She will. But where?
She slips out four more of her Food Star antacids and pops them in her mouth.
Page 148.
Other world.
Right.
Forty-One
Fifth period. Back in Mrs. Garrett’s domain, invisible once again. Still ninety dollars short and no prospects. More than ninety if today’s tips don’t come through. She shifts in her seat, in her other, say-nothing world. She could almost like it for the shutting-out it gives, but the shutting-in is there, too, and the shutting-in is like having no air, like miles of tape are wound around you so you can’t move, can’t breathe, you can only listen, and listen, and listen. To all the stories you’ve heard before, but no one will listen to your own.
A hand here. There. Raised. Answering questions. Part of. They go up and down. Hesitant. Sure. Up. Down. Neatly in rows. Like bowling pins, and then one is chosen, and they all fall. Strike! Like a bowling game. Zoe can’t raise her hand. She doesn’t know the answer. She doesn’t even know the questions anymore. She never was part of the game. Not in her other world, her nameless Miss Buckman world.
Shutting in. Shutting out. She moves, nudges, in her small other world.
Counseling on Wednesday. Tomorrow. A new day. Remember.
Be a good girl, Beth.
Will Mrs. Garrett call on me? Will she ever say my name?
Come home and let’s put all this behind us. Start fresh. Come on now. Be a good girl.
I know the answer. Call on me.
A good girl. Beth.
The bowling pin hands are in order again. Gutter ball. Gutter ball. The pin hands are swept away in disgust. The bowling ball gets meaner, faster. Set up. Pin hands raised. Ready. Strike! All down again.
Strike
or gutter ball
down just the same.
Say it.
Say it.
“Say it.
”
The air is tight. Stretched so taut that all the bowling pin hands are frozen, all the shuffling, bowling ball feet still. No movement because the room is poised. Waiting.
Hoping.
Mrs. Garrett moves from her lectern to the chalkboard, stilted, with caught-off-guard movements like she isn’t sure what she heard. Like it would be too good to be true. She picks up a piece of chalk from the tray, poised to write. “The romanticism of Frost’s—”
“Say it. Just once.”
Tight. Sharp. Measured air and no breaths. Mrs. Garrett turns. Sets her chalk on the lectern and it rolls to the floor, its crack on the tile splitting the air. Another step. And another. And the tilt of the head. “Did you…speak out of turn, Miss Buckman?”
“It’s only three letters.”
Nothing.