I go home the next weekend for Dad’s birthday. Mom’s gift to him is a yellow Labrador puppy from the shelter, the reason for owner surrender listed as “pigment too pale.” Dad names the puppy Babe, after the pig movie, because she looks like a piglet with her fat belly and pink nose. Our last dog died over the summer, a twelve-year-old shepherd Dad found as a stray in town, so we’ve never had a puppy before, and I fall in love so hard I carry her around all weekend like a baby, rubbing her jelly-bean paw pads and smelling her sweet breath.
At night after my parents go to bed, I stand in front of my bedroom mirror, study my face and hair and try to see myself as Mr. Strane sees me, a girl with maple-red hair who wears nice dresses and has good style, but I can’t get past the sight of myself as a pale, freckled child.
When Mom and I drive back to Browick, Dad stays home with Babe, and in the closed-off space of the car, my chest burns from wanting to tell. But what is there to tell? He touched my hand a couple times, said something about my hair?
As we drive across the bridge into town, I ask in my most casual voice, “Have you ever noticed my hair is the color of maple leaves?”
Mom looks over at me, surprised. “Well, there are different kinds of maple,” she says, “and they all turn different colors in the fall. There’s sugar, there’s striped, there’s red. And depending how north you are, there’s mountain maple—”
“Never mind. Forget it.”
“Since when are you interested in trees?”
“I was talking about my hair, not trees.”
She asks who told me my hair looked like maple leaves, but she doesn’t sound suspicious. Her voice is soft, like she thinks it’s sweet.
“No one,” I say.
“Someone must have said it to you.”
“I can’t notice something like that about myself?”
We stop at a red light. On the radio, a voice reads the top-of-the-hour news headlines.
“If I tell you,” I say, “you have to promise not to overreact.”
“I would never.”
I give her a long look. “Promise.”
“All right,” she says. “I promise.”
I take a breath. “A teacher said it to me. That my hair is the color of red maple leaves.” There’s a giddy relief as I say the words; I nearly let out a laugh.
Mom narrows her eyes. “A teacher?” she asks.
“Mom, watch the road.”
“Was it a man?”
“What does it matter?”
“A teacher shouldn’t be saying that to you. Who was it?”
“Mom.”
“I want to know.”
“You promised you wouldn’t overreact.”
She presses her lips together, as though to calm herself. “It’s a strange thing to tell a fifteen-year-old girl, that’s all I’m saying.”
We drive through town: blocks of Victorian mansions fallen into disrepair and broken up into apartments, the empty downtown, the sprawling hospital, the grinning Paul Bunyan statue who, with his black hair and beard, looks a little like Mr. Strane.
“It was a man,” I say. “You really think it’s weird?”
“Yes,” Mom says. “I really do. Do you want me to talk to someone? I’ll go in there and cause a scene.”
I picture her storming into the administration building, demanding to talk to the headmaster. I shake my head. No, I don’t want that. “It was just a random thing he said,” I say. “It really wasn’t a big deal.”
With that, Mom relaxes a little. “Who was it?” she asks again. “I won’t do anything. I just want to know.”
“My politics teacher.” I don’t even hesitate in the lie. “Mr. Sheldon.”
“Mr. Sheldon.” She spits it out like it’s the stupidest name she’s ever heard. “You shouldn’t be hanging out with teachers anyway. Focus on making friends.”
I watch the road pass by. We could take the interstate to Browick, but Mom refuses, says it’s a racetrack full of angry people. She drives a two-lane highway instead that takes twice as long.
“There’s nothing wrong with me, you know.”
She glances over, her brow furrowed.
“I prefer to be by myself. It’s normal. You shouldn’t give me such a hard time about it.”
“I’m not giving you a hard time,” she says, but we both know that’s not true. After a moment, she adds, “I’m sorry. I just worry about you.”
We hardly talk for the rest of the drive, and as I stare out the window, I can’t help but feel like I’ve won.
I’m sitting at a study carrel in the library, geometry homework spread out before me. I’m trying to concentrate, but my brain feels like a rock skipping over water. Or, no—like a rock rattling around in a tin can. I take out my notebook to jot down the line and get distracted by the island girl poem I’m still working on. When I next look up, an hour has passed, and my geometry homework is still untouched.
I rub my face, pick up my pencil, and try to work, but within minutes I’m gazing out the window. It’s the golden hour, light setting the fiery trees ablaze. Boys in soccer jerseys with cleats slung over their shoulders head back from the fields. Two girls carry violin cases like backpacks, their twin ponytails swinging with each step.
Then I see Ms. Thompson and Mr. Strane walking together toward the humanities building. They move slowly, taking their time, Mr. Strane with his hands clasped behind his back and Ms. Thompson smiling, touching her face. I try to remember if I’ve seen them together before, try to decide if Ms. Thompson is pretty. She has blue eyes and black hair, a combination my mother always calls striking, but she’s chubby and her butt sticks out like a shelf. It’s the sort of body I’m afraid I’ll grow up to have if I’m not careful.
I squint across the distance to gather more details. They’re close but not touching. At one point, Ms. Thompson tips her head back and laughs. Is Mr. Strane funny? He hasn’t ever made me laugh. Pressing my face against the window, I try to keep them in my sight, but they round a corner and disappear behind the orange leaves of an oak tree.
We take PSATs and I do ok but not as well as most other sophomores, who start receiving Ivy League brochures in their mailboxes. I buy another day planner to help with my organization, which gets noticed by my teachers and passed on to Mrs. Antonova, who gives me a tin of hazelnut candies for a job well done.
In English we read Walt Whitman and Mr. Strane talks about the idea that people contain multitudes and contradictions. I begin to pay attention to the ways he seems to contradict himself, how he went to Harvard but tells stories about growing up poor, the way he sprinkles eloquent speech with obscenities and pairs tailored blazers and ironed shirts with scuffed hiking boots. His teaching style is contradictory, too. Speaking up in class always feels risky, because if he likes what you say, he’ll clap and bound over to the chalkboard to elaborate on the brilliant comment you made, but if he doesn’t like it, he won’t even let you finish—he cuts you off with an “Ok, that’s enough” that slices to the bone. It makes me scared to talk even though sometimes after he asks the class an open-ended question, he’ll stare straight at me, like he wants to know specifically what I have to say.