It hurt to allow myself to think that James was gone. And then I couldn’t quite understand why I was feeling this way. We weren’t friends. The only words he flung in my direction were mean ones. But I guess it’s that he succeeded. He did what Shirley has tried to do so many times. That’s when I knew whom I needed to write to.
Monday, October 18, 1993
Dear James,
Ms. Raimondo looks like a grasshopper today, dressed in a long, tight dark green skirt and lime-green blouse. You used to be in this room, but of course we never spoke to each other. I kind of hated you. Or I was scared of you. I guess a little bit of both. You never raised your hand or spoke at all really. But I can hear your voice because it used to make fun of me. It’s so strange being at home without Greta. Quieter. I miss her more than I call my mom Shirley because I think Ms. Raimondo is really beautiful when she wears her hair back and I can see her ears. I still have a difficult time trusting Shirley since she Why did you kill yourself?
Tuesday, October 19
Dear James,
Something happened today in study hall. I can’t stop thinking about it, and I figured I might as well tell you, since, well, you know.
By the time I get to study hall I’m so hungry, but lunch isn’t for two more periods, so I often sneak in some kind of snack to eat while the teacher isn’t looking. We aren’t allowed to eat or talk, which is super annoying. Sometimes, though, I’ll stick something in my pocket and sneak bites. Usually just loose cereal that I suck on to eliminate the loud crunching sound. Is that weird?
Today, I dipped my hand into my pocket and found only crumbs. I tried slyly emptying it out, dropping bits of flesh-colored preservatives to the floor.
“You know, if we were outside, birds would eat that. In here, you are basically just encouraging the cockroaches to come out of hiding.” Aggie had tapped me on the back. She was sitting behind me, diagonally. That’s right, two classes together, though not sure study hall counts as a class. And homeroom too, although that’s just like a half hour or whatever.
I couldn’t believe she saw me do that.
“Yeah, I . . . I was just . . . hey . . .” Wow. Real smooth, Eleanor.
Her voice was deep, not like the ocean, but more like Shirley’s, whose vocal chords have been charred from decades of cigarette smoke.
“It’s not like I’m judging, I’m just noticing,” she said. I took all of her in. This was the first time I really could, since she was looking directly at me. She didn’t exactly match, but from what I noticed through my many weeks of watching her, she never does. She had on a shirt with lots of stripes and an oversized vest (her father’s?), a long skirt, and a tie that went well beyond her waist. “I’m Aggie, by the way,” she paused and moved a little closer to me. “Agnieszka,” she whispers, “but only my dad calls me that now. I feel like you’re in all my classes and yet we’ve never talked to each other. Fromme comes before Glackhzner, so you sit in front of me in homeroom.”
Agnieszka Glackhzner. A mish-mosh of letters. A song.
“Oh, uh . . . yeah,” I dribbled out.
“My dad is a garbage man. ‘Sanitation worker’,” she emphasized proudly, using her fingers to wrap around those last two words. “I’ve been brought up to locate garbage cans like exit signs. I’ve never had to make my bed, but I’ll get punished if I’m caught littering.”
I smiled. “Jeez . . . sorry. I mean, yeah, I didn’t realize.”
“It’s all right,” she smiled back, and I suddenly forgot how to breathe. “Eleanor, right?”
I nodded.
“Who are you writing your letters to? You know, from English class?” Aggie smiled. Her lips spread wide, and I quickly noted all her teeth, so white and slightly crooked.
“Oh, uh . . .”
“I mean, you don’t have to tell me.” Aggie brought in the corner of her mouth and bit down on her lower lip. Why couldn’t I breathe? The air had asbestos in it. Mold. Cancer. What was happening? Why couldn’t I stop smiling?
“I’m writing to Richard Brautigan,” she said.
“Is he an uncle or something? Or . . .”
“No, no. A poet. And storywriter too. A friend of mine I used to go to school with in Staten Island gave me a book of his. Oh man, I love his stuff. You’ve got to check him out. When Ms. Raimondo said to write to someone, he was the first person I thought of.”
“Oh, uh, yeah.” What?
“You’re funny. Hey, I wanted to tell you in English class that I really love your new hair. It’s awesome.”
“Thanks.” Finally, a word. “I’m writing to—”
“Sshhh,” Mr. Greggs widened his eyes at us.
“Anyway,” Aggie whispered, “you can borrow a Brautigan book, if you like. I’ve really got to stay focused this year. Second chance.”
Second chance?
Wednesday, October 20
Dear James,
We had hamburgers with homemade french fries for supper. Not every letter needs to be about something.
Okay, fine. Maybe there is always something that can be talked about. Something of substance, I mean. What would you have said about my hair, James? Would you have pointed and laughed? What clever joke would you make of it? Would you call me cranberry bog or menstruation face?
The thing is, I guess I was distracted by you on Monday, and then Tuesday I couldn’t stop thinking about my conversation with Aggie, but something else happened on Monday. After school.
Dara missed the bus in the morning, so I didn’t see her until math—the only class we have together this year. When I walked in, she was already there, and she gasped. Really. Like out-loud-lungs-filling-with-everyone’s-dead-skin-cells type of gasp.
“Eleanor! Oh my god! What happened?”
I threw my fingers on my head and felt around. “Oh, this? Yeah, I guess I made a mistake?”
“I almost didn’t recognize you. You look like . . .” James, if you were in the room, I bet you would have laughed. Maybe you would have even egged her on. “You look like a lesbian.” She whispered it like “lesbian” was a curse word.
“W-what does a lesbian look like?” I still can’t believe I said that. I mean, Flor is a lesbian and she just looks like—I don’t know—a person. Actually, she’s the first lesbian I’ve ever met. Or know that I’ve met, I guess. She has short hair, but do all lesbians have the same haircut? I’ll have to ask Flor.
Flor gives off a soothing aroma of peppermint and coffee. When she isn’t drinking coffee—which happens all throughout the day, even at dinner—she is popping little peppermints into her mouth. Usually they are the kind you get from that giant bowl at the diner after you pay your bill. Flor always takes giant handfuls, stuffs them in her pockets and delivers them to a bowl in her house. Gret and I call them urine mints, and do not dare eat them, even when they are the kind with delicious bits of hard jelly in the center.
“They’re always kind of damp,” Greta once told me. “And you know why?”
I just shrugged.
“Because people go to the bathroom, hands damp from wiping not washing, and then they grab a handful of these. Pop