Seven #2
He moves toward the door that leads to the basement and our washing machine, then pauses. “My room wasn’t that dirty.”
“He’s so hot.”
“And that accent.”
“He can take me back down to Georgia with him at the end of the year.”
“He can take me down to Georgia anytime he wants.”
As Emma and I walk into school on the first day, some junior girls are grouped by the front door, gazing down the hall and not bothering to keep their voices down.
It doesn’t take long to figure out who they’re talking about.
Garrett stands halfway down the corridor, his forearm propped on a locker, backpack casually slung over one shoulder.
He grins, and one of the junior girls releases an actual whimper.
“He’s not that hot,” Katrina tells her, appearing at my side. “And either way, I think you’re out of luck.”
The person Garrett is talking to closes her locker and flips her blond hair over her shoulder.
It’s Dana Hendricks, the senior basketball star who’s a shoo-in for homecoming and prom queen.
It’s like an invisible force drew Garrett to her, as if beautiful, popular people have an internal compass directing them to other beautiful, popular people.
Garrett flashes a doofy, I’m-so-into-you smile at her, and she playfully tugs at the sleeve of his shirt.
Talk about a power couple.
The junior girls skulk off, replaced by Ryan Beltrami—our quintet’s flute player—and Marcy Hicks—our bassoonist.
“Enz! How was the end of summer?” Ryan says, pulling me into a hug.
He looks down the hallway where our gazes are directed.
“Oh, is that him?” Ryan and Marcy have been off at cross-country camp for the past two weeks, so their only update has been from the group chat, in which I texted: He’s from the wrong Georgia.
“Yep,” I say.
“He seems fun!” Marcy says.
“I hear Atlanta is cool,” Ryan says, and before I know it, he and Marcy are wandering toward Garrett to introduce themselves, pulled in by the magnetic force of his exotic-exchange-student status.
I suppose I can’t blame them. There are 104 people in our class, and we haven’t had a new student since freshman year.
Garrett is fresh meat in the dating pool and the friendship pool and the athletic talent pool.
I turn back to Emma. “Are you feeling ready?” I ask. “Want me to walk you to your first period?”
She shakes her head. “Thanks, but Garrett said he wanted to. He said it was his duty as an exchange brother to walk me to class on my first day.”
“I’m your real brother,” I say. “And Garrett doesn’t even know where Ms. Heikinen’s class is.”
Emma shrugs. “I know, but I think it makes him feel included.”
I glance at him just as he makes a joke that causes Marcy, Ryan, and Dana to burst into laughter. “I think he already feels included.”
Nonetheless, Emma trots toward him, and he peels away from his fan club. He throws an arm over her shoulders, and the two of them tread into their first day at Irontown High School.
On Monday afternoon of our second week, I find myself in the guidance office, standing in the small lobby where people sit and wait to meet with Ms. Ferris.
I sometimes stop in to browse the college brochures that she stocks even though I know I won’t end up at any of the schools—after all, how can I turn down the lures of close and free offered by the School of Mines? —but that doesn’t keep me from looking.
I haven’t talked to Ms. Ferris since last fall.
I received top scores at Solo and Ensemble, allowing me to audition for an honors orchestra at the University of Michigan.
Ms. Ferris and Mr. Campbell got U of M to send up some graduate students from their music department to hold auditions in our band room.
I love band and my wind quintet, but I’ve always wanted to play in a full symphonic orchestra—the kind that churns out film scores.
“Plus, it’ll be a chance to check out the school and meet one of their composition professors,” Mr. Campbell told me. “I know Burton-Clark is your dream school, but this could be a great opportunity.”
The graduate students sat in a panel in the front of the band room, and when I walked in, I wasn’t even nervous.
I was ready. I played the required scales and then a piece I’d been working on with my private oboe teacher for months.
The panelists seemed impressed, and one of them—who told me she also played the oboe—was especially complimentary.
“You should check out our studio,” she said, “when you start applying to music programs.”
When, not if. I remember the warm hope that assumption injected into my stomach.
On my way out, I heard one of the other grad students say, “There’s more talent up here than I expected.”
He didn’t bother to keep his voice down because he didn’t think the comment was offensive. It was just a fact—like, why would there be talented musicians in the Upper Peninsula? To him, if you want to go anywhere with music, you leave a place like this.
A week later, I found out that Katrina, Trevor, Marcy, Ryan, and I had all gotten into the honors orchestra.
We felt like we had won the lottery, hugging and jumping outside the band room.
It was the kind of moment during which a film composer would abandon instrumentals in favor of an upbeat pop song, smoothing the transition into the next scene, where we would carpool down to Ann Arbor and spend the entire spring break living on campus, rehearsing for hours on end, and making friends with musicians who’d come from across the state.
Ms. Ferris took care of getting the paperwork ready, including the bill for the registration fee, meal budget, and dorm stay.
It wasn’t cheap. When Dad saw the cost, I could tell he was embarrassed.
We’d had several slow months at the store, and I should have known it would be too expensive.
He opened his mouth and closed it, and I couldn’t stand to see him say the words; as much as I wanted to go, I couldn’t handle making him admit he couldn’t afford it.
I pretended it had all been just an idea, a fun honor that I wasn’t really serious about.
I told him I didn’t want to waste spring break in a stuffy dorm, rehearsing for eight hours every day.
It wasn’t worth the money or the drive, I told him.
He pretended to believe me, and we didn’t talk about it again.
Katrina, Trevor, Ryan, and Marcy went. They made friends and learned harder music than we’d ever played in our school’s band. The concert was streamed online, and I watched it. They sounded incredible.
I’m holding a brochure for Lawrence University when I hear voices from Ms. Ferris’s office.
“I received your transcript from your old school earlier this week. You may feel like a big fish in a small pond here at Irontown High.”
Garrett’s voice answers. “But when I fill out applications, do I use my class ranking here or from my old school?”
“Definitely Irontown. Your ranking at your old school was okay, but here…” I hear some clicking. “You’re basically at the top of the class.”
“Basically?”
A sugary laugh from Ms. Ferris. “Just because it’s a small town doesn’t mean there aren’t a few smarties here!”
Ms. Ferris is from Detroit, and she tells Garrett about how her mission here is to help kids get out of rural poverty.
They talk about how amazing Ellison is, and how Garrett will have no problem getting in, especially if he leans into his year spent learning about the culture and values of rural America.
“What are your backup colleges?” Ms. Ferris asks.
“I don’t have any. Don’t need ’em.”
I can’t begin to understand the level of arrogance this guy must possess to assume he’s a shoo-in at one of the most selective colleges in the country.
Last week I got my tenth punch on my Lakeside Coffee Shop punch card, and I had to work for that shit.
Garrett, however, wanders through life expecting the world to bend over backward for him.
Eventually, I hear a chair slide against the floor, and then the door opens and Garrett walks into the lobby.
He looks at me, and there’s no pretending that I didn’t hear their entire conversation.
He walks past me into the hallway, and I follow, like some sort of investigative journalist reporting on a story that no one cares about: Man from Georgia too good for Irontown, has no safety schools!
“You’re not better than us,” I blurt at his back.
He turns around, hoisting the weight of the backpack slung over his shoulder. “Did I say I was?”
“‘Big fish, small pond,’” I say, using pissed-off air quotes. “Definitely implies you’re too good for Irontown.”
“I didn’t say that. Ms. Ferris did.” He gives me a smirk. “But anyway, I’m guessing you’re one of the people whose class ranking just got bumped down?”
I am, actually.
He shrugs. “It’s not your fault that you go to a crappy school.”
“Because the education system in the South is known for being so rigorous and progressive?”
He lets out a derisive laugh. “I just sat through a health class where the teacher put up pictures of chlamydia-infected junk, told us not to have sex, and left halfway through the period for a smoke break. That wouldn’t fly at my old school.”
That sounds accurate. Last year, Mr. VanPelt hardly ever showed up to my fourth-period class.
“Not all our teachers are shitty,” I say. “Ms. Virtanen is going to kick your ass in chemistry.”
“Maybe,” he says. “Especially since I’m so focused on the fact that the window next to my desk doesn’t shut, and it was literally raining on me yesterday. Ms. V told me to bring a rain jacket next time.”
Also accurate.
“I swear,” he says, “this whole shitty building is going to collapse, and I’m going to end up in the news as the first-ever domestic exchange student to die in a totally preventable disaster.
The upside is that I get the experience of studying in a developing country without ever leaving the United States. ”