Prep: A Novel (20 page)

“I want you to read your piece aloud,” she said. “Now. To me. I understand being reluctant to speak in class, but it’s something you need to get over.”

I said nothing.

“I’ll read it anyway,” she said. “Unless you choose not to hand it in and take a zero on the assignment.” The way she said this, it was obvious she didn’t consider it remotely likely. But it wasn’t a bad idea. Generally, my fear relied on the hypothetical, and an actual specific consequence, any consequence at all, nearly always seemed less severe than whatever amorphous series of events I’d felt the need to guard against. A zero on an essay that probably counted for five percent of my total grade for the semester wasn’t a big deal at all.

“I could take a zero,” I said. It was definitely the best option—at this point, I’d drawn too much attention to the essay, and she might ask questions, she might not be detached. My essay could have seemed neutral, but I’d made a fuss.

She squinted at me. “But you did the assignment.”

“Yeah, but then I changed my mind.”

Ms. Moray opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it, then opened it again. “I want you to read your piece to me,” she said. “I’m not giving you another option.”

I never argued against absolutes. “Okay,” I said, and I saw that she was surprised. “I should just start right now?”

“Right now. Go for it.” Her voice thickened with enthusiasm.
No, no,
I thought.
We’re still in the same moment we were in before.

I moved the paper from my lap to the table. “Reflecting on one’s life is an important part of reaching decisions and understanding one’s ethics and values. Many people, like Henry David Thoreau, have a special place they go where it is quiet and peaceful. For me, this place is at my father’s store. My father’s store is called Mattress Headquarters. It is located in South Bend, Indiana. When I used to live at home, I did not go to the store on weekdays because I had school. Instead, I went on the weekends. In the back of the store, there is an office and behind the office, there is a storage room with many mattresses. This is the room where I reflect because it is quiet and comfortable, and I could lie on all the mattresses, which some of the piles reached almost to the ceiling. The best part of this room is that I can hear other people talking, especially my father because he has a loud voice. I can listen to my father and other people such as customers and sales staff and know I am not alone, yet I do not have to join in the conversation. In this place, I think about many issues, such as what profession I would like to go into, college, and politics. I believe that reflecting is very important in developing as a person and realizing one’s priorities.”

I looked up. “That’s it.”

“I have to say, I have no idea what you were so bashful about. That’s exactly what I’m looking for. And reading to me wasn’t that bad, was it?”

I shrugged.

“I especially liked the part about being able to hear your father’s voice.”

The fact that Ms. Moray was being so nice—pityingly nice—indicated that, despite her earlier misimpression, she had figured out what kind of person I was: not a smart-ass, not at all.

“I just don’t understand why you didn’t want to read it before,” she said.

That, actually, had been my main concern—that she’d know immediately. That she didn’t know both relieved me and made me think less of her.

“You might feel like you’ve gotten off to a bumpy start in this class,” she said. “But I want you to know I’m totally open-minded. Anyone in my classroom who shows a willingness to work will do just fine. Besides,” she added, and, to my horror, she actually winked. We were the only ones in the room! What was I supposed to do back? Didn’t she realize that this wasn’t a movie about boarding school, where the student and the teacher could have a little burst of chumminess and then it would cut to another scene, like the student at soccer practice or the teacher riding her bike back to her cottage on the edge of campus? No, we were still in the same room, both of us having to breathe and speak in the aftermath of her wink. “I’ll admit to a soft spot for a fellow Midwesterner,” she continued. “It seems like there aren’t a whole lot of us at Ault.”

I tried to smile.

“You did say you’re from Indiana, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” I said. “From South Bend.”

“You know, I dated a guy who grew up there,” she said. “Evan Anderson. You don’t know him, do you?” She gave a self-deprecating laugh, as if to show that she knew how unlikely this was.

“I don’t think so.” I pushed my essay across the table, stood, and picked up my backpack.

As I was leaving, she said, “Hey, Lee?”

From the doorway, I turned around.

She was standing, too, and she pulled her shoulders back, bent both arms, balled her hands into fists, and thrust her fists forward. “Confidence!” she said.

Again, when I tried to smile, I couldn’t tell how convincing it was. Walking through the empty schoolhouse and back to my dorm, I thought how exhausting Ault was, all the chatter and the expressions you had to make: Attentive! Inquisitive! I let my face sag, but then I saw someone ten yards in front of me, emerging from the courtyard. It was Charlie Soco, a senior, another person I’d never spoken to. I glanced at his eyes and saw that he wasn’t looking at me, and then I looked down and then as we came closer to each other, I slid my backpack off one shoulder so it was in front of me and unzipped one of the outer pockets and pretended to rummage in it. In this way, when Charlie and I passed, I avoided saying hello.

Quite a few people made comments to me about Tullis’s haircut, and at lunch one day, Aspeth and Dede were discussing it when I sat down. I waited for them to acknowledge my role in it, but neither of them did.

“He looks ten times better,” Aspeth was saying.

“Lee,” said Emily Phillips, who was sitting next to me, “aren’t you the one who cut it?”

When I nodded, Dede said, “You?”

I nodded again.

“But you don’t even know Tullis.”

It was true that since the start of this school year, whenever we were in English class, Dede had been perfectly civil, even, at times, friendly. Still, I couldn’t help but enjoy watching her work herself up. “He asked me to,” I said.

Dede narrowed her eyes. “Do you
know
how to cut hair?” If I had concealed this ability from her during the year we’d lived together, I could see her thinking, what else might I be hiding?
I’m a trapeze artist,
I wanted to say.
I speak Swahili.

“Of course I do,” I said.

“Could you cut mine?” asked Nick Chafee, who was sitting at the head of the table.

“Sure.”

Dede’s mouth was hanging open, as it did whenever she was confused or outraged. Nick Chafee wasn’t cute, but he was known to be especially rich, and, clearly, Dede doubted my ability to interact with him unsupervised.

“Can you do it tonight after dinner?” Nick said. “I’ll come to your dorm.”

“Or I’ll come to yours.” I had never set foot in the common room of a boys’ dorm. But I could hear how I sounded casual, and it was because Dede was watching, because defying her expectations was irresistible. If I made eye contact with her, surely I would laugh and give proof that I was faking it. I concentrated very hard on biting into my tuna melt.

Emily Phillips said, “Could you cut my hair, too?”

Before I could respond, Dede said, “Are you crazy? Guys’ hair and girls’ hair is completely different!”

“I just want to get rid of the split ends,” Emily said.

“That’s no problem,” I said. In fact, it would be a lot easier than what I’d done for Tullis. “I can do yours tonight, too.”

“Actually, I have a French test tomorrow, but what about Wednesday night?”

As it happened, I had a Spanish test Thursday. Not that it really mattered—I never did that well on anything, so it was a better use of my time to cut hair than to study.

“I can’t believe this,” Dede said.

“Want me to cut yours?”

“No!” she said, and everyone at the table laughed.

Over the next several weeks, I cut the hair of more and more people, perhaps twenty-five of them by late October. Certain things I’d done with Tullis became habits—that I never had them wet their hair first, that I always made them close their eyes when I was standing in front of them, that, of course, I didn’t charge. Around campus, people suddenly talked to me more, especially teachers and boys. Tullis himself always greeted me warmly and by name; once, when I was hurrying through the gym to get to the soccer field, Reynolds Coffey, the male senior prefect, yelled, “Yo, Lee, where are your scissors?”; and another time, as I was leaving the dining hall after formal dinner, Reverend Orch, the chaplain, who was completely bald, set his hand on my forearm and said, “From all that I hear, Miss Fiora, it is my great loss that I cannot employ your services.”

In such situations, I was always demure, I’d hardly even reply. But when it came to actual haircutting, I felt a confidence that I had not experienced in any other situation since arriving at Ault. Sometimes I didn’t even give the haircut that had been requested, I gave the one I thought would look good—lopping off an extra few inches, say—and the individual might seem puzzled (not angry, never angry, just puzzled), but everyone else always loved it. I learned to use an electric razor, which numbers corresponded to which lengths, and even though that was something a guy could have done on his own, some wanted me to do it for them. Oliver Amunsen said, “I trust you more than I trust myself.”

In my hands, beneath my fingers, people’s heads felt warm and vulnerable, and I had the sense that I could have cut their hair with my eyes closed, by touch alone. I was never nervous; in fact, I’d experience a suspension of any conscious feeling at all. I almost always chatted with them a little, rarely for the whole time, and I never worried either that I was talking too much or that the silences between us were awkward. Afterward, when the person had left and I was alone, vacuuming or sweeping up the hair, I felt a sense of achievement. I was proud of my ability. Though normally I thought pride of any sort was distasteful, this was okay because cutting hair was a neutral act, nothing to brag about. It was like being good at untying knots, or good at reading maps.

We had finished
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
shortly before the day of our group presentations. The assignment had been to choose an important scene from anywhere in the book, say why it mattered, and act it out. My partners were Norie Cleehan and Jenny Carter, and we did the part where Cassy and Emmeline hide in the attic and pretend to be ghosts to scare Simon Legree; I was Legree.

After we went, the only group left was Darden, Aspeth, and Dede. “We have to go put on our costumes,” Dede announced.

“Great,” Ms. Moray said. No one else had bothered with costumes.

They left the room, and while we waited, a generous, giddy energy hung in the classroom—we’d been getting up from our seats and talking in bad Southern accents and clapping for one another at the end of each performance. During one burst of applause, I had thought that we were probably making as much noise as one of those classes you hear down the hall—usually while you’re taking a math test—that’s shouting and laughing like they’re at a party. “I must say, I had no idea there was so much acting talent in this class,” Ms. Moray said.

Aspeth stuck her head into the room. “One thing we have to tell you,” she said. “This is a modern interpretation. That’s okay, right?”

Ms. Moray nodded. “Absolutely.”

“It’s the part where the Shelby slaves get together in Uncle Tom and Aunt Chloe’s cabin.” Aspeth was still visible only from the neck up. “It’s while Mr. Shelby is in the big house signing over Uncle Tom and Harry to Haley.”

“And why is this important?” Ms. Moray asked.

“We’re showing the sense of community the slaves have and how Uncle Tom is their leader and they rally around him when they know he’s leaving.”

“Terrific. Go to it.”

“Just one more sec.”

Aspeth disappeared, and the door clicked shut. A minute later, Darden flung it open and strode through, Aspeth behind him gripping his waist like in a conga line, and Dede behind Aspeth. Darden wore a fedora set at an angle, a pair of oversized sunglasses, several gold and silver and pearl necklaces, and a long shiny red raincoat, tight across his shoulders, which I recognized as belonging to Dede. In his right hand, he carried a cane. Dede herself had on a cream-colored knee-length silk slip, and Aspeth was wearing a striped bikini top (the stripes were pink, mint green, and pale blue) and a tennis skirt; on their feet, both girls wore high heels.

“Choo-choo!” Darden cried. He thrust his fist into the air and rolled it forward a few times, then tipped his head back toward Aspeth and Dede. “Ain’t that the finest-looking ho train you folks ever seen?” From various parts of the table, I heard snorts of laughter, and someone—it might have been Oliver—called out, “Uh-huh, brother!” As if in response, Aspeth and Dede held their chins in the air, moved their heads all around, batted their eyelashes.

The three of them slithered and wiggled the length of the chalkboard, until they were between the far end of the table and the windows. Darden leaned over and stuck his cheek down toward Jenny Carter. “You give Big Daddy Tom some love, sugar.”

Jenny had a look on her face that was both startled and amused. Her gaze jumped to Ms. Moray, and when I looked, too, Ms. Moray was squinting as if confused. This was a confusion I shared. I literally did not understand what Darden and Aspeth and Dede were doing, what the unifying principle was behind their weird clothes, their gestures, Darden’s lingo. I sensed that most of my classmates did understand. Jenny puckered her lips and kissed Darden.

“Thanks, baby,” Darden said. He took a step back, and Aspeth and Dede rearranged themselves so they were on either side of him, their arms linked through his, gazing up at him, stroking his shoulder or his forehead. “My ho’s, you know why we’re here tonight,” Darden said. “And Daddy might go away, but you know he always gonna be looking out for you. It ain’t easy when Master Shelby—”