Danielle hustles off, and I look at my mother, who is staring at her reflection in the window.
“Do you know what happened to Mr. Vernon?” I say.
“I’m invisible,” she whispers. “No one can see me.”
“Do you even remember him? My senior high school English teacher? I used to talk about Mr. Vernon all the time. The teacher who encouraged me to write. Remember?”
Mom doesn’t answer.
“How much I loved his class? Why I tried to major in English? All those books I read?”
Mom says nothing.
“Do you know who Gloria Steinem is, Mom?” I say, although I’m not sure why. Maybe because I know Mom doesn’t, and I wish she did. Maybe because I wish Gloria Steinem was my mother and I secretly believe that if she were, I would be living a much better life right now. Maybe because my mom is a whale riding a bicycle all alone, with no one paying her any attention but me.
“I’m invisible,” Mom whispers more forcefully.
“I know, Mom. I know.”
I remember the first day of my senior year in high school. I had heard rumors about Mr. Vernon. Some kids said he was some kind of poet-philosopher, like a bad-looking unmusical Jim Morrison or something, and all of the musicians and art room kids were ready to abscond with him to some Central American country and force him to be their leader. Some of the jockstraps called him “Fag Vernon,” and there were serious rumors about him being gay, because he wasn’t married and never talked about a girlfriend, which was a crime back in the late 1980s, around here anyway.
Rock-and-roll front men were allowed to wear makeup and tease out their long hair—androgyny was being sold on MTV every day—but homosexuality was still taboo.
The lead singer of Skid Row, Sebastian Bach, definitely teased his hair out to look like a woman, and he also used to wear a shirt that read AIDS KILLS FAGS DEAD.
It didn’t even seem wrong to wear that T-shirt when I was in high school, which is insane now, looking back.
When I walked into Mr. Vernon’s classroom on the first day of school, he announced we were having a pop test worth twenty-five percent of our marking period grade.
I instantly hated him.
Everyone in the entire class groaned.
More than one of the boys whispered, “This is bullshit.”
And I agreed.
My heart was pounding.
Worse yet was the fact that this thirtysomething man in canary-yellow shirtsleeves, with a lumpy tire of flesh around his midsection and a hairline that was racing toward the back of his neck—he used to gel long wispy strands to his pink scalp so it was sort of striped—was so sure of himself. It was offensive.
He’s a high school teacher, for Christ’s sake, I remember thinking.
Follow the rules, pal.
“Clear your desks of everything except a writing utensil,” he said. “Let’s go. This will take the entire period. You’ll need every minute.”
My palms began to sweat, and I felt nauseous.
I had pretty crippling test-taking anxiety even when I studied for days in advance and was prepared, so this was my absolute worst anxiety nightmare turned real.
We had not been assigned summer reading.
What the hell could he be testing us on?
As backpacks were dropped to the floor and kicked under desks, Mr. Vernon passed out lined paper. He instructed everyone to take two sheets and then wait for directions. Once he had all of the paper passed out, he said, “Do not even think about looking at one another’s answers, because I will be watching you like our school mascot—a hawk. If I even so much as suspect you are cheating, I will fail you on the spot. Today’s test will be worth one-fourth of your first marking period grade. And this test is pass/fail. Zero or one hundred. If you fail today, the best grade you can receive for the first quarter is a seventy-five, and that’s if you score hundreds on everything else for the entire marking period and never miss a homework assignment.”
“That’s not fair!” someone yelled.
I agreed.
“Starting now, if you speak—even one word—for the rest of the period, you automatically score a zero. So do not speak. I’m serious. You don’t want to test me.”
Oh, how I hated Mr. Vernon at this moment. I fantasized about marching right out of the room and straight to guidance so that I could demand to be transferred to another teacher.
“Write your full name on the first line of your first piece of paper.”
We all did that as Mr. Vernon paced our rows.
“Skip a line and write the number one, followed by a period. After that, I want you to write a paragraph about how you feel right now. Do you think this test is fair? Are you looking forward to being in my class? Tell the truth. If you lie, I will know. And I will fail you. I will not be offended by the truth. I promise. I want you to be honest here. It’s important. So how do you feel? That’s question one. Go.”
Everyone stared at Mr. Vernon. We were dumbfounded. Was this some sort of joke?
“You have three minutes. So I suggest you start writing. Remember, this counts for twenty-five percent of your first marking period grade.”
Someone began writing, I don’t remember who it was, but then the rest of us followed suit like so many dumb blinking sheep.
I remember thinking that if Mr. Vernon wanted the truth, I would give it to him. And so I wrote about how I had always had test anxiety, and his surprising us with this stupid and completely unfair test was unprofessional and unkind. I said I was not looking forward to his class based on what I had experienced thus far and was strongly considering transferring out as soon as possible. I finished by writing something about absolutely loving my previous English classes, just to make him feel bad and also to let him know I wasn’t a math and science person predisposed to disliking any and all literature classes. I wanted him to know this was about him specifically, and I did so with unbridled seventeen-year-old righteousness and fury.