Page 25 of The Sea-Mist Cottage Inn
A big building like that, with classrooms on multiple floors, is actually pretty uncommon in California, I think. Most of California is sunny and hot most of the year and has any rain at all for about three months, so they build schools that spread out in a single story, with classrooms that open to the outdoors. But this part of California is really the Pacific Northwest and in both climate and culture has more in common with coastal Oregon and Washington than with Los Angeles or even San Francisco.
We pulled into the visitor lot around ten in the morning. An August sun had mostly burned off the fog, and the day promised to be hot for this area—in the mid-80s or so. I was antsy to get back to the Sea-Mist and start cleaning up cottages so I could feel like we were making progress on the place, but I didn’t want to rush Wyatt on this errand. High school’s a big deal foreverybody, you know? But for Wyatt, this was seismic. In the past year or so, he’d lost his father, lost the house he’d lived in since he was born, moved away from all his friends, whom he’d gone to school with from kindergarten. Then he’d had one year in a new high school before moving all the way across the country to start all over again here.
No, I was not about to rush his first experience with the high school he would, I hoped, graduate from.
So when he made no move to get out of the car, when he simply sat and stared at the building through the windshield, I sat and stared with him.
I guess my public-school experience was pretty normal. I was in no way a standout. I had my share of encounters with mean girls and other bullies, I had friends and some frenemies. I had teachers I hated and those I adored, got strong grades overall but had my struggles. Though I was generally careful and responsible, I played some hooky and broke some rules. I had a couple of boyfriends and went to dances and proms and pep rallies. I had to do the social stuff in secret, with Jessie and Erin helping me build elaborate ruses so my mother wouldn’t find out I had a boyfriend or was going to the homecoming dance, but like I’ve said, it took me a long time to understand how fucked up that was—and, more to the point, howunusualit was, so those efforts didn’t get in the way of my fun. In fact, if we’re being straight here, getting away with shit, not to mention the risk ofnotgetting away with it, sometimes made it more exciting.
Jessie and Erin and I had a lot of fun together. They were great friends, and I did them dirty disappearing as much from their lives as from my mother’s.
As we sat in the Golf and waited for Wyatt to be ready, I thought about school and let myself remember happy things I’d forgotten in my time away. I’d shoved my whole past into the dark, the good stuff with the bad.
We had the windows open, and the sluggish, discordant tones of the marching band practicing a new piece floated up from the football field behind the school. Probably the football team was practicing somewhere as well.
Wyatt wasn’t a team-sports kid. He was more apt to try out for a school play than a school team. He’d enjoyed outdoor activities with his dad, but the manner of Micah’s death had destroyed his interest in climbing and even camping.
“Okay,” he said after a while.
“Okay,” I answered. I put up the windows and turned off the car.
As we traveled up the long sidewalk to the main entrance, he looked around, even walking backward a few steps while he took in the view behind us.
“What do you think?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Looks like a school.”
“And that’s exactly what it is.”
THE OFFICE WAS THEfirst door, at the top of a flight of steps from the entrance. I didn’t recognize the two women working at desks behind the long counter (they both seemed young enough that I wouldn’t have known them except possibly as little kids), but I sure recognized the room itself. I’d been a student office aide, and I swear the room hadn’t changed at all. Okay—there were slim laptops on the desks rather than hefty black CRT monitors, but everything else looked exactly the same. Even the posters on the walls were still those silly ‘inspirational’ things with some photo of a guy standing at the edge of a cliff, or feet on a surfboard going through a tube, and a big, supposedly important word likeMOTIVATIONorINSPIRATIONprinted in huge letters across it. Ugh.
But the secretaries were nice, and I’d checked the website and come prepared with all the documentation they needed. The one primarily helping us (she wore a lanyard identifying her as Bethany Carmichael) seemed to recognize the address I’d written on the form—her eyes came up and pinned me for a second—but she didn’t mention it.
When the paperwork was finished, she handed Wyatt a maroon folder with the school logo in gold, the school colors. Jessie and Erin and I had thought we were hilarious calling Bendixen High the Hellmouth, because maroon and gold are the colors of Sunnydale High inBuffy, the Vampire Slayer. Oh, how we’d loved that show. I still love that show.
“We need to get you a class schedule,” Bethany said, “but Mr. Levering, the guidance counselor, does that, and he’s not on campus until next week. Are you available next week?”
“We can be available whenever,” I answered, checking in with Wyatt to make sure he didn’t have a problem with that answer. He didn’t.
Bethany struck a few keys and squinted at her screen. “Monday at ten a.m., then?”
“Monday at ten is perfect,” I answered, and she struck some more keys.
“Now, you’ll be in PE for sure—PE is required for ninth and tenth grade. The coaches are all here today, so if you want to go on down to the athletic center, you can get your uniform and other stuff like that.”
“Athletic center?” I asked, surprised. Maybe some things had changed around here after all. In my day, there was a gym, a track, and a field that was used for football, soccer, and baseball. Nothing impressive enough to be called an ‘athletic center.’
Bethany smiled. “Oh sure. It’s nice. Just out the back and to the right.”
“Got it.” I was curious, for sure.
“Can we look around the whole school while we’re here?” Wyatt asked.
Bethany’s expression indicated an intention to deny that request, but then she twisted her lips thoughtfully and said, “You know what? Go ahead. It’s quiet today, except outside. So be careful and respectful where the teams are practicing, but otherwise, look around. I’ll call maintenance and let them know they might see you.”
“Thank you, Ms. Carmichael,” Wyatt said.
She smiled with real kindness. “Of course, honey. Welcome to Bendixen High.”
