“She’s so hard to read,” Mom says, coming forward after Ivy’s left the room.
“Not for me,” I say. “She’s interested. A little nervous, but interested. I’ll keep trying.”
“I have such mixed feelings about her growing up. You too. I’d like to keep my little girls little for as long as possible.”
I don’t say anything. It’s been a long time since I felt like a little girl.
Eight
IN MS. CAMPANELLI’S CLASS on Tuesday, we’re discussing tragic and comedic endings, and Jana Rodriguez brings up Jane Eyre, which we read back in September. “I know it’s supposed to count as a happy ending,” she says, pulling her thick ponytail over her shoulder, “but it doesn’t feel happy to me. Rochester’s such a mess by that point—?blind and missing a hand and scarred and everything—”
“Not in the movie,” Carolyn Horinberg says. “Michael Fassbender was a little blind, but otherwise he was perfect.”
“He’s too beautiful to ruin,” Sarah says.
“Ew,” Jana says, and the girls in the class start arguing about whether he’s cute or not.
“Hold on!” Camp says. “Jana made a really good point, and I want to talk about it. Why couldn’t Jane just come back and find Rochester strong and virile but now free to marry her? Why does he have to be a wreck?”
“He had to be punished,” I say.
“For what?” Jana asks, turning in her seat to look at me.
“Um, for trying to commit bigamy?”
“Oh, who cares?” she says with a shrug. “His wife was cray. And he took care of her and even tried to save her life, which was more than anyone else would have done.”
“Trying to marry someone when you already have a wife is pretty bad.”
“Sucks to suck,” Lambert Vini says helpfully.
Jana says, “But it’s so not fair that Jane gets punished too—?instead of getting the handsome, strong Rochester she fell in love with, she gets stuck with lame, blind Rochester. He’s not nearly as sexy.”
“Except when he’s Michael Fassbender,” Sarah says.
Jana ignores that. “Why should Jane have to lose out? She should get to end up with someone hot.”
“But that’s part of the point, right, Camp?” I’m so eager to appeal to the teacher that I accidentally call her by the nickname we usually only use behind her back. “That Jane gets to be the strong one now? Like the way she tells him another guy wants to marry her, just to torture him. He was kind of mean to Jane before, and now she’s kind of mean to him.”
Jana says, “I still say she’d rather have him the way he was before. Sexy and strong.”
“Like Michael Fassbender,” Sarah says.
“Maybe she likes him better this way,” David Fields says. He’s sitting over by the wall and, as usual, has been staring at his laptop, but apparently he’s deigned to eavesdrop on the class discussion, because he looks up now. “Some girls prefer their men thoroughly emasculated. Right, Chloe?” He jerks his chin meaningfully in James’s direction.
Someone makes a low ooooh noise. James glares at David and opens his mouth, but I get my response in first: “If that were true, David, you’d probably get a date once in a while.”
That gets a pretty big laugh.
Ms. Campanelli says, “Guys, guys, please don’t get personal in classroom discussions. I expect better from you, Chloe.”
“Sorry,” I say. “He started it.”
David puts an offended hand to his chest. “I was just discussing Jane Eyre.”
“Let’s get back to Shakespeare,” Ms. Camp says wearily.
At lunch, Sarah and I talk about what happened in English.
“James looked like he was ready to kill David,” Sarah says. “Do you think he’d ever actually do anything to him?”
“Nah.” I tear a chunk off my bagel. I have to bring my lunches from home—?Ron says school lunches are a waste of money—?but I’m too tired in the morning to make anything other than bagels with cream cheese or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, both of which I’m royally sick of. “James isn’t the violent type.”
“Lucky for David. James could crush him with a single blow. He’s, like, twice his size.”
“David’s such a jerk. I don’t know what his problem is.”
“He’s so arrogant.” She pulls a half-chewed cherry tomato out of her mouth, examines it, makes a face, and drops it on her tray. “He thinks he’s smarter than everyone else because he gets As really easily.”
“I will vomit if you do that with another tomato.”
“It’s not my fault—?it was slimy.” She pushes the salad away and reaches for a brownie. “Hey, want to do something after school today? I can drive.”
“I can’t. I told my mom I’d pick Ivy up from her school—?I’m heading out right after bio.”
“It’s so annoying that she has to go to a different school that’s farther away. Why don’t they just let her go here?”
“No class for her here. Can I have a bite of your brownie?” I don’t feel like launching into the story of Ivy’s educational choices.