Back to school

Back to school  

As I approach the building, I can’t help but cringe.  So many people, so much noise, so much chaos. 

I turn around, and see a row of houses on the opposite side of the street.  Behind them, the roofs of other, larger houses, peak out.  I wonder what the people inside are doing, how they are feeling.  In the red split-level on my left, I picture a woman in a beige bath robe, sipping coffee while sitting at her round, wooden, pale brown kitchen table.  The sun shines on her face through a small window, and as she swallows, she wonders what the day will bring.  In the brick two-story house next door I picture a man sitting in his bedroom, on his bed.  He wears a blue and white checkered button down and khaki pants an inch too short.  He is sitting with his head down, resting his face in his hands, his bare feet lying still on the floor, legs spread out.  He is resisting the urge to cry, making grunting noises instead.  How will he tell his wife he lost all of the money?  What will she say to him? 

As my imagination goes wild, I look at my right hand.  In it lies an unsharpened pencil, which my mother handed to me hurriedly when she dropped me off a few minutes before.  As she handed me the pencil, she quickly uttered “Bye sweetie, have a good day.  I hope you write something great with this new pencil.”  The pencil is a shiny silver, with multi-colored hearts on it, the ideal back to school gift for a thirteen –year-old girl, in my mother’s eyes.  As if this pencil will do me any good.  Little does my mother know what awaits me inside the colossal building behind me. 

I hear the bell ring, and can’t help but sigh and swallow the dread emanating from within me.  I think about my mother driving away in our silver minivan.  She was probably relieved to get rid of me, to see me off after two months of non-stop kid.  I bet she drove straight to Dunkin Donuts.  I envision her seeping her tea bag in and out of the Styrofoam cup, sitting relaxed in front of the sticky table, then taking a massive bite out of a vanilla frosted donut with sprinkles.  Those pastel sprinkles, that perfect hole in the donut.  It’s just not fair.   I remember begging for sweets all summer, only to be denied, my mother saying “Honey, those things are horrible for you!” 

I turn around again, facing the large building, and seeing the tumult begin, students packing in the front door like little ants racing to that long lost bread crumb on the ground.  I take a deep breath, tighten the ribbon holding my shiny blond hair into a side pony tail, pat down my cheerleading skirt, and straighten my sweater.  I see them approaching from the left.  Sally is the first to run up to me “Oh my God, hi Mary, can you believe we’re back here?  What a bummer!”  After Mary comes my boyfriend, Steve, captain of the football team.  He whispers the perfunctory “Hey babe” and rests his bulky arm over my shoulders.  The rest of the posy follows behind.  I put on my biggest fake smile, my most-popular-girl image reflecting off of my sparkly, white, perfectly straight teeth.  As I walk into the school a sheet of invisible sadness drops over my entire being, disconnecting me from the world.