The Beginning of Everything (3 page)

4

THE ONE INTERESTING
thing about being signed up for speech and debate was that I'd been given a Humanities Odd schedule. Eastwood High is on block scheduling, and ever since freshman year, my schedule had been Humanities Even, with the other athletes. But not anymore.

I had first period AP Euro, which was unfortunate because 1) Mr. Anthony, the tennis coach, was the AP Euro teacher, and 2) his classroom was on the second floor of the 400 building, which meant that 3) I had to get up a flight of stairs.

Over the summer, stairs had become my nemesis, and I often went out of my way to avoid a public confrontation with them. I was supposed to pick up an elevator key from the front office; it came in a matching set with that little blue parking tag for my car, the one I was never, ever going to display.

By the time I got to AP Euro via a rarely used stairwell near the staff parking lot, Mr. Anthony had already begun taking roll. He paused briefly to frown at me over the manila folder, and I cringed in silent apology as I slid into a seat in the back.

When he called my name, I mumbled “here,” without looking up. I was surprised he'd actually called me. Usually, teachers did this thing when they reached my name on the roll sheet: “Ezra Faulkner is here,” they'd say, putting a tick in the box before moving on down the list. It was as though they were pleased to have me, as though my presence meant the class would be better somehow.

But when Coach A paused after calling my name and I had to confirm for him that I was in the room even though he knew damn well that I'd walked in thirty seconds late, I wondered for a moment if I really
was
there. I glanced up, and Coach A was giving me that glare he used whenever we weren't hustling fast enough during practice.

“Consider this your tardiness warning, Mr. Faulkner,” he said.

“So noted,” I muttered.

Mr. Anthony continued with roll. I wasn't really listening, but when he got to one name that I didn't quite catch, there was a perceptible shift in the room. A new student. She sat way on the other side, near the bookshelves. All I could see was a sleeve of green sweater and a cascade of red hair.

The syllabus was nothing surprising, although Mr. Anthony apparently believed otherwise. He talked about what it meant to be in an Advanced Placement history course, as though we all hadn't taken AP US History with Ms. Welsh as juniors. A lot of the guys on tennis didn't care for Coach Anthony, because they thought he was a hard-ass. I was used to strict coaches, but I was quickly realizing that without any other athletes in the class, Mr. Anthony was just plain strict.

“You should have done the summer reading,” Mr. Anthony said, as though it was an accusation, rather than a fact. “
Medieval Europe: From the Fall of Rome to the Renaissance
. If you felt such an assignment was beneath you, then you'll be rearranging your plans for the weekend. You might even consider your weekend plans to be, ah,
history
.”

No one laughed.

The Roman Empire: 200
B.C.
—474
A.D.
, he scrawled on the board, and then raised an eyebrow, as though enjoying a private joke. There was this horrible stretch of silence as we tried to figure out why he wasn't saying anything, and then, finally, Xiao Lin raised his hand.

“I am sorry, but I think 476
A.D.
is correct?” he mumbled.

“Thank you, Mr.—ah—Lin, for displaying the barest level of competency in reading comprehension,” Mr. Anthony snapped, correcting the date on the board. “And now, I wonder if anyone here can tell us why the phrase ‘Holy Roman Empire' is a misnomer . . . Mr. Faulkner, perhaps?”

If I didn't know better, I would have thought that was a sneer on Coach A's lip. All right, let's call it a sneer. I got that he was disappointed I couldn't play anymore, but I'd sort of hoped he wouldn't be a jerk about it.

“It only applies after Charlemagne?” I offered, inking over the letters on my syllabus.

“That's a community college answer,” Coach announced. “Would you care to rephrase it and try for a UC school?”

I don't know why I said it, except maybe that I didn't want to take crap from Coach A for the rest of the year, but before I could really think it through, I'd leaned back in my chair and replied, “Yeah, okay. Two reasons: One, the ‘Holy Roman Empire' was originally called the Frankish Kingdom, until the Pope crowned Charlemagne the ‘Emperor of the Romans.' And two, it wasn't holy, or Roman, or even an empire. It was really just, like, this casual alliance of Germanic tribal states.”

I'd never really shot my mouth off in class before, and I instantly regretted it. I usually had the right answer when I was called on, and my grades were good enough, but I wasn't what anyone would consider brainy. I'd just done a lot of reading and thinking over the summer, because there hadn't been much else to do.

“Enjoy your weekend, Mr. Faulkner,” Coach sneered, and I realized that, instead of getting him off my back, I'd made him want to get back at me.

 

I'D NEARLY FORGOTTEN
we were on Pep Rally Schedule until I was halfway out the classroom door, thinking it was break, and someone tapped me on the shoulder.

It was the new girl. She clutched a crumpled class schedule and stared up at me, as though I'd somehow given her the impression that I was the right person to talk to on her first day. I wasn't expecting her eyes—deep and disquieting and dark blue—the sort of eyes that made you wonder if the skies opened up when she got angry.

“Um, sorry,” she said, glancing back down at her schedule. “First period is supposed to end at nine thirty-five, but the bell didn't ring until nine fifty—”

“It's the pep rally,” I told her. “Break is canceled and we go straight to third.”

“Oh.” She pushed her bangs to the side and hesitated a moment before asking, “So, what do you have next?”

“AP American Lit.”

“Me too. Can you show me where that is?”

Ordinarily, I could have. On the first day of junior year, I'd even stopped to help a few confused-looking freshmen in the quad, who'd stood gawking at the maps in the backs of their day planners as though they were stuck in some sort of incomprehensible labyrinth.

“Sorry, no,” I said, hating myself for it.

“Um, okay.”

I watched her walk away, and I thought about how most of the girls at Eastwood, or at least the ones worth noticing, all looked the same: blonde hair, lots of makeup, stupidly expensive handbags. The new girl was nothing like that, and I didn't know what to make of the shabby boys' button-down tucked into her jean shorts, or the worn leather satchel slung over her shoulder, like something out of an old-fashioned movie. She was pretty, though, and I wondered where she'd come from, and why she hadn't bothered trying to fit in. I wanted to follow her and apologize, or at least explain. But I didn't. Instead, I grappled with the stairwell near the faculty lot, crossed the quad toward the 100 building, and opened the door of AP American Lit several minutes in arrears of the bell.

 

I'D HAD MR.
Moreno before, for Honors Brit Lit. He'd supposedly been writing the same novel for the past twenty years, and either he genuinely loved teaching or he'd never outgrown high school, because it was sort of depressing how hard he'd tried to get us psyched about Shakespeare.

Moreno hadn't cared that I was late for class; he hadn't even noticed. The DVD player wasn't working, and he was on his hands and knees with a disc clutched in his teeth, prodding at the cables. Finally Luke Sheppard, the president of Film Club, arrogantly stepped in, and we all sat and watched
The Great Gatsby—
the original, not the remake. I hadn't seen it before, and the film was old-fashioned and sort of bored me. The book had been our summer reading, and the movie wasn't nearly as good.

What I hated, though, was the part with the car accident. I knew it was coming, but that didn't stop it from being any less terrible to watch. I shut my eyes, but I could still hear it, hear the policeman telling the crowd of onlookers how the sonofabitch didn't even stop his car. Even with my eyes closed, I could feel everyone staring at me, and I wished they wouldn't. It was unsettling the way my classmates watched me, as though I fascinated and terrified them. As though I no longer belonged.

When class let out, I briefly considered the quad, with its harsh sunlight and café tables. My old crew sat at the most visible table, the one by the wall that divided the upper and lower quads. I pictured them in their new team uniforms, the first day of senior year, telling stories about summer sports camps and beach vacations, laughing over how young the freshmen looked. And then I pictured sitting down at that table. I pictured no one saying anything, but all of them thinking it: you're not one of us anymore. I wasn't class president, or tennis team captain. I wasn't dating Charlotte, and I didn't drive a shiny Beemer. I wasn't king any longer, so it was only fitting to take my exile. Which is why, instead of gambling my last few chips of dignity, I wound up avoiding the quad entirely and decamping on that shaded stairwell out near the faculty lot with my headphones on, wondering why I hadn't known it would be quite this bad.

 

THERE WAS ONLY
one senior-level Spanish class, which meant another year with Mrs. Martin. She'd urged us to call her Señora Martinez back in Spanish I, but that was completely ridiculous on account of her husband being the pastor of the local Lutheran church. She was one of those cookie-baking, overly mothering types who festooned her sweaters with festive holiday pins and treated us all like second graders.

I was the first to arrive, and Mrs. Martin beamed at me and whispered that her congregation had prayed for me after the accident. I could think of so many more worthwhile things they could have prayed for, but I didn't have the heart to tell her.

“
Gracias, Señora Martinez
,” I muttered, taking my usual seat.

“Yo, Faulkner.” Evan nodded in greeting as he and three guys from the tennis team slid into seats around mine as though nothing was the least bit changed. They were carrying Burger King bags and wore matching tennis backpacks, the pro kind we'd been begging Coach to approve for years. I was so distracted by their backpacks that I failed to notice two things: that they'd all gone off campus for lunch and that Evan's uniform sported an extra line of embroidery.

“Aren't you going to congratulate me on making captain?” Evan reached into his bag and unwrapped a massive double burger. The smell of warm onions and clammy meat patties filled the classroom.

“Congratulations,” I said, unsurprised. Evan was the most likely choice for it, after all.

“Well, someone had to take over for your gimp ass.” Evan's surfer baritone made the insult sound strangely friendly.

Jimmy, who was sitting behind me, held out what had to be a full-sized bucket of fries. “Want some?”

“Sure you can't finish that yourself?” I deadpanned.

“Nah, I got enough for everyone, in case Señora Martin gets mad.”

I couldn't help it, I laughed.

“Dude,” Evan said, clapping me on the shoulder. “You in for Chipotle tomorrow? Taco Tuesday, gotta get some tac and guac!”

“No one calls it that.” I shook my head, grinning.

It was strange, my crew acting the same as they always had, and for a moment I wondered if it was really that easy. If I could go for Mexican food with a team I no longer belonged to. If I even
wanted
to hang out with them, now that I'd gone from leader to liability.

And then Charlotte waltzed over in an all-too-familiar cloud of fruity perfume and grabbed a handful of fries from Jimmy's bucket. She perched on top of the desk next to Evan's, her Song Squad skirt swishing against her tanned thighs.

“Where are
my
fries?” she demanded, poking Evan with her shoe.

“Well, Jimmy got enough for everyone.” Evan's face fell as he realized he'd screwed up.

“But I didn't ask
Jimmy
to get me fries, I asked
you
,” she said, pouting.

“Sorry, babe. I'll make it up to you.” Evan leaned across the aisle, going in for a kiss, and if I hadn't figured it out before, I knew it then: they were dating.

“Not right now, my hands are greasy,” Charlotte said, turning away. “Did you at least get any napkins?”

“Oops. Forgot.”

I suppose it should have been painful to see them together, my ex-girlfriend with one of my best friends. That I should have wondered not just how but
when
it had happened, but I felt oddly detached, as though it was too much effort to care. I sighed and took a packet of tissues from my backpack, passing it to Charlotte.

“Thanks.” She couldn't even bear to look at me, and I couldn't tell whether it was out of guilt or pity.

Jill Nakamura joined us then, still wearing her sunglasses. She gave Charlotte a hug before taking a seat, like they hadn't just seen each other at lunch.

“Ugh, we have like two classes together this year,” Charlotte complained.

I allowed myself to smirk as Jill made up some excuse about Student Government screwing with her schedule. The truth was, Jill and I had been in the same honors courses since tenth grade, but we had an unspoken understanding to keep quiet about that sort of thing.

I watched as Charlotte put the packet of tissues into her handbag—
my
packet of tissues, actually.

“Oh my
God
,” Charlotte said, zipping her bag with a flourish. “Look! It's like she robbed the lost-and-found bin.”

“The
boys'
lost and found.” Jill stifled a laugh.

The new girl stood in the doorway, surveying the mostly filled rows of seats. I could see her trying to be brave about the unwanted attention. Thankfully, Mrs. Martin stepped to the front of the classroom, clapped a short rhythm for silence like we were all in the third grade, and called “
Hola, class!
”