Perfect Fifths_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [56]
“What?”
“I feel like I made a difference, you know? Because for me, writing for the high school newspaper … Oh, forget it.”
“No, I won’t forget it, Jessica. Go on!”
“Writing for that stupid paper …” [Long sigh.] “Changed my life.”
“How so?”
“Ugh. I hate to even say it because it’s so … I don’t know … melodramatic. But…”
“What?”
“The Seagull’s Voice gave me a voice.”
“You always had a voice, Jessica. You just weren’t encouraged to use it until then.”
“Okay, right. It’s true that before Haviland forced me to write for the paper, I only bitched about the tragic indignities of high school life in my journals or in letters to Hope. But writing those editorials when I was sixteen, seventeen… it was the first time I found the courage to speak out loud about issues that were important to me.”
“Why are you laughing?”
“Because working with teenage girls for the past two years has helped remind me how everything matters so much when you’re sixteen years old. A whispered secret is an opera. A one-word text is epic. A dirty look is drama, drama, draaaaaamaaaaa. Every minute of every day is so intense in a way that fades with time. I knew for sure that I had gotten really fucking old when thinking about all those vitally important issues from my sophomore year only made me embarrassed for my former self.”
“‘Homecoming King and Queen: Democracy at Its Dumbest.’”
“Oh my God, Marcus. You remember that? I barely remember that!”
“‘Vegetable Medley Mayhem: A Food Fight Against Cafeteria Tyranny.’”
“That wasn’t even one of my best.”
“Your best? That would have to be the first one you ever wrote: ‘Miss Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace: Just Another Poseur.’”
“I have to agree with you on that, if only because some would say it’s still topical ten years later.”
[Pause.]
“Before you wrote that editorial, I thought you were…”
“What?”
“Oh, never mind.”
“Oh, never mind my ass, Marcus.”
“Intriguing.”
“Intriguing.”
“But…”
“There had to be a but.”
“Icy.”
“Intriguing but icy?”
“Yes.”
“Like wasabi sorbet!”
“Okay, like wasabi sorbet. But after that editorial…”
“Mount Everest!”
“Fine. You were like Mount Everest.”
“A polar bear! A polar bear… uh …”
“With a Ph.D. in the semiotics of snow. Are you finished yet, Jessica?”
“Uh … I think so. Yes.”
“After that editorial, I wanted to get to know you better.”
“Warm me up? Make me melt? Reduce me to a pool of, uh, intriguing slush?”
“I’m officially ignoring you now, Jessica.”
“No, go ahead. Finish what you were going to say.”
“That editorial inspired our first real conversation, remember? You were limping home on crutches, and I offered you a ride home in the Caddie?”
[Cough. Cough. Cough.] “The Caddie! How is the Caddie?”
“The Caddie has passed on.”
“It died?”
“That car was almost forty years old. Its time had come.”
“I am shocked by how sad this news has made me. You must have been devastated when it rode off into the big ol’ scrapyard in the sky. You loved that car.”
“I did. But I’ve loved and lost before, so …”
“So.”
“We could have a moment of silence, if that would make you feel better.”
“I think it might.”
[Moment of silence.]
“See? You can still feel things intensely. You know, even though you’re so fucking old.”
“Har-dee-har-har.”
seven
(turning point of view)
“So, Grannypants, what do you do with your disaffected youth?”
“I’m one of those half-dozen mentors, of whom I am by far the least qualified. They all have M.F.A.s and Ph.D.s, but I’ve got the rich philanthropist friend willing to drop major coin on a whim.”
“You’re apologizing via modesty again.”
“Well, it’s true. My comparative lack of education is one of the reasons I’ve applied to graduate school.”
“Really. Where? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Teachers College. It’s the graduate school of education—”
“At Columbia. Yes, I know.”
“Then you’re familiar with it?”
“Yes. [Throat clearing.] I am.”
“Anyway, we work with a school staff member; it’s usually the favorite English teacher or