What is family? I’d written in my notebook that first day, and as I opened it up now I saw the rest of the page was blank, except for the definition I’d gotten from the dictionary: a set of relations, esp. parents and children. Eight words, and one was an abbreviation. If only it was really that easy.
Now Ms. Conyers called out for everyone to get to work, so I turned to Olivia, figuring I’d hit her up first. She hardly looked like she was in the mood for conversation, though, sitting slumped in her chair. Her eyes were red, a tissue clutched in one hand as she pulled the Jackson High letter jacket she always wore more tightly around herself.
“Remember,” Ms. Conyers was saying, “you’re not just asking what your term means literally, but what it means to the person you’re speaking with. Don’t be afraid to get personal.”
Considering Olivia was hardly open on a good day, I decided maybe I should take a different tack. My only other option, though, was Heather Wainwright, on my other side, who was also looking around for someone to talk to, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to go there.
“Well? Are we doing this or not?”
I turned back to Olivia. She was still sitting facing forward, as if she hadn’t spoken at all. “Oh,” I said, then shot a pointed look at the tissue in her hand. In response, she crumpled it up smaller, tucking it down deeper between her fingers. “All right. What does family mean to you?”
She sighed, reaching up to rub her nose. All around us, I could hear people chattering, but she was silent. Finally she said, “Do you know Micah Sullivan?”
“Who? ”
“Micah Sullivan,” she repeated. “Senior? On the football team? Hangs out with Rob Dufresne?”
It wasn’t until I’d heard this last name that I realized she was talking about Jackson. Rob Dufresne had sat across from me in bio sophomore year. “Micah,” I said, trying to think. Already, my classmates at Jackson were a big blur, their faces all running together. “Is he really short?”
“No,” she snapped. I shrugged, picking up my pen. Then she said, “Okay, so he’s not as tall as some people.”
“Drives a blue truck?”
Now she looked at me. “Yeah,” she said slowly. “That’s him.”
“I know of him.”
“Did you ever see him with a girl? At school?”
I thought for another moment, but all I could see was Rob Dufresne going dead pale as we contemplated our frog dissection. “Not that I remember,” I said. “But like you said, it’s a big place.”
She considered this for a moment. Then, turning to face me, she said, “So you never saw him all over some field-hockey player, a blonde with a tattoo on her lower back. Minda or Marcy or something like that?”
I shook my head. She looked at me for a long moment, as if not sure whether to trust me, then faced forward again, pulling her jacket more tightly around her. “Family,” she announced. “They’re the people in your life you don’t get to pick. The ones that are given to you, as opposed to those you get to choose.”
Since my mind was still on Micah and the field-hockey player, I had to scramble to write this down. “Okay,” I said. “What else?”
“You’re bound to them by blood,” she continued, her voice flat. “Which, you know, gives you that much more in common. Diseases, genetics, hair, and eye color. It’s like, they’re part of your blueprint. If something’s wrong with you, you can usually trace it back to them.”
I nodded and kept writing.
“But,” she said, “even though you’re stuck with them, at the same time, they’re also stuck with you. So that’s why they always get the front rows at christenings and funerals. Because they’re the ones that are there, you know, from the beginning to the end. Like it or not.”
Like it or not, I wrote. Then I looked at these words and all the others I’d scribbled down. It wasn’t much. But it was a start. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s do yours.”
Just then, though, the bell rang, triggering the usual cacophony of chairs being banged around, backpacks zipping, and voices rising. Ms. Conyers was saying something about having at least four definitions by the next day, not that I could really hear her over all the noise. Olivia had already grabbed her phone, flipping it open and calling someone on speed dial. As I put my notebook away, I watched her stuff the tissue in her pocket, then run a hand over her braids as she got to her feet.
“It’s Melissa,” I told her as she turned to walk away.
She stopped, then looked at me, slowly lowering her phone from her ear. “What?”
“The blonde with the back tattoo. Her name is Melissa West,” I said, picking up my bag. “She’s a sophomore, a total skank. And she plays soccer, not field hockey.”
People were moving past us now, en route to the door, but Olivia stayed where she was, not even seeming to notice as Heather Wainwright passed by, glancing at her red eyes before moving on.
“Melissa West,” she repeated.
I nodded.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” I told her. Then she put her phone back to her ear slowly, and walked away.
When I came out of school that afternoon after final bell, Jamie was waiting for me.
He was leaning against his car, which was parked right outside the main entrance, his arms folded over his chest. As soon as I saw him, I stopped walking, hanging back as people streamed past me on either side, talking and laughing. Maybe I was just being paranoid, but the last time someone had showed up unexpectedly for me at school, it hadn’t been to deliver good news.