The bell rang, and our audience scrambled belatedly to the oversized aluminium sinks. Silva released us but didn’t budge, crossing muscular arms over his beefy chest and staring holes into the backs of our heads while we scrubbed up. I grabbed my backpack from its cubby and made for the side door as Wynn exited the front with two friends.
My escape was temporary. That much I knew.
In an effort to torture her students, my world geography teacher announced a team project as soon as we returned from winter break – during which everyone who had remained in town for Christmas had enjoyed an unprecedented half foot of snow covering the beach, palm trees, resort hotels and fishing boats.
In Alexandria, winter began before Christmas and continued into March – surprise bouts of rain, sleet and occasionally snow – piles of it ploughed into corners in parking lots, shifting from white to grey if left to melt rather than bulldozed into trucks and hauled away. By February, everyone was sick of scraping frost from windshields, sick of shovelling sidewalks and driveways, sick of waking to the rumble of gravel trucks or snow ploughs, sick of the constant wet cold.
Here, snow was a dusting, if that. Any measurable quantity of it inspired awe. Six inches was deemed a miracle. People walked around oohing and aahing, shaking their heads. Parents sent kids out to build snowmen and make snow angels with socks on their hands, because no one owned gloves or mittens.
‘In light of our “Christmas Miracle” – we’re going to miraculously team up to examine the effect of climate shifts on environments and people.’ Mrs Dumont’s tone was much too cheerful for the second period of the first day back. No one wanted to be there, and no amount of enthusiasm would change our minds after two solid weeks of sleeping in and doing nothing. ‘In the interest of showing how people adapt to unexpected change, we’re all going to pick a letter from the hat and pair off.’ She beamed, as if the knowledge that fate was choosing our partners would improve the assignment.
As one, we all groaned. Unperturbed, she handed an upside-down baseball cap bearing the school mascot – surprise, it was a fish – to Melody Dover, who drew a slip of paper and passed it to the girl behind her. From the last seat of Melody’s row, I watched the cap come nearer. I drew an F. Appropriate.
When the cap reached the last row, Dumont called over the din of voices, ‘Now – find your partner, and move seats! You’ll be sitting with that partner for the first three weeks of class this semester, at the end of which we’ll be presenting our projects to the whole class!’
You’ve got to be kidding me. I’d only been assigned one class presentation, last spring – on which I took a zero. Oral presentations were painful to do, and painful to witness others doing.
I considered standing up and walking out the door. Then I heard, ‘Okay, what lovely lady has an F?’ from the opposite side of the room, and I couldn’t move.
Boyce. Wynn.
Oh. Damn.
He got up and started snatching the bits of paper from students to find out who his partner was. ‘You got F? Who the fuck’s got F?’
‘Mr Wynn,’ Mrs Dumont said, scowling darkly.
He shrugged. ‘I can’t find my partner, Mrs Dumont.’ His eyes lighted on Melody, who sneered a little. ‘Is it you?’ He snatched the paper from her hand as she objected.
‘No.’ She snatched the paper back, raising her chin. ‘I got Clark.’
Her boyfriend was already sitting next to her. They didn’t even have to move from their front-row seats to work together. So I got stuck with Boyce-fucking-Wynn, while privileged Clark Richards gets stuck with his hot girlfriend. Naturally.
‘Oh, no no no – that won’t work.’ Mrs Dumont rushed over, her eyes on Melody. ‘You can’t be paired with your … er, friend. I want us to all experience a shift in culture and environment! Relocation diffusion in action!’ As the three of them were trying to figure out what she meant, she grabbed Boyce’s and Melody’s slips of paper and swapped them. ‘There. Now Clark, run along with Boyce. I’ll be passing out project assignments in a moment!’ She seemed to think this would soothe Clark from having to replace a hot girlfriend partner with a hulking bully partner.
‘What the –’ He scowled, clamping his jaw. ‘Why can’t Mel and I work together?’
Mrs Dumont smiled benignly and patted his shoulder. ‘Now who has F?’ she called, ignoring his question entirely.
I raised my hand a few inches off my desk without saying a word. Four pairs of eyes found me. Only Mrs Dumont smiled. ‘Come on up to the front, Landon. You can take Clark’s seat for the next three weeks.’
From the look on Clark’s face, she might as well have said, ‘You can screw Clark’s girlfriend for the next three weeks.’
‘Dumb fucking luck, Richards,’ Boyce said, pinning me to the corner with an unblinking stare. Somehow, being involuntarily paired with some other guy’s girlfriend was one more strike against me.
I shouldered my backpack and walked up the aisle, feeling as if I’d been condemned to lethal injection instead of forced to complete a project with a girl I’d fantasized about at least once. As Dumont handed out the packets, Melody pulled out a spiral notebook and began dividing our responsibilities – Melody on the left, Landon on the right, both underlined. She pencilled a thick line down the middle, using the edge of her textbook to keep it straight.
‘I’ll do the maps,’ I volunteered, my voice low.
She pressed her lips together and held herself bolt upright, clearly irritated. Great.
She started to print maps under my name and stopped midway, turning to level big, pale green eyes at me. ‘Do you … draw? Because I can do them, if not.’
I fixed her with a stare of my own. ‘Yes.’
When I didn’t elaborate, she rolled her eyes and muttered, ‘Fine. I’d better get a decent grade on this.’
We exchanged phone numbers and addresses, though she made it clear she didn’t intend to set foot outside either the school building or her parents’ house with me. The Dover McMansion was just down the beach from Grandpa’s place. ‘Oh, yeah. Maxfield. Clark said –’ She went silent, probably at my black expression.
Clark was son to John Richards, our town’s biggest developer of residential monstrosities and vacation condos. He’d been hounding my grandfather to sell his prime beachfront property forever. Things came to a head a few years ago, Grandpa said, when Richards tried to get the city to invoke imminent domain, claiming Grandpa’s ‘shack’ was an eyesore and his fishing business was a front. Grandpa told him where he could stick it right there in the middle of the city council meeting. The intimidation attempts had slowed since Dad took over the financials for Maxfield Fishing, but the hostility was potent as ever.
Melody cleared her throat somewhat delicately. ‘Uh. So, call me tonight, after I’m home from dance class.’
Dance class. What did girls like Melody wear to dance class? Spontaneous images threaded their way into my imagination. I twisted one of the rubber bands on my wrist. ‘’K.’
‘Like, eight o’clock?’