Czytaj książkę: «Rebels Like Us»

ONE

Sartre said hell is other people, but he obviously never experienced a winter heat wave in the Georgia Lowcountry. Six weeks ago, my best friend and I were drinking cocoa laced with swiped rum, huddled under covers on the couch, oohing over the fat, lacy snowflakes that drifted into frozen piles on the sidewalks. Today, I’m trying to resist fainting from the broiler-like temperatures. In winter.

No wonder there are twelve churches within a five-mile radius of my new house. If this is the kind of fiery heat Georgians deal with on a regular basis, the idea of hellfire must be a terrifyingly real threat.

The sun follows me like the creepy eyes in a fun-house portrait as my sneakers sink into the melting blacktop. I hesitate and stare at my distorted reflection in the glass of the school’s double doors. I’m still attempting to decode the movers’ unintelligible boxing system—yesterday when I opened a box marked Art I found my collection of Daler-Rowney watercolor paints tossed in with an eggbeater and a dozen of my mom’s old yoga DVDs—so my antifrizz balm is still MIA. With it, my hair falls into lopsided curls. Without it, I have to deal with my current situation—a dark cloud of frizz with a life of its own. It probably didn’t help my hair’s general health that I guilted Mom into letting me get the underside stripped, bleached, and dyed bright pink before we left the city. I need a hair tie. Or to get out of the pummeling sunshine before it fries my hair beyond recognition. I seriously love my curls, but I do not love what this crazy humidity is doing to them. Before I left the house this morning I decided that, despite my life going off the rails, I looked smoking hot. Now I look like I just made a quick run to the store and back for one of my aunties on a scorching August afternoon in Santo Domingo, even though all I did was walk across the school parking lot in Georgia. In the middle of winter. The only deliverance from this heat is inside the squat monstrosity that is my new school, Ebenezer High, so I need to make a decision: go inside or die of heatstroke.

“Coño,” I mutter, and it’s like I can feel my father frowning an ocean away. Why is it the only Spanish you ever speak is slang and curses, Aggie?

I shake his words out of my head and take a long look at the place I’m going to call my academic home for the second half of this, my all-important senior year, and I have to wonder if the builders accidentally opened the schematics for a psych ward or a minimum-security prison and didn’t realize their mistake until appalled administrators and teachers showed up postconstruction.

I fill my lungs with a final gulp of suffocatingly hot air, then push into the cool building, cross a lobby showcasing dozens of glittering gold sport trophies, and I’m in a generic front office where a woman with a big smile and bigger hair inputs my information into the computer at a snail’s pace. I heard things are more relaxed south of the Mason-Dixon, but if they’re this relaxed, I may never make it out of the front office.

When my official schedule is finally approved, I’m introduced to the guidance counselor, who leads me into a hallway that smells like yesterday’s cafeteria fries, bleach, and fresh paint. I crane my neck to better take in my new school and wonder if the dingy gray-blue color they’ve chosen for the walls is also a leftover from some institutional torture chamber. I’m used to seeing art displayed on every wall and bright splashes of random colors painted in crevices too small for anything else. This sterility is strangely claustrophobic.

While I’m trying to breathe without the help of a paper bag, I wonder again why I’m even here. My brother, Jasper, told me point-blank that he thought I’d lost my mind the day I announced I was migrating South for the spring term, like some freak-of-nature bird. My father insisted we phone conference half a dozen times so that he could lecture me in Spanish on the merits of a New York City or Parisian education over an education from Georgia—which he insisted was an oxymoron. My abuela says my dad has been manso—very chill—since the day he was born, but talking about my future is the one thing that can make him quillao—super upset. Ollie, my sister from another mister, would have shared her tiny bedroom with me in a heartbeat if I’d asked, but I’d never stoop to asking. I’m well aware my passionate, motivated bestie needs every available inch of room so she can focus on her intense practice schedule and the whirlwind of spring recitals. And Mama Patria, my abuela, has room at her apartment but she lives two subway lines and a half hour bus ride away from Newington—that just wasn’t a commute I could’ve tackled twice a day, every school day, especially during the longest, coldest winter to hammer New York City in fifty years.

As far as Paris goes, I’d never admit it to my father, but my French skills have slipped—a lot—since he and Jasper moved and there was no one to ignore me until I asked for the salt or the remote or the time en français. To say my language skills have rusted would be an understatement—my French is basically a series of crumbling linguistic holes.

On top of all that there was the lingering poison-gas fog from my breakup with Lincoln—my first love and one of my best friends turned mortal enemy—which would have suffocated me slowly if I’d stayed at the private school he and I both attended. Lincoln and I started dating when we were sophomores, the year his parents started an exchange program for Maori soccer players with Newington High, and there are reminders of our coupledom sprinkled around every corner in the school where he was basically treated like royalty. I reveled in the fact that I couldn’t pass the main hall without seeing our entwined initials on the art tile we’d painted, or his gorgeous face—broad jaw, wide nose, sparkling eyes, dark skin, plush kissable lips—on the Newington VIP board in the main hall. Lincoln pulled me close and kissed me for the first time in the courtyard under Newington’s legendary oak while gold and orange leaves swirled around us. I’d never once passed that tree without running my fingers over the bark and smiling—well, I never had before.

The last months of senior year are so useless and so meaningful all at once. Everyone solidifies college choices, skips any day they possibly can, and gets disgustingly nostalgic about the people they’re going to leave behind on graduation day. The last thing I wanted was to spend months dodging the yearbook photo montages and avoiding fondly retold memories that would only reinforce what a total lie my entire relationship with Lincoln turned out to be in the end.

I have to look at my decision to flee less as losing out on the last months with my friends and more as moving on a little bit early. I’ve always had an independent streak, so I might as well run with it. It’s best if I consider my time in Georgia a kind of study-abroad semester before the adventure of college begins.

My tour guide’s bubblegum drawl interrupts the panic that threatens to tunnel me under despite my internal pep talk that this will all be okay.

“It’s wonderful to have you at Ebenezer High. We realize it will take a few days for you to get settled, but we’ll let you jump right in. The good thing is you’ve only missed one day of second semester, so you should be able to catch up easily. First day of a new semester is mostly just the syllabus breakdown anyway.” She gestures to a wooden door, and I peek through the tiny window into what looks like a lab full of students dying from a combination of boredom and heatstroke. “This here will be your first class tomorrow, Agnes. Mr. Hemley, AP physics. At this hour you’d be in the middle of your second class, which is...”

Newington was once some founding senator’s house and had windows so huge, it never even felt like I was indoors. The windows in this school remind me of the slits in medieval fortresses that archers shot arrows out of. What the hell is the modern purpose of windows that narrow? As I pass the classrooms, I see sad ribbons of sunlight, bitterly determined to brighten the gloom.

Give up, sunshine. It’s a damn lost cause.

“...this one right here.” We stop in front of another nondescript door whose tiny window reveals my fellow cell mates. “The peer guide I’ve assigned to help you through the day is in this class. She’ll give you a more thorough tour, and if there are any questions she can’t handle, feel free to stop by my office anytime. The door is always open.” Her silver fillings wink at me from the back of her mouth when she smiles. I can’t remember her name no matter how hard I shake my brain.

“Thanks, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to navigate all right on my own.” I turn the schedule she handed me so that the map printed on the bottom is oriented, and bend my lips up in what I hope approximates a smile.

“Whatever you’d like, Agnes.” She shifts from one sensible pump to the other.

“Okay. Thanks again. I’m, uh, going to class now.” I point to the doorway I don’t particularly want to walk through.

What’s more awkward? Walking into a classroom full of seniors as the new girl? Or standing in the ugly hallway of your new school losing a staring contest with a guidance counselor whose name you can’t remember?

Lamest game of Would You Rather. Ever.

Coño, I have to choose, so I walk backward through the classroom door, keeping that demented smile wide until Mrs. What’s-Her-Face disappears into the shadows of the hallway.

“Good morning. You must be Agnes.” A woman with a no-nonsense voice gives me the evil teacher eye over tortoiseshell glasses that perch on the end of her broad nose. Even with her springy, salt-and-pepper curls factored into her height, she only grazes my chin. But the fact that I tower over her doesn’t stop me from squirming under her laser gaze. She has the same huggable, curvy figure and beautiful, soft, dark brown skin as my grandmother, but I cannot picture her taking a tray of warm coconetes out of the oven. I can picture her silencing a class of hooligans with one fiery look. “I’m Mrs. Lovett.”

“Good morning.” I modify my smile from demented pretend to real. I hate unnecessary authority, but I absolutely love ball-busting, no-nonsense bitches. I get the latter vibe from Lovett already.

“Ms. Ronston wanted me to let you know your peer guide will be Khabria Scott. Khabria, please raise your hand.” Mrs. Lovett’s voice snaps, and a hand pops up in response. I approve of my tour guide’s bold nails—matte black except for a shiny white ring finger nail, gold fleur-de-lis designs glittering on each one.

Because I’m nervous, I resort to a goofy, toothy smile, and feel extra dumb when Khabria folds her arms across her chest elegantly and gives me a tight-lipped, polite smile in return. She’s got this whole regal Nefertiti/Beyoncé vibe that’s intimidating and impressive all at once.

“You can take a seat second row, fourth desk back, Agnes.” Mrs. Lovett makes a mark in her roll book, and I slide into my chair while too many eyes dart my way, sizing me up because I’m so shiny and new. It’s uncomfortable but not mean.

“Hey. Hey, new girl?” A tall, good-looking guy with a bright yellow basketball jersey sitting just behind Khabria nearly falls out of his chair calling to me and waving his gorgeously muscled arms over his head. “Where you from?”

“Crown Heights.” I watch his face screw up like I answered him in Finnish. “Brooklyn.”

“Where?” He kicks the back of the Khabria’s chair as he tries to settle into a desk that clearly wasn’t designed for people over six foot six. Khabria whips her head so fast her black and strawberry braids are a blur.

She mutters, “Holy hell, you a moron, Lonzo.”

“New York City, man. C’mon, you’re makin’ us all look ignorant.” I can’t see who said it, but that deep, slow voice that rolls like a warm wave in the ocean is the most Southern voice I’ve ever heard—and I’m shocked by the fizzy glow that warms through me at the sound of it. I like it. I like it a lot.

“Why’d you move here?” The tall guy kicks my chair with the sole of his shoe to get my attention. When I turn to look at him, he grins wide, the way I smiled at Khabria before. “Too violent in your hood?”

“What?” I snort as thoughts of the last co-op meeting flit through my head. Old Mr. Madsen almost got in a fistfight with the “young hipster” who dared to adorn the communal herb garden with his found-art whirligigs, which Mr. Madsen screamed were “pretentious trash.” The meeting ended with Mr. Madsen knocking all the disposable coffee cups off the snack table and vowing to recycle the young hipster’s “eyesores” if they came anywhere near his flat-leaf parsley. “I lived in a really nice neighborhood. Not a hood.”

I mean, sure, there were the Crown Heights Riots, but that was way back in the ’90s. Ancient history.

“So why then?” Despite the twitchiness of his limbs, his dark eyes are calm.

When he repeats his question, more eyes turn to me from around the classroom. Shiny-haired cheerleaders and flexing jocks, slackers trying to pretend they aren’t dozing, nerds clutching their notebooks—two dozen faces fade in a kaleidoscope of dark and light as my vision tunnels.

Being the new girl sucks.

“Uh...”

“You hate snow?” He rubs a hand over his tight, dark curls and clicks his tongue when Khabria stomps her sneaker in frustration.

“No, you need to stop, boy. Who would hate snow?” She throws her arms out and rolls her eyes like it’s the most ridiculous concept she’s ever contemplated.

“You ever even seen snow?” He juts out his chin.

“No, but I want to. You trying to say you don’t want to ride on a sled? Or throw a snowball?”

“I heard snowballs hurt your hand.” He holds out his own hands, so big they could probably palm a basketball with zero problems. He flips them, studying his knuckles and then his palms like he’s trying to get a gauge of the damage a snowball could do.

I’m shocked silent. No snow? Ever? It’s a lot to wrap my frostbitten brain around. Despite the intense heat here, I feel like I still haven’t thawed completely from the last cold snap back home.

“Alonzo Washington, please stop harassing Agnes and come discuss the status of your term paper proposal with me immediately.”

The guy—Alonzo—leaps out of his seat and says, “Yes, ma’am,” like he’s a soldier in a very obedient army.

I’m about to go back to imagining a life devoid of snow when I hear a little alien-baby voice whisper, “Agnes? That cannot be her name. That name would be ugly if it were my grandmother’s.”

I swivel my head and face the kind of blandly vicious sneers that always seem to infect a select few in any group. My cousins in Santo Domingo would say they’re bocas de suape—mop mouths. In translation, they’re two losers who don’t know when to keep their traps shut. They’re so generically pathetic, if life was a movie, they wouldn’t even have names in the credits. They’re even wearing cheerleading uniforms. Could they be more cliché? Generic Mean Girl One is giggling like mad along with Generic Mean Girl Two. I turn full around in my seat and stare at them, ignoring my new teacher’s obvious throat clearing.

“Is there a problem, ladies?” she demands.

“My name,” I announce, still looking at the two overzealously spray-tanned, hair-tossing idiots in their cutesy matching uniforms. I love the way their cackles dry up and their perfectly made-up faces fall. “Apparently it’s hilarious.”

“Agnes.” I turn to look at my teacher, whose pursed lips and cocked eyebrows tell me she is clearly not amused. “Whatever this nonsense is about, it stops now. I don’t tolerate fools, and I don’t put up with time wasting. In fact, it’s really starting to piss me off that I wasted this much time already.”

A few people gasp or snort when she says piss, as if our innocent, nearly adult ears have never heard a single naughty word before.

“I’m sorry for wasting your time,” I say, sitting straight at my desk. I can take care of the Generic Mean Girl Twins later. Right now, I’m going to make it a priority not to “piss off” this woman. For all I know, this class might be the highlight of an otherwise miserable few months.

“Ma’am.” She crosses her arms over her wide chest. The idiotic giggles start again. I’m drowning fast.

“Me?” I point at myself. Mrs. Lovett’s nostrils flare very slightly.

“Me.” She points a thumb at her chest. “When you speak to me, your instructor, you refer to me as ma’am. Clear?”

“So, not ‘Mrs. Lovett’?” I swear to baby Jesus, I ask only to double-check, but I guess I’ve already walked too close to the edge of the smart-ass line, and now my classmates are hooting like I’m the Pied Piper of classroom anarchy.

“Do not test my patience today, Agnes,” Mrs. Lovett snaps. She slaps a paper packet and a copy of The Old Man and the Sea on my desk.

I leaf through the tattered pages, hold it up, and attempt one last smile that’s basically just me grasping at straws. “No friend as loyal.”

Mrs. Lovett’s lips twitch, and I curl my fingers around the old misogynistic tale of oceanic triumph and New Testament allusions, waiting to see if her lips will twitch up or...

Up. Smile. Score!

But now that I bought her love back with a cheap quote trick, I have to be on my best behavior while we scribble notes about Hemingway’s boozing and hunting and womanizing—and that means keeping my mouth firmly shut. Because, despite my best intentions, whenever I open my mouth, trouble finds me.

Also, I’m still not sure about the whole ma’am thing.

When we’re finally dismissed, Alonzo drags Khabria over to me.

“Agnes, tell this know-it-all that it hurts your hand to make a snowball.”

“Um, if you don’t wear gloves, it stings,” I admit reluctantly. I’m breaking a deep, unwritten girl code by siding with Alonzo, even on a matter this insignificant, but...

“See! I told you! Ooh, you so wrong!” Alonzo crows, shimmying his arms at his sides and strutting around Khabria in a weird, end zone type celebration dance. “My daddy told me when he was in Lamaze class with my mama they made everybody squeeze an ice cube to let them get a taste of labor pain.”

“Um, it’s uncomfortable, but I don’t think it’s anything like labor,” I cut in, but Alonzo is flapping his elbows like a chicken while Khabria sucks her teeth and sputters. I fear for Alonzo’s life if he keeps poking this very beautiful, probably lethal bear. “I mean, it’s mostly fun, not painful...” I trail off, and Khabria shakes her head.

“Ignore that fool. He actually enjoys being a dumb ass.”

It occurs to me that I could stick out my hand and introduce myself—no! Maybe that’s too weird?—but before I determine if the chance to make a new friend outweighs the incredible social awkwardness, Alonzo’s sauntered up to his group of cronies and Khabria is gliding away to join a clutch of girls wearing navy cheerleading uniforms that match hers—including both plastic airheads from earlier. Ugh, maybe I should be glad social awkwardness won out before I tried to befriend someone who hangs out with the twit twins.

I try to convince myself I dodged a social bullet, but it doesn’t feel awesome to be left hugging my books and wishing I could teleport to my next class so that I won’t have to suffer being the one and only student at Ebenezer High navigating the halls alone.

And then, suddenly, I’m not.

“Hey! Hey, Agnes!” Khabria’s tiny cheerleading skirt swishes around her long legs as she jogs down the hall after me. “I’m your peer guide today.” She tucks a loose red braid back into her updo and gives me a slightly bigger smile than when we first met.

It’s probably just a coincidence that the clutch of cheerleader clones she left down the hall erupts into squawks of laughter at that exact second.

Probably.

Panic feels like quicksand sucking at my ankles and threatening to pull me under. I half choke out my next words.

“Uh, no worries. I have this handy map.” I flutter the wrinkled paper between us like I’m waving a white flag. I surrender to social isolation—leave me alone in my misery. “I’ve been riding the subway alone since I was a little kid. I’m sure I can manage the halls of a high school.”

Khabria nabs my schedule and cocks an eyebrow. “Really? Because your next class is back that-a-way.” She jerks a thumb over her shoulder as I grab the map back and try to get my bearings. I usually have a decent internal compass. I guess I’m just off-kilter today.

“Right. That way. Okay. I got turned around, I guess.”

Senior year. I’m supposed to be directing freshman to the nonexistent fourth-floor pool, not getting lost going down the main hall.

“I know it’s not the subway, but finding your way around here can be tricky. Let me give you a quick tour at least.” Khabria’s dark eyes warm with the kind of sympathy I’m used to giving, not receiving. I definitely prefer being in charge, not being led around. But I guess I don’t have much choice now.

“Okay. So...I see my next class from here. After that I have to head across this courtyard...or, wait? Is that a stairwell...?”

“C’mon.” Khabria marches me to my next classroom and bats her lashes at the cute young teacher manning the door. “Mr. Webster, this is Agnes. It’s her first day, and I’m her peer guide. Is it okay if I take her on a quick tour once the halls empty?”

Mr. Webster crosses his arms over his wide chest and sighs. “Ten minutes, Ms. Scott. Agnes will already be playing catch-up.”

“Fifteen? Please, sir?” she says, bartering with a flirty edge to her voice and biting her bottom lip for good measure.

Mr. Webster looks decidedly uncomfortable. He takes off his nerdy-cute glasses and cleans the lenses with the tail of his half-tucked dress shirt. “Fine. Go, quickly, so you can get Agnes back as soon as possible.”

“Thank you, Mr. Webster,” she singsongs. We leave him frowning at his polished shoes.

Khabria whirls me down the hall, giggling the whole way, and I feel normal for a split second. When we’re at the stairwell, she tugs me close, glances over her shoulder, and dishes some seriously crazy gossip. “Webster tries to play it cool, but everyone knows he’s dating a girl who just graduated last year...and they started seeing each other before school was out.” Her eyes go wide and her perfect eyebrows rise up until they almost disappear in her hair.

“Did they get caught?”

There was a rumor about one of the teacher’s aides and a senior at Newington when I was in tenth grade. But the rumor barely had time to circulate before the aide was gone without a word. I can’t imagine what it would have been like if we found out the rumor was true, then passed that aide in the halls every day...

“No, but we all know it’s true. He was at a few high school parties over the summer, always looking like he wanted to disappear. Oh, here are the math labs, and your next classroom after you leave Webster’s class is the middle one.” She waves a hand at a cluster of rooms filled with students silently scribbling complicated geometry equations on whiteboards, then sneers. “I don’t know why he’d risk showing his face where there could be students around. I mean, it’s not like anyone told on him, but someone could’ve, and now he can’t get respect no matter how tough he tries to act because how do you respect someone with that little sense? Last year, he was one of the strictest teachers we had. This year, I think he’s just waiting on us to graduate, so one more class that went to school with his little girlfriend will be gone and out of his hair.”