Chapter 23: Her first day. (rated T)
Oregon, September, 1998
"Welcome to Holmes, Miss – uh, Miss Shaw is it?" the Principal said, peering up over the rim of his glasses. She could see the shiny skin of his scalp, with the few wisps of long gray hair sprouting from the top, and a swath of short gray hair stretching around behind one ear all the way to the other – trailing off to a full gray beard and mustache, neatly trimmed. He seemed to be waiting for her to say something back, but she just nodded in his general direction. Her eyes were elsewhere, taking in the details of his office walls, his desk, a jumbled bookcase full of photos and dusty plaques, a wool jacket hanging from the back of his door. She noticed where the smooth surface was broken in several spots and holes, from the work of moths, appeared. And then there was the smell of his tobacco, pipe tobacco, wafting from his clothes.
He smokes in his car, she thought to herself, and she pictured him driving with the windows rolled up and gray smoke slowly filling the inside until his face disappeared in the gray. The Principal scratched at the side of his face and grabbed a bit of his beard, pulling and rolling it between his fingers. It made a certain sound when he did it. When she turned back, he was staring at her, studying her like a bug under a hand lens. Typical.
Shaw backed away, turning toward the door, then out into the front office where the chubby secretary sat. She was making the morning announcements on the loudspeaker. She barely noticed Shaw passing, heading for the empty hallway. Outside, the small brass sign on the wall across the way told her which way to go for her homeroom class. She headed down the hall by herself. Overhead, she could hear the sound of the secretary's voice, shaky. Shaw closed her eyes and thought about the woman's face, full and round, with a thick wattle of loose skin hanging under her chin. She could picture the wattle shaking when the woman spoke, and how that would make her voice sound shaky, too.
"Miss – Shaw. Miss Shaw. Hold up there! Wait for me," the Principal called. She supposed she'd better stop and wait for him to catch up. In a little while he was there at her side, puffing a bit hard for the short distance he'd come. He's not in very good shape, she thought. And she noticed the motion of his chest under his vest, and the smell of pipe smoke on his breath. She turned away again, and started walking ahead down the hall.
"It's room 188, Miss Shaw," but she already knew that. She'd been coming here for almost a week now in the evening just before dark. She'd watched the place empty out after school, from her spot on a wooded hill above the parking lot. She would wait in the trees as car after car drove off. Hours after the last of the students had gone, she'd walk in from the trees – once the lot had emptied and just two cars remained. She already knew which were the open doorways and, when the time was right, she would enter the school through one of those. There was a certain thrill in entering the place so late, moving through the halls wherever she wished, evading detection.
As soon as she entered, she'd looked up at the hallway clock. At least half an hour – she'd have that much time to wander on her own. The two adults who were left inside had made their nightly pilgrimage to one of the cars parked under the trees in back. They wouldn't be noticing her, walking the halls, alone.
She pulled a piece of paper from her jeans, slim black jeans that fell in a straight line to the top of her boots – tall, and slim, too, hugging her legs, laced all the way to the top. The jeans were rolled at the bottom into cuffs that just overlapped the top of her boots. On top, she wore a thick soft sweater, black, worn inside-out, the way she'd always worn her tops since she was little. It hung down to the top of her thighs now. She'd grown some; it used to hang down to the middle of her thighs. And on her head she always wore the same knit cap, lined with a thick soft flannel that kept the itch away from her skin. She pulled it low, down to the top of her eyebrows. Black, of course, like everything else. These were the clothes she wore every day. Every day, the same thing.
The paper was neatly folded and creased, and she carefully opened it under a hallway light. There, type-written in pale black font, was her daily class schedule, with room numbers and names next to the time-of-day column.
Another new school. She'd lost count of them all – no, actually, she hadn't. She knew exactly how many, and the exact day she'd started at each, the weather outside, the smells inside, the time she'd arrived, the sun angle coming in through the windows - all the details of each and every one. That's how her brain worked. She remembered everything – her brain was like a vacuum cleaner, sucking up everything inside it. She could remember everything. It was harder not to.
Shaw walked the halls, smelling that familiar smell of floor soap – green soap, she had learned – that she tracked to a metal bucket on wheels, slid up next to the door of the janitor's closet – as though just filled and then abandoned. His mop sat next to it, leaning against a long line of lockers on that wall. She stopped and peered in. Inside the closet, she could barely see the outline of a dingy old white sink, deep enough for the rolling metal bucket to fit inside. And there were bottles and sprays, pungent smells, all manner of strange implements and tools hanging. It was another world in there, the closet door like a portal to an alien land tucked inside. It was hard for Shaw to break away.
She did, finally, and moved further down the hall, peering next at the room numbers and names. Each name was neatly written in block letters on paper slid into brass holders next to each door. Each room number was solid brass, too – raised numbers in a row next to the teacher's name plate. And the doors were heavy, oak stained dark and each one inset with a glass window. This was an old school, and small – just two floors, with wings on both ends of the middle corridor.
As she walked, her footsteps echoed in the empty hallways, but she didn't mind. There was time. After touring each floor, she walked through the cafeteria, empty now of students, each long table clean now. The kitchen door was closed and locked, but the smells still exited, grease and traces of pizza left from lunch. She always ended in the library, its double wooden doors pushed open, and a vacuum parked in the middle of the blue carpeting, ready to run when the janitor returned. She walked each aisle of the library, running her hands over the spines of the books, step by step in a cadence she heard in her head. The clock buzzed softly, and she looked up, surprised. Late. She was late leaving. That little thrill suddenly returned.
Shaw peered from the doorway down the hall, then down the other way. Empty. She stepped out, headed for the nearest exit, one that took her to the back of the building, under trees where some of the students liked to stand after school, passing a joint around between them. She could see the remains in the grass, caught at the edge of a concrete pad. She stayed in shadows under the trees, at the edge of the weathered cement, watching. Ahead, the back lot was nearly dark now and she couldn't see inside the cars. In a few minutes, she walked forward toward the lot. At its edge, she could see more of the grounds near the school, but no one was there. Maybe the two had already gone inside, while she was in the library. She waited, ready to head across the lot into the woods toward her house. When nothing moved, she stepped out into the light of an overhead parking lamp, just flickering to life. A few more glowed with yellow light out in the lot.
Just then a car door popped open in front of her, and Shaw stopped in her tracks. Two people climbed out, and she could hear the sounds of the two of them laughing in a certain way. The man pulled the woman closer, while she was pulling her blouse closed in front of her. She laughed again, and he pushed her back against the side of his car, pressing against her, reaching his hands under her top. Shaw could see his back and the shape of his shoulders and arms. He looked muscular, strong. She could hear the woman sighing out loud, her hands wrapped around the man's hips, pulling him closer to her body. Her head went back and she leaned further against the car. Shaw could see the man's hands then, through the opening in her blouse.
Shaw was trapped there, looking for a way to get around them, but then she heard a sound and her eyes went back to the couple. They were standing there looking at her. The woman stepped behind the man, grabbing her open blouse and pulling it closed to hide her breasts. Shaw stood there.
"What are you doing here, kid?" the man said, his voice low and harsh.
Shaw turned and walked as fast as she could across the lot, behind a small garage, and up the hill toward the woods. She looked back several times, but they weren't following after her. Once she got to the woods, she melted into them, safe now from anyone following.
"Miss Shaw, here we are."
The Principal stopped, and Shaw turned toward the classroom door. 188. The "1" was no longer missing. On her first visit here, she'd noticed that the "1" was missing from its spot. She remembered touching the space where the "1" was missing. She'd walked back and forth in front of the door, looking at the number, looking away, then back at the number. It bothered her, the missing "1" – just like the feeling of tags scraping on the inside of her collars. It bothered her, until she could think of nothing else. That next night she'd come prepared – with a black permanent marker. She'd stood there tracing the shape of the number, precisely, and then she'd filled it in so that the number looked like the same font as the others. Shaw looked at the spot now: 188. That's right. That was her room number. The gray-bearded man seemed not to notice; he knocked twice, then opened the door and walked in ahead of her, calling to the students inside.
"Good morning, Class." When they all looked up, they saw Shaw trailing behind him. There was no place to go; she looked away from all the eyes staring up at her.
"Say good morning to your new classmate." Shaw could hear them, but she didn't look. The Principal turned back and smiled to her, encouraging.
"Don't be shy. Why don't you tell everyone your name, and where you come from. I'm sure they would be interested," he said. Shaw stood there, silently, looking at anything else but their faces. She could hear some snickering then, as the silence went on too long. The Principal frowned and stepped back, revealing the teacher standing behind him.
"Mrs. Barnes, this is your new student, Sameen Shaw."
Shaw glanced her way - and recognized her immediately. The woman from the parking lot. Even her perfume was the same. Shaw watched her grab for her blouse, and then stop herself, aware that it would seem odd. She straightened and smoothed her clothes, instead, and then reached out with a hand to Shaw, smiling.
Shaw turned away, toward the class, looking for a place in the back to sit. Then she made her way around the perimeter to a seat in the back row, away from everyone else. Their eyes were on her, and she slid a small backpack from her shoulders, rummaging for her pens and a thin notebook. Once she'd arranged them on her desk she looked up, ready to start. The others were busy exchanging glances, snickering, some even pointing at her clothes. She opened her notebook and stared at the page. It was always like this. Her first day.