Keep Holding On Read online

  I have a list called Things to Remember When I’m a Teacher. I always keep it in my binder. You never know when inspiration will strike. After observing Mrs. Yuknis’s pants trend, I added this to my list:

  Have more than four pairs of pants.

  Don’t wear them on a schedule.

  My list is getting long. I started it last year after Carly ripped up my spiral notebook in history. Ms. Herrera totally saw. She didn’t even say anything. She just sat at her desk ruffling papers and pretending she wasn’t looking. But she totally was. Carly stood right there next to my desk tearing my notebook apart. The pages fluttered to the floor in shreds. I was shocked that Ms. Herrera didn’t do anything. I even looked at her like, Why aren’t you doing anything? Ms. Herrera looked confused. And scared. Like if she made Carly stop, maybe Ms. Herrera would leave school one day and find her tires all slashed. Or her flower garden ripped up. It’s so lame. If grownups won’t stand up for us, who will?

  After Carly finished ripping up my notebook, she stomped on the shreds as she went back to her seat. Then I added this item to my list:

  If you see someone being bullied, make it stop.

  Why is that so hard for us to do?

  Mother looks exhausted at dinner. She always looks exhausted. As if just being alive is too strenuous.

  There are only a few things mother makes for dinner. Tonight we’re having mushy spaghetti with cheap sauce and prepackaged garlic bread.

  I bite into a piece of garlic bread. It’s still cold in the middle.

  My stomach is a tangled ball of knots. You never know what mood mother will be in. This one time last year, she came home really late and woke me up when she slammed the front door. Then she whipped my door open. I could see her glaring at me, the light from the hall illuminating the hate in her eyes. She didn’t say anything. She just slammed my door. Then she opened it and slammed it again, harder. I pulled the covers up. I watched my door for a long time, shaking on my thin mattress.

  Dinner wouldn’t be so stressful if I could eat in front of the TV. I got away with doing that for a while. But then mother started yelling at me to come to the table. If we eat dinner together, she can pretend we’re a real family.

  “Work is killing me,” mother complains. “You wouldn’t believe the idiots I have to deal with all day.” Then she proceeds to vent about a customer who was trying to return a toaster without a receipt. That kind of thing happens a lot at Retail Rodeo. It’s this massive discount store about half an hour away. Mother works in customer service. I can’t think of a worse person to work in customer service.

  There are plenty of days when mother says less than ten words to me. Sometimes she doesn’t answer when I ask her something, like I’m not even there. But tonight she’s on a rant of epic proportions. Her rants are almost always about work. Or lack of money. There isn’t much else she talks about. The following topics are always avoided: school, people who aren’t idiots, female issues, and anything else that normal moms talk about with their daughters.

  I can’t remember the last time I saw her smile.

  Some guy got a promotion at her job. Mother thinks she deserved it more.

  “He’s the last person who should be general manager,” mother says. “That guy doesn’t know the first thing about dealing with people.”

  I twirl more spaghetti around my fork. I’m too hungry to care that it’s mushy. Mrs. Feldman is probably serving an amazing meal over at Sherae’s house. Thick, juicy cuts of steak. Mashed potatoes made from scratch with extra gravy. Fresh, roasted vegetables. Soft, warm rolls with garlic butter melting on them.

  “I can’t get a break,” mother rants on, looking everywhere but at me. She avoids eye contact. If she saw me, like really saw me, she would be forced to face reality. “It’s like the whole world’s against me. How am I supposed to raise a kid if I can’t get paid decently? They have no idea what it’s like to be a single mother in this community. None.”

  There will also be dessert at Sherae’s. Mrs. Feldman’s chocolate cake is unreal. She makes this vanilla frosting that is so insanely good you can’t even believe it. And when she ices the cake, she puts a lot of frosting on. We’re talking frosting so thick you get a forkful with every bite.

  “They think welfare and food stamps cut it?” Mother laughs bitterly. “What a joke. They should walk in my shoes for a day. They wouldn’t even last five minutes.”

  Moist, delicious chocolate cake. Sweet, rich vanilla frosting.

  “I mean, look. I’ve been there much longer than the idiots who’ve gotten promoted. He’s always trying to keep me down. I should be his boss. Then things would start running the way they’re supposed to.” She takes a sip of soda. “Why can’t I ever get a break?”

  “Maybe the other customer service reps are nicer to the customers?” I suggest. “And that’s why they got promoted?”

  Mother snaps her head up. She squints at me in a daze, like she’s trying to remember who I am.

  “What?” she says.

  “Nothing.” There’s no point in trying to convince her that the conspiracy she’s imagining doesn’t exist. She’s convinced that the whole world is against her. Including me.

  Soon this rant will segue into mother complaining how she has no money. According to mother, it’s my fault that we’re poor. If she hadn’t had me right after high school, then she could have gone to college and had a real career. Instead of making minimum wage at a job she can’t stand.

  She explained all of this to me when I was thirteen.

  “You ruined my life,” she told me.

  My mother is not a mom. She’s just some selfish woman who should have never had a kid.

  Things parents are supposed to do for their kids:

  buy needed supplies

  help pay for college

  look at them

  do laundry

  talk to them about their lives

  love them

  Things from the above list that my mother does or intends to do:

  none

  three

  monday, april 11

  (49 days left)

  My hair is so scary that if you saw it walking down the street, you’d cross to the other side. This humidity is not helping. It’s just an excuse for my hair to let its frizz flag fly.

  I seriously doubt Jolene DelMonico has to get up way early to deal with hair that refuses to be tamed. She’s in my physics class. Every morning her perfect hair is like a smack in the face. Keeping mine shoulder-length helps. I can kind of control it with product, but it’s impossible to maintain for more than a few hours. And it’s this boring, light brown color that almost exactly matches my eyes.

  Unfortunately, my hair isn’t the only disgrace I have to deal with this morning. My eyes are puffy. There’s no way I can go to school with puffy eyes.

  Time for the cold spoon.

  I go to the kitchen and grab the spoon I keep in the back of the refrigerator for puffy-eye emergencies. My eyes probably shouldn’t get puffy like this. It might be some kind of allergic reaction. But mother never takes me to the doctor, so I guess I’ll never know.

  In the bathroom, I close my right eye and press the back of the spoon against it. The cold metal soothes my swollen eyelid. My eye waters.

  While I’m waiting for the puffiness to calm down, I consider wearing something different from what I decided on. I have on my standard ensemble for the middle of April: jeans and an oversized tee. In the winter, I can get away with wearing bulky sweaters. Or one of the same five long-sleeved shirts I’ve been wearing since forever. One of them has an oil stain right on the front. I want to throw it out, but I hardly have any clothes.

  I’ll put on one of my two pairs of Converse before I leave. They’re beyond destroyed. But I think all the holes and tears in them look cool. Plus, I write song lyrics and movie quotes all over them. This one time when I was wearing my most destroyed pair, I walked by two popular girls who were sitting against some lockers in t
he hall. After I passed them, I could hear one of them say, “Did you see her shoes?”

  I got a little thrill out of that.

  By the time I get to school, my hair has puffed up to an alarming amplitude. I don’t even have to see myself to know it’s atrocious. As much as I hate getting to school early, I appreciate it on days like this. Maybe a miracle will happen where my hair becomes perfectly flat by first period.

  You have to wait in the cafeteria if you get to school early. I take my usual seat and try to smooth down my hair. Not a lot of kids get to school this early. It’s basically just me and some freshmen in the back. Most mornings I read or do homework. Even when I’m absorbed in studying for a test, part of me is always on alert. Sometimes Julian comes in early. Sometimes he comes over and we talk. Which cannot happen with my hair spazzing out like this. But I can’t go anywhere because they won’t let you in the halls this early.

  There’s a new monitor guarding the door. Maybe he’ll let me go. I grab my bag and head for the door.

  “Going in already?” Julian asks.

  I whirl around so fast my bag slams against his leg. “Oh!” I didn’t see Julian come in and my hair is outrageous and I just smacked him with my bag. “Sorry!”

  “No worries. I thought we were trapped here until the bell.”

  “We are. I was just trying to make a break for it.”

  “Sounds scandalous. I’m in.”

  “Nice.” I throw a glance at the monitor. “If you distract him, I can sneak out the far door.”

  “Distract him how?”

  “With a ruckus.”

  “Right. A ruckus.” Julian nods thoughtfully. “Allow me to ponder the nature of said ruckus.”

  I press down hard on my puffy hair. It refuses to be smoothed. Why does it have to be raining today?

  “Got it!” Julian says. “I’ll make this sudden commotion like someone just slipped on the floor coming in. That should buy you a few seconds. If you sneak your way over to the door first, you’ll have enough time to slip out.”

  “Sweet.”

  “But then how will I get out?”

  “Hmm.” My head is spinning. I can’t believe Julian is talking to me despite how repulsive I look. “I’m not sure.”

  “Let’s sit and figure it out.”

  We sit at the nearest table. And that’s when I notice the new silk-screen mural on the wall.

  “You finished it!” I say.

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s amazing!”

  “Thanks.”

  Julian does these Andy Warhol–type silk screens. I saw some of them in the mixed media elective we had together last semester. Whenever we were working on projects, Julian would come over to my area to see what I was doing. I couldn’t believe I was talking to a boy. Who I didn’t even know. For the first time ever, I felt like a normal teenager.

  That’s how I found out he wants to be an architect. He made these gorgeous home designs in class. Houses that were impossibly balanced off cliff sides. Houses that looked like they were floating above water. Houses with trees growing right up through the roof. Julian’s designs give you the impression that there are much better ways to live. His philosophy is that your home should be a unique reflection of your personality.

  “I can’t wait for Sherae to see it,” I say. Julian painted a palm-tree mural on the wall. Last week it was just an outline. Then color started to appear. And now it’s … it’s freaking incredible. “She’s obsessed with all things California.”

  “What about you?” Julian asks.

  “I don’t really think about California. But I definitely can’t wait to get out of here.”

  “I hear you. No, but I meant … what are you obsessed with?”

  “Oh.” Dir. “Not much. I mean, you know I like art.” I look at his mural again. “That is so good.”

  Julian smiles. It’s like he can tell I really mean it.

  “You’re sweet,” he says.

  I try smoothing down my hair.

  “What kind of art do you like?” he asks.

  “You know Alexander Calder?”

  “Not personally, but …”

  I laugh.

  He smiles again.

  “I like his mobiles,” I say. “And I like Brancusi’s sculptures. Especially Bird in Space.”

  “I don’t know that one.”

  “Oh, it’s gorgeous.” I describe the smooth curves of the sculpture. I tell Julian about the time airport customs taxed Bird in Space because they thought it was a household item instead of a work of art. Their argument was that the bird didn’t have a head, feet, or feathers, so it couldn’t be classified as a sculpture.

  As I’m telling him all this, Julian leans in closer. He seems even more interested in the story than I was when I read it. Talking to him is always so comfortable. Julian just has this way of making me feel safe.

  Ms. Scofield is on one of her TGIM kicks.

  “TGIM!” she shouts with way too much enthusiasm for first period. On a Monday. But of course she would only be shouting about TGIM on a Monday. It stands for Thank God It’s Monday.

  Her concept is this: Why are we all living for Friday? Every single day is an opportunity to improve your life. That’s why we should respect all days equally. Monday comes with the added bonus of being the first day of a new week. So not only is it a fresh new day, it’s a fresh new week. With tons of potential.

  According to Ms. Scofield, that rules.

  “Ready to get your Monday on?” she asks us.

  We stare at her blankly.

  “It’s fresh and new,” she coaxes.

  A prolonged yawn drifts from the back of the class.

  At least she’s trying to wake us up. She’s like the only teacher who understands how hard this is for us. If Ms. Scofield didn’t care, physics would be a total drag.

  Jolene DelMonico sits in front of me. I’m scandalized by the extreme shine of her hair. If her hair were any shinier, the harsh fluorescent lighting would reflect off it and burn a hole in the Einstein poster. How absurd is it that her hair is pin straight in 100 percent relative humidity? And how absurd is it that I have to sit next to Warner Talbot and pretend he hasn’t been harassing me for years? He doesn’t just make fun of my lunches. He fired spitballs at me in eighth grade. He kept crank-calling me in ninth grade. And last year he’d do this stupid rap about me every time he saw me in the hall. Now I’m forced to sit next to him like none of that stuff ever happened.

  That’s what school is. Acting like the things that matter the most don’t matter at all.

  At least I don’t have to work with Warner for activities. Whenever Ms. Scofield tells us to get in pairs or groups, Warner practically hurls his desk in the opposite direction. I work with Ali Walsh in pairs and this girl Darby sometimes joins us for groups. Ali is nice, but she’s a loner like me. I don’t know much about Darby. She kind of skulks around the periphery.

  “Let’s turn those brains on triple fab high power!” Ms. Scofield cheers. Then she tings a bell on her desk that’s just like the one Retail Rodeo has on its customer service desk. The bell is named Lloyd after a character from one of her favorite movies. Tinging Lloyd is supposed to encourage us to get in gear when she senses that we’re fading. Lloyd is also tinged when someone says something fascinating. Or answers an impossible question correctly. Or just to emphasize a point. Lloyd serves many functions.

  No one can figure out why Ms. Scofield is always so perky. She doesn’t drink coffee. Allegedly. How can her extreme level of perkiness be achieved without caffeine?

  “Is everyone ready to start the optics unit?” Ms. Scofield queries. “I know I am. What about you, Gumby?” She picks up the Gumby figure from her desk. Ms. Scofield has a thing for Gumby and Pokey. And this other dude Prickle, who is a yellow dinosaur. She had to explain who they all were at the beginning of the year because only one person recognized Gumby. She puts them in her lessons sometimes. We’ve also become acquainted with Mr. Bil
l from old-school Saturday Night Live. Whenever we’re working on a problem where something falls off a cliff or gets crushed in a ninety-ton hydraulic press, Ms. Scofield will make Mr. Bill the smashed object. Then we’ll go, “Oh, nooooo!” Mr. Bill style. It’s fun in a retro sort of way.

  Ms. Scofield doesn’t care that she’s corny. She just busted out with all this random stuff on the first day, totally confident about who she is. Even though most of us aren’t thrilled about science, we appreciate her effort to try to make it fun. Her confidence is impressive.

  School would be way more tolerable if everyone wasn’t so afraid to be who they really are. And if everyone else would let them.

  After school, Sherae drives us to her house. In her new car. How awesome is it that I’m like the only one in our class who doesn’t have a car? I don’t even know how to drive. Mother’s not about to pay for driving lessons. What would be the point, anyway? She would never let me drive her car and there’s no way I could buy one. Fortunately, Sherae is incredible about giving me rides.

  As soon as Sherae opens the front door, her fuzzy cat comes meowing over. The cat resembles a walking sphere of white fluff. Her name is Nimbus. As in the type of cloud. Sherae’s geektastic older brother named her. I like it better around here now that he’s away at college. He always gave off this vibe like he was better than me just because he had money. Like I didn’t even deserve to be at his house. But if you took away his rich family, we’d be more alike than he would ever admit.

  Sherae’s mom is unpacking groceries in the kitchen. We go in to help her.

  “Hi, Mrs. Feldman,” I say.

  “Hi, Noelle. How was school?”

  “Good.” School was actually decent for once. Julian talked to me for a really long time. Warner Talbot left me alone at lunch. My skin miraculously looked okay. And I’m going out with Matt Friday night. Of course I’m dying to tell Sherae all about Matt now that we’re official. But I can’t. Not that she would tell. I just want to prove to Matt that he can trust me. Anyway, we’ll only be a secret for four more days. Then we’ll be out in public at the mall for everyone to see. Other kids from school will definitely be there.