here and ruin it, claiming the seat is hers, and now I sit in the second to last seat in the lastrow, so my presence, instead of being ignored, blending in with the other kids, will be magnified. I will be labeled by the teacher as the new slacker, and my dark clothes and lazy posture, instead of being waved off as East Coast behavior, will be classified as symptoms of my rebellious disease. This will give the teacher an extreme need to single me out, to call on me in class when I'm spacing out or to choose to notice only when I'm talking, ignoring the fact that the jocks on the other side of the room are having a full-blown argument about who got the last throw. The fact that this unfortunate situating has fallen upon me gives me a resentment for the unknown female sitting next to me that is, I know, extremely unreasonable, but is likely to remain for the rest of my high school career. And when I'm 78, and I'm showing my high school yearbook to my grandchildren, I'll point to her picture and say, "I never liked that girl. Can't remember why, though." And for some reason, when I imagine this scenario, I'm saying this in a Southern accent, though I don't have one, despite hailing from Georgia. Because every time I imagine scenarios including old people, I, for whatever reason, imagine the speakers having Southern accents.
The girl situates herself in the seat, now, pulling down on her dress that really isn't short enough for her to need to pull on it, and she pulls her backpack under her desk so that it leans on the desk leg closest to me. She leans down, unzipping the small pocket of the army green bag- which looks strange with her floral print dress and sandals- and she pulls out a red pencil pouch. She places it on her desk and leans down again, unzipping the main pocket and pulling out a fat book, most likely a novel, before pulling out a binder. She places the novel on her desk face down, so I can't read the title, and then she puts her binder on the desk and re-zips the bag, sitting up again. She glances at the front of the classroom, the teacher, probably checking to see if he's starting class yet, and when she sees that he isn't, she opens the novel face down on her desk and sits forward in her seat, reading. I look down at my own book, but I'm distracted almost immediately by the girl's eyes, which are widening and narrowing and crinkling at the edges as she reads. Her reactions to her book is almost more entertaining that my own book, and it's certainly impossible to focus on my own with her generating them next to me.
***
Mr. Felix clears his throat and calls the class to order. He notices 6'2'' and motions for him to come to the front of the classroom, to hand him whatever sheet he's holding. 6'2'' consents and then quickly makes his way back to his seat before he can be forced into introducing himself in the front of the room. Mr. Felix asks him to tell his name to the class, anyway, and where's he's from, but at least he gets to announce himself in the comfort of his new seat. 6'2'' proclaims that he is actually called Patrick, and that he hails from Georgia, (he actually says hails, which gives him points for me, despite his unkind height.) Mr. Felix, having done his duty, then proceeds to go on with the day completely ignoring Patrick 6'2'' of Georgia's presence. I wonder about this, when new kids come- what they do on that first day, when there's no possible hope of catching up but they can't simply sit there and look stooped. Patrick, in fact, chooses neither, simply reading his not-so-well-hidden book through the whole class period.
***
At lunch, I take a seat at the bottom of the amphitheater, overlooking the quad. I observe the students and pick out some faces I recognize from the two classes I've lived through so far- diva from period one, farthest row from me, jock, also from period one, who had a football in his backpack that rolled away from him when his bag contents spilled everywhere, attention-hog from period two who rose her hand four times and knew the correct answer once. Then I spot the girl I resent from period two, sitting with a guy who looks like he might be named Melvin and be the proud owner of four Science Fair trophies. I think maybe she might be cheating off his homework or telling him that, so sorry, she can't be his homecoming date, or his prom date, or his any other kind of date- but then she leans down from the rock she's sitting on so that she is closer to where he sits beneath her on the grass and kisses him promptly on the lips, and he pets her 50's-chic high ponytail (which she was not wearing last time I saw her) like she's his puppy as her lips remain on his for another three seconds. Then she pulls away and sits up, smiling at him before returning to the sandwich in her lap. I am honestly astonished beyond words, and I search the rest of the quad laid out in front of me, searching to see if perhaps this whole school defies the normalcy, and there are oppositions of the cliches everywhere. I come up negative, and look back over to the strange couple in awe, wondering if perhaps my resentment might, in fact, not last all through my high school career.
***
© 2011
