Today Mrs. Wallace ended the class with a video clip, and as they watched, Kelsey felt something wash over her. The video was supposed to be an example of the way feminist art had evolved, to the point where the artists would use their own bodies as a canvas.
Kelsey didn’t know exactly what this meant. She imagined them painting on themselves.
And then, the artist danced. She danced in a way Kelsey had never seen before, but understood all the same. The dance awoke something in her, the same sort of feeling she would have if she had answered one of Mrs. Wallace’s questions correctly, but bigger than that. Better than that, because she could imagine herself in the artist’s shoes, losing herself to her limbs and torso and the music that played. It was as if the artist were answering a question Kelsey had asked since she was a little girl. The artist’s name was Maya. Maya Deren. She reminded Kelsey of her sister. She reminded Kelsey of herself.
When the video was over, Kelsey fought the urge to applaud.
The bell rang, but before she could gather her things, Mrs. Wallace put a hand on her arm.
“Forgetting something?”
Kelsey was still lost in thought. “Huh?”
“I graded the paper you handed in before break.” Mrs. Wallace looked at Kelsey, her eyebrows raised. “The paper on Cubism you handed in a day after the deadline? Remember?”
“Oh, yeah,” Kelsey said, clearing her throat. Her face burned. She was working harder, but it didn’t seem to be good enough. “Thank you. Sorry about that.”
Mrs. Wallace tapped the paper in her hands with plain, shorn fingernails. The grade wasn’t visible. “Well, you’ve never been famous among the administration for being on time for class, or present, for that matter. I didn’t expect a lot—”
“Yeah.” Kelsey sighed.
Mrs. Wallace continued, “When you gave me an A-plus paper, I was very surprised.”
She smiled as broadly as Mrs. Wallace could smile, which wasn’t very broad, and put the paper in Kelsey’s hands.
Kelsey flipped it over, her eyes wide. Sure enough, at the top near her name there was an A+. She could see small notes Mrs. Wallace had made here and here: Creative observation, she had written, and, Well said.
At first, all Kelsey could do was look back and forth between Mrs. Wallace and the paper. Breaths replaced words. It was the first A+ she had ever received.
“I can’t believe it.”
“Believe it,” Mrs. Wallace replied, and went back to her desk.
Kelsey left the room with a fire underneath her. She couldn’t wait to tell Peter, and to tell her parents. Her mother and father had always told her she could do better. But she often wondered if any of them really thought she could, including herself. She had tried her hand at studying before, and always lost interest. What was different now?
She paused in the hallway, the faces filtering around her, remembering the person who she had done this for in the first place. She had been moved by this subject in the way her sister was probably moved by it every day. Her eyes blurred with happy tears.
I get it now, what you saw in it all, she told her sister, wherever she was. I see what you see.
4/26, 11:55 pm
From: Farrow, Peter W SPC
To: Maxfield, Michelle
Subject: A short list
The things I would rather do than go on patroclass="underline"
• Talk to you
• Take you on a date
• Make out with you
• Play music for you
• Listen to you play music for me (not on a guitar, just on the radio or something, no offense)
• Make out with you
• Read your letters
• Talk to you through a computer screen
• Make out with you
• Sit and stare off into space while thinking about you
• Stand and stare off into space while thinking about you
• Walk and stare off into space while thinking about you
• Sleep and stare off into space while thinking about you
• Bathe and stare off into space while thinking about you (sorry if that’s explicit)
Tomorrow we go out for a few days. I’ll try to email you again, but I can’t guarantee it won’t be complete gibberish. I’m having trouble making my hands or brain do anything else but… yeah. You get it already. I love you. I’m in love with you!
—P
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The mutters of fifteen members of Kelsey’s dance team echoed throughout the Lawrence High gym, but Kelsey wasn’t listening. She went in phases with the real world: Sometimes, she wanted to describe every detail in her head to Peter, just to know that he, too, had once tasted food, seen sun, tripped over a rug. But sometimes, everything in the world felt somehow unnecessary, because she didn’t need any of it if it wasn’t a part of him. The Lions Dance Team was waiting for Gillian to arrive at the last—and most important—dance practice of the year. Today, they voted on next year’s captains.
Kelsey forced herself out of a daze to look at the clock on her phone. 4:18.
“Where is she?” she asked Ingrid.
“Beats me,” Ingrid said, rotating her blonde head to look around the gym, as if Gillian were hiding in a corner. “Maybe she forgot?”
“No way,” Kelsey said dismissively, and then corrected herself. “I mean, that could be it, but I wouldn’t think so.”
She reminded herself to be nicer to Ingrid, the only real friend she had left at Lawrence High. “So,” she said, giving her an affectionate rub on the back. “How’s your mom?”
As Ingrid was about to answer, the gym doors opened with a bang.
Gillian walked, slow and deliberate, to where they were gathered on the bleachers. She stood in front of the group.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said. “I must have gotten the time wrong.”
Kelsey scoffed and stood, taking a place next to Gillian facing the group. She muttered, “I said four o’clock yesterday. You were right there.”
“Anyway,” Gillian said, putting on a fake smile as if Kelsey wasn’t right next to her. “Let’s begin. For the freshmen unfamiliar with nominations and voting, here’s how this works.…”
As Gillian spoke, Kelsey felt her pocket vibrate. The phone lit up with a notification from Michelle’s email, which she had guiltily loaded onto her own phone. From Peter. “Tried calling you,” the subject read. He would have to wait. A minute later, however, her phone was lighting up again.
Kelsey glanced down. Another email from Peter, no subject. The content read “Hello?”
“Take these pieces of paper,” Gillian was saying, “and write down the name of the dancer you believe shows the most leadership, strength, and creativ—excuse me.” Gillian was looking at her. “Could you not?”
Kelsey apologized, and a minute later, her phone buzzed a third time. “Why is your phone disconnected?” Her phone? Her mind raced. Peter must have been trying to call Michelle’s old phone number for some reason. She would have to make something up later.
Her team was now voting and it was her job to collect the ballots. Kelsey went around to each dancer with a happy face, though she was composing a reason for Peter’s call in her head.
Then, a fourth email read “I’m in KS. Call me ASAP at my home #.” He had included a number with a Kansas area code.