I have a new favorite book, thanks to my honors English class, and I'm going to write a fic based on it now. Remember to review, thanks and enjoy.
The Catcher In The Rye
Chapter One
If you really want to know the truth, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and all about my childhood in Lima, and how my dads were always too busy, and how my mother never saw me there, and all that crap, but I don't feel like going into it. You won't very much like to hear about it, I'm sure. Lima is a boring, box of a place, with boring, boxed-in people, and honesty, you should be happy you aren't from there. I wish I wasn't. But like I said, I'm not going into my whole goddamn autobiography or anything. I'll just tell you, for now, about this stuff that happened around Christmas, just before my dads sent me here.
That is, if you really want to know the truth.
Shelby – my mother, that is – visits me from time to time here, since now she lives right by where this place I'm cooped up in is. She's out in Hollywood now, with Beth, and her new husband. I never got invited to the wedding. I didn't even know she was married at all until she showed up here, with Beth and her new husband about a week ago. That really got to me, you know? She didn't even tell me. She didn't even bother to let me know – the least she could do is say 'hey, Rachel, I got married', and not just show up to my room here with the guy and Quinn and Puck's little girl in tow. That is, if she didn't want to ask me to the wedding or anything. Next month, when I can go home, Shelby said she'd take home to my dads. Except for I won't really be going home, I'll be going back to Lima, Ohio. And Lima's not home. It never was.
So, I guess I should start the story when I finally got to leave that terrible, uppity, half-witted place where I grew up, and arrive home. Manhattan, that is, in case you were wondering. I got off the train that summer and spent some time there on my own, went to Lima and went back home, and vise-versa. Then September arrived and classes at NYADA started. NYADA is this preforming arts college I got into; the acronym is short for New York Academy Of Dramatic Arts. You've probably heard of it. If not, it's not that hard to find – there are ads in a whole lot of magazines, and all around the City. They always have Cassandra in them, posing or something. Like that's all we ever did all day at NYADA – pose and kick our legs around like the freaking Rockettes.
Oh, I should tell you about Cassandra – even thinking about her first name makes my ears burn. Cassandra – Cassie July. Perfect name, right? As if she were a character in a movie? Well, you don't know the half of it – she was tall and blonde and wore fish-net stockings all the time and walked around like she owned the place when I know for a fact she didn't own shit except for a run-down apartment in SoHo and a broken career, not to mention she spent all her time yelling at everyone around her and making you feel like you suck, and there's absolutely nothing you can do to possibly access an ounce of talent. Sorry for the rambling. If you met Cassie you'd understand. But why I'm even bothering telling you about her is, before I left NYADA, I said goodbye to Cassie. I meant to tell you that. They kicked me out of NYADA; told me not to come back after Christmas vacation. It's not that they didn't think I was talented enough or anything, I don't want you to think that. Ms. Tibideaux, our dean of students, said she was very sorry and that I was one of the most talented students she'd ever seen, but her hands were tied because I needed to get some "help", and that I was welcome to come back to school whenever I was "feeling better". But she didn't know the half of it. "Feeling better" – that really gets to me, when people tell me to "feel better", like I have a cold or something, like I can take some medicine and all of this will just go away. But it's not like that at all. I can't just "feel better". I would if I could, but I can't, at least not on my own, so that's why I'm sitting here, telling you all this. Because I don't want to feel better, I want to be better.
Anyway, I eventually made it to Cassie's dance studio, where she taught class, and saw her eyeing me like she was a lioness and I was a gazelle that she was just about to finish off. She was really mean, you know. Really mean.
"Well, well, well," she purred with slit-y, menacing eyes on me, studying my every weakness. "Little Miss David Schwimmer. You're injuring my eyesight with your presence because…?"
"Hello, Cassandra," I said – trying to be the adult in the room. "How are you? Have any planes for Christmas? Staying in New York?"
"Why are you here, Schwimmer?" She ignored my small talk. "I heard you were on your way out."
"And you'd love that, wouldn't you? That's what you've wanted all along, right? Me to be kicked out? That's what you've wanted all along, right? Right?"
"Rachel," Cassie said, suddenly calm. "Sit down, please," and she gestured to the floor, where we both sat down, cross-legged, across from each other. "I heard you were on your way out," she repeated.
"Yeah. I guess I am."
"Well," she coughed a little. "I'm sorry to hear that. What'd Carmen say to you?" And I explained to her what Ms. Tibideaux said about her hands being tied, and her being sorry, and my being one of the most talented students she'd seen, and how I'd come back after a while. Cassie just nodded, as if she cared. I knew she didn't. Cassie didn't care about anything but herself. "Have you told your parents yet?"
"No. I'll see my dads on Wednesday when I go back to Ohio for Christmas break. Ms. Tibideaux will call them on Monday. And I don't plan on ruining their weekend…they'll be pretty mad about it, you know. Not mad, really, more disappointed. I'm disappointed. God, I'm a failure. I really am. You know it. You told me all the time, in no uncertain terms. God! God!"
Sometimes, when I'm really upset, I yell God! a lot. It's just something I do. Maybe if I yell his name, God will make it better. Maybe. You should know that I just about stopped growing in fourth grade – that was an exaggeration, but I'm short and Cassie, who is tall and leggy, towers over me. Pretty much anyone towers over me. I'm about the size of a twelve year old. Everyone jokes with me about that. It's an exaggeration though – I'm not that short, but no one ever notices that I'm not that short, they only notice that I'm short. God. No one ever notices anything.
"When your fathers came for parents night in October, I met them. They didn't seem like the type to be mad, just that they'd want to help you. They were grand people. I know you'll need it – their help, I mean. Wish I could help you, Schwimmer. But all I am 's a bad example."
Grand. I hate that word. It's a phony word. She's a phony woman. She doesn't want to help me. She never wanted to help me.
"You know," Cassie continued. "You were doing very well in my class. They only reason I was so rough on you was because you could take the hit and still do well. If you sucked, I wouldn't have said so. But because you didn't, I did. Does that make sense?"
"No. Not at all."
"Maybe it will someday, Schwimmer."
I wish she wouldn't call me that. God, I wish she wouldn't call me that. I tried not to focus on it. I tried to think of something else, and my mind trailed off to something I saw this morning – the lagoon in Central Park, down near Central Park South, was all frozen over. I'd never seen it like that before. There were no ducks. I wonder where the ducks go. Do they get gathered up by the Central Park Rangers? Do they get thrown in the Central Park Zoo for a few months? Do they just fly away, and come back later when their home is all thawed out again?
"Do you feel okay? Rachel?"
"What?"
"Do you feel okay? I mean, about all this. Leaving school."
"No. No, I don't – I don't want to leave. But I know that I have to. When my dads find out, they'll…" but I stopped myself, because tears were forming in my eyes, and I didn't want Cassie – of all people, Cassie! – to see me cry. "I don't know," I continued, blinking fast. "It's very complicated, I guess. But I'll be back. Sooner rather then later."
"I know you will," said my dance instructor. "I hope so. Good luck."
God, I'll never say "good luck" as parting words to anybody. It sounds terrible, if you really want to know the truth.