What Has Become of You by Jan Elizabeth Watson Page B

desperation feels like.”
    “It feels like . . . grasping at straws,” said Katherine Arsenault, who seemed to have roused herself from the dead at that mention of intimacy.
    “Good, Katherine,” Vera said, and then remembered the way the girl had signed some of her recent journal entries. “Or do you prefer to be called Kitty?”
    “I prefer Kitty.”
    “All right then, Kitty. Why is Holden Caulfield desperate and grasping at straws in
The Catcher in the Rye
? What would make a sixteen-year-old boy feel so desperate?”
    “Hormones,” Loo Garippa deadpanned.
    “More than that.”
    “Loneliness?” Martha True said.
    “To say the very least, yes. Here he is, wandering around New York City alone, and he has no idea what to do with himself. Lost in his own hometown, practically.”
    “New York City is a good place to be lost,” Jensen Willard said. It was the first time she had ever actually contributed a comment during class, and Vera irrationally found herself wanting to hug the girl.
    “Yes!” she exclaimed. “Have you ever visited there, Jensen?”
    The girl nodded. But the invitation Vera had thrown her way, this small encouragement to say more, fell flat, for she fixed her eyes on the table before her and refused to look up again.
    “Let’s run with this idea of loneliness,” Vera said, turning away from Jensen and trying to ignore the tug of rejection she felt. “It’s such an important part of understanding Holden’s character. And isn’t it an important part of understanding the teenage experience, too? Isn’t it a lonely process, sorting out who you are emotionally and intellectually?”
    There were blank looks, a couple of shrugs. Vera was not completely unsurprised by this noncommittal reaction. After all, what teenage girl wanted to be the first among her peers to own up to this idea of sorting things out?
    “Funny thing about admitting that you’re lonely,” Vera said. “It’s like saying you’re depressed. People think it’s contagious. No one wants to be around you if you admit to loneliness or depression.”
    She was killing the discussion. As though illustrating her own principle, the mere mention of the words
loneliness
and
depression
cast a pall over the room, an almost palpable recoiling. She knew she had better shift gears.
    “Let’s talk about something else, then, that’s not so unrelated if you think about it: Holden as a liar. He’s always presenting himself as something he’s not. How does his tendency to lie or embellish tie into his loneliness? What might be the reason behind embellishing stories like Holden does? Do you think he’s trying to impress other people? Is it that he’s not happy with the real stories or perhaps doesn’t
know
the real stories yet? Either way, this goes back to what I said, about sorting things out intellectually and emotionally. And that kind of sorting-out process is the hallmark of adolescence itself, the key to coming of age.”
    “Coming of age to do what, though?” Aggie Hamada asked.
    “Get secondary sex characteristics,” Cecily-Anne St. Aubrey said primly.
    “Be on the rag,” someone else said in a stage whisper.
    Vera cleared her throat. “Come on now, girls. What are the motivations behind a lie? Think about it.”
    After a few seconds, the answers began to come.
    “To hide something?”
    “To protect someone else.”
    “To make yourself look good.”
    “To fool yourself or others.”
    “Good answers, all of you.” Vera was growing excited. She was scarcely aware that her pace around the classroom was quickening or that her low voice rose, rich and full-throated, in anticipation of the narrative she was about to tell.
    “Let me tell you a quick story about a real-life adolescent who lived a lie for a little while. Any of you ever hear of Penny Bjorkland?”
    Just as Vera had expected, no one had. She slowed her pace around the classroom, rubbing her hands together. She shot an almost defiant glance at