I had contact lenses, of course, but was also blessed with oily skin, which regularly caused an inflammation of the eyelid called Blepharitis. You heard right. In addition to my sight woes, I had the occasional smattering of pimples, too. I was one lucky girl indeed. So, due to my poor eye sight, zits, and vanity, I squinted my way through class most days, struggling to make out the simplest of words on the board; even though, if I wanted to be totally honest with myself, I was such a nobody that expectations of beauty probably weren’t even attached to me.
Sliding onto the stool, I opened my bag and tried to appear busy as I waited for number thirty to arrive. A nervous flutter attached itself to my chest as it always did when I was dropped into a new situation. I’d never been a great communicator, but it had only gotten worse since transferring into a school with working swimsuit models populating every few feet of Main Hall. I didn’t walk like them, I didn’t talk like them, and I sure as hell didn’t look like them, so I kept my mouth shut as much as possible to limit the possibility of ridicule.
Already uncomfortable, I looked around at the others who’d pulled the short end of the stick and was at least comforted to see fellow front-rower Sanjay Evani over on table thirteen. He caught my eye and we traded similar disgruntled expressions. It was still early in the process, but so far it appeared he had it worse than me. Sanjay had been partnered with Thad, the basketball player who was already high-fiving his buddies over the good fortune of being paired with the supposed class valedictorian. No doubt my acquaintance's presumed intelligence was based solely on the fact that his hair was parted down the middle and he still carried around a lunch pail and a pencil pouch in high school.
But Sanjay was nowhere near valedictorian status, that coveted crown jewel celebrated by nerds the world over. Last I heard, his class rank was somewhere around twenty-six… out of close to five hundred juniors. Respectable, sure, but certainly not superstar level. Of course, I couldn’t talk. My ranking slid in there at a measly number thirty-nine. It was too embarrassing to talk about, so when the other smart kids were swapping their success stories, I kept quiet – just as I did when the ‘pretties’ were discussing their beauty routines.
Laughter burst forth from table thirteen. Poor Sanjay. In the minute or so it took for him to relocate to the back of the classroom, he’d already managed to earn himself an unflattering nickname: V-Dicky – short, of course, for valedictorian. No one could claim the jocks weren’t creative when it came to ridicule. I could only hope and pray their attention would not somehow divert to me.
It was humiliating enough that I was in a college prep chemistry class instead of Advanced Placement, so the last thing I needed was for my nose to be rubbed in my failures. Sanjay was like me – one of the smart kids who didn’t excel in the sciences. I know it sounded like an oxymoron, but students like us did, in fact, exist. We’d calculated the risks and determined our best bet for admittance into a high-ranking university was to take, and excel, in the lower-level college prep classes for the subjects we weren’t as strong in. And while I shone in reading, writing, and the arts, that special area of the brain used for scientific thinking had never fully developed in me. Any mention of a pop quiz in this study area was enough to send me to the nurse’s office to ride out a series of faked menstrual cramps.
“Number twenty-nine!” the teacher hollered back to me. “Tell me your name, please.”
Every set of eyes in the classroom swiveled in my direction, and I cringed. Great, just what I needed – to be singled out on the day I hadn’t shaved my legs.
“Samantha Anderson.”
“Louder, please. I can’t hear you.”
What did she expect? I’d been banished to Siberia.
I repeated myself, this time giving my voice the push it needed to project across the great divide.
“Well, Samantha, I’m sure we’ll get another student in here at some point, but until then, you get the best partner of all – me.”
Finding herself hilarious, Mrs. Lee giggled like a schoolgirl. I realized my teacher was trying to be light-hearted and funny, but there was a time and place for adults to be comedians, and this clearly wasn’t it. The longer she drew this out, the pokier the hairs on my legs became.
Before the Bunsen burner lottery began, I’d just been hoping not to be partnered up with Nosebleed Nathan. Legend had it he’d once pulled a blood clot from his nostril the length of his forearm. And yet, still, I’d prefer daily bloodletting over being best buds with my chemistry teacher.
Mrs. Lee moved onto the classroom rules, allowing me to relax a bit and take in my new surroundings. Table fourteen sported two girls who were getting to know each other by talking non-stop throughout the teacher’s speech. As annoying as they were, I envied them. Not because they were interrupting class, but because of the ease with which they apparently made friends. I was the girl in school with one friend, and sadly that one friend had severe allergies that kept her out of school on a regular basis. So, when she was home on one of her many sick days, I was the girl who sat in the library and read a book.
It’s not that I was necessarily a weird kid; I’d just never managed to find a place to belong. Maybe it was because I’d come in late to the game – midway through sophomore year – and long after all the social cliques were filled. I wandered for weeks before Shannon, in all her sneezing glory, swooped in and saved me from complete social annihilation.
The door to the classroom opened just a smidge and hovered there a moment in suspended animation. A voice could be heard laughing on the other side. All heads swiveled toward the interruption, forcing Mrs. Lee to stop enjoying the sound of her own voice and swing her head toward the source of the commotion.
Lips pressed in a thin line, she grimaced as she called out. “Excuse me.”
The voice on the other side of the door continued to chatter away, not in the least bit concerned he was disrupting the class fifteen minutes after the start bell had rung.
Mrs. Lee, who’d been resting her newly minted ‘best friend’ rump on the front of her desk, stood up and walked to the door, yanking it inward with all the strength her tiny body could muster. The reason for the resistance was the male arm attached to the door handle on the other side. The wider the door got, the more of the body attached to the anonymous arm followed, and into the classroom stumbled a boy, laughing as if he hadn’t a care in the world. There was no mistaking that face. Or that laugh.
Every person in the room sat up a little straighter, smiles already brightening their faces. Pearl Beach High’s very own Jeff Spicoli had just entered the building in the form of Keith McKallister – arguably the most disruptive student in school. Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t a bully or anything like that – but hewasalways ready with a sarcastic remark or a perfectly timed interruption. If this guy managed to find his way into your classroom, you just knew you were in for an entertaining semester.
Needless to say, Keith was a hit among the student body. Guys loved him because he made them laugh, and girls loved him because he made them swoon. I myself didn’t have an opinion on him one way or another. He’d never spoken to me. He’d never looked at me. He’d never even breathed in my direction, so any judgment I might have of him was based solely on hearsay from those in the know.
There were so many words circulating around campus to describe Keith McKallister, but some of the most common ones weredumb, stoned surferandhilariously hot fuckup. Again, I couldn’t confirm or deny these character assessments, but they seemed fairly accurate to me, given the alarming rate at which girls at the school fell victim to his doped-up charms. Sure, he was a good-looking guy, but Keith McKallister was not boyfriend material. He was the guy you hit up if you needed some weed or if you wanted a guaranteed good time at prom. He was not, I repeat, not the guy you wanted to bring home to meet Mommy.
Not like such a scenario would ever pertain to me. I stood so far outside of Keith’s realm I might as well have been in a different solar system. It wasn’t just that he was a senior and I a lowly junior, but in order to have a shot at enjoying Keith’s unpredictable company, you’d have to be in the first or second tier of popularity. That ruled me out immediately, as I was down there on the fourth out of five tiers. Yes, I’d raised myself up a notch because, please, I had to be at least a level above the guy who pulled snot taffy out of his nose.
“Are you in my class?” Mrs. Lee asked, taking a decidedly defensive stance with one hand wedged on her hip. It probably goes without saying, but the teachers and staff at Pearl Beach High weren’t as fond of Keith as the student body was. It was rumored there were bidding wars at the beginning of the semester to see which unlucky educators would get stuck with him.
Keith stood motionless, appearing uncertain himself if this class was where he belonged. His confusion was understandable. He was one of those guys who routinely wandered around the halls until someone on staff pointed him and his fellow potheads in the right direction.
“I don’t know,” he answered in a low drawl. “What class is this?”
“I don’t know,” she mimicked. “What class do you think it is?”
“Um… Chemistry?” he tried, as if he truly were just taking a wild guess.
