I know the feeling. Easy to recognize.
“Ms. Meadows, can I make an announcement about the drama club fundraiser?” A girl at one of the other tables raises her hand.
Hannah gives her assent, and the girl launches into a speech about candy bar sales. I’m half listening when Nell looks up. Her gaze crashes into mine.
I still hate being caught off-guard. Even, apparently, by sudden eye contact with a girl who’s making herself as invisible as she can.
She wasn’t like that before Katherine died. She could have been, with a mother who zinged through life like a pinball, lighting up the sky one minute and crashing into darkness the next.
Nell was a quiet child, simultaneously baffled and enchanted by her complicated mother, but also interested in many things. Engaged. She’d wanted to hear all my stories, look at my photos.
Though I sanitized everything for her, she’d still asked endless questions. She’d had plans, too, often inspired by the things I told her. She wanted to ride a camel, see Indian temples, visit Victoria Falls, meet a baby elephant.
And now?
I can’t sense those ambitions in her anymore. It feels like they might have died along with her mother.
Taking a breath, I shift my attention to the lesson plan as the class continues with homeroom business. When the bell rings, indicating a five-minute break between homeroom and first period, Hannah approaches me.
“Are you still onboard with introducing yourself to the students when you start on Monday?” Faint concern appears in her eyes. “You’ll have to do it five times over the course of the day.”
“Sure.” I don’t like talking about my experience—in fact, I haven’t in months—but I get that the kids are curious. I’d rather demystify it right off the bat.
I glance toward Nell again. She’s back to doodling on her notebook.
“How does Nell do in class?” I ask Hannah quietly. I’d told her before I was hired about my longstanding friendship with Henry, though the administration hadn’t considered it an issue that Nell was enrolled in my class.
“She’s one of my best students.” Hannah’s forehead creases. “She’s quiet, though. I know she had a rough time, and her art is often wild and turbulent, but it always has a powerful element of optimism. Like it’s a reflection of what she went through and what’s still inside her. She’s very talented.”
Though I’m tempted to ask to see Nell’s work, somehow it feels like it would be a violation of her privacy.
More students shuffle into the classroom. The bell rings, signaling first-period art class. Hannah introduces me and tells the class I’ll officially start teaching next week, but today I’m just here to observe.
I watch the class, figuring out the dynamics between the students and paying attention to how Hannah handles everything. I also watch Nell, who moves to the long counter to finish a charcoal still-life project. She stays in her isolated little bubble, attracting no attention from the other students and making no effort to talk to them.
When was the last time she walked on the beach? The last time she studied a tide pool? The last time she collected rocks and seashells? The last time she explored a sea cave hidden in a cliff?
Hell. When was the last time either one of us did that?
When the Fairchilds used to visit me up at Volkov Bay, Nell had loved wandering the beach, searching for shells and driftwood. We’d spend hours crouching beside tide pools, looking at fish and gently poking sea anemones to watch their tentacles close. She’d wanted to walk as far out onto the rocks as we could, her hand tucked securely into mine, her face scrunched up against the cold, salty wind. She’d make up stories about the creatures living in the sea caves perforating the base of the cliffs. Serpents, mermaids, hydras.
Back at the beach house, we’d spread all her shells on the table so she could make little identification cards and arrange them in a display box. She never took anything from the tide pools, only things that washed onto the shore. She’d found a piece of sea glass once, a smooth, dove-gray fragment that she’d said looked like a cloud on earth.
I don’t know what happened to her carefully organized collection. It must still be at the beach house. I closed the house up years ago, long before Katherine died. Maybe it’s time to go back.
After first period ends and Nell leaves with everyone else, the tension in my shoulders loosens. It’s easier to focus without knowing she’s right across the room, though I don’t want to look too closely at why. I need to treat her like I treat all the other students—first because I can’t play favorites, and second because I don’t want to embarrass her.
At the end of the day, she’s waiting beside the car, her arms crossed and her posture stiff with defiance.
“My father would be annoyed if I ditched you, so I’m here today.” She flips her hair away from her face and fixes her gaze on my shoulder. “But I usually go to the library after school and then walk or take the late bus. I won’t need a ride home when you start teaching.”
“Okay.” I unlock the passenger side door. “What’s the late bus?”
“It leaves around five to take home the kids who have after-school sports or club meetings.”
I suppress the urge to ask her why she isn’t in any sports or clubs. I pull open the door for her and step aside. “What do you do at the library?”
“Read or use the computer.” She hesitates for an instant before passing me and getting into the car. “Dad doesn’t mind because the school computers have controlled access to the internet. Or sometimes I go to the art classroom if Ms. Meadows is still there. She lets students work after school if we want to.”
I process that as I close the door and walk to the driver’s side. Why does Henry want Nell to have “controlled” access to the internet?
“Do you have a job?” I ask.
“Do you always ask so many questions?”
“No.”
She huffs in annoyance. “I work for my dad sometimes. Typing up his notes or editing the chapters of his book.”
“Your father is still living in the Stone Age?” I guide the car out of the parking lot. “He told me he has a cell phone now.”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t use his computer much except for email.” She folds her arms again and looks out the window. “I don’t have a phone.”
“I thought phones were how all teenagers communicated these days.”
“Not this one.”
My fingers tighten unconsciously on the steering wheel. “So your friends call you at home?”
“I don’t have any friends.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“It doesn’t matter what you believe.” She shrugs. “It’s the truth. And you don’t need to feel sorry for me. I like it this way.”
I search for the names of the girls she’d talked about when she was younger.
“What about your friend Susan? And Clara? You used to bike downtown with them and get ice cream. And there was Annie. You went to her tenth birthday party. I think it was a Wild West themed party. Her parents had rented a pony.”
She turns her head, but doesn’t speak. I glance at her. She’s staring at me almost in disbelief.