Her Name in the Sky (9 page)

School resumes on Thursday. Hannah’s esophagus burns with nausea as she drives into the parking lot and spots Baker’s car.

But Baker steps out to greet her with her usual smile. “So get this,” she says, launching into conversation before Hannah can even fully look at her, “Charlie has figured out how to open doors with his paws.”

Hannah hesitates for only a pocket of a moment, recognizing the offering for what it is.
This is normal. We can be normal.

“That’s crazy,” Hannah says, her voice sounding only slightly affected. “What’d your mom say?”

Baker’s eyes relax. “She’s freaked out. Worried he’ll get into her china cabinet or something.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Hannah says, her voice sounding normal as they walk into the building. “If she understood Charlie’s personality at all, she’d know he has no interest in frilly ceramic china.” 

Baker laughs. “Exactly.” 

The hallways are subdued, with most people talking lazily to their friends or whining about how they want to go back to bed. The bell rings to get to first block, but while the freshmen scurry to heed it, most of the seniors just roll their eyes and drag their feet to their classrooms. Even the teachers seem reluctant to be back: Mr. Montgomery makes no effort to hide his yawning, and Madame Rowley, Hannah’s French teacher, leans against her doorframe and chugs a 24-ounce coffee as students walk by. There’s an unspoken agreement that today and tomorrow don’t count as real school days because they comprise a two-day workweek coming on the heels of a five-day party.

After second block ends and the bell rings for lunch, Hannah and Wally walk slowly down the hallway, feeling lethargic after their unassigned period. They’re about to reach the main lobby when they come upon Baker and Luke leaning against the white tiled wall outside the front office, their shoulders slumped and their expressions downcast.

“What’s going on?” Hannah asks.

“Clay’s in Manceau’s office,” Luke says.

“Michele went to Father Simon about the party,” Baker says.

“Oh, Jesus,” Hannah says.

“Are you serious?” Wally says.

“Yep,” Luke says. “Why does she even go to these parties if she’s just gonna rat us all out afterwards?”

“She’s probably pissed because Clay didn’t pay attention to her,” Hannah says.

“Apparently she told Father Simon she was upset by how much drinking our class does,” Baker says.

“Yeah, as if she didn’t used to be right there with us,” Luke says. 

The four of them stand with their backs against the cold tile and listen to the din of chatter coming from the underclassmen in the cafeteria. The front office secretaries on the other side of the office windows glance up at them every other minute, their eyebrows arched and their lips pursed.

Finally Clay comes out of Manceau’s office, a grimace on his face. They watch through the front office windows as his tall form weaves around the secretaries’ desks—he smiles politely at the secretaries, then frowns again as soon as he’s past—and exits into the main lobby.

“What happened?” Wally says.

Clay fidgets with the knot in his tie. “They can’t prove that I had the party, but they’re using ‘an anonymous student’s word’ to go on—”

“Michele,” Hannah says.

“Yeah,” Clay grumbles. “So then Manceau gave me a bunch of bullshit about how St. Mary’s expects better of me because I’m football captain and all that. Oh, but then get this, he interrupted his lecture halfway through because his wife called and wanted to know whether he’d prefer ‘teacup pink’ or ‘butter yellow’ paint for their bedroom, so then he spent like six minutes debating the options with her, and then finally he gets off the phone and tells me that he wants to suspend me but can’t because he has no proof. So then Father Simon comes in and is all, ‘I’m praying for you during this time of reflection’ and some other bullshit.”

“So what’s going to happen?” Hannah asks. “Anything?”

“No,” Clay says, with a trace of a smirk. “Other than them calling my parents. But you know my dad would sue the fat rolls off Manceau if he tried to suspend me with no proof—”

“Yeah, but your dad will skin you alive,” Wally says.

“Nah. He’ll be pissed, and my mom will probably cry a little bit, but they’ve already been through this kind of thing with Ethan. They’d only care if something really bad happened. But it’s not like I had a party and someone died.”

“Let’s go outside,” Baker says, peering over their shoulders at the front office. “Mrs. Adler’s sending us death glares.”

They shuffle out to the senior courtyard and take their place at their favorite table, where Joanie sits waiting for them, tapping her foot against the table leg. “Where the hell were y’all?” she says. “I look like an idiot sitting here by myself.”

“Yeah, because that’s the only time you look like an idiot,” Hannah says.

“Clay got in trouble with Manceau,” Luke says, rubbing Joanie’s back as he sits down.

“What happened?”

Clay launches into the story again, and Joanie’s features elongate in astonishment at all the right parts, and when Clay has finished, the six of them turn in their seats to search out Michele amongst the courtyard dwellers.

“She’s not coming to any more parties,” Clay says, his face souring as he looks in Michele’s direction. “Tell everyone you can. Make sure the whole class knows not to invite her to things.”

“Amen,” Joanie says, and Luke nods vigorously at her side. Wally regards Michele with a thoughtful look on his face—the one Hannah has seen him wear when he tries to solve a challenging new calculus problem—and Baker, when Hannah shifts her head to look at her, wears the same expression Hannah has seen her wear many times before: the one that means her heart is battling with her head, that her instinct to empathize is wrestling with her compulsion to keep social order.

Mrs. Shackleford announces an impromptu assembly the next morning. Hordes of students sweep into the gym and plop themselves down on the bleachers, and Mrs. Shackleford and Father Simon stand in the middle of the gym floor, their eyes watching every movement.

Mrs. Shackleford speaks for three minutes about the standards of behavior she expects from St. Mary’s students. She never mentions Clay’s Mardi Gras party, but the sophomores, juniors, and seniors avert their eyes, all of them understanding the message. Only the freshmen look blankly around at each other, and Hannah, sitting on the end of a row in the senior section, hears a freshman several feet away whisper, “Is this about Marshall passing around that dirty cat comic yesterday?”

Then Father Simon steps forward to address the gym. He stands still with his left hand gripping his right elbow and his fingers raised to his lips, as if figuring out how to counsel a death-row prisoner. He remains silent for a full 30 seconds, until the freshmen start to rustle in their bleachers, and then he raises his head, finally looking around at them all, his expression solemn.

“Here we go,” Hannah mutters under her breath.

Father Simon berates them for a quarter of an hour. “I’m disgusted,” he tells them. “I am at a loss for what to say. And to think that this behavior took place right on the cusp of Lent, and when we’re in the midst of a competition for the Diocesan Cup….”

Mrs. Shackleford stands off to his side, her expression hard to read. Across the gym, Ms. Carpenter sits with her arms crossed and her brow furrowed. 

Five minutes into the lecture, Hannah looks over at Clay. His cheeks have colored with only the lightest tinge of pink. When he catches Hannah looking at him, he takes his hand away from his mouth and chews on a smile like he’s about to burst out laughing.

The student body is unusually quiet after the assembly. They return to their classrooms without talking much, the boys walking with their hands in their pockets and the girls tugging insistently on the sleeves of their sweaters. But many of the seniors smirk knowingly at Clay and nod conspiratorially at Hannah, Baker, Wally, Luke, and Joanie, and there is an inherent understanding that the whole thing is a big joke rather than anything to worry about.

They cross paths with Michele when they reach the senior hallway. She has the grace to look ashamed when she sees them. “Clay,” she says, her voice barely audible, “I—”

“Don’t even,” Clay says, cutting her off. He pushes past her, and Hannah and her friends follow, and Michele stands limply at the lockers, her head bowed against the looks of revulsion the other seniors throw her.

The bell rings for second block, and Hannah and Baker step into their English classroom to find their classmates leaning on the backs of their chairs and complaining to each other. Hannah joins in with the griping and gossiping while Baker sits with her chin on her hand, her brow furrowed as she absorbs her friends’ outrage.

Ms. Carpenter shuts the door to signal the start of the class period, and the murmuring in the room trails off. Ms. Carpenter leans against the door with a funny smile on her face. “I guess we didn’t enjoy the assembly, huh?” she says.

Hannah’s classmates launch into loud complaints. Ms. Carpenter’s eyebrows arch comically as she listens to them all.

“Okay,” she says. “So you all didn’t appreciate Father Simon’s tone. To be honest with you, neither did I. But what about the substance of what he said? Don’t you think he had a point?”

“Come on, Ms. C, high school parties are just a given thing,” Michael Ramby says. “He can’t get mad at us for doing something that teenagers have done forever.”

“What’s the big deal, anyway?” Jessica asks. “What’s so bad about parties? Adults always act like they’re the worst thing in the world.”

“Adults are afraid of teenage partying,” Ms. Carpenter says.

“Why? Like, what do they think is gonna happen, we’re all gonna be in the bathroom doing lines of coke?”

“Some of your parents probably worry about that, sure.”

“Ms. Carpenter, you know we’re not doing that kind of crap,” Harrison says.

Ms. Carpenter shifts onto her high wooden stool at the front of the classroom. Her long skirt falls over her legs. “Adults are afraid of parties,” she says, leaning forward to look at them all, “because they remember, very acutely, what parties are like. The madness that pervades. How powerful it makes you feel, how special, but also how untethered it can make you feel. The things that can happen when you let it go too far.”

Hannah breathes in the silence.

“What do you mean?” Jackson asks.

“Someone tell me how you feel when you’re at a party,” Ms. Carpenter says.

“Really good,” Michael grins. “I feel really good.”

Ms. Carpenter gestures at him to indicate that she expected that response. “The way I see it, parties can be very liberating, and that’s their appeal. Alcohol can be liberating, music can be liberating, the absence of parents can be liberating. The normal rules don’t apply, right? It’s just you and your friends acting on impulse. And sometimes, when a party makes you feel especially liberated, you’ll start acting from your deepest nature. The part of you that’s still an invincible little kid—that does whatever you want to do, that takes the world as if it’s all yours. It’s a return to your most basic nature, before you knew rules. So you find yourself acting with either earliest innocence or earliest evil. And sometimes it’s hard to tell them apart from each other. And
that
is what scares adults.”

The classroom of students sits in rapt silence. Everyone around Hannah has his or her face turned toward Ms. Carpenter with a hungry, childlike expression, and Hannah remembers story time in elementary school, when her teacher would lead them to the rectangular blue carpet in the back of the room so she could read to them about talking animals and magical children and nightmarish monsters.

So you find yourself acting with either earliest innocence or earliest evil.
Hannah’s gut twists beneath her skin, and her heart rate increases like she’s preparing to sprint out of the classroom and through the hallways. To her left, Baker’s face is sickly pale, the way she looked just before she fainted at her volleyball match in ninth grade.

“I don’t believe that,” Hannah says into the silence. Her classmates turn to look at her as if jarred from a daydream, and Ms. Carpenter’s eyes skip to her in surprise.

“I don’t think Father Simon has thought about any of that stuff,” Hannah continues. “I doubt he’s ever even been to a party. And if he has, then he’s probably just yelling at us out of bitterness because he couldn’t get a hook-up to save his life.”

The classroom breaks into shocked laughter. Some of the boys pound their desks with their fists, and the girls’ mouths go wide with delighted disbelief.

“No ladies for Father Simon?” Jackson says, his expression gleeful.

“No dudes, more like,” Hannah says. “You know how half these priests are.”

The laughter in the room surges to a high pitch, and the boys pound harder on their desks, and the girls cover their mouths for just a fraction of a second before leaning towards each other to whisper
Oh my god.

Ms. Carpenter sits absolutely still on her wooden stool. Her eyes burn into Hannah’s until Hannah looks away and joins in with the laughter she created.