Eventually, I collected myself enough to head for the T station. In the city, I bought school supplies, and when I got home, my parents were both out. That was par for the course. Since I turned thirteen, I’d spent a fair amount of time alone. I wished my parents had evaluated the social atmosphere at Blackbriar in addition to the academics, but stuff like that didn’t occur to them. They saw high school as a hurdle to overcome on the way to an awesome adult life, and I should ignore people who made fun of me. I tried to talk to my mom about it once, and she told me a long story about how things were worse for her growing up and I should be grateful for my advantages. That was the end of me trying to make her understand just how bad things had gotten.
Too late now.
Over the next week, I wrote back and forth with Vi, less often to Ryu. I had the impression that he was pretty popular in Japan. It would’ve made me sad if I thought he was seriously hung up on me, but his quick notes were just about back-to-school stuff. In the mornings, I took to running, mostly because it was exercise I could do with the clothes and shoes I already owned. If my parents thought it was weird that I was up at seven every day and racing through the city streets, neither my mom nor dad said a word. My new interest in fitness came partly from a desire to keep the body I’d sold my soul for—I hoped not literally—and the rest had to do with burning nervous energy.
The night before school started, I talked to Vi on Skype. “So how’s Boston?” she asked, faking a bad townie accent.
“It didn’t change since I left it, so that’s good. How are things with you and Seth?”
Vi went for fifteen minutes about how awesome he was, and the fact that they were planning to hook up next weekend. I probably shouldn’t have asked, if I didn’t want the long, detailed answer. Partway through, I tuned out.
When I checked back in, she was saying, “Anyway, his mom says he can’t drive to meet me every weekend, and they had a big fight, but eventually they compromised, so we’re going every other, and he’s paying for part of the car insurance.”
“Sounds like a fair deal.”
She nodded. “Plus it gives us the chance to make sure we don’t fall behind in school. When I’m not seeing him, I’ll catch up on projects and extra credit.”
Only people from the nerd phylum would say “extra credit” without a sneer or a mocking laugh, but I’d always liked learning what teachers came up with to challenge us. Sometimes it was silly, not hard at all, but it showed you were willing to try. Since I’d had no social life, I was always about a hundred bonus points into A+ territory.
“So,” Vi concluded, “I just wanted to tell you to have a great first day.”
“You too.”
She paused. “Were you listening at all? We don’t start until next week.”
Oops. It looked like I wasn’t a great listener, and I’d missed some stuff that wasn’t Seth-relevant, but I’d get better with practice. Except for the SSP, I had more experience hiding from people than talking to them.
“Lucky.”
“I’m kind of bored,” she confessed.
“Me too.”
The waiting was getting to me as well. I kept checking my phone to see if Kian had texted, but nothing so far. It would be a relief to get this mission underway.
Soon after, Vi disconnected and I got ready for bed. One benefit of working out, however, was that I suffered from insomnia less. Despite myriad fears about tomorrow, I fell straight into a dreamless sleep. My alarm blared too early, but I rolled out of bed and went through the regimen I had practiced the week before.
In the end, I decided to go with classic schoolgirl. I wouldn’t be wearing thigh-high stockings or tying up my shirt the minute the teachers looked the other way. Instead I wore my uniform nearly as intended: blue knee socks, innocent Mary Janes, two buttons open on the blouse, and skirt rolled up once at the waistband to make it a bit shorter than strictly permissible. I’d seen girls daring much more, however. I did my hair up in a twist, a sexy, tousled one with curls escaping. This look that seemed effortless took me almost half an hour, more with makeup time. But in the end, it was worth it.
At last, I looked like one of the beautiful people, somebody you’d see cruising the halls with the Teflon crew. I had fruit and yogurt for breakfast, brushed my teeth, and waved at my parents, who were barely stirring. They were both kind of night owls, not in the party sense but that they’d stay up late watching documentaries or reading articles in scientific journals while sipping endless cups of hot tea.
“You want oatmeal?” Mom asked.
“No, I’m fine. I ate already. Bye!”
It was time to shift from planning and preparation to payback and penance. By the time I was done at Blackbriar, there would be blood in the water.
THE SHARKS ARE CIRCLING, CIRCLING
When I entered DeWitt Hall, where all language arts and literature classes were held, people stared as I walked by. In the old days, that would’ve meant the Teflon crew had stuck something on my back or circulated a new rumor. This time it signified a different kind of attention, but it was no easier to bear—for different reasons. Kian probably knew how this felt, and maybe he’d wanted to caution me about this.
One guy whispered, “Who is that?”
“The new and improved Edie Kramer.”
“Holy shit.”
“I know, right? How do you go from barks like a dog to that in a summer?”
A girl whose name I didn’t know pushed into the conversation with a scornful “I heard she had plastic surgery. Lipo, nose job, nips, tucks, lifts, and—”
“You have no idea how much I don’t care,” the guy said. “Like you were born with that nose, Tara.”
I felt his eyes on me as I turned the corner and stepped into my first class. My knees felt shaky, but soon the talk would die down. Then I could make inroads toward my goal. Jennifer Bishop might offer an opening since she’d professed what seemed like genuine regret over what the Teflon crew did to me.
I chose a seat in the middle of the room. The front marked you as a dork and the back said you planned to sleep or text. Since I was trying to reinvent myself, I avoided both classifications. These people know nothing about you. You’re a mystery. At least, I was hoping there would be a certain mystique surrounding me, and I didn’t intend to give anything away. The class filled up and the instructor came in just before the bell. I didn’t recognize him, so that meant he was new. I wondered who had retired or taken another job, freeing up this slot.