Strays (9 page)

“I bet he gets a lot of girls,” Talbot said, wiping the lipstick off her lips and replacing it with a frosty pink hue.

“Maybe.” I hadn't really given it much thought.

“Do you think he could be into me?” she asked.

Was she serious? “Talbot! You're like ten years younger than him. That's illegal!”

“First of all, I bet we're only around seven years younger than him, and besides, it's not like it would be the first time.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean, older men. Forget lame high school boys. I'm talking about a
real man
,” she said, moving on to a dark eyeliner.

“You've done that?”

Talbot got up and locked her bedroom door and cranked up her stereo. “I had to promise I'd never talk about it again. As if
they
can control the words that come out of my mouth.” Talbot rolled her eyes. “So last year, I was totally hooking up with my science teacher, Mr. Ettinger.”

“Was it serious?” I asked.

Talbot nodded her head. “Very.”

“So what happened?”

“We got caught.”

“No.” I couldn't believe what I was hearing. “Who caught you?”

“Stupid senior girls. They all had crushes on him. They were just jealous that he was giving me all his attention. They claimed they had questions about some science assignment. I figured he had locked the office door behind him, but then all of a sudden, those senior girls were there. They walked in on us kissing. They must have stolen the key from the receptionist. They totally sabotaged me.”

“Did you get in trouble?” I asked.

“By the school? No way. In their eyes I was the victim of the whole situation. Poor, ignorant underage girl being seduced by the predatory science teacher. Mr. Ettinger was fired on the spot, and that was the end of that. The next thing I know I'm thrown into some weekly counseling group, and some woman named Ms. June is my new science teacher.”

“Did your folks freak out?” I asked.

“They were such jerks. They pressed charges, and I guess Christopher is doing time somewhere in San Jose.”

“Christopher?”

“Mr. Ettinger. He's not allowed to come within three hundred feet of a school of any kind. And he's never allowed to have contact with me again. I'm still mad at them.”

“So the dog rehab isn't related to that?” I asked.

“It's completely related. I stole my parents' car. I had been at a party, and I'd had a few drinks, and then I just had to see Mr. E., but my parents called the car in as missing, and the cops were looking for it, and then I crashed on Highway 17 before I could even get to him. My parents could have dropped the charges. I am their daughter. But they thought it would ‘teach me a lesson.' All it taught me was that high school boys are way lame and Kevin is so hot!”

Would she think about her actions differently if she had known it was a drunk driver who had ended my mom's life?

I couldn't believe that after all she had been through she seemed willing to risk everything again. Kevin was cute and all, but he was our teacher, our superior, and I would never even have thought of crossing that line.

Talbot added some glittery eye shadow. “Whatever. Just one more school year and we're out of here, right?”

I shrugged.

“Sorry. I mean, I'm out of here. You'll be on your way to college, but at least you'll be out of high school. What's Santa Cruz High like?”

“Big,” I said.

“You're lucky. At Clark, we only have fifty people per grade. I've been stuck with those same fifty people for the last six years. I can't stand it anymore.”

“Yeah, but my school is so big, I kind of feel lost in it,” I said.

“That's good, though. I'd love it if I could walk down the halls without someone knowing about what happened and calling me some awful name.”

I didn't know how to tell her that sometimes I didn't want to be lost. In fact, it was just the opposite. Sometimes I wanted nothing more than for someone to reach out and find me.

“What's up with you and Sycamore?”

“Who?” I asked.

“Oak. I call him Sycamore. Sometimes I call him Redwood. Any tree will do. His parents must be total hippies. You are aware that he's totally into you.”

Here I was wondering whether or not Oak's coffee proposition was romantic, and Talbot had him all figured out. She seemed to know a lot more about how to read a guy than I did.

“Well, he asked me to coffee,” I said.

“That's a weird date activity.”

“I'm kind of a caffeine addict,” I explained.

“That means he's paying attention!” Talbot moved to her bed, and I followed. “So what did you say?”

“I told him I didn't have time,” I said.

“Worst answer ever.”

Talbot was right. What was I thinking? He'd never make that kind of effort again. I needed her expert opinion. “I was busy! What was I supposed to say?”

“You've got to give a guy something to hold on to. A promise of what's to come.”

With all her experience with older men, it couldn't hurt me to heed her advice.

“So what should I do?” I asked.

She grabbed her phone. “You call him.”

“I don't have his number,” I told her, relieved.

“I do.” Talbot removed a piece of paper from her bulletin board.

“Let me guess—you got his number from Kevin,” I said, remembering that was where she got mine.

“Don't worry, I didn't just get his—I got the whole class. I'll dial.” She began pressing buttons.

A rush of excitement and embarrassment ran through me.

She handed me the phone, which was already ringing on the other end.

“What do I say?” I panicked.

“Hello?” It was Oak.

Talbot was making kissing sounds, so I shooed her away.

“Hey. How's it going?” I asked.

“Who is this?”

“Oh, sorry.” Why didn't he recognize my voice? “It's Iris…from dog rehab. I'm the one who has Roman.”

“The Iris who has Roman. I'm glad you explained it to me that way because I know so many girls named Iris, I really can't keep track of them all.”

I laughed. Okay, I guess I had gone a little far in qualifying who I was.

“What's up, Iris?”

“Nothing much. Um. Can you hold on a second?” I put the phone facedown into a pillow and looked over at Talbot.

“What's wrong?” she asked.

“I don't know what I'm supposed to say to him.”

She grabbed the phone.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

“I'll speak for you,” she said.

I flashed back to reading the play
Cyrano de Bergerac
last year in Schneider's class. Things in the story went south quickly when Cyrano started speaking for Christian.

I grabbed the phone back. I might not have known what to say, but I certainly didn't want anyone else speaking for me.

“Hi, sorry about that,” I said.

“What's going on over there?” asked Oak.

“Nothing. I'm at Talbot's. She's being difficult,” I said, laughing.

“She's lying!” shouted Talbot.

“I've heard she's trouble,” said Oak. I hoped he wasn't referring to the Mr. Ettinger incident. She was the victim in that situation, and it would really piss me off if he was claiming otherwise.

“Ask him to the bonfire next weekend,” mouthed Talbot.

“What bonfire?” I mouthed back.

“Just ask him!” She egged me on.

“So, I was wondering…” How was I supposed to put this? “Do you like the beach?”

“Nah, breathtaking views kind of make me queasy,” he said.

I had done it again. Why did I have to make myself look like a complete idiot?

“Yes, I like the beach, Iris with the dog named Roman,” Oak said.

Here went nothing. “There's a bonfire next weekend, and I was wondering if you wanted to go.”

Talbot gave me two thumbs up.

“Sure! Sounds great,” said Oak.

That had been so easy!

I heard the sound of a car honking through the phone. “Hey, Iris. I gotta go. My car is blocking my dad in the driveway. But I'll see you on Monday.”

“Okay. See you then.”

“So?” asked Talbot when I had put the phone back on the charger.

“He's in,” I said.

“Now there's just one thing,” Talbot said.

“What's that?”

“We need to plan that bonfire.”

I'd assumed when she told me to invite him to
the
bonfire that there was an actual bonfire to attend. “What are you talking about?”

Talbot opened her laptop and began typing an invitation over e-mail. Her recipient list was huge.

“Who are all those people?” I asked.

“Just a bunch of high schoolers from Harbor, SC, Kirby, Clark…people who know how to get the word out.”

I couldn't believe she knew so many people.

“I just have to hit send and…” Talbot moved the cursor to
send
and clicked. “Consider the bonfire planned.”

*

Later, when it was time to go, I put my shoes back on, and her whole family walked me to the door.

“We hope you come back again soon!” said Talbot's mother.

Her father said to Talbot, “This friend is good for you.”

Thaddeus shot me with his toy gun on the way out. I fired back with my finger.

I wheeled my bike outside and headed for Bay Street. I was looking forward to coasting downhill all the way home. In this moment, the waters within were ripple-free, like a glassy lake. Only the sound of my bike wheels spinning accompanied me home.

I
really didn't want to be the kind of girl who thought about boys all the time. I wanted to rise above the tug and pull of attraction, but I found myself constantly thinking about Oak. I even whipped out my yearbook from the previous year and searched for him through the pages. His class photo was missing, but I saw him in the background of other pictures: In one, he was sitting in the library with his hood covering his face; in another, he was wearing gym shorts and holding a basketball with a hood over his face. I saw his frame, tall, lanky, but I wanted to know more. Who was the boy beneath the hood?

It was the morning of Dad's promotional interview, and I could tell he was nervous. He kept fidgeting with his new suit, rearranging his tie, and checking his watch. Before I could tell him he looked nice or wish him good luck, he was out the door, forgetting to pour the coffee he had prepared, leaving me with the entire pot all for myself.

In class, Perry was wearing jeans and a T-shirt that read
Reading Is Sexy
. Apparently, they eased up on the dress code over the summer, even for teachers. I helped a few of the other kids with our morning ritual of placing the chairs in a circle.

“Thanks!” Perry said.

Once we were all gathered, class began. A few of us had opened our notebooks, pens poised between fingers, when Perry interrupted.

“Why don't you put the pens down?”

We all complied.

Perry circled the room. “I find it's much easier to really engage in a conversation if you aren't worried about writing everything down and you focus more on really listening.”

A teacher who didn't want us to take notes? Another first for me—but then again, Perry definitely had her own way of doing things.

Once our notebooks and pens were out of service, Perry continued, “What do you think of when I say
fairy tales
?”

A few hands cropped up, none of them mine.

“Don't worry about hand-raising either. Just pretend you're in a real conversation.” She paused and stared off into space for a second. She had a habit of getting lost in her own thoughts. Did I look the same when I did that?

“Scratch that,” Perry said. “Don't
pretend
. Just
be
in a real conversation.”

“Bedtime,” said a girl from the softball team.

“Good versus evil,” said one of the guys.

“Happily ever after?” I half-answered, half-asked.

Perry walked to the front of the class. “These are all great ideas. Keep 'em coming.”

“Unfulfilled desire,” said another girl, a theater geek.

Perry furiously scribbled everyone's ideas on the whiteboard.

Monsters, forests,
not
reality
—the list continued. Perry practically danced around the room in excitement as answers flew out of our mouths faster and faster.

“This is all so excellent! What if I added ‘sexual awakening'? What would you say?” asked Perry.

“I'd say it sounds good to me!” Roy Jones bellowed from across the circle. Everyone laughed.

The girl next to me, one of the students who had been ready with her pen, looked perplexed. Perry noticed right away.

“What's on your mind, Alexa?” Perry asked.

“It just seems to me that pushing some sort of sexual agenda onto stories meant for kids is…well, just kind of out there.”

Perry took her point seriously. “Interesting and valid response. Fair enough. Some people ascribe to the notion that fairy tales were written for kids as a means of exposing them to, and letting them work through, their deepest fears. But there are other theories as well. What if I told you that a theory stands that fairy tales were not intended for young children but were actually meant to regulate young adults such as yourself?”

“You mean, fairy tales were like old-school sex ed?” asked Roy.

“Exactly!” Perry said, pointing at Roy.

“Can you be more specific?” asked Alexa, eyeing the pen she had left on her desk as though she wanted so desperately to pick it up and write all of this down.

Perry was right—when you stopped taking notes and focused on really listening, things changed. Not that I was saying much in this conversation, but I was still equally a part of it, just by being there.

“Let's look at Cinderella. We all know that one, right?” asked Perry.

Everyone nodded. Who didn't know the story of Cinderella?

Perry took a seat on top of her desk. “Bruno Bettelheim, who subscribed to Freud's theories of sexuality, believed that a story like this was a metaphor for sexual awakening. So in this story, can you guess what represented Cinderella's sexuality?”

“The pumpkin?” I offered, turning a bit red.

“Good guess. I'll give you a clue; it's something she loses.”

“The glass slipper!” Most of us shouted out at the same time.

I couldn't believe I was being encouraged to talk about literature and sex in English class.

“So, according to Bettelheim, the glass slipper is Cinderella's lost virginity, never to return. A caution to girls everywhere to…” Perry's voice trailed off as she waited for a response.

“Never lose their shoes!” said Roy.

“Metaphorically speaking.” Perry winked. “So, those of you eager to pull out those pens will be happy to know that now I'd like you all to get out a piece of paper and, through the use of any familiar fairy tale you'd like, brainstorm about what you think Bettelheim would say about the story in relation to a young woman's sexuality.”

I was still in shock that this was summer school. Perry didn't want regurgitated facts. She wanted our ideas. I immediately began scanning my brain for fairy tales I knew. Were there any others about young women who lost something? Then my thoughts turned to my mom, who always had to wake me for school before I knew how to operate my alarm clock. She'd crawl into bed with me and run her fingers through my hair, saying the same thing every morning: “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty. It's time to greet the world.”

Something I hadn't been eager to do in a very long time.

*

By the time the bell rang, I had written six pages about how the needle of the sewing machine that Sleeping Beauty pricked her finger on represented some sort of phallic symbol, and her punishment for daring to be curious was falling into a never-ending sleep. I didn't know if this was right or if it was even what Perry wanted. But it felt good to be here in this moment, without distraction. Maybe I did understand why Kevin kept comparing me to Roman. Could it be that Roman and I had both become too tangled in our histories when all we really had was the moment before us?

Perry handed out a list of fairy tales, and our homework was to revise what we had worked on in class as well as pick an additional story to analyze at home. When Perry gave instructions, not one student groaned. As I scanned the various fairy tales I had grown up with, I wondered: Where in the world were all these girls' mothers?

*

At home, on a whim, I decided to call Ashley. It had been nagging at me—seeing her in front of Pergolesi the other day without so much as an acknowledgment of my existence. Maybe I could just work it all out with a conversation. When I tried her home line, her mom picked up.

“Iris, Ashley isn't home right now,” she said, although I could clearly hear Ashley singing in the background.

“Okay, just tell her I called,” I said.

I couldn't believe she had refused to speak to me.

Moments later, my cell phone chimed. It was a text from Ashley.
I'm so sorry…my mom is…scared of you. She just needs some time to cool down. Promise.

*

“I nailed it!” said Dad when he poked his head into my room later that night. It was after ten, and I was already in bed.

“Congratulations,” I said.

“Big things are gonna be happening around here, Iris! You'll have your new bike by the end of summer!”

His last declaration got me excited.

“Then maybe we can go for a big ride…maybe down to Monterey for a week,” said Dad. He knew that I'd like nothing more than to take a biking vacation—to the world's best aquarium, no less.

“That would be awesome!” I said, feeling a sudden closeness to my dad. “When do you find out about the job?”

“A week or two. They have a couple of other candidates. Rick assured me it's just part of the process. They have to look like they gave everyone interested a fair shot.”

I fell asleep that night thinking about my new bike and our trip to Monterey. I was so entrenched in my fantasy world that I hardly noticed the neighbor's dog, howling to be let in.

*

I worked my way through Perry's class all week, analyzing Anne Sexton's poem “Rumpelstiltskin” and working on a small group project in which we had to write a rap from a fairy tale character's point of view. Luckily, Roy volunteered to present it to the class. He began beatboxing into his hands before rapping: “I'm big and green and kinda tall/If you climb up my beanstalk, you know you're gonna fall.”

The class loved it.

Perry talked a lot about how various fairy tales had gone through many different incarnations. Cinderella could be traced all the way back to Roman times. In a Chinese version of the story, the girl's mother comes back as a fish whose bones have magical properties. And it wasn't until Charles Perrault's version that the pumpkin and glass slipper were added.

“Just like each of you are all unique, these stories have taken on different personalities,” said Perry, handing out yet another assignment to complete.

I liked this idea of taking something and making it my own. It kind of reminded me of genetic mutations. You get a copy of something, but it's not an exact copy. But you still have the essence of what was once there. I hadn't seen the relationship between English and science before, but now I realized they could be linked. A biological cell was like a word. Molecules were like sentences. And bodies were like the essays made up of millions of cells.

Which reminded me I had a ten-page paper looming in my future. But before I could worry about that assignment, Perry launched into our next task.

“It's a fun assignment,” she assured us. “And it involves a field trip.” I hoped it wouldn't be too far, considering my only transportation was a bicycle.

“Instead of coming to school tomorrow, we're going to meet at Central Branch on Church.”

A library. The absolute last place I wanted to be.

Perry continued, “I've broken you up into small groups meeting at various times throughout the day. I'll be there all day to help. I've already informed the librarians you'll be coming, and they will be ready to assist you. From this list, I'll ask you to focus on one of these writers. What do they all have in common? They've each rewritten fairy tales. Or reinterpreted them—putting their own spin on a classic. The ways in which they've rewritten the tales change their meaning completely and put them in a cultural context, reflecting concerns of society.”

Her words began to melt together, and all I could focus on was the fact that tomorrow I'd be in a library. My mom's domain. Yet another place I'd been avoiding. I tried to distract myself by thinking about how I'd soon be at a bonfire with Oak. I couldn't tell which I felt more strongly about…terrified about the library or elated about the bonfire.