1
June
“June, quit biting your nails! Your classmates will think you’re nervous.”
Grasping the steering wheel a little too tightly between her fingers, Mom glared at me.
“Spoiler alert, Mom.” I took a deep breath. “Iamnervous.”
I collapsed into the passenger seat, but my mom showed no signs of letting up. She hounded me with even more questions, as if the first day of school wasn’t already stressful enough. “Are you sure you slept well last night, honey? You could stand to put on a bit of concealer to hide the bags under your eyes.”
Concealer? Yeah, right.Wearing makeup to school would trigger the blowup of the century.
“Mom, I can’t win with you. I’m—” I stopped myself. Curse words were strictly forbidden in the White-Lebowsky house. “Ugh, forget it.”
I let out a deep sigh and looked out the window at the Laguna Beach neighborhoods that we passed by. They all looked the same to me: neat, orderly rows of small, freshly plastered houses covered by red, Spanish-style roofs with perfectly arranged shingles and meticulously manicured gardens.
My new life seemed perfect on the outside; in reality it was anything but. It was like a book with a cheerful-looking cover hiding a tragic story in its pages.
Private school, a two-story house, and sunny, 77-degrees-Fahrenheit weather year round.Those were the exact words my mom used when she announced that she was subjecting me to another move. Last year we lived in Seattle, where it was cold and rainy most of the time.
I hadn’t even been living there long enough to get used to the weather and buy the right clothes when she told me it was time to go. She knew I wouldn’t have agreed to move states twice in one year, so she phrased this move as the best opportunity that she’d ever been offered. She did everything she could to make it sound convincing.
“Ask someone if you don’t know which classroom to go to. Don’t be shy around your new classmates! I know you’re not shy.”
Would it kill her to not bombard me with unsolicited advice? Wasn’t changing schools for the millionth time depressing enough?
My parents had divorced three years earlier. Somehow it had never occurred to me to ask myself if I would’ve been better off staying with my dad in Virginia. At least he wouldn’t have turned my entire adolescence upside down by uprooting me from one part of the country to the other. Mom and I had moved to four different states, and I’d changed schools three times already. From here, who knows? Type A career artist April Lebowsky was on a mission to travel all over creation to exhibit her lame artwork. The only people who even liked her stuff were old, even though she’d never admit it. I’d never seen anyone younger than seventy at any of her exhibitions. Could that really be a coincidence?
“Fix your collar, honey. And why are you sitting like a man? You’ll wrinkle your skirt,” she scolded.
“And since when do men and women sit differently?” Patience wasn’t exactly my mom’s strong suit, and I took advantage of every opportunity I could to make her lose it.
“June, don’t start with me. You know what I mean.”
“No, Mom, I don’t. And you know what else I don’t get? Why you didn’t sign me up for public school like you always do. I can’t stand this awful uniform.” I let out a heavy sigh, blowing a lock of hair away from my nose.
“It’s just a uniform, June. It even looks good on you.”
“Mom, it’s notjusta uniform. Its whole purpose is in its name—to make us all look uniform. The same.”
I always left the house in a hoodie and shorts. I’ve always hated being constricted by fancy blouses. For that matter, I’ve always avoided skirts like the plague.
“Why can’t I wear pants like the guys do?”
“Quit whining. I already told you. I made a mint off my last exhibition. St. Mary’s is the best school in LA. You’re going, and that’s final.”
“How exciting. I could just not study while you pay an arm and a leg for the diploma you’re buying me.”
My mom’s face suddenly looked crestfallen. “You sound just like your father when you act like that,” she lamented, a slight tone of concern in her voice.
“So long as I actually graduate. But you’ll probably make me transfer schools in two months anyway.”
I was being particularly difficult that morning, but it was for a good reason—this was the millionth “first day.” I’d already switched schools and learned the ropes of each of them so many times. By the time I felt like I was getting the hang of things and figuring out who and what to avoid, et cetera, like clockwork, it was time to move and start all over again.
“Don’t keep your nails that short, June. It’s unladylike.”
I rolled my eyes toward the car ceiling.
