The Basic Eight (4 page)

“The candle,” Natasha said, shrimp between teeth, “is not yet burning at both ends. He doesn’t know yet.”

Lily nodded sagely. She was ready. “Who is he?”

I sighed. This part was always a little embarrassing. “Adam State.”

“
Adam State
?” she screeched, and the apple dropped out of her hands and rolled into the middle of the courtyard. Everybody was quiet and stared at it. Natasha, of course, broke the silence. “
To the fairest
!” she cried, and people laughed and went back to their lunches. Though I’m sure nobody but us understood the Homeric reference, everyone understood Natasha doing some-

thing crazy.

“Having a crush on Adam State is like having a crush on Moses,” Lily said matter-of-factly. “He’s too busy doing his own thing to notice you.”

“In
The Ten Commandments
Moses had a lover,” Natasha said, absently.

“
The Ten Commandments
is not a documentary, Natasha,” Lily said, and looked me over like a talent scout examining a piece of meat. “Flannery, I wouldn’t bet on his candle getting lit.” She took her napkin from her lunch bag and began to clean her tor- toiseshell glasses.

“I heard he just broke up with somebody,” Natasha said, flut- tering her hands in a gesture that indicated that she may have heard this from the wind.

I tried to sound worldly and confident. “He is the only appro- priate person for me to like,” I said, and Natasha and Lily ex- changed a look. Natasha said nothing and

finished her shrimp, and Lily put her glasses back on. I watched her hands as they absent-mindedly practiced cello fingerings at her side. Lily will probably attend a conservatory next year. I think she lost some weight over the summer. What was that look about? Did someone have a crush on me? The sun glinted on the apple, but the gods didn’t seem interested today. Maybe they had to cover their books. I’d better stop all this description now, because I’m in Civics and my teacher, Gladys Tall, who lives
up
to her name, is getting suspicious. I couldn’t possibly be taking this many notes on her lecture, because the notes would have to look like this:
cover your book cover your book cover your book

Wednesday, September 8th

Would that everything in life began with the Grand Opera Breakfast Club. For those who have opened the time capsule and found this journal as the sole chosen memento for this wondrous century, let me elucidate: The Grand Opera Breakfast Club is a precious stone that killed two birds that flew around the head of Joanne Milton, Roewer’s best French teacher and mother of Jen- nifer Rose Milton. One bird was the fact that Jennifer Rose Milton’s friends (that is Kate, Gabriel, Natasha, myself, etc.) al- ways weaseled our way into French with Mrs. Milton (it’s so strange to write that–to us she will always be
Millie
) and not en- tirely inadvertently turned it into what we called a
salon
but what the head of the department told Millie was
socializing
, even if it was in French. The other bird was in the form of our principal, an ex-football coach named Jean Bodin who is as large as a truck and half as smart. He was giving Millie a bad time for not spon- soring a club. Every faculty member was supposed to sponsor a club.

It was Jennifer Rose Milton, beautiful Jennifer Rose Milton, who had the idea. It was when
she
was going out with Douglas, and he was trying to woo her away from the wispy-voiced fem- inist songwriters she liked to put in her tape deck by steering her toward the classics. So, over dinner with
Maman
, Jennifer Rose Milton conceived of the Grand Opera Breakfast Club, an organiz- ation so pretentious that no one but our friends would join it, which would enable us to have a
salon
after all, except not in French, and would give Millie a club to sponsor. Once a week or so we’d meet before school in a classroom, listen to opera and eat breakfast. In her gratitude, Millie volunteered to buy the pastries. This morning was
La Boheme
, and so was the opera, if you catch my meaning. Millie, Jennifer Rose Milton, Douglas, Kate, Gabriel, Natasha, and V : I felt for the first time that I was amongst comrades and that we were all facing the new year together. Of course we couldn’t meet two whole hours before classes began, so we only listened to the first act, with the artist/lovers meeting in their garret. We munched and listened. We got powdered sugar all over the libretto. Douglas, in a dark blue three-piece suit, tried to lecture us; we shushed him. Gradually the burnt play, the shirked rent, the pawned key all became background

for our own small dramas.

“I can’t believe all my babies are seniors,” Millie said, adding accent marks to someone’s homework with a leaky red pen. A single red drop stained her cheek like a bloody tear; I note this image now for a future poem.

“I can
certainly
believe it,” Natasha said. She was looking in a small hand mirror and examining her lipstick for flaws–she might as well have been examining it for the crown jewels which were just as likely to be there. “Douglas, what were you saying Marcello had to do?”

“Not Marcello,
Schaunard
. He’s telling the story right now,” Douglas said, and his eyes lit up. I think one of the reasons it ended was that his eyes never lit up for me the way they did for classical music. I realize that in the long run I may not be as wonderful as a Brahms symphony but I think I’m good for a Haydn quintet. “He was hired to play for a duke, and–”

“
Lord
,” Kate corrected, looking up from the libretto.

“Well, a
royal
, anyway. The lord told him he had to play the violin until his parrot died.”

“I’m sorry,” V said, fingering her pearls. The pearls were real; she wore
real
pearls to
high school
. “How and why did a starving musician have a pet parrot?”

“The
lord’s
parrot,” Douglas said. “Honestly, V .”

“
The Lord’s Parrot
,” I said, “will be the name of my first play.” “Your first play for whom?” Natasha asked, raising an eyebrow delicately highlighted with glitter. Maybe the crown jewels were

to be found on her face, after all.

“Hush, you savages,” Douglas said. “Anyway, Marcello has to play until the parrot dies.”

“Well, my point, lost somewhere in all this, is that that’s how I’ve been feeling. We’ve been at Roewer all this time, waiting for some goddamn parrot to die.” Natasha took another doughnut. What I would do to be able to take another doughnut and still look as good as she does.

Douglas thought for a second. “Well, Marcello manages to bribe the maid into poisoning the parrot. Who could we bribe?” “To kill whom?” Lily said, always demanding accuracy. It was still early, so none of her hip-length hair had strayed from her

sculptured bun. “Who is the parrot in this situation?”

“
Bodin
,” Millie said, muttering the name of our beloved prin- cipal under her breath, and then, suffering from a rare bout of professionalism, looked up from another scarred homework as- signment, saying, “Who said that? I didn’t say that.”

“Killing Bodin would be extremely difficult,” Natasha said. “Digging a grave that large would be six weeks’ work.”

“Is there some creative murder method in
La Boheme
?” Kate asked in a tone of voice meant to imply that she once knew the answer, but it had slipped her mind.

“Nobody gets killed, they just get sick,” Douglas said, and drew out his pocket watch. “It’s almost homeroom,” he said.

“Then we’d much rather discuss something of infinitely more importance,” Kate said, “like the first dinner party of the season.”

“
That’s
more like it,” Gabriel said.

Kate pulled out a spiral notebook. “I was thinking this Saturday, if everyone’s free.” We all nodded; we’d postpone surgery for one of our dinner parties.

“Let’s make a list,” Lily said, licking jelly off her fingers. “You and your
lists
,” V said fondly, swatting at her. Lily

kissed her on the cheek. “I can’t have it at my house, even though I’d love to. My parents are entertaining.”

“
Your
parents?
Entertaining
?” Kate asked in mock surprise. Her parents are
always
entertaining, though in person they are
never
entertaining, if you follow me. We’ve never had a dinner party at V ’s house, even though each time she says she’d love to.

“We’ll have it at
my
house,” Kate pronounced. “Now, a guest list.”

“Well, everyone here,” Lily said, counting us off on her fingers. “There’s Flannery, Gabriel–”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Kate said. “We don’t have to list all of
us
. We’re you know, the basics.” She scribbled down our names on a piece of paper. “The Basic Eight.”

“Are there only eight of us?” Jennifer Rose Milton asked. “We’re such a menagerie it seems like more.”

“Yep, just eight. The Basic Eight are as follows: Kate Gordon, Natasha Hyatt, Jennifer Rose Milton, Flannery Culp, Lily Chandly, V , Douglas Wilde and Gabriel Gallon.”

“Why are the men last?” V asked.

“If you have to ask…” Natasha said, rolling her eyes. “…you can’t afford it,” I finished, and Natasha smiled at me.

“Who else shall we invite besides, um, the Basic Eight?” Lily asked.

“How about Lara Trent?” Gabriel asked. “I’ve always thought she was nice.”

“
Absolutely not
,” Natasha Hyatt said. “Such a
drip
.”

Jennifer Rose Milton put her hands on her hips. “She can’t be that bad. Let’s invite her. We’ll give her a chance.”

“
Absolutely not
,” Natasha said. “She once told me I wasn’t a good Christian.”

We all threw up our hands and said “
No
!” in unison. One thing we don’t tolerate is organized religion. Right-wing parent activists are going to love that sentence, but loath as I am to give any am- munition to those who are frothing at the mouth about our god- less schools, it’s true.

“How about Adam State?” Kate asked. She met my eyes quietly, and I appreciated her tact, which was a little out of character. Not that Kate is the sort to tease about our romantic inclinations, but she might at least

raise her eyebrows. Just about everyone must have known about me and Adam, so just about everyone waited for me to answer. “He seems a little conceited to me,” Gabriel said. Don’t smirk

at me, reader; I said
just about
everyone, not
everyone
.

“And we
certainly
don’t want any
egotism
,” Natasha said. “
Heaven forfend
. We don’t want to be friends with anyone who’s at all self-important.” Millie snorted in the corner at that.

“I think he’s nice,” I said, casually. I’m sorry, I didn’t write that in a way that properly conveyed the mood. “I think he’s nice,” I said, CASUALLY.

“I do too,” Lily said, loyally, and Kate wrote him down. “How about Flora Habstat? She’s my only friend in home-

room.”

Kate narrowed her eyes and sighed. “It’s always difficult to tell if someone’s interesting in homeroom. The setting is so dull, how can anyone really shine?”

“Well, let’s try her,” Jennifer Rose Milton said, and Kate wrote her down.

Natasha pulled out her hand mirror again. “Can I just warn you guys about something? I’ve heard that Flora constantly quotes the
Guinness Book of World Records
.”

“
What
?” V said. “I know her, and I’ve never heard her do that.”

“That’s just what I’ve heard,” Natasha said, airily. Kate and I exchanged a look. We were both wondering if we were missing some obscure joke.

“Who else?” Kate said. The bell rang.

Idea for a story: A man falls in love with a woman and writes her letter after letter. We never read the letters she writes to him. His love grows and grows through the

letters. He can’t stand it anymore. Then something drastic hap- pens…but what?

O my boggled head, around which numbers spun all period. The second day of school and I’m already lost in Calc. I covered my book last night, just like everybody else, but after that I got lost. I looked around me–no friends in that class, none at all–and everyone was taking notes, nodding along with Baker and his spirals of chalk. My mind sputtered and began to sink. I clung to the life jacket of sketching out story outlines. I think when I reread my journal this year I’ll always be able to tell when I was in Calc by the paragraphs of story entries.

For some reason we got out of Baker’s class early. The bell system here is computerized, which means of course that it doesn’t work; the bells ring, ignored, at random, as if a loud, un- ruly ice-cream man is wandering around Roewer High School. Baker let us out of class and the hallways were nearly deserted. I arrived early for Poetry, which was a gift. Hattie Lewis was there.

Hattie Lewis likes to tell her students stories from when she was young, but I can’t quite believe those stories because it seems that she must have been born a wise old woman. Her classroom is her lair. It’s industrial and ugly like everyone else’s classrooms, but it has an aura of classiness and culture. For one thing, there aren’t any faded travel posters or soft-focus photographs of sun- sets with “Reach For Your Dreams” superimposed over them up on the walls, but the aura transcends the cheap Impressionist re- productions that have replaced them. It comes from
her
. She doesn’t have to tell anybody not to chew gum; they just know it. She dresses more ridiculously than any other Roewer teacher (and the competition is stiff)–all crazy-quilted skirts and

vests with embroidered flora–but no one laughs, even when she’s not around. Her first name is Hattie, but no one has a mean nickname for her. Showing up early for her class and thus being alone with her felt like showing up early for Judgment Day and getting to hang out with the angels before the crowds arrive. (It sounds like I mean it felt like death. Calculus must still be crowding my brain.)

Our conversation was about the literary magazine, of which I am editor. She’s the faculty sponsor. Our first meeting is tomor- row after school. I can’t forget about it.