Anthropology of an American Girl: A Novel - By Hilary Thayer Hamann Page 0,78

the door of my English class, so I went to his locker and crammed the poetry and hearts I’d made through one of the slots. When he still had not materialized by lunch, I wondered if he had taken off. I vaguely recalled him saying something about fifty dollars and a homeopathic dentist in Connecticut. In sixth-period calculus, I observed the advance of the clock hands—three, four, seven minutes, and still no sign of him.

“All right, people,” Mrs. Oliphant called, “let’s go.”

She launched the door from its propped station in sync with the articulate prong of the late bell. The door whooshed, and just as it was about to click shut, an arm caught it—Jack’s. He was wearing a new sweater and jeans that were clean. Dan was behind him, looking handsome as well in a blue blazer, despite unwashed hair shaped in a flat jaunty spray on the left from the pressure of his pillow.

“Glad you could make it, fellows,” the teacher said.

“Glad to be here,” Jack said sarcastically, and everyone laughed.

He deposited an overstuffed envelope on my desk and sat behind me, his feet punching squeakily into the gap between the base of my seat and the attached book rack. I played with the little package, making lazy orbits with one finger. Sometimes it confused me to see him in school. It’s confusing to greet your privacy when access to it is prohibited. It’s like going home for lunch when you have to leave again. Mrs. Oliphant made a slanting series of numbers on the board, which joined together into the shape of a torpedo. I pulled the flap of the envelope from Jack, and it eased its way open. Nestled within imperfectly plied sheets of crepe paper was a dried flower, a kind I’d never seen, with elegant petals that faded in hue from tip to base—violet, lavender, white. Mustard anthers had fallen into the folds of paper, staining its crevices. On a second sheet was a meticulous drawing of the same blossom, shivery and crisp. And alongside it there were words.

For the girl. It’s called a camas. I slept in a meadow full of them on a mountain in Wyoming. The flower thrives when closest to the clouds, just like you.—J.

A shred of paper landed on my desk—a scrawled response to my Valentine’s note:

You’re small because you don’t eat. You’re too obsessed with your space needle set design. Dan and I are cutting out early so we can finish the music for that asinine play. How about something red for dinner?—J. P.S. Your eyes look bruised.

My head fell back through the air. My shoulders also flew, moving in reverse. I watched in despair as the halls of my mind blackened and grew cavernous, with rooms and vaults and doorways multiplying exponentially. I labored to stem the epidemic nothingness, to hold my focus, to return to some port or place of safety, but I could not find my beginning.

I awoke in pitch dark. The air was murky and cold. Denny was there, holding me. Behind his shoulders, I recognized the bare yellow bulb of the darkroom. I wondered who had moved the ceiling fixture to the wall.

“I’m going to lift you honey, okay? Ready, here we go.” I felt his arms slide under my back, and as he straightened his knees to raise my body, the bulb disappeared upward in a fluid arc.

He eased me onto the stool and asked what had happened.

I said I didn’t know. It was not good to sit. My head throbbed. I reached to touch the place that hurt, and it hurt worse. Denny moved my hand away and measured the knot. It seemed to be about the size of a lime.

“I can’t tell if it’s bleeding. I think it’s bleeding,” he said.

“It’s like a lime,” I asked, “isn’t it?”

“Okay,” he said, searching nervously around the unoccupied darkroom for someone to consult, someone other than me. “I’ve got to get you out of here.” He wagged his hand in front of his nose. “This air is poison. How many times have I told you—Solvents kill.”

Denny ducked beneath one of my armpits, and he lifted me. Denny was strong. When he hugged you, it was like entering a whole new room. Once he heaved Nico into the air and smashed his head three times against the lockers—boom, boom, boom—saying, “You filthy runt. You’re lucky I don’t toss you under a fucking car.” I didn’t see it, I just heard about it, not from