actually fall off.
Tammy tells me I’ll acclimatize. I have teeth-chattering shiversthe whole drive to school and Tammy says, “Oh, stop that,” but she blasts the heater. She says, “It’s not really that bad, is it?” I shove my hands deeper into my new coat pockets but can’t stop shaking. She laughs. “You’ll get used to it, kiddo,” she says.
Tammy drops me off two blocks down from the giant redbrick building that looks like the East Coast high schools I’ve seen on TV, with ivy climbing up the corners, patches of snow out front, and in big brass letters, YOUNG HIGH , above heavy wooden double doors. She pats my leg before I get out of the car, says, “Good luck.” She waits a minute after I start walking before she merges with moving traffic and leaves me alone. I step on the spaces between the big squares of damp concrete sidewalk.
Step on a crack, break your mother’s back.
Inside the red bricks are long tiled hallways lined with full-length lockers, expansive stairwells with portraits of historical figures on the walls, and brass spheres on the handrails. I go unnoticed until French class where I say, “Verb conjugations suck,” to no one in particular and the girl I’m sitting next to asks me not to swear in her presence.
“I didn’t say the
F
word,” I tell her.
“I know,” she says. “You said the
S
word.”
“I thought
shit
was the
S
word,” I say, and she doesn’t look at me for the rest of class.
I eat lunch alone in one of the enclosed back stairwells. Tammy packed me Havarti cheese squares and wheat crackers, strawberry yogurt, carrot sticks, gingersnap cookies, and an orange juice box. In biology, a class way too easy to pay much attention to, I write letters.
Dear Jaime
, I write, adding a heart above the
i
in her name.
The mountains are huge. The air smells like the frozen food aisles at grocery stores and snow doesn’t always melt in the sun. You’d hate the cold but my room is big enough for another bed. You know, just in case.
And I can’t help it, I write at the bottom,
Stay safe
next to
I love you
.
To Rachel I write,
They have off-campus lunch here. And lockers. And no black people. People say
pop
instead of
soda, flip
in place of fuck, and ditching class is called
sluffing.
I hate eating lunch alone. I miss you
, I write and wish there was some way to express how much.
In algebra, I sit in front of a junior who asks me where I’m from during homework time. We are supposed to trade papers and correct the other person’s equations. But he hasn’t done it, and I, of course, haven’t, either. I’m a week behind in the semester but I’m confident I’ll be in class regularly now so I’ll catch up fast. “California,” I say.
“You look like California,” he says. His accent is delicious, like melted chocolate I want to lap up.
“What does that mean?”
He shrugs. “Beach boy, surfer girl, blond and blue eyed…” He holds up his hands, smiles. “You know.”
“Have you been there?”
“Nope. Afraid Utah is my American experience.” Mrs. Sanders asks the class to pass their homework forward. She frowns at the small stack from our row and then glances at me. I’m looking forward to starting fresh with teachers here, but it’s only my first day.
I say, “You’re from England?”
“How could you tell?” he says and smiles again. “Dean.” He sticks out his hand. I shake it. His skin is cool and dry.
“Elizabeth,” I say. I ask him what he’s doing in Salt Lake and he says his dad got a job here a year ago. Mrs. Sanders asks us to face the front again. Dean puts his finger to his half-smiling lips and whispers, “Shhh,” so I turn around and watch Mrs. Sanders’ butt shake as she erases the chalkboard. Right before the bell rings, Dean leans forward and says into the back of my neck, “Let’s talk again soon.” His lips graze the tiny hairs across my skin and when I open my eyes, the classroom is almost empty.
Once bootless and
Tammy tells me I’ll acclimatize. I have teeth-chattering shiversthe whole drive to school and Tammy says, “Oh, stop that,” but she blasts the heater. She says, “It’s not really that bad, is it?” I shove my hands deeper into my new coat pockets but can’t stop shaking. She laughs. “You’ll get used to it, kiddo,” she says.
Tammy drops me off two blocks down from the giant redbrick building that looks like the East Coast high schools I’ve seen on TV, with ivy climbing up the corners, patches of snow out front, and in big brass letters, YOUNG HIGH , above heavy wooden double doors. She pats my leg before I get out of the car, says, “Good luck.” She waits a minute after I start walking before she merges with moving traffic and leaves me alone. I step on the spaces between the big squares of damp concrete sidewalk.
Step on a crack, break your mother’s back.
Inside the red bricks are long tiled hallways lined with full-length lockers, expansive stairwells with portraits of historical figures on the walls, and brass spheres on the handrails. I go unnoticed until French class where I say, “Verb conjugations suck,” to no one in particular and the girl I’m sitting next to asks me not to swear in her presence.
“I didn’t say the
F
word,” I tell her.
“I know,” she says. “You said the
S
word.”
“I thought
shit
was the
S
word,” I say, and she doesn’t look at me for the rest of class.
I eat lunch alone in one of the enclosed back stairwells. Tammy packed me Havarti cheese squares and wheat crackers, strawberry yogurt, carrot sticks, gingersnap cookies, and an orange juice box. In biology, a class way too easy to pay much attention to, I write letters.
Dear Jaime
, I write, adding a heart above the
i
in her name.
The mountains are huge. The air smells like the frozen food aisles at grocery stores and snow doesn’t always melt in the sun. You’d hate the cold but my room is big enough for another bed. You know, just in case.
And I can’t help it, I write at the bottom,
Stay safe
next to
I love you
.
To Rachel I write,
They have off-campus lunch here. And lockers. And no black people. People say
pop
instead of
soda, flip
in place of fuck, and ditching class is called
sluffing.
I hate eating lunch alone. I miss you
, I write and wish there was some way to express how much.
In algebra, I sit in front of a junior who asks me where I’m from during homework time. We are supposed to trade papers and correct the other person’s equations. But he hasn’t done it, and I, of course, haven’t, either. I’m a week behind in the semester but I’m confident I’ll be in class regularly now so I’ll catch up fast. “California,” I say.
“You look like California,” he says. His accent is delicious, like melted chocolate I want to lap up.
“What does that mean?”
He shrugs. “Beach boy, surfer girl, blond and blue eyed…” He holds up his hands, smiles. “You know.”
“Have you been there?”
“Nope. Afraid Utah is my American experience.” Mrs. Sanders asks the class to pass their homework forward. She frowns at the small stack from our row and then glances at me. I’m looking forward to starting fresh with teachers here, but it’s only my first day.
I say, “You’re from England?”
“How could you tell?” he says and smiles again. “Dean.” He sticks out his hand. I shake it. His skin is cool and dry.
“Elizabeth,” I say. I ask him what he’s doing in Salt Lake and he says his dad got a job here a year ago. Mrs. Sanders asks us to face the front again. Dean puts his finger to his half-smiling lips and whispers, “Shhh,” so I turn around and watch Mrs. Sanders’ butt shake as she erases the chalkboard. Right before the bell rings, Dean leans forward and says into the back of my neck, “Let’s talk again soon.” His lips graze the tiny hairs across my skin and when I open my eyes, the classroom is almost empty.
Once bootless and
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