Brenna Yovanoff - The Replacement

Then she wrote it on the board: Pearl as a concrete manifestation of guilt .

“Does anyone want to expand on this?”

No one did. In front of me, Tom Ritchie and Jeremy Sayers were flicking a paper football back and forth, mock cheering each time one of them got it between the uprights of the other one’s hands. Alice and Jenna were still watching Tate, whispering and then covering their mouths like they’d just said something so shocking it needed to be contained and giving each other significant looks.

Mrs. Brummel was making bullet points with her back to us, waiting for someone to start filling them in.

I watched Alice. When she’d taken her seat at the beginning of class, her skirt had slid up far enough to show the tops of her thighs, and I was enjoying the fact that she hadn’t adjusted it yet. Her hair was loose down her back and looked almost like bronze in the fluorescent light.

She propped her elbows on her desk and leaned forward so she could whisper into Jenna’s ear. “I heard that her mom won’t get out of bed since it happened. Like, not even for the funeral . I can’t believe she’s acting like nothing’s wrong. I just wouldn’t even come to school.”

Apparently, that one was loud enough for Tate to catch some or possibly all of it because she stood up fast enough to send her desk screeching along the floor. Her gaze was hard, sweeping over us, and I couldn’t tell if I was dizzy from the screws and wires in the walls or from the way she was looking at me.

“Oh,” she said, in a clear, challenging voice. “Was this what you wanted? Did you want a good look? Take a good look— I don’t mind.”

And maybe no one had really been excited about Hester Prynne and her illegitimate daughter, but they were paying attention now. I kept my head down, hunching over my desk, trying to get smaller. My heart was beating so fast that I could feel it in my throat and I kept telling myself that everything was fine, that I’d imagined she’d looked at me, because I had to believe that. I had to believe that no one in Gentry would ever hear the words child of the devil and then look at me.

No one said anything.

The room was so quiet that all I could hear was the buzz of the fluorescent light. I had the idea that it was buzzing right over me, like some kind of signal or alarm, but no one turned to stare accusingly. No one whispered or pointed.

Mrs. Brummel stood with her back against the whiteboard and the marker uncapped in her hand, staring at Tate. “Is there something you needed?”

Tate shook her head and kept standing. “Don’t mind me. I’m just waiting for my big red A .”

“This isn’t funny,” Mrs. Brummel said, putting the cap back on the marker.

“No,” said Tate. “It’s not. But we can all agree to smile anyway because it just makes things so much easier.”

Mrs. Brummel retreated behind her desk and waved a box of tissues, even though Tate wasn’t crying. “Do you need some time to pull yourself together?”

“No. Because I’m not unbalanced or grief stricken, okay? I’m pissed off.”

“Would you like to go down to the counseling office?”

“No, I’d like someone to fucking listen to me!” Her voice was loud, unnaturally shrill. Suddenly, she hauled back and kicked the desk so hard that the whole room seemed to ring with the metallic clang of her work boot.

“You’re excused,” Mrs. Brummel said, but not in that wispy, understanding voice that teachers sometimes use. Her tone was no-argument, like if Tate didn’t go, there was a chance that she would be escorted out by the school rent-a-cop. For a second, Tate looked like she might hold out for forcible removal. Then she grabbed the books off her desk and walked out without looking back.

The rest of the class sat in awkward silence. I held on to the corners of my desk to keep my hands from shaking, and Mrs. Brummel did her best to wrench us back to Nathaniel Hawthorne and Hester’s big stupid dilemma until the bell rang.

Out in the hall, Roswell was just being dismissed from his math class and he swung into step beside me. “Ready for some conversational French?”

I shook my head and started in the direction of the back parking lot. “I need some air.”

He looked at me like he was trying to figure out how to phrase something. “I think you should go to French,” he said finally.

“I can’t.”

“You mean, you don’t feel like it.”

“I mean, I can’t.”

He folded his arms and suddenly looked a lot bigger. “No, you mean you just don’t feel like it. Semantically, it’s possible.”

I pulled my sleeve down over my hand and reached for the door. “I have to go outside,” I said, and my voice was low and unsteady. “Just for a little while. I really need some air.”

“No, you need to tell me why you look like stone-cold death. Mackie, what is wrong ?”

“I hate this,” I said, and my voice sounded tight. “I hate the way people are always fixating on things that aren’t any of their business. I hate that no one can just leave it alone . And I hate Nathaniel Hawthorne.”

Roswell shoved his hands in his pockets, looking down at me. “Okay. Not what I was expecting.”

He didn’t follow me.

I stood on the far side of the parking lot and leaned against one of the biggest white oaks, letting the rain filter down between the leaves and land on my face. The bell rang and I stayed where I was, numb and breathing too fast because I wasn’t always the best student when it came to doing the reading, but I knew the book enough to know that maybe Hester goes around with a big red A pinned on her dress, but Dimmesdale’s the one with it burned into his skin. He’s the one who dies.

Behind me, there was the rough idle of a car and then a voice said, “Hey, Mackie.”

Tate had pulled up next to the curb in this absolute monstrosity of a Buick and was leaning across the front seat. Apparently, she’d decided she was done with school for the day. Or, more likely, done being a public spectacle. She put her hand on the edge of the passenger window. “The rain isn’t going to stop. Do you want a ride somewhere?”

The car sat idling against the curb, its wipers flicking back and forth. Long primer-gray body, poisonous fenders. It made me think of a wicked metal shark. “That’s okay. Thanks, though.”

“Are you sure? It’s not a problem.”

I shook my head, watching the rain drip in a wavering curtain off the front bumper so I wouldn’t have to look at her.

Her face was softer and younger looking than normal. I stood under the dripping oak and debated complimenting the way she’d faced down Mrs. Brummel, just to have something to say—tell her I was impressed by the way she could be sad and stared at and still tell everyone to go straight to hell.

After a minute, she killed the engine and got out of the car. “Listen. I need to talk to you.”

When she came across the grass to me, she had this look on her face, like out in the parking lot, in the open, she wasn’t so sure of herself after all. Like maybe I scared her. Her mouth had a bruised look. Her eyes were blue underneath, like you get from not sleeping.

When she came up next to me, she turned so we were standing side by side, staring out at the parking lot. The point of her elbow was inches from my sleeve.

“Do you have a minute?”

I didn’t answer.

“Jesus, why don’t you ever say anything?” She turned and stared up at me with her teeth working on her bottom lip. It looked raw, like she’d been chewing it a lot. Even reeking like iron from the Buick, she still smelled crisp and kind of sweet. It made me think of flowering trees or something you want to put in your mouth. The kind of smell you shouldn’t notice about girls who are covered in tragedy and Detroit steel.