Excerpt
Make Me
On the sixth day of her hunger strike Lydia Martinez entered my dreams and immediately died there. She died so convincingly that I awoke and for a few moments could not imagine her alive again. I had to force it. I forced it and then I saw her, behind a Bunsen burner, her pretty face framed inside her black hair and lit by the lapping yellow flame. I felt better, much better, but as much as I tried I could not fall asleep again. Lydia was not just any girl; besides being the brightest, she was my One and Only--the one and only student I was allowed to think about in that way I thought about her.
"Do you know what day it is?" I asked Pearl the next morning in the teachers' lounge, over a cigarette. Pearl was my ex-girlfriend--an English teacher. Through an arrangement the two of us shared, she was allowed to think about Gabriel, her One and Only. Gabriel was Lydia's former boyfriend and the reason for the girl's hunger strike. Think only, Pearl and I had agreed, that way no one gets hurt. At least, that was the way it had started.
Pearl blew smoke out her nostrils. "How could I not know?" she said. "She stage-whispers it to him every day in homeroom: 'I'm on Day Five, Gabriel,' she says, 'Day Six today.' She's got him worried to death."
"He didn't seem particularly worried in Earth Science today," I said. "But just for the record, it's Day Seven. Seven days since you drove the boy home."
Pearl blew a mouthful of smoke at the dirty window that overlooked two granite benches donated by the Class of '78. The windows in the teachers' lounge were never cleaned. The janitors refused, the teachers refused. No one else was allowed inside.
Then Pearl was looking at me with tears balanced in the corners of her eyes, a device she had always used to great effect. "Chris, I'm just barely making it," she said. "Sometimes I think I'm not going to make it. I know it's not the smart thing to do, but I'm just barely hanging on. A skin of the teeth kind of thing. Do you know what I mean?"
"Oh, Pearl." My voice was more tender than I wanted it to be. "Don't be dramatic. He's just a boy, think about it."
"That's the trouble--it's all I think about." She laughed, but the laugh had dislodged the tears and so she couldn't follow up on it.
"Anyway," she said, "it's not like I expect you to know what I'm talking about." She sniffed out another laugh and then sighed. "I'm really very sorry I said that."
"Forget it," I said, but the pit of my stomach had gone cold. There was a pause and after a moment I filled it. "If nothing else, consider Lydia."
She snorted. "I don't give two shits about Lydia and her stupid hunger strikes. She'll quit just like the other times. She always eats eventually."
"No," I said, "she never just quits. Gabriel always comes back to her, then she eats. That's not the same as quitting."
"She'll quit this time. I'll bet you anything she's eating by Friday."
I didn't say anything for a moment, then I rubbed my eyes hard. "I'm having trouble sleeping," I said.
"Again?" Pearl mashed the nose of her cigarette in the center of the ashtray. It stayed there, bent and broken, its pink end in the air.
"Why do they humor her?" she said. "They should yank her out of school when she pulls this stuff. It's only for the attention. They should just yank her out for her own good."
Outside the dirty window some stray papers blew across the grass. A girl shrieked and a bad muffler blatted into the distance.
"Who's they?" I said.
I had only kissed Lydia, and I had only done it once. It happened last week on Parents' Night. Lydia's father--of all people--had sought me out at the front lab station where I was explaining the Periodic Table to a single mom whose child was nowhere to be found. He drew up behind me and out of the corner of my eye I could see him shifting his weight from foot to foot. Lydia hung back in the doorway and watched us, her chin low to her chest.
"What is this about?" he asked, when the woman had left. He waved a paper in front of my eyes.
I took the paper from him and read it. It took two passes before I recognized it.
"Advanced lab takes some extra equipment," I said, handing it back. "It's just a deposit. If nothing is broken it's all refunded at the end of the semester."
He examined the paper doubtfully. Lydia turned her face away from the room.
"Just in time for Christmas," I added. By then the vice principal had noticed the scene developing from his office across the hall, where he was entertaining a man in an army uniform. He glanced at Lydia and then frowned at me. The man in the uniform spoke to him but the vice principal continued frowning through the doorway.
"Your son Franco?" I said a bit louder. "He's a very bright boy. A good student."
"I pay this already," he said, staring at the paper. He had started to look panicked. "Already pay."
The vice principal circled around the man in the uniform to be closer. "Yes," I said, taking it from him, "I remember getting it. No problem."
Lydia's father nodded with relief and turned to leave. He was almost at the door and then he stiffened and took Lydia by the arm and pulled her back to me. She was pale. Her black hair fell into her face, as if she were hiding behind it. The vice principal escaped from the man in uniform and stood right in the doorway next to my poster of the Curies. He stood with his nose slightly in the air, sniffing scandal.
"This," Lydia's father said. "This is my daughter."
I nodded at him. My hands went in and out of my pockets.
"My daughter," he said again. He was starting to look angry.
"Yes," I said. Madame Curie and the vice principal stared at me.
"Not my son. Not Franco."
"Yes, of course," I said in a rush. "My mistake. Also taken care of. No problem, Mr. Martinez." When I said his name he nodded at me and let go of Lydia's arm. The fabric of her sleeve remained puckered where he had gripped her. He walked out the door and Lydia followed behind, brushing past the vice principal, who had been collared once again by the old soldier. She never looked up.