Part 5 (1/2)

”Are you thinking of getting your license soon?” my dad asks.

I shrug and look out the window. Everywhere is brightness and I want to shut my eyes.

He glances at me. The mechanics on the radio chuckle. After a while my dad pats my knee.

”No hurry,” he says. ”You can take your time.”

Not too long ago I would have been happy to go shopping, but when we get to the department store it's just too much-all these racks of shoes, all this stuff stuff that I'm supposed to want. People are swarming around me, moving from pair to pair, saying, ”Oh, how cute,” picking up shoes and turning them over to look at the price tag. I just stand here, wondering where to start, forgetting what the point of anything is. I can feel my dad looking at me. I can tell that he wants me to do something, but I can't. that I'm supposed to want. People are swarming around me, moving from pair to pair, saying, ”Oh, how cute,” picking up shoes and turning them over to look at the price tag. I just stand here, wondering where to start, forgetting what the point of anything is. I can feel my dad looking at me. I can tell that he wants me to do something, but I can't.

Finally, he picks up a pair of green Converse displayed on a round table in front of us.

”What do you think?” he asks.

”They're nice,” I say. And I think of Ingrid's red ones, and how she would write things on the white rubber tips and along the sides.

”We'll take these,” my dad says to a salesman. ”Size eight. Right, Caitlin?”

I nod.

”Don't you want to try them on?” the salesman asks.

”She'll return them if they don't fit,” my dad says, and hands him his credit card.

While we're waiting for the salesman to ring us up, I see this girl from school. I don't know her, I don't even know what her name is. She's in a special program, not the one for the kids with learning disabilities, but the one for what the counselors like to call ”at-risk youth.” We catch eyes over a display of boots.

”Hey, you go to Vista, right?” she says.

”Yeah.”

Her hair is dyed a million shades of brown or blond. It looks like she changes the color every couple days and now her hair is rebelling-blond around her ears, light brown at the roots, orange peeking out on the sides.

”Your name's Caitlin, right? I'm Melanie. You might not know me because I don't walk around campus that much. I eat lunch on the baseball bleachers with some people. It's kind of out of the way, you know?” She says this really fast and nervous.

”I recognize you,” I say. I want to ask her how she knows my name, but I think that I already know why, and I don't want to make her explain it. My dad walks up to the cash register to sign the credit-card slip. Melanie's not looking at me. Instead, she's picking up all the boots on the table and turning them over to see the price stickers. The weird thing is that she's hardly looking at the boots themselves. I'm not even sure that she's reading the prices until she winces at one and says, ”Ouch.”

”Three hundred dollars,” she mouths as she drops it back on the table. I'm not sure if she's saying it to me, or to the boot, or to the display in general. she mouths as she drops it back on the table. I'm not sure if she's saying it to me, or to the boot, or to the display in general.

I try to picture myself hanging out with this girl and the rest of her anonymous friends, removed from the rest of the people at school. Maybe it would be easier.

Dad comes back carrying a bag with my new shoes.

”Bye,” I say to Melanie.

She lifts a hand and wiggles her fingers at me, but doesn't look in my direction.

Leaving the mall, Dad asks, ”Do you know her?” He says it a little too loudly, too casually. My parents are pretty open-minded as far as parents go, but I can tell Dad's a little worried. I'll put it this way: you don't need to know that Melanie's in the ”at risk” program to know that something's not quite right with her.

”No,” I say. ”She's just some girl from school.”

21.

On Monday morning I get to campus early enough to stop by my locker. As I put my math book onto to the top shelf, I get an impulse to unstick Ingrid's hill for a minute and look in the mirror. All I've been doing in the mornings is showering and throwing on jeans and old T-s.h.i.+rts. Most of the time the bathroom mirror is all fogged up by the time I get out of the shower, so I don't even catch my reflection. I look at the white s.h.i.+rt I'm wearing today and realize that it might actually be my dad's. It's so big it billows out around me. I wonder what Ingrid would say if she knew how I've been letting myself go. You're not serious about leaving the house in that? You're not serious about leaving the house in that? Or maybe, Or maybe, Lady! Pull yourself together! Lady! Pull yourself together! I touch the edge of her picture and decide not to risk looking. I touch the edge of her picture and decide not to risk looking.

Thumping comes from down the hallway, and when I glance away from the hill, Dylan's right next to me, finding the combination on her lock.

”Hey,” I say, trying to make up for being so rude on Friday.

Wearily she lifts a hand in greeting and mumbles something in a language I'm not positive is English.

”Excuse me?”

She points to the silver thermos in her other hand.

”Too early,” she slurs. ”Haven't finished coffee yet.”

When I step into the photo room, the first thing I see is a list on the chalkboard of people with missing work. There are a few names up there followed with one or two missing a.s.signments. My name is the only one followed by All. All.

I think of all the photographs I've wanted to take and it hurts. It feels awful. But giving Ms. Delani work that I actually care about would be like inviting her to tear me apart. No thank you. I slump in my back-row chair, half listening to her explain our next a.s.signment: a still life. She pa.s.ses her books around to show us examples. I study the inanimate things. A bowl of fruit. A stack of books. A pair of dramatically lit, worn-in dancing shoes.

Out of nowhere, inspiration strikes.

I can hardly wait for lunch. When it finally comes, I spot the hall monitor heading for the back parking lot and walk quickly in the opposite direction. On the sidewalk at the edge of campus, I set my camera on a tripod and look through the lens. I frame my photograph so that it includes the road and the sidewalk on the other side of the street. I wait. I see a car approach the block, and get ready. It comes whizzing by and I snap the shutter. Soon two more cars come and I photograph them. I stay there all lunch, waiting for cars, taking their pictures as they jet past me. I know this isn't really art. It's only something done out of spite, but each time I press the shutter release I feel better.

22.

”This was interesting,” Mr. Robertson says. ”A real array of songs here.” He walks up and down the aisles of desks, dropping our essays facedown. ”Only two A's, though. Caitlin, Dylan, nice work. The rest of you didn't go deep enough. There are layers layers of meaning in poetry. You need to look closely, not just skim the surface.” of meaning in poetry. You need to look closely, not just skim the surface.”

I glance over at Dylan. She sees me and looks away. When Mr. Robertson hands her paper back she drops it into her backpack without even reading what he wrote.

Walking to my locker, I decide on the words to use. It's been a while since I've put any effort into talking to people. When I get there, Dylan glances at me but doesn't say anything. She has a small poster of two girls in her locker.

”Who are they?” I ask.

”They're this band that I like. These cute queer girls from Canada.”

”Oh,” I say. I think about all the things that I've heard about her and I decide to just ask. It's not like I have anything to lose. ”So are you?”

”What.” She smirks. ”From Canada?”

”No,” I say. ”Queer.” I try to say it as if it isn't the first time I've ever asked someone that, like it's no big thing at all.