The Fall of Butterflies (13 page)

H
alfway across the green to the library there's an art class set up, painting. All boys. A field trip from Witherspoon. All facing the same direction. The clock tower and the tree-lined path, the sunset in the distance. A serene but majestic vista. Walking past them, you can't help but notice their work. That guy's good. Um, that's average. That's pretty dark. Twenty different interpretations of the same omniscient clock tower.

But then there's this guy.

This joker.

Facing the complete opposite way.

And that is Zeb.

There he sits, easel set facing 180 degrees in the other
direction. Toward the cafe. There's a loading dock there and two guys, smoking. Working-class guys in white aprons, wrapped around sage-green pants. One white, ruddy-faced. The other black, taller. They're laughing about something. A quick laugh. Maybe at the boss. Maybe at us. Maybe they spat in someone's food. Some jerk.

Zeb is painting them.

I can't help it. Curious.

“What do you think they're laughing at?”

“Maybe they're laughing at my painting.”

He continues, looking over, dabbling the brush, looking over.

“I like your painting. It's bold.”

“Thanks, Iowa.”

“You remembered. Great.”

“What, you think I could forget?”

He looks up and raises an eyebrow. Such mischief.

“Has anybody ever told you that you have an impish flair?”

“Has anybody ever told you that you should take this class with me?”

“Are you crazy? Painting is not allowed on my transcript.”

“Good Lord! Heavens, no! What a terrible idea! Where are you applying that painting would be so frowned upon?”

“If you ask my mother, it's Princeton or death.”

“Ugh. Princeton
is
death. You don't wanna go there.”

“Really? Why not?”

“Total squaresville. Seriously, I think they hand out, like, light-blue oxfords and gray pants right when you get there. Blech. You'd hate it there.”

“How do you know?”

“Because that's a school for, like, future bankers. And I don't want to presume, but that doesn't strike me as you.”

“Well, where do you wanna go? Or are you just gonna surf off somewhere into the night with yacht rock playing in the background?”

“I know exactly where I wanna go. USC, documentary filmmaking. I want to change the world! Like
Blackfish
.”

The teacher takes note of me and starts to come over, protective.

“You better go. You don't wanna get busted. It won't look good on your
transcript
.”

I look back at the two workers, heading in. One of them flicks his cigarette while the other gets the door. Break's over.

I turn to go.

“Hey, Willa,” Zeb calls. “If you get into Princeton, I'll come and make a documentary about how boring Princeton is.”

He smiles.

I can't help but smile back.

“Funny, Zeb. Very amusing.”

And there's something in my step here. A kind of freedom. There's something to the way Zeb approaches the grass and the minutes of the day. Something playful and never scared.

And I wonder what you have to do to get like that.

S
omething totally weird happened with the play, and now it's not
Grease
anymore.

I guess Teal Pantsuit had a nervous breakdown because somebody ate the rest of her Southwestern-Style Enchilada Lean Cuisine in the faculty fridge and she just kind of went ballistic and is taking time off to “refocus,” which I think means they almost shit-canned her but felt sorry for her. That's the rumor, anyway. Whatever the case, now she's gone for an undetermined amount of time, so they are bringing in an entirely new director with an entirely new vision. A vision involving Shakespeare. I, personally, would quit the whole thing right now, but somehow the fact that
we're already cast means we are by default involved.

Ugh.
Shakespeare.

This is gonna be a real snore.

And if I have to wear tights, I'm totally quitting.

The play they have chosen is a rather obscure thing called
Hamlet
.

If you like to watch reruns from the '70s, you may remember it from the episode of
Gilligan's Island
where they decide to make
Hamlet
into a musical.

But this is not that version. And there's something else, too. The drama instructor, Mrs. Jacobsen, has been replaced with . . . the Witherspoon English teacher.

Who is—there is no way to sugarcoat this—hot.

Yup. No Frenchy and singing by the bleachers. Now we are straight into medieval tragedy
avec
hot English teacher.

There are a few problems, and the main one is we can't all play Ophelia. There are only so many enviable roles for a young lass. The crazy girl who kills herself over the prince being the tippy top.

So, basically, it's obvious we will all be spear carriers.

Said English teacher is basically a little paler than white bread, with hair the color of ink. Jet-black ink. Set on bold. His hair is set on bold. And underlined.

He's sophisticated. He's elegant. He's unexpected. He
is not blowing his own horn, but there's something to be blown. Ahem.

If you think Remy is not noticing, that is because it's hard to tell what she's doing because she's hiding behind me, using me as a human shield, if you will. Why, you ask? Why on earth would Remy need to use me as a human shield? Well, quite simply, what is happening is that her tongue is basically exiting her mouth and slurping its way to the ground with love for this here English teacher before us.

That's right. She is hiding from her tongue.

“What the fuck is that?”

She whispers it into my ear, somehow able to speak.

“That . . . is the director for our new production of our Shakespeare play.”

“Is he a gift from God?”

“I think he might be a gift from the devil, actually. Considering that he's our teacher.”

“I think he is my husband.”

I laugh. “What're you talking about? It rhymes with something. And that something is grape. Matchutory grape.”

Remy is holding me by the shoulders and giggling into my ear like a schoolgirl.

“What should we call him?”

“Um. I think . . . Humbert Humbert.”

“Humbert Whatbert?”

“Humbert Humbert. The guy from
Lolita
.”

“And that makes me Lolita?”

“Bingo.”

“Perfect. I love a starring role.”

I
am left to ponder the incredible force of nature that is Remy Taft.

She was cast as Marty in
Grease
by, basically, breathing.

Now she's been
encouraged
by our new director, the one and only Mr. Humbert, to audition for the starring (female) role in Hamlet. Old Bert referred to her
natural presence
when he made the suggestion.

I nearly gagged. “How does he know they're natural?” I joked. But Remy wasn't laughing. She seemed to soak up Humbert's particular brand of attention like a sponge. I could see it actually puffing her up, making her . . . more.

I, on the other hand, am feeling considerably
less
as I make my way to Wharton House.

It's a stoic white colonial across a gravel road, just north of the green. It sits hidden from everything by a grove of trees, and if you didn't know it was there, you'd assume someone just lived there making pies all day.

But no! This place is silverfish heaven. Books, papers, files everywhere, and up a tiny, curving staircase on the fourth floor is the alcove. And in the middle of the alcove is my Contemporary Lit professor, Ms. Ingall.

I received a reminder note from her in my school mailbox. There it was, right alongside the care package from my dad. (For the record, said package included a Tupperware full of snickerdoodles and a novelty pencil. You know, the kind with the crazy felt hair and the googly eyes? I like it. I've decided to name it Fuzzy McGillicutty.)

Ms. Ingall has summoned me to her lair. I am fearful that I am about to receive a come-to-Jesus kind of lecture, here. I have not,
certainly
not, been the kind of laser-focused teach-me-o-wise-one student I have modeled for my instructors historically. And so, it seems, we're having a little heart-to-heart. Who knows? Maybe I can turn this all around. Maybe I can get some sort of extra credit out of it, graduate with honors and some Latin next to my name.

There she is. Peering through her reading glasses over a pile of papers the height of a vacuum cleaner when my head
pops up above the staircase.

“Um, hello?”

She looks up, over her reading glasses.

“Oh, Willa! I'm so glad you came. Thank you for taking the time.”

“Sure. Um . . .”

Um. What am I doing here? Um, why so mysterious, Ms. Ingall?

“Willa, you're probably wondering why I've asked you here to my rather claustrophobic and extremely chaotic office.”

“Yeah, sort of.”

“Well, to be honest, I've taken an interest in you.”

Wait, what? Interest? Teachers have blessed me with their tacit approval before, but expressed interest? “Um.”

“Do you, by any chance, remember those tests we took perhaps? You know. The first day of class?”

“Sort of . . .”

“I know they were very unusual. Probably seemed pointless.”

She's got that right.

“Well, the thing is . . . students come in from all sorts of circumstances. Some, well, quite privileged, and others . . .”

“Like me?”

“Well, let's just say, from varied backgrounds.”

I mean, she's practically tiptoeing around the silverfish here.

“The point is I like to know a bit more about my students . . . beyond what they might have learned, quite often by rote, at their previous place of education.”

“Oh.”

“Certain tests can be weighted to favor those who, say, have been exposed to certain kinds of education since . . . well, since preschool.”

“Okay.”

“And I don't quite think that's fair. So I have researched extensively and found a more analytical test. A sort of way of really seeing who my students are right there on the first day, before any impressions are made.”

I nod assuringly.

“Do you mind? I'd like to show you something, if it's not too much bother.”

And now she is rooting around in her desk.

“Oh God, I can never find anything . . . oh, here it is.”

And now she takes out a blue folder. And now she takes out a piece of paper with a graph from that blue folder.

“You see this, Willa? You see where all these marks are here? These dots?”

“Yes . . .”

“Okay. Okay, good. Now, what these dots represent are just simply analytical skills. Nothing to do with certain books or even certain formulas. Just simple . . . analytical ability.”

She looks at me a second, hesitates.

“Do you see this dot here?”

“Um . . . yeah.”

“Willa, this dot here is you.”

“This dot is me?”

“Yes. And do you see how it's separate?”

And this is true. All the other dots are huddled together having a little dot party, and there is one dot out to the side, left out.

“I get it. So I'm behind. That makes sense.”

“No. No, Willa. Oh God. You're not behind. It's the opposite. You are quite literally . . . off the chart. You're . . . an outlier.”

“An outlier?”

“Yes. You have a score that is highly unusual and, well, given your classwork so far, and your participation and your papers, I have no reason to believe this is some sort of fluke.”

I'm having a hard time not staring at that dot all by itself in the middle of the chart.

“I've looked at your transcripts and your . . . background. And I feel I must tell you . . . I believe it would be possible
for you to apply to a number of esteemed colleges, early decision. And, well, Willa, I think you have a good chance—in fact, I think you have a
great
chance of being accepted. Additionally, I want you to know I would be happy to write a letter of recommendation for you. If you wish.”

“Doesn't it seem a little early for—”

“Well, yes. That's why it's called early decision. But it does have its advantages. I have a few brochures here, just a few choices, for you to peruse. You can take them. They send out throngs every year. Frankly, it's a waste of paper. Let's see, there's, um . . . Oberlin. Brown. Berkeley. Cornell. Of course, any of the seven sisters . . . Vassar, Radcliffe, Bryn Mawr . . .”

“Huh. Ms. Ingall. I don't really know what to . . .”

“It occurred to me that, with your grades, and your test scores, and your papers, and quite frankly, your unique perspective . . . there might also be some wonderful options for you that perhaps you might not be aware of. Or perhaps no one had told you about. I don't mean to interfere, but, well . . . I know your mother . . . I mean, Princeton . . .”

She hands me the pamphlets gently.

“Some of these places give full scholarships. To those . . . in need.”

She's trying to be polite about it. She's trying to not come off like a jerk.

“Willa, you have . . . an interesting brain. I think there are possibilities for you, beyond what I think you may see for yourself, honestly.”

Walking down the steps with the stacks of brochures, I can't seem to get out of there fast enough. I'm not sure if I should be swelling with pride or humiliated.

Hurtling down the stairs, my mind is a kaleidoscope. I can't put it together somehow. What all this means.

At least it confirms something I have always suspected. I am what they refer to as “special.” They say this word, “special,” when what they really mean is “different” or “strange.”

Maybe that's why when I was little my dad could never take me to the zoo because I would cry and scream to see all the animals in cages while everybody else just ate kettle corn and pointed and giggled. Maybe that's why half the time I don't understand what's going on around me or who set the rules and why this world outside my head exists the way it exists or even exists at all.

I am, statistically, a square peg. My brain hums a long-forgotten tune.
One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong.

I'm halfway down the driveway and around the bushes when I realize those things on my face are tears and there are thousands of them and they won't stop.

I'm not feeling sorry for myself. I'm not. That's not what's
happening. It's just . . . I understand all those puzzled looks from my dad now. All those times he was trying, trying so hard to figure out his daughter, with the totally bizarre reactions to everything nice and normal like the zoo or the sandbox or the gas station. It's just, he didn't know what to do. It's just, I didn't know what to do.

It's just . . . I never asked for this. I never asked to be a fox in the snow.