Big Fat Disaster (24 page)

Mrs. Lowe apparently notices. “Are you okay?”

“I…don’t think I did the assignment the way you wanted it done.”

“Just breathe, okay? It’s not about being perfect.” She leans against her desk and folds her arms. Today she’s wearing a T-shirt dress that’s embroidered with the words
Chloe’s Mom
along the neckline. The stitches look like flowers. Her necklace is made of unevenly shaped clay beads on a length of yarn, and her leggings of the day are hot pink. I can’t stop staring at the necklace; some of the beads look like dried dog doo.

She catches me staring. “You like it? My four-year-old”—she points to the stitched name on her dress—“Chloe, made it for me in Pre-K.” She fingers a bead and smiles. “The style is primitive, and that’s one of the things I love about it.”

I try to imagine my mom wearing a dog-doo necklace. Her reaction to the fabric-painted T-shirt I made for her birthday two years ago was, “Where exactly do you picture me wearing this? People expect me to be well put-together at all times. Maybe if you’d taken your time in making this, it wouldn’t look so homemade.”

Later, I saw the T-shirt at the bottom of a box of stuff marked for Goodwill in Mom’s closet. When she gave me weight loss books for my birthday, I pulled the shirt out of the box, wrapped it around the books, and put it back in the bottom of the box. A few days later, my dad took the box to Goodwill.

She asks me once in a while if I’ve read the books yet so that I can lose weight. I ask her when she’s going to wear the shirt I made her, and she shuts up.

Mrs. Lowe says one word: “Listen.” She pulls a small boom box from a counter behind her desk, places it on the center table, and pushes Play.

“What is it?” the girl next to Kyle from Fun Math asks. “I’m not allowed to listen to anything but Christian music.”

“It’ll be okay,” Mrs. Lowe whispers.

The song is unlike anything I’ve ever heard. It’s about a guy who is trying to be who someone else wants him to be, and he realizes that even though they love each other, he can’t fix the person, and the other person can’t make him a whole person, either.

The music fades out and Mrs. Lowe says, “I’m going to play it once more, and I want you to think of a time that you felt empty inside and tried to fill that feeling in ways that didn’t work.”

“I thought we were talking about self-worth,” the girl next to Kyle says impatiently.

“
We are
. Self-worth is about believing that you
as a person
have value. If you are depending on others to provide that feeling for you,” Mrs. Lowe shrugs, “you’re going to be just like a broken cup. No matter what other people say or do, it’ll just leak out through the cracks in your self-worth.” She glances at me. “People try to seal up the cracks in all kinds of ways.”

I cringe and automatically run my hand over my lips as if there are still telltale crumbs from the box of store-brand Pop Tarts that I pigged out on before school. I’d pretended that I didn’t know what she was talking about when Mom asked me if I knew what happened to the brand-new box of toaster pastries.

My head is so full of thoughts about how much I hate myself for eating like I do that I barely realize the song is ending again. Mrs. Lowe makes a T-Chart on the whiteboard with the headings “
Yes
” and “
No
.” Under “
Yes
,” she writes “Volunteering to teach someone to read.” Under “
No
,” she writes “Abusing alcohol or drugs.”

She whips around. “Becca, give me another ‘
Yes
.’ What’s something else someone could do to increase their self-worth?”

She thinks a moment. “Um, singing in the choir?”

Mrs. Lowe writes “Singing or playing music.” “What do you guys think? How could committing oneself to a role like singing in the choir lead to a feeling of self-worth?” She waits a beat or two, but no one responds. “Colby? What do you think?”

I shrug and run my finger over and over the metal coil on my spiral notebook. “I…used to sing in the choir, but it was pretty much because my parents made me. I mean, I like to sing, but not when I’m forced to wear a sparkly choir robe and hang out with weird kids who talk too much or smell like cat food.”

Mrs. Lowe takes a few steps toward me. “So…you quit? How did your parents take it when you told them that you didn’t want to be in the choir anymore? Standing up for oneself is a ‘
Yes
’ for building self-worth.”

My face is burning, and I wish I’d never opened my mouth.
What to say? How
did
I get out of
The Young Conservatives
choir? Even if I
wanted
to sing with them now, they wouldn’t let me.

When I finally do speak, I sound like Kermit the Frog. “We moved here, so that pretty much solved the problem.”

I slide my lunch tray onto the
Nobodies
table at the same time that Ryan dumps out his backpack. His history book catches the edge of my tray, and my burger and fries go airborne. He doesn’t even notice.

Anna jerks her food out of the way. “What are you
doing
?”

Ryan’s freaking out. “I can’t find my cell phone! I had it when I came to school, and now it’s gone!”

I retrieve one of my fries from Sean’s chili pie and wipe off the chili with a napkin. I don’t even try to hide my irritation. “You’re not the only one having a rotten day, Ryan. Maybe you can try not to make it worse by throwing a shit fit.”

He slams his binder onto the table and our drinks erupt simultaneously, like lava from a volcano. He leans into me and sneers, “Want me to give another speech that’ll send you running away again, like your dad did from those reporters?”

So much for his apology.

“Oh, yeah…” Sean says slowly. “I saw that video of your dad on Facebook, Colby. That’s some cold shit, right there.”

Anna hisses, “Sean!” I glance at her; her eyes are huge. “
Ix-nay
on the
ideo-vay
!”

I dip the fry in ketchup. “I know about it already. Kayley reenacted it for me when I walked into school this morning. Forty-six shares, I think they said.”

Sean taps the screen on his phone. “Now it’s a hundred thirty-two.”

Anna accuses, “You’re friends with those bitches on Facebook, Sean?”

Sean glares at her. “If
you’re
not, how do you know about it, too?”

“Everybody does! I mean—” Anna grimaces and cuts her eyes to me. “Yeah, everybody does. Sorry, Colby.” She turns on Sean again. “But you didn’t have to bring it up right now! Jeez!”

“How else am I supposed to keep up with what’s going on? Anyway, if I keep my head down and don’t make waves, they leave me alone.” Sean frowns at the look Anna gives him. “I know, I know: I’m a sheep.
Baaaa-baaaa-baaaa
.”

Anna’s voice drips acid. “No, you’re a
fucking
sheep, Sean. A
fucking
sheep. If you’re going to go with the crowd, then you
probably
don’t belong at our table.”

Sean stands up so fast that his chair topples over. “Oh, yeah? Since when did you become as much of an asshole as Kayley? At least she and Kara don’t even
try
to pretend they’re anything but who they are.”

The shrill blast of a whistle silences the entire cafetorium, and Coach Allison bellows at us from his post across the room. “Is there a problem you need help solving?
Sit down
!”

Sean immediately sits; he slides down in his chair so far that I expect him to end up under the table. Ryan’s still standing, and Sean reaches up and yanks Ryan into a chair.

Ryan reloads his belongings into his backpack. He mutters, “I had my phone on the bus…then in art, because I took a picture of the painting we’re supposed to use as an example…then I got to math, and…
Shit
! I fell asleep!” He glares at me. “Did
you
take my phone? You sit next to me, so—”

I shake my head. “I was late, remember? I missed my first class because I was in the office.”

“Well, did you see my phone on my desk?”

I shake my head. “Why would you have it out in class at all? That’s just asking for Coach Allison to take it up.”

Ryan’s shoulders sag. “Aw, man. I’ll bet he did. God, I don’t want to ask him for it back. He hates me.”

Anna is sympathetic. “What’s your mom going to say when you tell her it’s gone?
My
mom would throw a wall-eyed fit.”

“Yeah, that’s what mine’s going to do, too. She just bought that phone about a month ago, and money’s tight, just like it always is. I’m pretty much screwed.” Ryan zips up his backpack, drops it to the floor, and puts his head in his hands. “So, so screwed.”

It takes me a while to find my English class, and I slide into an empty seat just as the tardy bell rings. The teacher, Mr. Van Horn, has his back to us as he writes board notes:

Do you think it is a
sin
to have a child out of wedlock?

Is it a
crime
? Is adultery
a sin, a crime, or neither
?

Mr. Van Horn turns from the board and folds his arms, watching us stare back at him. “Well? Let’s see some smoke coming out of those ears, people. Get your brains in gear, because I want to know what you think.”

Mr. McDaniel appears in the doorway. Our eyes meet and he gives me a tiny nod. His eyes scan the classroom and land on the back row. He addresses the teacher. “Hey, Max, could I see you a second?”

Mr. Van Horn says, “Sure,” then reminds us, “You guys be ready to discuss those questions when I come back.”

Kara hisses from the back of the room, “Hey,
Hallister
, ask him to add
stealing
to the list of sins!”

Quiet laughter ripples across the room and one kid says, “Great video, by the way.”

I know I’m supposed to be thinking about Mr. Van Horn’s questions, but all I can think is,
“FML.”

Mr. Van Horn returns from the hallway. His eyes zip from me to Kara and back again, making me think that Mr. McDaniel filled him in. “Most of you probably know someone who is not married but has had a baby: That’s having a baby out of wedlock. How is that different from adultery?”

Formerly-fat-Tina raises her hand. “Adultery is where you’re married and you’re fooling around on your wife or husband.”

“Right, right, but what about if you’re married and you haven’t seen your husband in two years; then, you have a baby…What’s that called?”

“That’s called being a dirty skank,” Fredrick says. “My brother’s wife got with another guy when he was deployed in Afghanistan. He come home and she done had some other dude’s kid. She’s a skank.”

“That’s one way of looking at it,” Mr. Van Horn nods. “But unless you’re directly involved in the situation, you can’t know all the facts. Is it possible that you can agree to that?”

Fredrick lowers his eyelids and shakes his head slowly. “That girl’s a low-down dirty skank, and there ain’t no two ways about it. Right is right and wrong is wrong.”

Knowing that Fredrick helped Michael and José beat the snot out of Ryan on the last day of school, it seems ironic to me that he’s such an expert on right and wrong. I glance at Ryan. He’s got his forehead resting on his palm, and he’s staring at his desktop.