Trying to Float (13 page)

She led us to the edge of camp where a tiny path snaked through the trees.

Maria and I lagged behind the group in our entirely unsuitable attire. Three hours later we entered a tiny clearing where the group stopped. Maria picked a splinter out of her heel.

In addition to courses on animal care (read dissection), the camp offered a class on wilderness survival. On the last weekend of camp, all the kids who took the class got to test their training on a trip to the woods. There were to be no s'mores, tents, or ghost stories. What Lauren had neglected to mention was that Maria and I had signed up for the survival weekend.

Lauren grinned. “Pair up!”

Maria and I started to look for more capable partners; the more capable partners started looking for anyone other than Maria and me.

The two of us were sent to the last clearing, where a girl with frizzy red hair and a camouflage bandanna and her burly partner were already setting up. Maria and I eyed each other warily.

Across the clearing campers were stacking branches to create teepees.

I nudged Maria. “We'd better start doing that.”

Maria grudgingly agreed, and we started to collect and pile branches. An hour later the sun was nearing the horizon, and all we had was a small pile of twigs. I took some of the twigs and attempted to create a fire, while Maria worked on the teepee.

“I'm hungry,” I whined.

“No surprise there,” Maria retorted.

Nature tests even the best of friendships.

With no fire but something like a teepee, we huddled together and began to wolf down the uncooked weenies. The sun set. From the relative safety of our shelter, we watched the
bandanna girl and her companion enjoy themselves in front of a roaring fire.

“How did they do it?” Maria hissed.

“Maybe it was something they learned in the survival class?” I replied.

Just then, we saw the stout girl reach into her backpack, grab a can of bug spray, and spray it into the fire. The fire blazed.

Maria looked troubled, something that could have been a side effect of the uncooked hot dogs.

“I don't think they should be doing that,” she moaned, now clutching her stomach.

I nodded intelligently, making an effort to control my own bowels.

As Lauren made the rounds to check each campsite, we waved her over and reported on what the duo across the way were up to. Lauren immediately told them to pack their bags. She promptly called the camp to come pick them up. Maria and I sank further beneath our twigs. Bandanna girl and her partner glared in our direction, suspecting that it was us who'd ratted them out.

Our apprehension over what the two girls might do to us, combined with the ill and fragrant effects of the weenies, made me sweat. Maria was not faring any better. Crouching there, beneath the twigs of a dilapidated teepee, in desperate need of a bathroom, and fearing the wrath of those two girls, Maria and I started to laugh. Laugh and laugh and laugh.

What a pair we were. Two weenies.

AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY

TOWARD THE END
of seventh grade, there was to be an election for student president. A number of the most well liked and well known kids had declared their candidacies.

As the posters accumulated on the walls of the school, I was seized by this logic:

• popular kids, though liked by those in their own cliques, were often disliked, or even hated, by those in other groups;
  
• certain kids, like me, though popular with no one, were hated by no one; and
  
• if both of the above were true, then someone like me might get elected student council president.
  

Several days later it hit me: if “someone like me” might get elected student council president, then why not me?

I discussed it with my parents that evening. At first they were perplexed. My mom explained that to be on the student government, I would need to have friends who would vote for me. She immediately started to compose what she would say when I lost the election. My dad was taken aback by my newfound initiative, a trait which had skipped so many generations of Ripses that they hardly knew how to spell it.

The next day I announced my candidacy.

Of those who were running against me, and there were many, one was a portly, popular boy named Tim. Another, a Chinese American girl named Saijin. She had beautiful posters: “SAIJIN, It Rhymes with ASIAN.” Not subtle, but likely effective in a school where half the students were Asian Americans.

My own candidacy was greeted with a strong lack of interest. Even the friends I had—my table—didn't support me, claiming that I couldn't win and that my candidacy would further humiliate us. In the days leading up to the election, candidates were supposed to describe our campaigns to the school. I had no slogans, no posters, no buttons, and the election was just weeks away.

Even Maria, my best friend, insisted that, out of fairness, she would have to give the other candidates a good look.

Toward the end of the campaign, a man who I did not recognize appeared at one of my parents' cocktail parties. He was sitting alone and had the expression on his face that I had when I was told I'd be sleeping next to the camp toilet.

He may have noticed me staring at him, for he waved me over.

“I am an old friend of your father's. And you are?”

“His daughter.”

“Not entirely surprising, I suppose.”

I headed in a different direction.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, sir, but I am running for class president and need to figure out how to get people to like me.”

“Having trouble with that?”

“Since I was an infant.”

“Where do you go to school?”

Suddenly I was deep into my school and what was happening with the election. Quite surprisingly, he listened.

At the end of my description of Tim, Saijin, and the other candidates, he announced, “Well, young lady, it sounds as if you are the best of a bad bunch.”

The next day my posters went up at school:

“Nicolaia Rips, The Best of a Bad Bunch.”

Students loved it.

After our final platform speeches in the cafeteria (mine was all about how we needed a water fountain on the fifth floor), I walked into the school, and there was a sign with the results of the election: “Nicolaia Rips—President.”

This came as a surprise to everyone, and, yes, to me.

Once elected, I tried to carry out my campaign pledge, which was nothing more than giving kids a sense of what they have in common (and installing a water fountain). I tried to
organize more dances and events so that kids from all cliques could be included. To be honest, it was difficult. As Karl Marx had offered, only the folks at the bottom yearn for equality. The popular kids could have cared less about my community outreach efforts. They already had each other. I did however manage to get that water fountain installed. It broke after a week but I fought hard to get it there. I may not have succeeded in schoolwide unity, but I did get my first taste of pointless educational bureaucracy.

One day, I asked my father about the man I'd met at the cocktail party.

“A good old friend,” my father replied. “Brilliant fellow.”

“But why haven't I met him before?”

“He was just released from prison.”

“What was he in for?”

“Smuggling antiquities or something like that. I don't know all the details.”

I glanced at the collection of terra-cotta figures on top of our bookshelves.

“How does he support himself now that he's out of prison?”

“Gin and tonics.”

MY INTERESTED LOOK

I PASSED THE
final few weeks of seventh grade sitting in the Stoner Corner next to Joseph (Greta's boyfriend). By this point in the year, teachers had given up trying to educate us and were content to sit back as we conversed quietly. One afternoon, Joseph and I had just finished a game of tic-tac-toe, and he was filling me in on the latest school gossip.

He was going on about how Hunter had been asked out by the prettiest girl in the school (Penelope Brewster) and how he had rejected her. This piece of news was very interesting since I'd always had a bit of a thing for Hunter.

Though I was eager to hear more, Joseph stopped and refused to continue. When I pressed him, he remarked that I obviously wasn't interested in what he was saying. I was dumbstruck.

“Me? Not interested! How could you think that?!”

“You look bored—you've got the expression my grandfather has on his face after he falls asleep but before his dentures slide out of his mouth.”

What was this?

I'd assumed that when I was interested in something I showed it.

A day or so later, I was at a piano recital, organized and filmed by an actor whom my parents knew from the Chelsea. There were about fifty people.

The piano player, a man in his eighties, had been a child sensation but, owing to stage fright, no longer played publicly. My parents' friend, the actor, had met the piano player and become intrigued by him. Soon the actor made it his mission to coax the pianist back on stage. The concert that evening was the pianist's first in fifty-five years.

The actor began the evening by telling the story of the pianist. But the actor also spoke of his own difficulties: he'd begun acting as a child, achieved great success in his twenties and thirties, but was now worried about his future.

I was in awe of what I was listening to. The actor was both brave and humble.

“Nicki?”

Me?

“Nicki?”

No doubt about it. The actor was staring at me from the podium and calling my name.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Thirteen.”

I was confused by his question since he knew exactly how old I was. I was the same age as his daughter, one of my oldest family friends. But he was smart and I imagined he was using the question as a lead into something like:

“I was exactly Nicki's age when I started acting. At first it was difficult. I had to struggle to learn how to act. People thought that only sissies acted, and kids made fun of me. When I look at Nicki, I feel the need to tell her that whatever fears she may have along the way, she will one day be a great success.”

Instead, he announced to the audience:

“As soon as I started telling you about my midlife crisis, Nicki got bored.”

The audience laughed.

I was embarrassed. And confused. Why did he think I was bored? I had on my interested face!

I buried my head in my mother's shoulder as the cameras zoomed in on me. As the crowd's laughter died down, Mom whispered, “It's true, as soon as he started talking about his life your face went slack.”

The following morning, Father joked about what had happened at the recital.

I returned to sobbing.

“I wasn't trying to insult your friend,” I told him (sob, sob), “that's just how I look when I'm interested!”

“Well, my daughter, you're just going to have to find a new look.”

In the following weeks I tried various expressions. To get the faces down, I would imagine myself in a various interesting situations. There was “walking past a man leading his cat on a leash” interest and “my dad just found another West African dung sculpture” interest, “Penelope Brewster was wearing a thong today” interest and “my uncle is a right-wing Republican” interest. When I thought I had one of the faces right, I would photograph myself and show the photo to my mom.

I had a great time with this, and by the end of the week, I had a number of interested faces. All of them, I must admit, were convincing.

I decided that I would try them out on Joseph. He could be counted on for an honest opinion.

Later that day, Joseph was rambling on about his grandfather, who lived with Joseph and, more significantly, shared a bathroom with him.

According to Joseph, his grandfather had been constipated for three decades (a condition he blamed on his late wife's brisket), but had recently come up with a mixture of tea leaves, black pepper, and Maalox, which, he claimed, had cured him.

As Joseph talked, I knew that I was wearing the right face, for Joseph, interpreting my look as one of ­interest
(with a dash of revulsion), dove into ever greater details of what he had learned of his grandfather's digestive tract. The work I had done over the last months was ­paying off.

CINDERELLA

I CAN'T DENY
that before I ran for president of my eighth-grade class, it had occurred to me that if I was elected, I'd be in a position to arrange events that would give me an excuse to meet the boys at school.

So the first thing that I decided to do in my new position was to organize a dance, a Halloween dance. I picked Halloween because it continued to be my favorite holiday. I wanted to do something fun and scary—like the inspired foolery that I'd grown up with at the hotel.

The dance also provided me with the opportunity to approach boys I liked and ask them to help out with refreshments, music, decorations, and tickets. By the time the big night rolled around, the boys and I would be friends and they would ask me to dance. At least that was the plan. Even if this failed, everyone would be in disguise (I as Cinderella), and the boys might just confuse me for one of the attractive girls.

I'd given out the assignments days in advance. Arriving at
school in the late afternoon, I waited in the cafeteria for the boys to arrive and make good on their promises.

An hour before the dance, when no one had appeared, I placed some calls. Of those few boys I was able to reach by phone, all showed a frightening nonchalance about their tasks. I attempted to be nonchalant about their nonchalance. It didn't work.

Thirty minutes before the dance, nothing was ready. With little time, I managed to pull together some decorations and set up some tables. One of the boys had dropped off a bowl of bean dip which, he assured me, was what “Grandma made for Mom's senior prom.” From the look of the dip, it wasn't clear whether this was a cryogenically preserved bowl of what Granny had made decades earlier or something fresher. I put the dip on the table and sat down.

Exhausted, I still needed to change into my costume when Meredith Penny, the parent in charge of the dance (of course), arrived.

She began to shout commands.

“The floor in the main hall—sweep it! And the windows, clean them! And the curtain on the stage, fix it . . . ”

I interrupted.

“But I need time to get into my costume.”

“Then work faster.”

I worked faster than I'd ever worked in my life, and with five minutes to spare, I rushed toward the lockers. But hefty
Meredith blocked my path. She pointed to the table with the dip and drink. No one was there to serve them.

I made my way to the table, still sweating from my tasks. After an hour or two, with everyone but me enjoying themselves, I noticed a commotion at the center of the dance floor. In all the running around to prepare, I'd neglected to make certain that someone was supervising the Licker, who, disguised as Captain Crunch, was able to advance on people who otherwise would have stayed far away.

I had no time to make sure that the Licker stayed out of trouble, so there was only one thing to do. I asked him if he would do me the favor of retrieving an item from the janitor's closet down the hall from the cafeteria. Once the Licker was inside, I closed the door.

That taken care of, I returned to a list of assignments which Meredith had taped to my chair. I raced over to the snack table.

Pressing my overheated noggin against the side of the frosty dip, I watched as others (including the boys who had neglected the jobs I'd given them) arrived. I felt like Cinderella if Cinderella's fairy godmother had never shown up.

Before leaving the dance, Meredith had made certain that the list was so long that I would have little chance to dance and that I would be in that awful cafeteria, taking down decorations and throwing away garbage, until well after everyone else had left. And I was already exhausted.

If I needed a reason to feel sorry for myself, this was it.
My only comfort was that with Meredith's departure, things couldn't get worse.

Then they did.

Through the rear doors of the cafeteria came a group of parents, all dressed in costume. Meredith, who had never actually left, led the way. Accompanying her, against its will, was Meredith's reawakened pleather costume, which had, decades before, shocked the citizens of Pagosa Springs.

“Who's That Girl,” Meredith's favorite, was on the speakers.

“When you see her, say a prayer and kiss your heart good-bye. She's trouble, in a word . . . ”

As Meredith drew closer to me and the dip, I was able to make out the details of her outfit: black pleather tights, pointy pleather bra, teased hair, and a long metal chain around her neck.

Given her girth, upward-thrusting bra, black makeup, and chain swinging back and forth across her torso, the dancing Meredith resembled a battleship that had been struck by enemy fire and was listing badly.

As kids fled, I knew that my Halloween dance was over and would soon be known as the biggest catastrophe in the history of our middle school. But that was its fate: it had been organized by the school idiot.

At that instant the music stopped.

“Meredith, get off the floor!”

The voice came loudly from the opposite side of the auditorium.

“This is
our
dance.”

Meredith's eyes searched violently for her antagonist.

Hunter Whiting, the best-looking boy in the school, stepped forward.

“You heard it, Meredith. GET OFF THE FLOOR.”

To everyone's amazement, Meredith Penny, without a word, left the floor, left the auditorium, and left our future. Never had so much material girl disappeared so quickly.

But Hunter was not through.

“Now I want to say something that should have been said a long time ago. There is someone who has been working very, very hard so that we can enjoy ourselves. And it is about time that we thanked that person, someone who is not only hardworking and modest but also the prettiest girl I know.”

He turned to the table where I was sitting.

Me?

Hunter grinned.

I stood up. I felt the top of my head, my black curls still tucked neatly behind a tiara.

No one was laughing.

I walked from behind the table. A waltz came on.

Others began to sway. And when I was within reach of Hunter, he held out his hand. I took it, placing my other hand on his shoulder. He reached his arm around my waist and pulled me close. So close I could smell his Axe body spray. (One of the girls at school had given all the cute boys a can of Axe, so our school permanently smelled of perfume and sweat.)

“Hunter,” I sighed.

He brushed a strand of hair that had fallen from my tiara.

And then we danced, Hunter holding me in his caring though muscular arms as the music carried us around the room.

“It's as if there's no one else in the room,” he whispered.

“I know . . .” I replied, my eyes closed, my face pressed against his shoulder.

“And you have dip in your hair.”

What?

“I said there's dip below your face, and if you don't get up your head's going in.”

I opened my eyes. The dip was looming under me, the Licker just above. As I fell asleep my head had lolled closer and closer to the ominous bowl, hovering just above.

“I'm sorry but someone locked me in the closet, and I just got out.” He shrugged. “Worse things have happened. I came here, and everyone was gone. Except you, taking a nap.”

I was too shocked not to ask.

“Hunter?”

“He's gone with the others.”

“Did we dance?” I asked.

The Licker paused. He liked me too much to tell me the truth.

“Here, let me help you clean up,” he offered.

With that he began gathering trash off the tables and floor.
He did not look back at me, allowing me time to adjust to what had never happened.

When we finished cleaning the gymnasium, he ap­­­proached me. In his hand was a small plastic bag. It was the one I'd brought to the dance. Still inside were my golden gown, matching slippers, and tiara.

It was late at night, and no one was on the street. We walked each other to the corner and said good night.