“Jordan Smith was born on October fifth, after his mother spent a considerable, but unremarkable amount of time in labour. He grew up in a suburb of a major city, and attended a well-ranked elementary, middle, and high school. He wasn’t the most popular boy on the playground, but he had several close friends with whom he could spend lengths of time sharing activities and stories about what life is really like when you grow up. He participated in team sports, but never settled on one favorite, and dabbled in the arts, but never found himself particularly talented. He was accepted into an internationally recognized post-secondary institution, where he majored in History. He considered switching into Psychology, but decided against it, and settled on a minor in that concentration instead.
“After completing his undergraduate degree, Jordan held a series of jobs that either provided him with a valuable experience to put on a resume, or enough money to pay the bills. By his early thirties, these two hadn’t coincided, until he landed a middle management position in an international corporation dealing in sales. He proposed to his long-time boyfriend, Ken Thompson, and the two were married in a slightly lavish ceremony. The young couple spent their honeymoon in Thailand, which sparked Jordan’s interest in travel, and Ken suddenly developed a passion for photography. This combination led them across the rest of Asia, Europe, and some of South America for their vacations in the proceeding decade, but eventually the two decided to expand their family, and they adopted a pair of twins. They named them Lenore and Pryce, after Jordan’s grandmother and Ken’s grandfather, respectively. As both businessmen rose through their career paths, they earned enough income to afford a large, impressive house nearer to the city than the locations where either of the two grew up. They sent their children to private schools, and on weekends took them on trips into the city in an attempt to develop their artistic abilities. Jordan found his children to be much more artistically inclined than him, and held a slight resentment for Ken whenever Ken spoke with the children about their favourite artist, or piece. Ken, alternatively, was jealous that Jordan could help the kids with their homework better than he could. The couple’s sex life never fizzled entirely, but by Jordan’s fiftieth birthday, they had noticeably cooled off from each other. Sending the twins off to university reignited their spark, and let them travel more again. Neither enjoyed travelling as much as they did in their youth because they felt less able to adjust to tropical climates, and all their favourite secret destinations had since been discovered by tourism. Jordan entered a retirement home after Ken passed from heart failure, and spent his last years quietly. His children visited often, but Jordan could tell they missed their other father dearly, and Jordan’s last thought that he wished Ken could have lived longer, but he wouldn’t have wanted to live any other way.” Lucy lowered her paper, and looked to see how many of her classmates had survived her story.
“Lucy,” her teacher, Mrs. Lowe, asked, “you do know that two men can’t get married in this state, right?”
“That’s the first question you ask me, after I pour my heart and soul out to this entire 9th grade English course?” Lucy felt indignant, and slightly offended.
“I have a few questions, certainly, but I merely noticed a slip in the factual correctness of your narrative.” Mrs. Lowe certainly did have a few questions about Lucy, but none of them were appropriate to ask in front of the rest of her pupils. She would have to wait until class was over.
“Well what if it wasn’t set in this state? The US is a big country; more is out there than mountains and white people! What if I set it in the future, when two men could get married?” Lucy could feel her cheeks warming, and she could hear every student in the class trying to hold their breath.
“Lucy,” Mrs. Lowe’s voice turned eerily soft, “I think this is a conversation you should have with Mr. Bogart.” A low murmur swept across the room at the principal’s mention, and Lucy knew she had already lost another fight. Without flinching, she turned on her heels, and left the classroom. As she shut the door, she heard Mrs. Lowe’s call for the next presentation, and for a moment she considered running back in and pulling her hair. Or slapping her on the forehead with a stapler. Or shoving a box of thumbtacks down her throat. Or running a yardstick at full speed into her stomach. Or cutting her Achilles tendons with the pair of scissors that sat on her desk.
Before she could indulge in any more fantasies, Lucy got to Mr. Bogart’s office. The secretary, a plump redhead whose name Lucy never cared to remember, asked her to take a seat. She lazily read off a list of questions, and showed Lucy in. Mr. Bogart’s office was sparsely decorated, but featured his various degrees, and pictures of his rather large family. Silently, Lucy sat in the chair directly opposite Mr. Bogart, and if it weren’t for the squeak of cheap vinyl on fabric, Mr. Bogart may not have noticed the teenager sitting across from him.
“Ah.” He said. There was no hint of surprise, no question as to why he was about to have a conversation with the young lady.
“I disrespected Mrs. Lowe in class today, Mr. Bogart.” Lucy thought it best to play the completely guilty, but repentant sinner, today. In the past, grudging cooperation only drew out the inevitable, and lying never seemed to work particularly well. Mr. Bogart had a knack for poking holes in poorly fabricated cover stories, and Lucy was in no mood to play games with the polished specimen sitting in the big chair.
“And how exactly did you disrespect her?” Mr. Bogart leaned back in his seat, and pressed the tips of his fingers together. Lucy hated when he did this. She swore he must have seen principals in television shows or movies pull that move, and copied them to legitimize his authority to himself. She imagined him finding his fingers glued to each other, and when he tried to rip them apart, his finger bones would tear right out of their sockets and hang from the tendons like bloody marionettes. Or maybe his fingers would start to fuse, and he would end up slowly losing his hands to the spreading arm loop in front of him. She threw these thoughts away when she noticed Mr. Bogart raise an eyebrow, clearly in the hopes that Lucy would offer him an especially juicy story he could bring home to his wife that night. Lucy had no intention of giving him that satisfaction, however, and refused to be made dinner conversation by anyone other than her parents.
“I disrespected Mrs. Lowe by questioning her authority, talking back, and challenging existing laws and structures written in our state’s constitution as decreed by our founding fathers.” Lucy felt sick with each word she spoke, but she hoped that Mr. Bogart took her tone as remorseful and submissive. Unsatisfied, but in stalemate, Lucy saw Mr. Bogart withdraw a bit. Tempted as she was to move to the offense and offer a “so what,” Lucy held it in.
“Do you understand why what you did was wrong?” This was Mr. Bogart’s last bait, and Lucy found it too good to pass up.
“I understand why you think what I did was wrong. I understand why Mrs. Lowe thinks what I did was wrong. And I understand why this whole god damned school thinks I did wrong. I don’t understand why it was wrong, though, no.” Lucy cursed herself thirteen times over, but didn’t even smile to cover up her internal battle. She kept her poker face, and wondered how much time could pass before either of them had to speak again. Mr. Bogart made no expression of shock, or even interest, so Lucy started counting in her head. “One… two… three… four… five…”
Mr. Bogart distracted her count by leaning forward in his chair, taking off his glasses, and pinching his nose. Another movie gimmick, Lucy assumed, but Mr. Bogart started anyway. “I’m sorry you feel that way, but I’m more sorry that you took the lord’s name in vain so casually. He would not approve of its use to argue, and I do not approve of your actions. You know the consequences for your transgressions, so I ask that you pack the remaining of your belongings, and return to this school after you have had some time to discuss this with your parents. I think seven days is appropriate, so I will call your mother, and arrange for you to be picked up.” Lucy swore she saw a flicker of a smile underneath Mr. Bogart’s stony face, but she knew that she had at least kept her name off the meatloaf his wife was making that night. Suspensions were nothing special in her school – at least not with Lucy – so she could spend the next week planning her next move.
Lucy strolled past the secretary without looking at her, but she was so focused on avoiding eye contact that she tried to pull the door open, despite it being a push-open door. She changed her pace to a scurry, and got to her locker. When she opened it, she saw her classmates had already taken the liberty to critique her short story. The word “dyke” was spray painted vertically down the door of her locker, starting just below her magazine clipping of Natalie Portman at the beach. They were considerate enough to leave her books untouched, so Lucy grabbed everything she would need, and wished that she wouldn’t run into anyone on the walk back to the front door of her school.
Her mother’s SUV pulled around the corner after only a few minutes, and Lucy gingerly climbed into the back seat, delicately sitting her backpack next to her in her baby brother’s car seat.
“Lucille, why are you sitting back there?” Wendy sighed at her daughter’s insistence on acting unusually. She thought she had done everything she could to raise her properly, and she had prayed that the difficult teenage years wouldn’t start for another few years. Clearly, her prayers were falling on deaf ears lately, and this would be something to discuss with the minister this weekend. At the present, Wendy had a clueless, hormonal daughter to deal with.
“I like the view better from back here.” Lucy knew her mother wouldn’t appreciate her sarcasm, but she couldn’t think of anything more appropriate, or more true. The view of her mother from behind meant her lecturing words wouldn’t go straight from her mouth to Lucy’s ears. Instead, they would have to bounce off the windshield, and by the time they got to Lucy, they wouldn’t hurt as much.
“I don’t like it when you avoid confrontation like this, Lucille, and I don’t appreciate when you test me like this. The sooner you get into the front seat, the sooner we can get you home and working on an apology letter to Mrs. Lowe.” Wendy said, turned around so Lucy could see exactly what she was saying. She wanted to take every precaution in communicating with her daughter; leaving any loopholes would only lead to an argument later at home, and Wendy wanted to avoid using a harsh tone around her infant son.
Lucy grunted as she let herself out of the back door, but before she clambered into the front passenger seat, she imagined a train derailing and crashing directly into the back of her mother’s car. Wendy’s seatbelt would be as useful as a piece of thread, and Lucy pictured as her mother sailed headfirst into the pavement thirty feet ahead. She smiled, and wondered how fast the train would have to move to eject her mother like that.
Word count: 2,012
Total words so far: 14,656
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