Singled Out (3 page)

“True. Well, maybe it has something to do with making money,” she said. “That’s usually what all these stuffy people care about.”

C
lasses began the next day at 7:45. I put on the white polo shirt and navy blue pants, because there wasn’t much else to choose from. I certainly wasn’t going to wear the skirt.

In order to not look like a total boy, I added the string choker necklace that Justin had given me before he went away to college. The brown string had a little circular medallion with a grizzly bear’s face etched on it. He said it was for strength, and sometimes I wore it underneath my uniform when I thought I was going to have a tough day on the mound. Strangely enough, I hadn’t put it on in over a year. Today, I thought I might need it.

Gabby was already downstairs in the kitchen. She had chosen the same outfit, but she looked a lot more like a girl than I did. She had put on big hoop earrings and shiny lip gloss. Some people have style, and some, like me, don’t have a clue. Gabby was finishing a bowl of cereal, but I was too nervous to eat.

“You ready?” I said to her.

“Let’s do it.” She pushed her chair back and we made our way toward the front door. I appreciated how quickly Gabby had sort of adopted me as her friend.

We walked across the campus toward the main building.
“Look,” Gabby said, pointing to the steps. There were two TV camerapeople filming our entrance and a reporter standing nearby with a microphone.

“Geez, they really are desperate for a story around here.” I tried not to look at the cameras, but Gabby waved and winked.

I wished I was that bold.

Unfortunately, Gabby and I did not have any classes together. Gabby figured they wanted to spread out the girls, make it look to the press like there were more of us.

Classes at Hazelton were small, usually only about twelve students. It was not unusual to find juniors and seniors in the same classes, with even some extra-smart sophomores here and there.

My first class of the day was Trigonometry. I never understood why they didn’t just call it fancy math. No matter what it was called, I would be lucky to pull a C in Trig. I had the sinking feeling that the work here would be even harder than at my old high school.

Since it was the first day of school for everyone, the teacher, Mr. Moesch, assigned seats. The desks were in rows, and I was so happy when I was directed to the back chair by the window. The boy to my left smiled, raising his hand in a friendly wave. His light brown hair was in a bowl cut that just about covered his eyes. I nodded hello back at him.

“I’m Ben,” he whispered.

“Taylor,” I replied.

“Yeah,” he said, nodding, “we know.”

I gave him a nervous half-smile.

Mr. Moesch immediately started his lecture, and I struggled to take notes fast enough. My hand began to cramp after twenty minutes, and I took to picking at my hangnails. I had no idea
what he was talking about anyway.

When the bell rang, I was abruptly brought back to reality. As I inched toward the door, I fumbled through my bag, looking for my schedule. Mr. Moesch smiled and said, “Welcome, young lady.” Ugh, I hated that term—“young lady.” I forced a smile and headed out.

Ben was sort of hanging back in the hall. It appeared he was waiting for me. With the way everyone was staring at me, but trying to act as if they weren’t, I felt like a circus freak. I wished I were on the mound pitching. It would be so much easier to face all these preppy guys with a ball and a glove in my hand. I could take them all down.

I thought back to the advice of my old guidance counselor: When you’re nervous, just imagine the batter’s behind in the count, with no balls and two strikes. You have the advantage.

But before I reached the Ben guy, he was suddenly pulled aside and into the men’s room by a taller, more attractive lookalike. I wondered if the guy was his brother, or if the resemblance was just my imagination. All the guys sort of looked the same around here. Whoever the look-alike was, he looked pissed. I hung back for a minute to see if Ben would return, but he didn’t. I had the strange feeling this had something to do with me.
But how could it? I just got here. Oh well
, I thought as I looked down at my schedule and stared down the hall at the classroom numbers.
Time for Spanish.

The morning dragged on, and by lunch, I felt overwhelmed and exhausted. The café at Hazelton—“cafeteria” wasn’t snooty enough—looked far nicer than any school eating-place I had ever seen. It was more like a lounge. There were round tables, and even sofas and coffee tables to sit at. It was a lot less pressure for a new kid to sit at one of these than at the
typical long cafeteria tables that forced you to make friends with whoever was there.

Here, I bought a sandwich and sank down into one of the couches. I didn’t need friends anyway. Having gotten by with so few all these years, being alone was kind of comforting, like an old pair of slippers. It was a lot less pressure not having to impress anyone or make small talk. Still, I was happy to see Gabby finally appear in the café, and I waved her over.

She plopped her large shoulder bag next to me. “I’m going to grab a bite. Be right back. Want anything?”

“No, I’m good.”

When she returned, she started talking. “Can you believe this place? I don’t think I ever got so much homework on the first day of school, and I’m due in the gym for tryouts today, which I assume are just a formality, right?” she said in one breath before taking a big bite of her sandwich.

“I guess,” I said. “I assume we both have to try out just in case we got really bad over the summer or something.”

“Well, I played on a summer team, so I feel good to go. You do summer league down in Evansville?”

“Yeah. It sucked, though.”

“What else do you do down in South Jersey?”

“Not much.”

“You got a big family down there?”

“It’s just me and my dad and my brother,” I said.

“Where’s your mom? Your parents divorced?” said Gabby.

“Sort of. My mom just bailed on us when I was five. Haven’t seen her since.” I didn’t want to make Gabby uncomfortable with my broken home story, so I added, “But it’s no big deal, really.”

Gabby nodded, and was quiet for a minute. She took a sip of her soda before asking, “So, what class do you have next?”

After the day ended, I walked back to Dr. Rich’s house. It felt strange sharing the place with his family. I figured I would wait a few weeks, and then ask if they could find me a private room in one of the dorms. Being in a house made me miss home more. Maybe the dorm would be more businesslike, and I wouldn’t miss my dad and my brother so much.

Overall, my first day was boring and, aside from all the staring, uneventful. My book bag was certainly heavier than when I started, and I forced myself to go up to my room and organize my desk. Maybe I would even look at my Trig homework, but I didn’t make myself any promises.

When Gabby returned from tryouts, she was wiped out. She tapped on my door to deliver the news.

“How was it?” I asked.

“It was tough, but the coach had good things to say. They post the list tomorrow. Practice starts the next day.”

“Sounds like you’re in,” I said.

“Let’s hope,” she said. “I’m gonna hit the shower.”

“K. See you down at dinner.”

Gabby, it seemed, was well on her way to making the team, which boded well for me. I slept well that night in my new blue room.

T
hings got weird the next day. After Gabby and I walked to the gym to see her name proudly posted on the basketball team’s varsity list, we parted ways to head to our first-period classes, and I noticed that the boys who’d been staring at me the day before were intentionally avoiding eye contact today. It was as if I’d been labeled some disease they didn’t want to catch.

The second day of school was also when I figured out which student was really in charge. I admit that when he first appeared, he struck me as something to see. I wasn’t usually one to go ga-ga over a guy’s looks, but the first time I saw him walking toward me in the hall, I felt as if I needed an extra breath of air. I soon realized he was the same guy who’d shoved Ben into the men’s room yesterday, but yesterday I hadn’t gotten such a good look at him.

He was at least six feet tall, and thin, with wide shoulders, like those of a swimmer. His face had a strong, defined bone structure, like a model’s. He had dark brown eyes and hair that looked black from far away. It was cut short in the back, but hung down just enough in the front so he would feel the constant need to brush it out of his face.

I also couldn’t help noticing his hands. That second day, I was reaching for the door to my chemistry class at the same
time he was doing the same, and so we touched hands, ever so briefly. His hands looked as strong as a grown man’s, but felt soft like a child’s. He had barely beaten me to the knob, and he turned his shoulder into me as he opened the door and held it for the guys behind him, leaving me squashed between the door and the wall.

Since it was the first day of Chemistry, the teacher called roll. I paid close attention to who raised their hands when their names were called.

“Samuel Barrett?” the teacher called.

“Present,” said the boy who had squished me against the door.

Throughout the lecture, it was obvious that all the other boys in the class looked to this Barrett guy before doing anything. I assumed he must serve some important role at Hazelton. He had to be a senior, too, because only seniors were in this class. He seemed pretty full of himself, and based on how often he answered the teacher’s questions, he was obviously pretty smart as well.

From that second day on, I felt a coldness every time Samuel Barrett was near me—as if, without speaking, he was saying, “You’re not welcome here.” He never spoke a word to me, and he looked over my head whenever I passed him in the hall. And it seemed he had told everyone to treat me the same. I decided his behavior was not my fault. I chalked it up to him just being an over-privileged snob and a sexist pig. That was easier to deal with than thinking there was something wrong with me.

From listening in the halls and gossiping with Gabby, I found out that Sam had a reputation for being both a star student and a star athlete. Ben Barrett, the guy I met the first
day of school, was, in fact, his fraternal twin.

One day, I noticed Samuel Barrett in the picture of last year’s baseball team, which hung in the trophy case. Next to his name were the words “Team Captain.” Sitting next to him was the brawny blonde guy from my English class, William Tuttle, who was listed as a pitcher. I guess I would have to deal with that when the season started.

Before I knew it, the first week was over and my first weekend away from home was upon me. During the week, it had been easy figuring out what to do, because school and sleeping had taken up most of my time. But I didn’t really know what to do with my free time. When school was out, I was told, most of the students studied and hung with friends, but I avoided studying like the plague and I didn’t know anyone yet.

Gabby seemed nice, but she spent most of her time locked up in her room, on her cell phone. She was all about her boyfriend Jordan back at home, and on Friday afternoon, she’d left to go home for the weekend.

I promised myself I would at least stick it out the first weekend. I wasn’t homesick—just unsure what to do with myself. I had started taking long runs after dinner each night. The school campus was full of winding trails to explore. The school food was making me feel fat, too, and I had to stay in good shape during the fall and winter if I wanted to kick butt against rich preppy brats in the spring.

That first weekend was pretty lonely. Dr. and Mrs. Richards were actually quite nice, although they were difficult for me to relate to. Dr. Rich always sounded like a headmaster—at dinner, when playing with his son, and even when taking out the garbage. It was kind of strange. I tried to join them for dinner and ate my other meals at the school café. They went
out on Saturday afternoon for a few hours. They asked me to join them, but I said no.

I called my dad to chat about my first week, checked out every room in the house—even those on the third floor, not out of nosiness but out of boredom—and then settled down on the couch. I sat in the huge sunken living room watching TV. I flipped through the channels, but the Richardses had only the basic cable package, so there wasn’t much on. I stopped at a local channel when I heard the word Hazelton. There was a shot of Gabby and Kwan and me. Leaning forward on the couch, I turned up the volume.

“. . . Abernathy’s lawsuit against Hazelton was put on the back burner this week as Hazelton welcomed its first female students,” said the reporter. “The girls attending Hazelton were awarded the Mary Francis Halpert scholarship, named for Mary Francis Halpert, the wife of one of the founding members of the school and a major advocate of women’s rights. When Dr. Colton, school headmaster, was asked if the scholarship was simply a ploy to rebuild the school’s reputation, he replied that the two circumstances were unrelated. Abernathy’s lawyers are still trying to persuade some former Hazelton students to serve as witnesses on Abernathy’s behalf. Still to come after the break, the local forecast with—” I shut the TV off.