Chapter 14
Miles
Monday
She was a butterfly. Landing from corner to corner, in every group of people she came across or who called for her.
I couldn’t tell if she was ever really going somewhere. She flew around school between zigzags, smiles and nicknames.
I wandered around the school in zigzags too, but only because I didn’t really know where I was going.
We exchanged smiles as our mutual hello, but she quickly turned to leave the building, not giving me a chance to verbalize anything at all.
The Calculus teacher had called my name just as the bell rang and my current classmates were packing up for the short break between classes. I would’ve preferred if no one had noticed I hadn’t been there before. If I could’ve just laid low. But in the end, I appreciated her words.
Not much happened on the first day of school.
Teachers introduced their plans for the semester.
The School Principal gave a welcome speech during the kick-off lecture.
And students laughed over their shared vacation stories.
Not much different from last year, back in the city.
I guess that wherever you are, teenagers will be teenagers. Schools will be schools.
When I walked to the school bus stop, I ran into the guy who had been making Ella laugh earlier by the lockers. Not that I’d actually been staring at their interaction. I would say I was simply taking in everything around me for the first time.
I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling, but the house phone didn’t give me much time to stare blankly as it started ringing downstairs.
“Hello, honey!” Miss Amara said from the other end of the line. “How was your first day of school?”
I wasn’t expecting a call from Miss Amara. I had given her my house phone number when we were setting up the stalls for the festivities, she had asked me to write it down in her small, overstuffed pocket notebook.
“Good afternoon, Miss Amara,” I said. “It was good, thank you. How’s your day going?”
“Great!” she replied. “Did you get familiar with the school facilities? I heard the pumpkin and nut bread is great at the cafeteria, so remember to try it. Was Mr. Porter, the doorman, nice to you? He can be a little grumpy sometimes. But other than that, how are you feeling about the change?”
I wasn’t sure I felt like talking about it.
But it was actually nice that she was asking me.
I answered that I hadn’t tried the pumpkin and nut bread yet, but that I would.
And I told her Mr. Porter had been busy with crosswords when I walked out the school gate and only greeted me while talking to the paper.
Miss Amara laughed and vented about how she had been gardening for the past three hours, only to realize later that she had planted the asparagus in the same spot where she’d previously planted rosemary. And now it might grow into a weird and funny combination of smelly vegetables and flowers.
Then, she made me a proposal.
“How would you feel about helping me bring some music into the CIC? The Center has some funds set aside from an arts program, and I was thinking: why not get some instruments?” she asked rhetorically.
“Something the kids can use here. I’d love to propose that you come help me figure out what instruments to get, see what they’d be excited to learn.
And then, if you’re up for it, you could even teach them a little music. ”
These kinds of things were never part of my free time. There were probably a lot of places to volunteer with kids back in the city. I had just never looked for them. Never thought about it. Children? I had no siblings, no cousins, no contact with children since being one.
“I don’t know… I don’t know if I would be the right fit for it,” I told her.
“That’s alright, honey,” she said lightly. “Why don’t you come meet me at the CIC tomorrow? We’ll peek into the Youth Club, and I’ll explain my idea to you.”
I was in a why not phase. There was this strange emptiness to my days. Nothing grabbed my attention. I was just accepting that life was boringly gray.
It was a weird feeling. I later realized the word for it was apathetic.
“Yeah,” I answered, staring out the living room window. “I will meet you there tomorrow, Miss Amara. At what time?”
She shared her busy schedule out loud and suggested around 4 p.m. I agreed.
In the last second of our call, I almost asked her if Ella would be there. But I didn’t.
A memory from that afternoon replayed in my head. When we sat at the school pavilion for the Principal’s kick-off lecture, and I — along with everyone else — saw Ella enter through the wrong door.
I was starting to understand that she was this perfect citizen: straight-A student, role-model type, would-probably-be-voted-prom-queen-and-student-body-president-at-the-same-time, and yet, she was still this clumsy, distracted girl in the most endearing way.
I didn’t know if that was it, or what it was about her.
The only thing that grabbed my attention long enough to matter.
Lately, life had been gray.
And I didn’t know why. But she was color.