Skinny(11)
Wolfgang’s going to need all of his seat space and more. Kristen glances back at me, flipping a few curls over her shoulder with a signature move, and frowns. Her light brown eyes are the same exact color as her hair.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Out of all the kids in this line, I have to be next to her?”
I stick my tongue out at her and she quickly turns back to face front with a huffy puffy noise. There is a rustle of people and voices out beyond the curtains. The whole school will be here. It’s required. The bleachers will be full of students all the way up to the nosebleed section. The band will play, the principal will speak, some class president will say a few words, and they will announce the awards.
“Are your hands shaking?” It takes me a minute to realize Wolfgang is talking over my head to Kristen. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I don’t like to be in front of crowds,” she mumbles back to him. “Stage fright.”
She should take one of her mom’s classes. Hanging upside down on a pole would probably give her plenty of confidence.
I see Rat near the back of the line with the other science geeks. He gives me a silent thumbs-up, and I nod back at him. Since I’m only receiving the award for outstanding sophomore English student, I don’t actually have to go to the podium. That’s the only reason I actually came to this thing. Otherwise, I would have faked being sick or something to get out of it. But they told me all I had to do was sit there and smile when my name was announced. They said I didn’t even have to stand up. But I didn’t think about the wooden chairs in tight little lines waiting out there in the stage lights. It was a stupid mistake.
Once when I was nine years old I sang a solo. It was Christmas Eve, and the church was lit only with candles. I sang “O Holy Night.” There was a collectively murmured “awww” when I walked slowly to the center of the stage. They thought I was cute and chubby, and they were going to like it no matter what sound came out of my mouth because I was a kid and it was Christmas. Then I sang the first line. I could feel the surprise trickle through the crowd. I could actually sing. Pure. Clear. Perfect.
On the first chorus, I hit the high note. O night divine! I felt like an electrical plug meeting a socket for the first time. The energy surged through me, connecting me directly to every single person in every single pew. I had them, all of them, held in the notes soaring through the wooden beams of the chapel. People wanted to look at me because they wanted to listen to me. My body dissolved into the sound. Magical and totally addictive. I knew that night it was what I was meant to do. Sing. There was no one in the room who doubted it. Especially not me. Then the music was trapped inside the pounds, and I stopped singing. Now I can only remember what it felt like to want people to watch me.
I see Jackson in the front row of the trombones. He has on his football jersey. Number 82. Not many boys play football and are in the band. That’s part of his charm. He’s a geeky jock. Perfect. I watch him laughing and talking with two flute players in front of him. He is so relaxed. So easy. His smile flashes often, and the flute players respond with giggles. One girl, the one with the little red rectangle glasses, hugs him, still laughing. I wonder what it feels like to reach out unselfconsciously and< touch — randomly, casually, and frequently.
“You’ll never know,” Skinny says softly. “Never, Ever.”
Kristen steps in front of me and sits down in an empty seat. I squeeze down into the space beside her, breathing in and out shallowly. It hurts to watch, but I can’t stop. I focus on Jackson’s face and try to feel smaller in the wooden folding chair. I cross my arms tightly over my chest and press my thighs together. The less room I take up the better. Hundreds and hundreds of eyes stare down at me from rows and rows of bleachers. Take a breath. Another. Concentrate on being invisible. And smaller.
“God, she takes up so much space. Just look at those thighs. I can’t believe her fat is touching me.”
Kristen scoots to the far side of her chair away from me, nervously twisting a strand of hair around and around her finger. I cross my arms even tighter over my chest and pinch my arm between my thumb and finger. Harder. The pain helps me focus on something besides the eyes.
The gym is as quiet as it’s going to get. The principal, a middle-aged man with a forehead that stretches well over the top of his head, walks to the podium and taps the microphone a couple times. After a few attempts at getting the top rows of students to stop talking, he introduces the junior class president.
She is a black-haired girl wearing silver hooped earrings that swing back and forth as she marches up to the mic. Her name is Tracey Bolton, and she’s never said a word to me. Skinny’s filled me in on what she thinks about me, which isn’t much. Tracey places a couple of typed pages on the podium, and I see her hands shaking. She’s practiced long and hard for this moment in the spotlight. When she starts to speak, I have to admit I’m surprised. Her voice, unlike her hands, doesn’t quiver.