I Am Not Jessica Chen(27)
“. . . ah, good times, good times,” Ms. Gonzalez finishes ten minutes later, wiping her eyes. Then she straightens. “But back to—what was it? Question nine? Jessica?”
“Thirty-four point four,” I say, projecting as much confidence into my voice as I can.
“Great. Thanks, Jessica,” Ms. Gonzalez tells me, but I’ve barely breathed a sigh of relief when she pauses. Her brows draw together. “Hang on, I’m sorry,” she says slowly, like she’s doubting herself. “No, it seems the correct answer is . . . thirty-seven point six. Is that what everyone else got?”
A few nods from around the classroom. More eyes flickering to me.
My face goes hot. The shaky feeling from the test is back, but somehow worse. It’s public failure; the mortification of making a known, visible mistake. The sentence of other people’s judgment.
I stare over at the boy’s notebook again, certain I must have misread it, but the number is the same. Thirty-four point four. He’d answered it wrong.
“That’s okay,” Ms. Gonzalez says in a hurry, failing to conceal her surprise. “It was a small slip-up. Happens to the best of us.”
I hide my burning cheeks with the sleeve of my blazer and nod, even though it feels small in the same way a bone fissure is small, in the beginning, or a crack in a vase: apply the right pressure, and everything breaks.
The only reprieve from class comes in the form of our belated Women’s Day and Literature event. It’s a somewhat disjointed combination of two topics that the school cares the least about, but must pretend to, for the sake of its image: the arts, and women. Even World Chocolate Day received more than an hour’s attention.
We all gather together in the main hall, with its warm brown interior and crimson stage curtains and high cathedral ceiling. Celine slides into the seat on my left, and Leela crosses her legs on my right.
The school made a bad investment last year and installed folding seats, which curve around the raised stage in long rows. Every time somebody sits down and then stands again, or so much as lifts their weight, the seat snaps up with an absurdly loud slamming sound. When we’re asked to rise for the school hymn, the heavy silence of the hall is broken by the thud and echo of over three hundred seats bouncing up at once.
The organ drags out its first note, a mournful, eerie tune that reminds me of funerals, the claustrophobic settling of clouds before rain. Our head of music struts up the stage and conducts using a ballpoint pen in sharp, jerky movements. I mouth along to the lyrics: something about courage and light and perseverance through trying times.
Then a girl from our year is invited to do a poetry reading. Her ponytail bobs wildly on her way down the aisle. She takes her time, flattening a crumpled piece of paper that looks like it was ripped straight out of her school notebook, and lowering the microphone down to her height.
“This is a poem about my mother,” she says, her mouth so close to the microphone that it makes crackling noises every time she breathes. She clears her throat. “My mother . . .” She pauses deliberately. Gazes out at the crowd like she’s just made a significant point. “Once told me . . . that life . . . is a ship . . . and we must . . . take courage . . . and succumb . . . to the waves . . .”
This continues for some time. Every two or three words, she stops, and makes intense eye contact with someone in the audience. It doesn’t help that the static from the microphone makes the word “ship” sound like a certain expletive—a fact all the teachers must have noticed as well, but are making admirable efforts to pretend not to.
“Is it just me,” I mutter to Leela, “or did that poem just encourage drowning?”
She lets out a startled laugh, quickly muffling it with her blazer sleeve.
Celine glances over at us. “What did you say?” she whispers.
“Oh, um, nothing,” I tell her, feeling awkward. I’m still not quite sure how to act around Celine. How Jessica would act around Celine. “It’s not important.”
She frowns slightly, but leans back again.
“Thank you for that incredibly moving piece,” Old Keller says as the girl returns to her seat below the stage. “Now, let us turn our attention to our student-nominated Haven Awards. Remember, if there’s someone you would like to nominate—and it can be for anything, from saving a cat to qualifying for the Olympics to helping a friend with their homework—you only need to email me or Ms. Lewis by Friday afternoon. This week, our first award goes to . . .” He peers down at the card in his hand. “Jessica Chen. For being a model student, a shining example to others, and for her unwavering integrity. Submitted by . . .” His eyebrows rise as he holds the card closer. “An anonymous admirer.”
The skin on my neck tingles. For her unwavering integrity. Maybe I’m simply being paranoid, but it sounds less like sincere admiration, and more like a taunt. Even when wild applause sounds throughout the hall—even when Leela gives me a friendly shove and hugs her knees to her chest to let me squeeze past—even when I’m walking into the bright glare of the spotlight, I can’t help feeling like there’s barbed wire coiling tighter and tighter around my insides. That nameless friction, that cold gut instinct that something isn’t right, only intensifies when I squint out at the sea of seated students. They’re all watching me, their faces obscured by the shadows, too dark for me to make out their individual expressions. To determine if they’re staring at me with awe, or with something else.