Corliss (Girls of Spindrift 1)

Brenda Thomas actually went to the library to do some research so she could come up with something more clever to call me and impress not only me but also her friends. She waited for the right moment after English class one day and then stood in the doorway as I approached and said, “Here comes our very own proctologist, our anal-cavity expert.”

Some of those who laughed obviously had no idea what that meant.

“Very good, Brenda,” I said. “Someday when you go for a colonoscopy and they put a camera up your rectum, you’ll think of me.”

She stood there with her mouth open as I smiled and walked by. She had no idea what a colonoscopy was, but I didn’t really feel very good about putting her down. It simply reinforced their resentment.

I never felt good about being left out of things, isolated in school, avoided in the streets, rarely invited to parties, and generally ignored by boys, except for Jackson Marshall lately. I knew I wasn’t unattractive. If anything, I was often compared to Beyoncé. I was five foot ten and had a good figure. It seemed I had everything anyone could dream of having, certainly enough to be popular with boys. Almost daily throughout my school life, I could see the hesitation in their faces. My brain was too threatening to them. Boys didn’t want to feel inferior to the girls they might date. Problem was, I couldn’t be dumb just to please some boy who looked attractive. My tongue wouldn’t let me dumb myself down.

However, there were many times when I was in the middle grades when I deliberately did poorly on tests and pretended I didn’t know the answers to questions so boys wouldn’t reject me so quickly. My teachers all knew I knew better and bawled me out when they could get me alone after class. At one point, I was sent to the school psychologist and guidance counselor, who gave me a lecture about wasting my gifts.

Everyone kept assuming that I would win a pile of scholarships, but I had no interest in a career yet. All that seemed way off in some distant future. If I didn’t win the scholarships, I imagined I would go nowhere special. Mr. VanVleet, the high school guidance counselor, warned me that the better colleges liked to see what they called an all-around student and not just a genius. I belonged to no clubs or teams. He was continually after me about it, but my home duties took up too much after-school time, and my interests didn’t lean toward any clubs, teams, or even dramatics. Students plucked out of the poorer communities and given full scholarships to top universities were rare, anyway. The bottom line was that we had no money for a special private college where my gifts could be fully developed.

To my way of thinking, I was still simply an oddity, a person of some interest for my teachers, someone who could help them get through their difficult times, but there was no one who could help me get through mine, not really.

I was so tired of it.

My head was full of facts and information. Okay, I was gifted, but when would the gifts begin to make me feel better about myself?

Would they ever?

Was I cursed or blessed?

Now I left the girls’ room and, feeling defeated, walked across the gym with my head down, avoiding everyone. The music was loud, and the words were distorted because of the poor acoustics, but apparently, no one really cared. Lily and the other girls were already into their highs from their ecstasy and were carrying on as if it were midnight on New Year’s Eve. Jackson Marshall, the high school senior who was practically the only boy who would dare talk to me these days, was waiting for me. We hadn’t come to the party together, but he had come over to me the moment he saw me.

Jackson wasn’t intimidated by me. He was in a battle to be valedictorian this year. There were two others in his class half a point behind him. He was leaning against the wall near the refreshment table. With a shock of buttercup-yellow hair that he kept neatly styled, dreamy blue eyes, and high cheekbones, he was also one of the better-looking boys in my school. His uncle was an Episcopalian minister, and I knew from what Jackson had told me that his mother was hoping he would become one, too. I didn’t think it was his dream, but he was what I would call “religious conscious.” He was good at quoting the Bible and very aware of the potential for sin. But he wasn’t preachy. He was just . . . aware.

Jackson had a slim build and wide shoulders and stood just over six foot three. He was very good at tennis, something few boys at our school played. We didn’t have a court at our school. There was a neighborhood court by his house that he could use when he had someone to play against, usually one of his older cousins. One afternoon, I went by to watch him, but he didn’t notice me, and I didn’t make myself known.

I saw that Marsha and Brenda had been talking to him, but when they saw me coming, they quickly walked away.

“You all right?” Jackson asked, practically having to shout so I could hear.

I nodded.

He handed me the cup of punch he had waiting for me on the table.

“Thank you.”

“Marsha was telling me how the girls were giving you a hard time,” he said. “She was more like bragging about it.” He had his lips so close to my ear that they touched in what would almost be a kiss.

“They tried.” I drank some punch. My throat had gone dry from how tense I was in the bathroom, something I hadn’

t wanted to show them.

“It’s getting wild out there,” Jackson said, nodding at the kids on the dance floor. “Some idiots are trying to get the others to make a mosh pit.”

I nodded. I could see some kids deliberately knocking into others. Funny what amuses kids my age, I thought. Should I be amused by the same things? Did intelligence, intelligence like mine, whether you liked it or not, age you the way Lily accused me of being aged?

The music was turned up a few notches.

“I’m not sure I can take much more,” Jackson said, practically screaming to be heard.

I nodded again, punctuating it with a grimace of pain. I drank some more punch. I didn’t want to shout back and strain my voice. Truthfully, I wouldn’t have come to the party if my mother hadn’t insisted. She was feeling guilty about my having to come right home after school to look after my brother and sister and was now blaming herself for my lack of a social life. I tried to explain why it wasn’t her fault, but she was convinced that if I just got out a little and did what other girls my age were doing, I’d start having fun.

If she only knew what many of the girls my age were doing in the name of fun.

I finished my punch, thinking we might just leave and go for a walk. No one would care that we had left. I was about to suggest it when one of Jackson’s friends, Ted Scott, started talking to him excitedly. Ted was laughing, but Jackson just nodded.