Anthropology of an American Girl: A Novel - By Hilary Thayer Hamann Page 0,77

rose in homeroom today? Or is your boyfriend anti-flowers?”

I lowered my head. “He’s anti-flowers.”

Somebody smacked Nico as he passed. His desk knocked into mine and my teeth jolted. “Watch it! Evie’s napping.” He tousled my hair. “Poor kid.”

Mr. Shepard entered, and I propped myself on one arm. I set my pen on my open notebook, and as he began to talk, the pen began to move, transcribing everything.

Louis-Napoleon, son of Louis Bonaparte, king of Holland—in the hall a locker slams, a voice says Hey, Farrell, wait up—and nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, is elected emperor. In 1853 he marries Eugenie de Montijo. By the way, Montijo is not the name of a new Oldsmobile—moans, yawns, desks scraping, erasers whizzing—The Second Empire becomes one of the most productive monarchies in France—whooping howls from English 10 next door—

I was drifting, so I wrote my name, over and over. Eveline Aster Auerbach. I didn’t know what it was supposed to mean, my name, how it promised to define me. Jack loved the way Maman used to say E-vleen, but he would never copy it because she was French and we were not. Nothing is more annoying than when people randomly insert exotic pronunciations into everyday talk. One thing Americans do best is mispronounce words they know nothing about. It’s a confession of sorts. It’s like saying, We may be stupid, but we’re not pretentious.

I wrote the letter A, several letter A’s, one leading to the next, charging forth like a locomotive, stark and emphatic, the way screams are discharged—AAAAAAAAAA. Just as the row neared the margin, my wrist dropped sharply to produce a single vertical line; then it retraced that line to the top, unfolding in a curve to the right, making a bubble and collapsing at last in a bar to the finish: R. I finished it off—o-u-r-k-e. It was true that I was tired, because when I looked at his name, at the way I’d written it, jittery and uncertain, I began to cry.

Stephen gestured to me, shaking one corner of a test paper. The class was going over the exam. I pulled mine from beneath my notebook. Stephen got a hundred. I got an eighty-nine, which was depressing since I hadn’t even studied. Being slightly better than average at schoolwork is like being a good soldier or a talented receptionist. Three minutes remained. I tore a corner from a page in my notebook.

J—I think I am shrinking. Someone told me that today is Valentine’s Day. I am sad because I have no gift for you. I’m sorry. I’m so tired. I love you, promise. E.

Mr. O’Donnell was at the library counter, performing the sort of grim rituals librarians perform with index cards and stumpy pencils and those rubber stamps with columns of rotating numbers. “Ms. Auerbach! What will it be today? Camus, Cervantes?”

“Actually, I’m looking for a book of poetry by Emily Dickinson.”

He paused somberly, toying with the tightly twirled tip of his mustache. No matter how seriously librarians are engaged in their work, they are always glad to be interrupted when the theme is books. It makes no difference to them how simple the search is or how behind on time either of you might be running—they consider all queries scrupulously. They love to have their knowledge tested. They lie in wait; they will not be rushed.

“Let’s see,” he said as he puttered out, taking to the aisles with a trifling waddle, inching to a halt at the stack near the windows, “poetry. D, D. Well, here’s Baudelaire, Byron, Davies, Drayton. No, no, that’s misfiled. You see what happens when one sorts poetry helter-skelter? Let’s pull that out and replace it as so, and here we are, Dickinson, Emily.”

Next I stopped in the art studio for colored paper and scissors—later in study hall I would make cutout hearts to stuff inside the envelope. By the time I got to homeroom, I had just enough time to copy half of a poem on the bottom of my note to Jack.

It’s all I have to bring to-day.

This, and my heart beside,

This, and my heart, and all the fields,

And all the meadows wide.

E. DICKINSON, C. 1858

After the homeroom announcements, Mrs. Kennedy passed out roses wrapped in paper, like shiny green wands, strained shut and dirt-red. They looked like living headaches. Karen Drapier got one, and Missy Burke, and so did Warren Baxter.

“Mind if I keep it?” Mrs. Kennedy asked when Warren told her just to trash his.

Jack was not waiting as usual at