Clara swallowed but said nothing.
“So are you his girlfriend?” Meredith asked. She leaned over the table staring at Clara with sparkling, mischievous eyes.
“No,” Clara responded.
“Ah, so he’s still fair game,” Jen said. She laughed as she observed Clara’s face fall. “I’m just kidding with you! I’ve got a boyfriend.”
Clara smiled meekly.
“Has he asked you out on a date yet?” Katy pressed.
“No.”
“Well, he will. He’s smitten with you probably because you’re all mysterious and everything. How come you never talk to anybody? You’re always sitting in here reading your stupid books. You need to socialize more, Clara. Get to know people,” Jen said. Her directness was unsettling.
“I prefer to be alone,” Clara confessed. She picked up her book hoping that the girls would take the hint and leave. They didn’t. In fact, Katy snatched the book from her hand and carelessly tossed it aside.
“Clara, do you know that you’re a really pretty girl?” Katy asked. “And you’ve got a really hot guy who likes you. Why are you being weird about it?”
“I know why she’s being weird about it,” Meredith offered. She bore her eyes into Clara’s. “She doesn’t think she’s good enough.”
“Oh, and here we go with this,” Jen said letting out a great big dramatic sigh. “Clara, do you see us hanging out with the popular girls?”
“No,” Clara said.
“Exactly,” Jen replied. “And do we care?”
Clara shrugged her shoulders.
“Of course we don’t care!” Katy said. “And even though we’re not popular like those cunts over there, do you think we can’t still have fun and look pretty and date cute boys?”
Clara stopped listening after the word “cunt.” All she could think was, Did she really say “cunt”?
Jen snapped her fingers in front of Clara’s face. “Clara, listen to us!”
Clara shook her head and refocused. “I’m sorry.”
Meredith grabbed a cookie off of her tray. “You can’t be bothered by other people and what they say or think,” she said shoving the cookie in her mouth.
What is up with people taking food off of my tray and eating it? Clara thought.
“Exactly,” Katy agreed. “You’re a rock star. And rock stars put bitches in their places. So go over there and tell Evan how you feel!”
“No!” Clara cried. A few students at the end of the table turned to look at her. She lowered her voice. “No. I can’t do that. I’m not like you all. I can’t go up to him. He makes me nervous.”
Jen and Katy grinned at each other.
“Oh, Clara,” Jen sighed. “We’ve got a lot to teach you about being a progressive woman.”
Clara stared wide-eyed at the girls as they giggled with glee. She felt the fluttering in her heart as the realization dawned that she was about to become a pet project.
Evan came to her at the end of the day. She had just closed her locker and was about to leave.
“Here’s your book,” he said handing it to her. “And may I just say, ‘Wow.’ I didn’t understand what I was reading, but I knew I was reading something important.”
Clara smiled.
“Will you explain that poem to me sometime?” Evan asked.
She thought she would die to, but perhaps he was just being nice. Did he honestly want to sit down and listen to her analysis of a poem?
“Sure,” she said, trying to sound like she understood that they would never talk about it.
“I mean it,” Evan said. “I want to understand it. I think it might help me understand you.”
Clara felt instantly shy and averted her eyes.
“Okay then,” Evan said. “I’ll be seeing you, Clara,” and he walked away.
Clara looked down at her book. She flipped through the pages but could not locate her bookmark.
He took it.
***
“Did you make any friends today?” Beatrice asked. She sat at the kitchen table helping Clara clip coupons.
“What? Are you my mother?” Clara replied.
“No, it’s the other way around,” Beatrice said grinning. Clara smirked.
The girls sat at the table in their underwear again that night since the house was hot. They cooked dinner with the wood stove because they had gone too many nights eating sandwiches. Clara knew they weren’t eating healthily and decided to heat vegetables to go along with canned chicken. They took ice cold baths after dinner—a temporary relief—but found themselves sweating all over again the moment they got out.
“I don’t know if I made friends today,” Clara admitted. “But I think I may have.”
Beatrice’s face lit up. “Oh do tell, Clara!” she squealed.
“Well, three girls approached me in the cafeteria today,” Clara began.
“Uh huh.”
“They asked me my name and told me I was pretty. They said I was a rock star and that rock stars put bitches in their places,” Clara said. Her brows furrowed in reflection.
Beatrice furrowed her own brows. “I don’t know what that means.”
“Me neither,” Clara admitted. “But they were nice to me. They told me I have a lot to learn. I think they want to teach me things, but I don’t know if I want to learn them.”
“They sound very worldly, Clara,” Beatrice said. “I don’t see that as being bad.”
“Oh, you don’t?” Clara asked amused.
“Not at all,” Beatrice replied. “Be their friend and let them teach you. I wish I had friends to teach me things. I’m always the one instructing others and it gets so terribly . . . monotonous.” She looked at Clara expectantly.
“Congratulations on learning a new word today, Bea,” Clara said.
Beatrice clapped her hands and giggled. “Isn’t it a beautiful word, Clara? Even though it means something boring? I just love saying it!”
Clara laughed, accidentally slicing through the bar code of one of her coupons.
“Darn it,” she said. “You think tape will be alright?”
“I don’t know,” Beatrice said. “I don’t know anything about coupons.”
Clara got up from the table and went in search of tape. She rifled through the kitchen drawers as Beatrice talked.