What to Say Next(6)

That’s what I’m doing, imagining that Gabriel said, “Yo, man, after practice, Pizza Pizza Pizza,” and thinking how that would have been ridiculous, when I bump into a group of girls congregating around a locker. Jessica, Willow (who is notably the only Willow enrolled in our 397-student class and in our 1,579-student school), and Abby. Miney has labeled them in my notebook, in block letters and underlined with a Sharpie: THE POPULAR BITCHES.

When she first used this designation, Miney had to give me a long lecture about how this wasn’t an oxymoron, how someone could be both popular, which I presumed meant that lots of people liked you, and at the same time also be a bitch, which I presumed would have the opposite outcome. Apparently popularity in the context of high school has a negative correlation with people actually liking you but a high correlation with people wanting to be your friend. After careful consideration, this makes sense, though in my case, I am both an outlier and a great example of the fact that correlation does not imply causation. I am nice to everyone but without any upside: People neither like me nor want to be my friend.

“Watch it,” Jessica says, and rolls her eyes. Like I bumped into her on purpose. Haven’t my classmates figured out that the feeling has become mutual? They want nothing to do with me? Fine. I want nothing to do with them either. Miney promises college will be better, though I highly doubt it. “And what’s with all the talking to yourself?”

Have I been talking to myself? It’s entirely possible and somewhat ironic that my entire thought process about Pizza Pizza Pizza and what a ridiculous name it is to say out loud actually occurred…out loud. Occasionally, I forget about the barrier between the inside of my head and the rest of the world.

“Sorry,” I mutter to the floor, and pick up the book she dropped and hand it to her. She doesn’t say thank you.

“Freak,” Abby says, and laughs, like that’s funny or original. I force myself to meet her eyes, to look straight at her, because Miney claims eye contact humanizes me. Again, I have no idea why I need to be humanized in the first place, why everyone assumes I am some exception to the universally acknowledged rule that we are all human beings with feelings. Still, I do it anyway. Such is the power of Miney. “What are you staring at?”

For a second I consider asking Abby, straight out, just saying it out loud, “What have I ever done to you?” I bumped into Jessica. Not her. We have had no Notable Encounters, positive or negative. But then the bell rings, and it’s loud and uncomfortable, and everyone is rushing off to class, and I have physics. Which means I now have to spend the next forty-five minutes sitting next to Gabriel and trying to block out the fact that he smells like Axe Anarchy for Him body spray, and taps his pencil against his desk to an erratic beat, and clears his throat approximately every thirty-five seconds. No doubt, despite the acoustics and board perspective, I’d have been much better off sitting alone in the back.

—

Kit slips into class ten minutes into Mr. Schmidt’s lecture on Newton’s third law, which I’ve written down in Latin to keep it interesting.

“Lost track of time,” Kit says, and takes her seat, which is two behind me and one to the right. Not the greatest excuse, considering the school uses a loud bell to remind us to get to class. Mr. Schmidt nods and doesn’t yell at her or give her a first warning like he normally would. Once, when we had to make a shiva call to our next-door neighbor’s, Miney told me that different rules apply to those who’ve just lost someone. I wonder how long that lasts, not the dead part, of course, but the special treatment part. Would Mr. Schmidt make allowances for me if my dad died?

Probably not. My dad is a medical researcher at Abbot Laboratories. I doubt he’s on many people’s Nice List, mostly because he’s not the type of person to make it onto any lists other than science ones. If my mother died, on the other hand, people would notice. She and Miney are similar that way: Everyone loves them. My mom is always stopping to talk to other women in the checkout line at the supermarket or at the drugstore. She knows the names of all the kids in my class and their parents, and sometimes she’ll even add information to my notebook. She’s the one who told me that Justin and Jessica were dating—she saw them making out at the mall—and then later that they broke up. This was gleaned, somehow, while getting her nails done, because she shares a chatty manicurist with Jessica’s mom.

Miney is the anti-me. She won numerous Senior Superlatives last year: Most Popular, Most Attractive, Most Likely to Succeed. I do not anticipate winning any. Though I guess Miney and I have one thing in common: Miney is also an example that correlation does not imply causation. She is popular but not a bitch. Unfortunately she has also led me to question the entire field of genetics, since we share fifty percent of our DNA.

My parents have been married for twenty-two years and they are still in love. This is statistically remarkable.

My mom says: “Opposites attract.”

My dad says: “I just got seriously lucky.”

Miney says: “Mom is a closet weirdo, and dad is a closet normal, and that’s why they work.”

I haven’t put much thought into their marriage, but I like that my parents are still together. I wouldn’t want to have to pack a bag every other weekend and sleep in some strange apartment and have to brush my teeth in a different sink. My mom claims my dad and I are a lot alike, which gives me cause for optimism. If he could get someone like my mother to love him—someone who is universally acknowledged to be all kinds of awesome—and not just love him but love him enough to spend the rest of her life with him, then maybe there is hope for me too.