“Your teacher’s back on Monday,” he snapped. “He’ll deal with it.”
Realizing the conversation was over, Caitlin took back her I.D. card.
She turned and faced the room. The mayhem hadn’t stopped. If there was any saving grace, at least she wasn’t conspicuous. No one here seemed to care about her, or to even notice her at all.
On the other hand, scanning the packed room was nerve-wracking: there didn’t seem like any place left to sit.
She steeled herself and, clutching her journal, walked tentatively down one of the aisles, flinching a few times as she walked between unruly kids screaming at each other. As she reached the back, she could finally see the entire room.
Not one empty seat.
She stood there, feeling like an idiot, and felt other kids starting to notice her. She didn’t know what to do. She certainly wasn’t going to stand there the entire period, and the substitute teacher didn’t seem to care either way. She turned and looked again, scanning helplessly.
She heard laughter from a few aisles away, and felt sure it was directed at her. She didn’t dress like these kids did, and she didn’t look like them. Her cheeks flushed as she started to feel really conspicuous.
Just as she was getting ready to walk out of the class, and maybe even out of this school, she heard a voice.
“Here.”
She turned.
In the last row, beside the window, a tall boy stood from his desk.
“Sit,” he said. “Please.”
The room quieted a bit as the others waited to see how she’d react.
She walked up to him. She tried not to look up into his eyes—large, glowing green eyes—but she couldn’t help it.
He was gorgeous. He had smooth, olive skin—she couldn’t tell if he was Black, Spanish, White, or some combination—but she had never seen such smooth and soft skin, complimenting a chiseled jaw line. His hair was short and brown, and he was thin. There was something about him, something so out of place here. He seemed fragile. An artist, maybe.
It was unlike her to be smitten by a guy. She’d seen her friends have crushes, but she’d never really understood. Until now.
“Where will you sit?” she asked.
She tried to control her voice, but it didn’t sound convincing. She hoped he couldn’t hear how nervous she was.
He smiled wide, revealing perfect teeth.
“Right over here,” he said, and moved to the large window sill, just a few feet away.
She looked at him, and he returned her stare, their eyes fully locking. She told herself to look away, but she couldn’t.
“Thanks,” she said, and was instantly mad at herself.
Thanks? That’s all you could manage? Thanks!?
“That’s right, Barack!” yelled a voice. “Give that nice white girl your seat!”
Laughter followed, and the noise in the room suddenly picked up again, as everyone ignored them once again.
Caitlin saw him lower his head, embarrassed.
“Barack?” she asked. “Is that your name?”
“No,” he answered, reddening. “That’s just what they call me. As in Obama. They think I look like him.”
She looked closely and realized that he did look like him.
“It’s because I’m half black, part white, and part Puerto Rican.”
“Well, I think that’s a compliment,” she said.
“Not the way they say it,” he answered.
She observed him as he sat on the window sill, his confidence deflated, and she could tell that he was sensitive. Vulnerable, even. He didn’t belong in this group of kids. It was crazy, but she almost felt protective of him.
“I’m Caitlin,” she said, reaching out her hand and looking him in the eye.
He looked up, surprised, and his smile returned.
“Jonah,” he answered.
He shook her hand firmly. A tingling sensation ran up her arm as she felt his smooth skin envelop her hand. She felt like she melted into him. He held her grip a second too long, and she couldn’t help smiling back.
*
The rest of the morning was a blur, and Caitlin was hungry by the time she reached the cafeteria. She opened the double doors and was taken aback by the enormous room, the incredible noise of what seemed like a thousand kids, all screaming. It was like entering a gymnasium. Except that every twenty feet there stood another security guard, in the aisles, watching carefully.
As usual, she had no idea where to go. She searched the huge room, and finally found a stack of trays. She took one, and entered what she thought was the food line.
“Don’t you cut me, bitch!”
Caitlin turned and saw a large, overweight girl, half a foot taller than her, scowling down.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know—”
“Line’s back there!” snapped another girl, pointing with her thumb.
Caitlin looked and saw that the line stretched back at least a hundred kids. It looked like a twenty minute wait.
As she started heading to the back of the line, a kid on the line shoved another one, and he went flying in front of her, hitting the ground hard.
The first kid jumped on top of the other and started punching him in the face.
The cafeteria erupted in a roar of excitement, as dozens of kids gathered around.
“FIGHT! FIGHT!”
Caitlin took several steps back, watching in horror at the violent scene at her feet.
Four security guards finally came over and broke it up, separating the two bloody kids and carting them off. They didn’t seem to be in any hurry.
After Caitlin finally got her food, she scanned the room, hoping for a sign of Jonah. But he was nowhere in sight.
She walked down the aisles, passing table after table, all packed with kids. There were few free seats, and the ones that were free didn’t seem that inviting, adjacent to large cliques of friends.
Finally, she took a seat at an empty table towards the back. There was just one kid at the far end of it, a short, frail Chinese boy with braces, poorly dressed, who kept his head lowered and focused on his food.
She felt alone. She looked down and checked her phone. There were a few Facebook messages from her friends from her last town. They wanted to know how she liked her new place. Somehow, she didn’t feel like answering. They felt so far away.
Caitlin barely ate, a vague feeling of first-day nausea still with her. She tried to change her train of thought. She closed her eyes. She thought of her new apartment, a fifth floor walkup in a filthy building on 132nd street. Her nausea worsened. She breathed deeply, willing herself to focus on something, anything good in her life.
Her little brother. Sam. 14 going on 20. Sam never seemed to remember that he was the youngest: he always acted like her older brother. He’d grown tough and hardened from all the moving around, from their Dad’s leaving, from the way their Mom treated them both. She could see it was getting to him and could see that he was starting to close himself off. His frequent school fights didn’t surprise her. She feared it would only get worse.
But when it came to Caitlin, Sam absolutely loved her. And she him. He was the only constant in her life, the only one