The Price of Words

Since I have a stack of 7th grade personal essays staring at me, I thought I should probably finish the one I started as a model for them.

                I sat alone on the steps outside Lakenheath High School in the gathering dusk, waiting for the late bus to pick me up.  It would amble along for more than an hour before depositing me across the street from my house in Newmarket.  Spring hadn’t made up its mind if it was going to stick around yet or not, and I was glad I had a sweatshirt.  Normally the stop was crowded with kids who hung out after school for drama or sports or detention or whatever.  I had stayed behind for other sentimental reasons: sophomore year was coming to a close and within a few days I would be leaving England forever.  Dad had been reassigned stateside after three and a half years, and although I was anxious to leave, part of me didn’t want to let go of what had become an integral part of who I was.  I wanted to soak it all in before I left.

                The voice came from nowhere.  “Do you still think I’m conceited?”

                Startled, from my reverie, I stammered.  “What?”  And then I looked up.  Carrie Williams stood over me.  “What did you say?”

                “I said,” she said, switching books from one hip to the other, “do you still think I’m conceited?”

                Where was this coming from?  Of course she wasn’t conceited; Carrie was one of the most compassionate, selfless souls in our small sophomore class.  We weren’t exactly friends, but we ran in some of the same circles.  I had known Carrie since midway through seventh grade when I moved from Japan and found myself in class with her and several others for most of the day.  The only classes I didn’t have with her that year were band, gym, and science.

My mind raced back over the few interactions I had had with Carrie over the past few weeks.  Had I really said something that insensitive?

                “You remember, don’t you?” she asked.  “Back in eighth grade?”

                And then, as she stood there, tapping her foot impatiently, a scene rushed to my recollection.

                Eighth grade.  Mr. Haworth’s algebra class had just bombed another test—me included.  Most likely, I was shuffling along with Rob, Will, or John, all comrades in our miserable algebra experience.  And then we stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.

                Carrie, surrounded by a group of her friends, stood in our way, bangs flipped and sprayed to perfect hardness, smacking her pseudo-fruity neon gum.  And then the interrogation began.  She turned to each one of us individually, her finger pointed, asking one question: “Do you think I’m conceited?  So-and-so said I was conceited.  Do you think I’m conceited?”

                We stood facing each other like rocks in the middle of a stream.  Between the math and science buildings, countless seventh and eighth graders flowed around us, concerned about reaching second period on time.  A small trickle of students merged from the rivulet coming from the library to the north, broadening the width of the middle school river.

                My friends looked like terrified hedgehogs caught on the back roads of a British fen between the headlights of an oncoming three-wheeler.  Each shook his head and stammered.  “Nope.”

                I was confused.  I didn’t know what that meant.  The closest thing I could retrieve from the recesses of my vocabulary was “conceded.”   But that didn’t make any sense.  I stood clueless, with no idea about she was saying.  Scrambling for an appropriate answer, my mind raced over recent blacktop gossip.  It was rumored that Carrie and my buddy Neil had French kissed outside in the library entrance earlier, despite all the protestations that she didn’t like him more than a friend.

                That sounded like she conceded something, right?  Internal conclusion reached, I nodded my head.

                “What?” she shrieked.  “You think I’m conceited?”

                “I-I guess,” I replied.

                Laughter erupted.  The crowd began jostling and shouting.

                Carrie stood there, her jaw hanging like a broken trap door, her blue eyes hidden behind clumps of mascara.

                Then the bell rang and the swarm of students fled to their classrooms like rats to their holes as the cat-like assistant principal Mr. Allan emerged from the office building to chase away the stragglers.

                I hadn’t given that incident a second thought until those same blue eyes, shining in the dying light, behind not as much make-up, looked straight into mine.  I hadn’t had too much interaction with Carrie over the past few years—few words, if any passed between us apart from meaningless pleasantries when other friends were around, but it seemed like she really wanted to talk now, like there was something she needed to get out.  Her eyes flickered, not with anger, but with a little aching, it seemed.

                “You remember, don’t you?” she repeated.  “Back in eighth grade?”

                I swallowed hard and nodded, embarrassed like a kindergartner caught eating paste.

                She continued.  “Why did you think I was conceited?”

                I looked down at my feet.  Shuffled.  Tried to think of something to say to mask my embarrassment.

                “Hmm?” she prodded.  She wasn’t upset, but honestly curious.

                I looked up, her eyes catching mine, and I knew I couldn’t lie.

                “Well,” I began, “I don’t think you are conceited.  I never did.”

                “Then why did you say that?”  Her voice quavered a little.

                Realization sucker punched me.  Sheepishly, shaking my head, I answered: “Back then…”

                “Yeah…?”

                “I didn’t know what ‘conceited’ meant.  Sorry.”

                Carrie Williams stood with her jaw hanging open for a few more seconds, and the eighth-grade flashback returned for a moment, just the way I left her standing on the blacktop a few years prior.  Then she shut her mouth and breathed slowly through her nose, pausing as if searching for what to say next.

Only the rush of traffic interrupted the silence.  And then, unexpectedly, she started to giggle quietly.  “Did you know I’ve been carrying that grudge around for two years?”

Her confession startled me.

“I decided that I didn’t want to like you because of that day,” she continued.  “That was dumb.”

I reflected on the truth of her comment.  If I looked back at the interactions I had with her, they were strained: student council assignments had indeed been awkward when the two of us were together.  Class assignments didn’t go so well when we were in the same group.  Realization of what my vocabulary ignorance had done between Carrie and me crept up behind me, just as the bus did.

I grabbed my backpack and trumpet case, mumbling another lame apology.

“You know,” she said as I started to climb aboard, “we could have had a lot of fun.”  A semi-flirtatious smile grew on her lips.  “Too bad you’re leaving.”

“Yep,” I conceded, “Too bad.”

She waved as the bus pulled away.