Are You Still There (4 page)

Stranger's Manifesto

Entry 4

In a sick way the worst week of my life

Was the best week of my life.

At the funeral, people actually saw me.

Looked me in the eye as if I existed.

Asked me if I was okay. Told me to hang in there.

Hang. Bad choice of words.

They even hugged me—as if I was real.

But it was all a trick. A magic card trick.

A slip of the hand, a freaking illusion with light.

Because they forgot I don't exist

And when they remembered,

I wanted to crawl into the deepest, darkest hole I could find.

Because I knew—for a moment—

What it felt like to be
someone
.

And I liked it.

Everyone's whispering about Mr. Marks,

Wondering about his arrest.

I wonder too. Does he feel famous? Mysterious? Important?

Or does he just feel

Like a toxic piece of shit?

I can't help but wonder how I'll feel when my time comes.

I've pretty much got

The piece-of-shit thing down.

6

The drama room is so cold that every hair on my body prickles upright. Paisley stands at the front of the room, wearing a loose dress that falls all the way to her feet. I hope she doesn't trip.

“If you're sitting in this room, you've made a commitment to better your school,” she says to all fourteen of us who got suckered into this Sunday orientation-training. “You've agreed to keep this experience and our purpose entirely confidential.”

Why do I feel like I just joined the Secret Service? Is it too late to back out now? Probably. There's a sort of discomfort in the air, no doubt because none of us fully understand what we've gotten ourselves into.

“What if we pick up the phone and it's one of our friends?” someone asks.

Dr. Paisley smiles. “This may happen. In fact, expect it to happen. That's why we've been so careful in selecting you all. We picked students we felt had high moral standards and who came from a diverse number of social groups. We expect that if you recognize a caller, you'll be able to keep it to yourself. And, of course, if a caller recognizes your voice, he or she has the discretion to decide whether to continue the call or not.”

I'm not sure I like this.

“We'll give you some basic skills and protocols to follow. You'll work in pairs, so you'll never be alone on a shift.”

I don't know about anyone else, but I feel like I've swallowed a golf ball. And there it sits, wedged in the top of my throat, making it difficult for me to breathe.

“All right, let's pull our chairs into one big circle,” Paisley says.

I wonder if anyone else is thinking about bolting for the door. There's the obligatory scraping of chairs against the floor as we pull ourselves in to face each other. It's a sorry circle though, looks like we all failed kindergarten. When Dr. Paisley said they'd pulled from all the social circles, she wasn't kidding.

I scan the room. Yep, we've got our football player, our band member, our genius, our emo, our druggie, our student government representative, our loner, our social partyer, our cheerleader, our resource kid, our—wait. My eyes stop on Miguel. He is staring back at me, looking less surprised to see me than I am to see him. His full lips seem to smirk, and I wish I was close enough to flick him with my finger.

I'd figured the kids recruited for this program would be all the regulars. The AP students. The valedictorians. The main players in student government.
Kids like me
.

Dr. Paisley claps her hands together twice to get our attention. “We'll start with a get-to-know-you activity. Everyone will share two random facts about themselves.”

Silent groan. Agonizing ice breaker. Luckily she starts on the other side of the room.

Garth Johnson goes first. The boy barely fits in the chair. When he shares that he's a quarterback (sure looks like one) and a vegetarian (definitely does not look like one), I hear whispered gasps of “No way!”

I
hate
things like this. Sure, I'm sort of curious about what everyone else will share, but I'd rather pull out my eyelashes than share myself. Because I'm
boring
. I have no secret interesting facts to share. If I tell people I've never missed a day of school since freshman year, I'll sound like a freak.

“Hi, I'm Eric.” I know him. He's the kind of guy who takes every AP class offered, aces all the tests, and plays French tapes to learn a new language while he's sleeping. He doesn't act cocky about his IQ though. “I'm an only child. When I was a kid, I built a five-story apartment building out of toothpicks.”

Next is Janae, with funky hair—cut in a way that sounds awful, but she somehow pulls it off. One side hangs low over her left eye, and she flips it out of her face as she talks. The back is buzzed close to her neck. There's a red streak on one side. I wish I could try a haircut like that, but I'd be way too scared it wouldn't look good.

Right away I like Janae, even though I've seen her hanging out by the druggie tree, kicking the druggie ground and joking with her druggie friends. “I'm Janae. I've changed schools eight times since kindergarten and my favorite snack is uncooked noodles.” Someone asks if her dad's in the military. “Nope.” She shakes her head, her longish bangs flopping over her eye again. “Just couldn't find the right school.”

Miguel is next. I've been trying not to look at him, but it's harder than it sounds. When I peek, I see that he's staring straight at me. He is so not my type. I wish he'd get a grip. “Hi, I'm Miguel.” His accent sounds even stronger than it did the other day. “I love tamales, and I have a pit bull.”

When it's Cruz's turn, I can tell right away that he's one of those guys who thinks he's cool. Or he wants
us
to think he's cool. He leans back, crossing one leg over his other. “I like to have a
real
good time.” People chuckle. I've heard Cruz throws raging keggers. He's short but buff, and his big teeth give him a squirrel-like look. “And … I'm captain of the wrestling team.”

I'm up before I'm ready. I stumble a bit. “Uh, hi. I'm Gabi. I'm on the cross-country team. My sister and I are eleven months apart in age, but two years apart in school.” Everyone looks at me politely enough, but I'm groaning inside. I'm so boring. I feel my cheeks redden, and I want to cover them with both hands.
How old am I? Five?

The rest of the members blend together. There's Nate, a wannabe gangster type; Tihn, our student government president and a competitive piano player; Stacey, a squeaky string bean who looks and sounds like a wisp of air; Clarke, an emo type with so much hair I can't see his face; Amar, who was born in India and plays in the high school band; Bryan, who I'm pretty sure was in the resource class that I TA'd for sophomore year; Christina, who's active in her youth group and spends forty dollars a week on smoothies; and Carla, who could double as a multicolored bouncy ball and wears her cheerleader uniform at least once a week.

“Okay, folks. Take five.” Paisley calls out. “Then we'll come back together.”

I stand up to stretch my legs. That weirdo Miguel is edging closer to me, so I avoid him by going to the bathroom. Janae is in there, leaning in close, redoing her eye makeup. I don't know how she gets it so thick without smearing it. It's a talent. I smile at her in the mirror, feeling strangely shy.

When I step out, Miguel is standing there waiting.
“Hola,”
he says.

“How is it that I've never seen you before in my life, and then all of a sudden you're everywhere I go?” I touch my earrings, trying to remember which ones I wore today. Small gold hoops. “You stalking me?” I joke.

He looks confused for a moment. “Stalking?”

Okay, so now I'm way embarrassed. He's totally an ESL kid. And I'm stuck having to find a way to define the word “stalking.” “Uh, that means like watching. Watching me.”

He smiles, and recognition brightens his face in layers. “Yes!” He nods. “I'm stalking you.” There's a certain peacefulness about it—like he's happy or light or something. “It's hard not to stalk someone so beautiful.”

Is he for real?
If he wasn't so obviously clueless, I'd think he was messing with me. Paisley saves me though. She claps her hands again. “People, gather up! I'm glad you're all getting to know each other, but we've got some more work to get done today.”

I give Miguel a mini wave and head back to my seat. He follows me, though, and sits his butt right down next to me. This causes everyone else to shift their seats accordingly.

Dr. Paisley brings out a large dry-erase board. “Here, Cruz. Hold this for me.” She grabs the empty chair next to him. “I'll divide you into teams of two.”

We all look at each other. The lights suddenly feel way too bright.

“Your shifts will be from four to nine p.m., and we'll be open seven days a week. We'll need to log every call—the time it comes in, how long it lasts, the main topics discussed, and whether you give a referral.”

My brain starts to spin.

“There are two ways calls will come in. Via live phone call and via text.”

“Do we get loaner cell phones so we can text back?” Christina asks. “Because my parents will flip if I'm texting strangers with my own cell.”

“No. The texts will come in through one of the two computers we have set up in the office. They have a secure and encrypted web-based SMS-texting platform. A text will pop up on the computer, and you answer it by typing on the keyboard. You won't be able to see the actual phone number you're texting to for confidentiality purposes.”

Yikes. Too much to keep track of
.

Paisley goes on. “I suspect you'll find the texting simpler, because that's how you all communicate these days anyway. Plus, you can easily collaborate on how best to help the texter. Live phone calls are harder, because although your shift partner can write notes and suggestions for you on a notepad, ultimately it comes down to you.”

Gulp
. I raise my hand. “Are both partners taking calls at the same time?”

Paisley beams. “Great question! No. We'll have only one incoming phone line for callers. The computer can accommodate multiple texters at the same time, but we've only got two computers, which will affect the rate at which we can respond.”

“What if we need help?”

“Great question. I was just going to get to that. We will have a separate phone line that won't be made public. This line can be used in case you need to consult during a call. Your partner can simply call me on this back line while you're still on the phone with the caller. Then your partner can convey my thoughts by writing them down on your notepad.” Paisley pauses as we all sit and digest. “All of you will have access to the back-line number, so that you can reach your fellow listeners during their shift, but I ask that no one give that out.”

I wonder if everyone else feels as freaked out as I do.

“Don't look so panicked, folks. You're never truly alone. While one listener is actually talking to or texting with the caller, the other one will be writing ideas for their partner.”

We must look confused, because Paisley points to the dry-erase board and whips out a marker. “I'll show you what I mean. Janae, come on up here. You'll be the listener and I'll be your partner. I'll help you. Nate, you can be the caller. You start by saying ‘ring, ring.'”

Nate grins. “Yo. A Ring-a-ding-ding!” He says it like he's rapping.

“Uh, hello?” Janae puts a pretend phone to her ear.

“Hold up.” Paisley interrupts them with her hand. “Say, ‘Helpline, this is Rachel.'”

“Rachel?”

“I recommend that you pick a pseudonym. You don't have to pick Rachel, but pick something other than Janae.”

“Okay. Helpline, this is Gertrude.”

We all laugh.

Nate laughs too, but looks like he's trying to swallow it down and get into character. He bunches up his shoulders, “I can't take it no more.” He sniffles all loud. “Too much drama all over the place.”

Janae looks to Paisley. Paisley writes on the dry-erase board.
Validate that. Say, “It sounds like you're having a hard time.”

“It sounds like you're having a hard time.”

“I am. Life sucks. My girlfriend's giving me stress, my dog died, my math teacher gives too much homework, and my favorite band is breaking up.”

Paisley writes on the board,
You've got a lot on your plate
.

Janae rolls her eyes, “I can't say that. I wouldn't say that.”

Paisley sets down the marker. “These are just suggestions in case you get stuck. You can say whatever you want to say.”

“Really?” Janae's eyes light up. “Okay. Get a new girlfriend and a new dog. Go to the library after school. And just deal—that's the music business.”

A few people start clapping. Paisley holds up her hand for attention. “Which brings me to rule number one. No advice giving—you're not qualified.”

“What?
I thought this was a helpline!”

“We just listen, support, and link the caller to resources.”

I hear rumblings of “This is stupid.” I have to agree.

“I bet you'll be surprised by how effective listening can be. Okay. Turn to the person next to you. Let's practice reflective and supportive listening.” Miguel sits on my right. Christina sits on my left. I start to turn toward her, but she's already started talking to Bryan. “The person on the right will share about a problem they are having. It doesn't have to be something personal, but make it something real.”

Miguel looks at me. He starts to say something and then he stops. “I don't know what to say.”