motioned for her to come to his desk.
Being summoned by Mr. Roman was cause for much stomach fluttering. He was just so gorgeous, with his green eyes, his square jaw, his light brown hair that he kept just an inch past respectable. He was a young teacher, twenty-six or twenty-seven. He had been in the Navy after college, and the girls in his class—at Coventry the middle school English classes were segregated by sex—would whisper about how cute he must have looked in his Navy blues. He had been in an a cappella group in college, and on special occasions he would sing to the girls.
She walked over to his desk, where he sat with his attendance book in front of him. Ruthie noticed that he had marked her on time for that day, as well as on Monday when she had also been tardy.
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
“My sister accidentally turned off the alarm clock, that’s all. I’m sorry.”
Mr. Roman smiled, revealing his dimples. “Don’t worry too much about it. I know there’s a lot on your plate right now. A lot on your sister’s, too. Just check in with me, okay? Let me know how you’re doing.”
Since the accident all of Ruthie’s teachers had been really kind toward her, which felt weird. The middle school teachers at Coventry were in general a cranky, prickly bunch. But Mr. Roman’s kindness was different. It did not feel fake. It did not seem to be a cover-up for his own discomfort with grief.
Just as Ruthie had predicted, by the end of first period everyone in the seventh grade knew about Laney’s loose tampons. But the rumors didn’t end there. People were saying that when Laney got on her hands and knees to retrieve them there had been blood on the seat of her pants. The fact that the back of Laney’s jeans was perfectly clean was irrelevant. The stain existed in everyone’s mind, and that was all that mattered.
Laney Daley. What a cautionary tale. Laney, by negative example, had taught Ruthie everything not to do when dealing with the popular kids at Coventry.
Lesson one: Do not appear to be trying too hard. This was Laney’s gravest sin. Waving frantically at the Eight whenever they walked by, sitting near them during assemblies, attempting to sit at their table in the cafeteria, despite the fact that day after day they chirped, “Sorry, that one’s taken,” at whatever seat she tried to claim. And every day Laney acted surprised by their rejection.
Lesson two: Be wary of sudden, unexpected friendliness, especially from Eleanor Pope, the prettiest and the meanest of the Eight. That past February Eleanor had slipped Laney, through a crack in her locker, an invitation to a slumber party at her house. Only the invitation was a joke, a gag, listing a fake address on Valley Road, giving a fake telephone number to call to RSVP.
Did Eleanor intuit that Laney would be so thrilled to receive the invitation that she would forego the formality of phoning to say she could come and would instead rush up to Eleanor, surrounded by friends at her locker, and tell her that yes, yes! She would be there. If only she had phoned, it would have been an automated operator who announced, in a cheerful voice, that the number she was trying to reach was not in service. Or maybe the number Eleanor gave Laney did work, was some stranger’s number, was perhaps the phone number of an old man who would answer on the fifth ring, confused and disoriented. Would that have been enough to clue Laney in? Would that have prevented her from having her mother drive her up and down Valley Road—oneof the ritziest streets in Buckhead—searching for an address that did not exist?
Lesson three: Never show your pain.
The Monday after the alleged slumber party Laney Daley marched up to Eleanor Pope and, in what surely was a line provided to her by one of her parents, demanded, “What, exactly, was the big idea behind all this?”
Eleanor, so pretty in a black dress that looked like a polo shirt, only longer, raised her
Being summoned by Mr. Roman was cause for much stomach fluttering. He was just so gorgeous, with his green eyes, his square jaw, his light brown hair that he kept just an inch past respectable. He was a young teacher, twenty-six or twenty-seven. He had been in the Navy after college, and the girls in his class—at Coventry the middle school English classes were segregated by sex—would whisper about how cute he must have looked in his Navy blues. He had been in an a cappella group in college, and on special occasions he would sing to the girls.
She walked over to his desk, where he sat with his attendance book in front of him. Ruthie noticed that he had marked her on time for that day, as well as on Monday when she had also been tardy.
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
“My sister accidentally turned off the alarm clock, that’s all. I’m sorry.”
Mr. Roman smiled, revealing his dimples. “Don’t worry too much about it. I know there’s a lot on your plate right now. A lot on your sister’s, too. Just check in with me, okay? Let me know how you’re doing.”
Since the accident all of Ruthie’s teachers had been really kind toward her, which felt weird. The middle school teachers at Coventry were in general a cranky, prickly bunch. But Mr. Roman’s kindness was different. It did not feel fake. It did not seem to be a cover-up for his own discomfort with grief.
Just as Ruthie had predicted, by the end of first period everyone in the seventh grade knew about Laney’s loose tampons. But the rumors didn’t end there. People were saying that when Laney got on her hands and knees to retrieve them there had been blood on the seat of her pants. The fact that the back of Laney’s jeans was perfectly clean was irrelevant. The stain existed in everyone’s mind, and that was all that mattered.
Laney Daley. What a cautionary tale. Laney, by negative example, had taught Ruthie everything not to do when dealing with the popular kids at Coventry.
Lesson one: Do not appear to be trying too hard. This was Laney’s gravest sin. Waving frantically at the Eight whenever they walked by, sitting near them during assemblies, attempting to sit at their table in the cafeteria, despite the fact that day after day they chirped, “Sorry, that one’s taken,” at whatever seat she tried to claim. And every day Laney acted surprised by their rejection.
Lesson two: Be wary of sudden, unexpected friendliness, especially from Eleanor Pope, the prettiest and the meanest of the Eight. That past February Eleanor had slipped Laney, through a crack in her locker, an invitation to a slumber party at her house. Only the invitation was a joke, a gag, listing a fake address on Valley Road, giving a fake telephone number to call to RSVP.
Did Eleanor intuit that Laney would be so thrilled to receive the invitation that she would forego the formality of phoning to say she could come and would instead rush up to Eleanor, surrounded by friends at her locker, and tell her that yes, yes! She would be there. If only she had phoned, it would have been an automated operator who announced, in a cheerful voice, that the number she was trying to reach was not in service. Or maybe the number Eleanor gave Laney did work, was some stranger’s number, was perhaps the phone number of an old man who would answer on the fifth ring, confused and disoriented. Would that have been enough to clue Laney in? Would that have prevented her from having her mother drive her up and down Valley Road—oneof the ritziest streets in Buckhead—searching for an address that did not exist?
Lesson three: Never show your pain.
The Monday after the alleged slumber party Laney Daley marched up to Eleanor Pope and, in what surely was a line provided to her by one of her parents, demanded, “What, exactly, was the big idea behind all this?”
Eleanor, so pretty in a black dress that looked like a polo shirt, only longer, raised her
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