The Swallows Read online

  I told her it was physically impossible to read more than one. She asked me to remind her what the title was.

  Tethered.

  She made a different face, reminiscent of my editor’s. I have a visceral memory of our fight to the death over the title. It feels like a migraine in my solar plexus.

  I was pleased she’d read it, even if it did slip her mind.

  “Tethered. Yes. I think I liked it. Oh yes. I remember now. The ornithologist was weird. But I hate birds.

  “Can I have that banana?” Witt asked.

  There was a banana sitting in the middle of the table.

  It wasn’t my banana. It was probably Martha Primm’s, and she would have been pissed, but I told Alex she could have it. She devoured the banana in four impressive bites. She didn’t do that thing women do where they cover their mouth while chewing.

  She tossed the banana peel in the trash and said, “Give me the lowdown.”

  I asked on what. She wanted to know the social hierarchy at Stonebridge, the predators and prey. This woman really got to the point. I was curious how that characteristic translated in the bedroom.

  I considered her question. Some days it seemed like they were all predators. The image of the serpent eating its own tail came to mind. I told her she’d have to figure that out on her own. I felt proprietary all of a sudden. The inner workings of this academy had taken me years to dissect. I wasn’t going to give it up for nothing.

  Witt took another sip of coffee and winced. I admired her commitment to caffeine. She asked me what I was working on now. I told her I was working on a novel about a guy trying to assassinate a whale who ate his leg. She laughed. Then she asked if I was a Phineas or a Finn. I told her I was just Finn. She asked if I had a middle name. “No,” I said.

  Finn Ford makes me sound like enough of an asshole. Witt looked like the kind of woman who wouldn’t give a Phineas Finn Ford the time of day.

  “Okay,” she said, smiling. There was something about her mouth that turned me on. I wanted to lick her snaggletooth.

  She asked me when I decided that teaching writing was derailing my writing. I wanted to kiss her, partly so she’d stop asking questions. I told her I’d decided at the end of last year. I suggested that maybe the dean forgot.

  She topped off her coffee and headed for the door.

  “If you don’t want to answer a question, I’m cool with that. But don’t lie to me. You’re really bad at it,” she said.

  Announcements

  Good morning, students of Stone. This is your old friend Wainwright back for another year of enlightenment, education, and entertainment. The three E’s, if you will. It’s a sunny seventy-two degrees on this eighth day of September, 2009.

  Today’s lunch menu is a choice between a tuna and kale casserole and falafel for the vegetarians. If that menu doesn’t turn you vegetarian, I don’t know what will. What was that?

  [inaudible]

  Since it’s the first day, I’ll keep my announcements brief. But before I go, let’s welcome the new creative-writing and fencing instructor, Ms. Alexandra Witt.

  [inaudible]

  Ah, really? Scratch that. Only independent-study fencing. How does that work? I sure hope there’s more than one person enrolled.

  This is Wainwright signing off until we meet again. Which will be tomorrow.

  Ms. Witt

  I was hunting through the desk drawers for a dry-erase pen when I found the dead rat. I didn’t jump, because I didn’t know what it was. I’d drunk way too much of that warning bourbon the night before and I needed coffee. After I registered that a dead rodent was in my desk drawer, it took all of my energy to remain calm. The prank was a power play. If I gave it up on the first day of school, I’d never get it back.

  I may have looked ice-cold on the outside, but it felt like my entire body was in revolt. When I tried to draw a grid on the board, my hands shook uncontrollably. A boy offered to help. That’s when I left. I needed a moment to regroup, alone. Away from them.

  * * *

  —

  When I returned to the classroom, a gravelly male voice was droning on the PA system. I thought he said my name, but there was no reaction among the students. They just kept staring at their laps, tapping away.

  I opened my notebook and copied down the seating chart, making a few annotations on the ones who’d already made an impression.

  Three girls huddled together in the corner, trying to pretend that class wasn’t in session. They were like the three bears, in cascading order of size. The tall one wore combat boots and had brown hair streaked with blond and blue stripes. She was attractive, but her heavy eye makeup and rainbow hair only distracted from it, which I assumed was the point. The second-tallest girl was her opposite, classically beautiful without any adornment. Her shiny brown hair hung just above her waist. She wore only a dab of lip gloss. Her eyes were dark as coal and her cheekbones jutted out like a paper airplane. The small one appeared almost malnourished next to the other two. In my notebook, I jotted down my first impression of the trio: rebel, beauty, wallflower. Their names I parsed later: Gemma, the rebel; Emelia, the beauty; Tegan, the wallflower. Their fist-tight conspiratorial whispers suggested they ruled as a triumvirate; I assumed one of them was queen. I couldn’t decide whether it was the rebel or the beauty.

  The caffeine kicked in. I remember looking out onto a sea of wool. It looked scratchy. Unlike Warren Prep, which had a pajamas-to-class non–dress code, Stonebridge students sported the old-school button-down uniform. The girls wore a tailored light-blue oxford shirt with a slim crimson tie, which most knotted in a lazy half-Windsor. Of course, the schoolgirl look wouldn’t be complete without that short tartan skirt. Some of the girls were bare-legged, some wore black tights, and a few sported those iconic kneesocks. I often marveled at how private school uniforms hadn’t changed despite the masturbatory energy they evoked. I wondered how many of the mothers had borrowed their daughters’ uniforms to liven things up in the bedroom.

  The boys wore yawn-inducing navy-blue slacks in cheap polyester, with a fat blue tie slashed by diagonal stripes. Although one boy, I noticed, sported a red bow tie instead. I have a theory about bow-tied men. They’re either good or evil, never in the middle ground. I also have a few strong and well-documented theories associating personality disorders with specific tie knots. If time were infinite, I would write a dissertation on the subject. Suffice it to say, keep your distance from any man wearing an Eldredge knot.

  I erased the whiteboard and wrote down five questions.

  What do you love?

  What do you hate?

  If you could live inside a book, what book?

  What do you want?

  Who are you?

  “Who are you? is a weird question,” said the girl in row 2, aisle 3.

  “You’re right,” I said, consulting my chart. “Melanie Eastman, is it?”

  “Let’s go with Mel,” she said. “What do you mean, who are you?”

  Mel wore her thick black hair in a sloppy ponytail. She had on dark-rimmed specs and her wrists were adorned with bands of beaded bracelets.

  “It’s best, I find, if you interpret the question yourself. But the first thing you need to know is that the assignment should be completed anonymously. Do Not Write Your Name on Your Paper.”

  I instructed my students to type their papers in a font of their choosing, to include the class name on the top right corner, to print it, and to deliver it to my box in the Agatha Christie Admin office. As always, the students had more questions about the assignment than the assignment itself had.

  How long do the answers have to be?

  However long the answer is.

  What if it’s one word?

  Then it’s one word.

  Can you answer a que
stion with a question?

  I don’t know. Can you?

  So the assignment is really anonymous—you’ll never know who wrote what?

  Yes.

  I started the Q&A’s in my second or third year of teaching. It’s a tradition now. I give it to all of my classes. I’ve adjusted the questions over the years. But it wasn’t until I made the assignment anonymous that I learned anything useful. I can usually identify the authors within a few weeks. So, no, it’s not really anonymous. I used to feel guilty about filleting my students like this. But it’s better to know up front who they are and what they’re capable of.

  Some students still used quill and ink in class, others brought their laptops, but the universality of the mobile phone could not be denied. I don’t, as a rule, prohibit the use of phones in my class. As the students’ primary form of communication, the devices are much more useful as a bargaining agent.

  I wrote my number on the board.

  “If you need to reach me at any time, here’s my mobile. The first time you text, please provide your name. If anyone texts me any anonymous weird shit, I’ll track down your number and give you a D+ on everything you write for the rest of the semester. Also, please use normal spelling. I’m not fluent in text-speak. Got it?”

  I could have sworn they were all looking up at me, but my phone began to vibrate like an old washing machine on the spin cycle as one text flew in after the next.

  Sandra Polonsky: I’m done with the assignment. What is next?

  Adam Westlake: at your service.

  Jonah Wagman: I already like you better than that Ford fellow.

  Tegan Brooks: Will we turn in ALL of our assignments anonymously?

  Enid Cho: Will there ever be a syllabus? Will it be on Blackboard?

  Blackboard is Stonebridge’s proprietary communication portal. Students and faculty use it not only to convey personal messages but to disseminate campus information and to deliver class materials that, in my day, would have been hand-collated and stapled by the instructor.

  I replied to Enid’s text, informing her that I was undecided about the syllabus. Then I read through the influx of new numbers and questions. Most texts consisted only of the student’s name. A few added smiley faces or winks and some used punctuation in a code I didn’t understand. A few students said they’d finished their Q&A’s and asked what they should do next. It’s not like I had a creative-writing lesson plan up my sleeve.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Write something until the end of class. Or pretend to write something.”

  I got some blank stares, and a few of the front-row kids pulled out notebooks and pretended to write. But mostly it was heads down, hands in their laps, tap-tap-tap. I was witnessing the brink of a complete restructuring of communication. Just a few years ago I would have had to tell my class to be quiet over and over again. Now I missed the ocean-like sound of whispers.

  “CREATIVE” WRITING

  Periods 1&5

  seniors only

  EPHRAIM WIENER

  twitchy

  KATE BUSH

  Shamed

  ENID CHO

  Remarkable posture

  NORMAN CROWLEY

  Kind face

  RACHEL ROSE

  Pink Scarf

  TEGAN BROOKS

  Snide

  JACK VANDENBERG

  Giant

  EMELIA LAIRD

  beauty

  GEMMA RUSSO

  Rebel

  Didn't laugh

  CARL BLOOM

  Allergies

  SANDRA POLONSKY

  Eager

  MELANIE EASTMAN

  Smart questions, big hair, bracelets

  BETHANY WISEMAN

  No impression

  ADAM WESTLAKE

  Red bow tie

  good or evil?

  AMY LOGAN

  Boys uniform

  JONAH WAGMAN

  Thoughtful

  HANNAH REXALL

  lithe, blond

  MICK DEVLIN

  limp or gangster-walk?

  GABRIEL SMYTHE

  Rat boy

  Bad clown

  The tapping stopped. The room fell as silent as a snowstorm.

  A howl pierced the quiet. It didn’t sound human, at first. I looked for the source. It was Gabriel Smythe, laughing like a goddamn hyena, aggressive and fake. No real person ever laughs like that. Others slowly joined in like an ugly orchestra. The din of adolescent cruelty. I looked around the room at the smirks, smiles, and other unmistakable expressions of schadenfreude. No one tried to hide it. That pitiless, joyous sound was so familiar, it triggered a fury and nausea deep inside me.

  “What the hell is so funny?” I said.

  They quieted.

  Row 2, window seat, raised her hand. I consulted my chart. Her name was Kate Bush, like the singer. I still can see the humiliated flush on her face, the unmistakable color of shame, her body betraying her, as her classmates’ laughter blared like a stereo system. It was like watching Carrie, minus the buckets of blood. Her arm wrapped around her belly, like she might be sick.

  “Go,” I said.

  All eyes followed her out of the room. When the door shut, the laughter returned at a lower volume.

  The girl in the last row, second aisle, was sitting slumped in her chair, scrutinizing everyone in the class. Her expression was like fury in a cage. I checked the seating chart and took note. Gemma Russo was not laughing at all.

  Norman Crowley

  I heard the howl first. Then I saw Kate, her face brick red, as she walked past my desk and out the door. She wiped tears with her sleeve. My phone was buzzing the whole time. There were already like twenty texts on the subject. I clicked on the first message.

  A picture with a caption:

  Kate’s Bush.

  She was toast. In just a few seconds, I could see her entire senior year playing out.

  By end of period, everyone would have seen her: Kate Bush—her own name biting her in the ass—lying on a twin standard-issue Stonebridge bed. Naked, legs spread. Her head thrown back, as if she were following someone’s instructions.

  The comments flew into my text thread, like a gunman pulling the trigger until the chamber was empty. It was like my classmates thought they’d cease to exist if they didn’t add to the noise. I don’t even know why I’m in the group text for the Ten. I think it was Jonah who added me. I’m like the bcc of the group, if you could bcc in texts. That kind of sums up who I am at the school. I’m the guy you don’t see who sees everything. I’m not invisible in that cool superpower kind of way. I’m just not important to anyone, unless they need something from me.

  Rachel: Has she ever met a rzr?

  Hannah: OMG!! It really does look like a sm animal

  Mick: the horror, the horror

  Jack: I want to bleach my eyeballs

  Jonah: Looks like my dad’s old Playboys

  Gabriel: Can’t deal with unshaved girl

  Adam: A man w/out options can’t afford 2 have standards

  Ms. Witt told the class to shut the fuck up. She’d already earned major respect for the way she handled Gabe’s epic rat-prank fail. Everyone was super quiet when Kate slipped back into the room.

  Tegan dropped a scrap of paper in front of Kate and quietly said, “Ask for Olga. You’ll be like a dolphin when she’s done with you.”

  Tegan is a master of the sneering whisper. There’s no way Ms. Witt could have heard what she said, but the new teach stared her down. I imagined seeing flames in Witt’s eyes. For a very short, satisfying moment, Tegan looked scared. I wanted to say something. To tell the Ten what a bunch of dickwad
s they were. I wanted to tell Kate I was sorry. I didn’t say anything, as usual.

  I completed Ms. Witt’s strange, anonymous assignment:

  What do you love?

  Bright Eyes, Reservoir Dogs, PB&J sandwiches, CS

  What do you hate?

  The Darkroom

  If you could live inside a book, what book?

  Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

  What do you want?

  For my real life to begin

  Who are you?

  I’m a coward

  Gemma Russo

  Stonebridge has a little brother/little sister program. As a junior you get a freshman all to yourself, and that person stays your charge until you graduate. Some of the upperclassmen abuse this tradition, using their little sisters or brothers as personal assistants or valets. Others just pretend they don’t exist. And, I suppose, there are a handful of students who take the job seriously.

  I entered Stonebridge in sophomore year, but I was still assigned a big sister. She was a junior at the time. I think Dean Stinson was trying to engineer a friendship. Or, at least, give me a leg up with my acquaintances. Christine was one of the junior Ten and, as far as I could tell, on her way to becoming the queen of Stonebridge. I don’t know if Dean Stinson was fully cognizant of her status or simply understood that she was a girl who fit in. At first, Christine ignored me. Later, when she spotted me making inroads with the Ten, she began to acknowledge my existence. In the end, when her status at school had taken an unfortunate detour, she tried to warn me.

  Christine was the first person who told me about the Dulcinea Award. It’s named after some beautiful woman in Don Quixote. It’s weird that I’ve never seen that book on any Stonebridge reading list. Christine said the boys score the girls on their blowjobs and pronounce a winner at the end of the school year. Only the girls don’t know they’re competing and the winner of the Dulcinea Award never learns of her victory. At least, that was how it had always been done, until the boys started getting sloppy.