The Beautiful Between - Alyssa B. Sheinmel [4]
I look for Kate at school the next day. I want to say hi to the girl who called me pretty. Kate isn’t the kind of kid who’s intimidated by upperclassmen; she hangs out with the juniors all the time. She’s the only seventh grader—the only kid from any of the other grades—who regularly spends time in the junior lounge. Anyone else’s sister and everyone would complain, but no one would ever say anything to Jeremy. And Kate’s so cool that no one minds anyway.
At lunch, Jeremy sits next to me again, and we spend the better part of the period staring at Alexis Bryant cutting her single lettuce leaf into perfect little squares—sixteen, we count—and then eating them one at a time. I think Jeremy had every intention of talking to me when he sat down, but instead, neither of us can tear our eyes away from Alexis. She seems to enjoy the attention. Jeremy and I don’t say anything, but it’s obvious that she knows we’re watching. She looks smug.
When she finally gets up, Jeremy and I turn to face each other. The teachers’ table is right behind this one, and I find myself staring at the backs of their heads. How is it that none of them notice—or that they all turn a blind eye? I’m not entirely sure where the teachers fall in the fairy-tale-kingdom hierarchy—everything I can think of is too mean, too much like calling them servants. I rack my brain for the right title for them. Jeremy’s voice interrupts my thoughts.
“Jesus. That girl is so fucked-up.”
“I know. What’s more fucked-up is that we couldn’t take our eyes off her,” I say, and Jeremy looks guilty. “I don’t mean it was our fault—I just mean we couldn’t look away, you know, like the pull to look at a car wreck.” He looks really upset that I called us out for staring at her. “Jeremy, I’m sorry.” He doesn’t look at me. “Jer?” I say.
“Whatever. Sorry. It’s just, I’ve seen someone who can’t eat more than that, you know. And she really wanted to.”
I try not to show my confusion. I glance around the lunchroom as though the crowd by the soda machine might give me some clue. Our school has a rule that you’re not allowed to bring your own lunch—you have to eat the lunch that’s served. I mean, I guess you could bring something in, but meals are built into the tuition, so you pay for the food whether you want to or not. Emily Winters and I did the math once, and it ended up being something like eleven dollars a day just for lunch, which seemed exorbitant to us. There are lots of choices, almost all the stuff you could have brought from home: plenty of stuff to make a salad or a sandwich out of, plus whatever the hot meal of the day is, and this is the only school I know of where even the pickiest of girls will eat the hot food—that’s how good it is.
Alexis is proof, though, that being forced to eat the food the school makes has nothing to do with being forced to eat in general; the cafeteria staff don’t notice or care what you put onto the trays emblazoned with the school’s crest, which has been the same since it opened one hundred years ago. Back then it was an all-girls boarding school, with something like thirty students being trained in etiquette, piano playing, and occasionally literature. Now it’s gained a reputation as one of the most academically rigorous schools in the city, known particularly for how much the girls excel at math and science. I wonder how the school’s founders would feel about that, or about the way that girls and boys spill hungrily into the lunchroom now, heaping food on their trays and holding their forks in the wrong hand.
Jeremy doesn’t seem to notice the silence that followed his comment, so I decide to change the subject. “Hey,” I say brightly, “I’ve been looking for Kate all day. Wanted to say hi, but haven’t been able to find her.”
I remember that she was in the nurse’s office