The Nowhere Girls Read online

  Erin’s dog, Spot, is sitting in his usual station next to her under the table. He is named after Data’s pet cat, Spot, featured in several episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Erin could not get a cat because she’s allergic. This Spot is her second Spot. Spot number one was a guinea pig. Spot does not have spots. He is a golden retriever. Data’s Spot didn’t have spots either, so Erin isn’t worried about these inconsistencies.

  “Are you looking forward to your job in the school office?” Mom says. She has been trying to teach Erin small talk. They practice at mealtimes.

  “It’s not a ‘job,’ Mom. They’re not paying me. It’s essentially slave labor. In some ways, you and Dad are paying them, since public schools are funded by tax dollars, and I assume you both pay taxes. Dad does at least. You don’t work.”

  “I work, honey,” Mom says. “I just don’t get paid money for the work I do.”

  “You could get advertisers for your blog,” Erin says. “You could get paid for speaking at conferences and stuff.”

  “Thank you for your input,” Mom says. “But I’m happy where I am.”

  “No, you’re not,” Erin says. Mom gives her the look that means she said exactly the wrong thing, but Erin keeps talking. “If you made money, you could become financially independent.”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  She doesn’t say it. As mean as she can be to her mom, as many inappropriate things that come out of her mouth, there is one thing she never says: So you wouldn’t have to stay married to Dad.

  Erin shrugs. “A monkey would be overqualified for my job in the office. They just needed to put me somewhere during PE.” Erin got a doctor’s note saying she has problems with group sports and touching people. The note does not specify her dislike of sweating, which is also a problem.

  “The training went well this morning?”

  “I have access to the whole school database. I can look up everyone’s grades if I want to.”

  “But you wouldn’t do that, would you?”

  “It’s against the rules.” Everyone knows how Erin feels about rules. That’s why they gave her the job, which includes access to sensitive information.

  “What’s your plan for the rest of the day?” Mom says.

  “I will read for one hour. Then I will pick up Spot’s poo in the backyard and dispose of it. Then I will wash my hands for a full minute. Then I will eat an apple and carrot sticks because this meal will only keep me satiated for approximately ninety minutes. After that, I will watch my episode because I have completed all my duties for the day.”

  Erin’s old occupational therapist in Seattle taught her about delayed gratification, about how it’s the key to success. Erin has become very good at it. She does all the things she doesn’t want to do before she does the things she wants to do. That way she is always motivated to keep doing things and she always gets everything done. She always has at least one list going of what needs to be done, in a precise order based on a combination of importance, time sensitivity, and enjoyability (or lack of). Making these lists is sometimes as much work as the tasks themselves. But what people don’t understand is it’s necessary; it’s a matter of survival. Without Erin’s elaborate lists and schedules, tasks would have no hope of ever getting done. Erin would forget. Things would get jumbled around in her head until they crumbled into misplaced pieces, burying Erin in anxiety. Without her lists, without her obsessive organization, there are no rules, no order. The world makes no sense. It flies apart and threatens to fly Erin away with it.

  “Sounds like a plan,” Mom says.

  “I always have a plan.”

  “Yes, honey,” Mom says. “I know.”

  Maybe Erin can’t pick up on subtle tones all the time, but she’s pretty sure Mom’s voice means exasperated. Erin feels a wrenching in the place in her chest where pain always starts, the place from which anxiety radiates into the rest of her body. Right now, the pain place is saying Mom should be proud of Erin for the success of her lists, not annoyed and ashamed that she needs them.

  Spot paws at Erin’s leg because he can tell she’s feeling agitated. Mom got him cheap because he failed out of helper dog school, but he’s still very talented.

  “There’s a new family in my Tuesday night support group,” Mom says, even though she knows Erin hates talking while she eats.

  “That’s nice,” Erin says. What she wants to do is say nothing, but that is unfortunately not how conversations work.

  “They have a ten-year-old daughter who was just diagnosed. She’s very high functioning, like you. Very intelligent.”

  High-functioning, low-functioning. As if it’s that simple. As if those two designations mean anything real.

  Erin doesn’t say anything. Her excuse is that she’s chewing celery.

  “I thought it might be nice if you two could have a playdate sometime.”

  “Mom, I’m sixteen years old. I do not have playdates.”

  “I know she’d really like to meet you.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Erin, look at me,” she says. Erin does, but she aims her sight just below Mom’s eyes, a special trick she developed to make people think she’s looking them in the eye when really she’s not. “Remember how we talked about empathy? Try to imagine how this girl feels, and how reassuring it would be to meet someone older with Asperger’s who’s doing well.”

  Erin rubs her hands together to help calm her anxiety, to help her think straight. She thinks about empathy, how people mistakenly believe Aspies don’t have it, that it’s something people like Erin need to be taught. But Erin has empathy, lots of it, so much it hurts sometimes, so much that other people’s pain turns into her own pain and makes her completely incapable of doing anything useful for anyone. That’s why it’s easier to avoid it than to engage. It’s easier to try to ignore it than try to comfort whoever’s hurting, because usually that backfires and makes things worse. What Erin wants to do with pain is fix it, make it go away, and sometimes that’s not what other people want. And that makes absolutely no sense to Erin at all.

  What makes sense is logic. When in doubt, Erin asks herself, “What would Data do?” She does her best to think like an android. She uses her excellent logic skills to deduce if meeting would be a beneficial situation for the ten-year-old.

  “But, Mom,” Erin finally says, having reached her conclusion, “I’m not doing well.” Despite her lists, despite her adapting, every day is a struggle that leaves Erin exhausted in a way Mom will never understand.

  Erin knows what Mom’s face means. It is what people call a face “dropping,” though it hasn’t actually gone anywhere. It means very sad and disappointed. In the case of Erin’s mom, it also means you just said something that’s obvious but that she’s working very hard to pretend isn’t true.

  “Why do you say that? You get great grades, your IQ is off the charts, you’re thriving in a mainstream high school.”

  Erin thinks about that. “I have one friend. Everyone else calls me a freak. Even she calls me a freak sometimes. And my one attempt at having a boyfriend made us have to move to another state.”

  “Erin, we’ve talked about this. That’s not why we moved. Your dad got offered a job here.”

  But Erin doesn’t have to be a genius (even though she is) to know the real reason they moved. Whether or not her parents admit it, she knows no one willingly moves from a tenured position at the University of Washington to the University of Oregon for a job that pays less money.

  “Mom,” Erin says, “you need a better hobby.”

  She recognizes the look on Mom’s face. It’s like the face dropping from before, but worse.

  “Empathy, Erin,” Mom says softly. Her eyes are wet.

  Erin feels something grab and twist the pain place in her chest. That means she is supposed to say she’s sorry.

  “I need some space,” Erin says instead. “I’ll be in my room.” Her mother exhausts her more than almost anyone else.
It’s not necessarily being around people that drains Erin’s batteries, it’s being around people who want her to act like someone she’s not.

  “Come on, Spot,” Erin says. The dog follows Erin out of the kitchen, loyal even when Erin says things that make Mom sad. Erin never knows if Mom moves from her place at the island counter while she’s gone, because every time she comes back, Mom’s still there.

  GRACE.

  Grace keeps her head down as she navigates through the various groups crowding Prescott High School’s front steps. Through her bangs, she sees fragments of faces and hairstyles and clothes, and her mind races to catalog those she should try to avoid. Maybe a different kind of person would be looking for people to actively befriend, but her strategy for finding friends is through the process of elimination. She has thought long and hard about her plan, which is to scratch out first-tier popular (and who is she kidding? Probably second-tier popular, too), last-tier losers, druggies, superjocks, any conspicuous outliers, and then she’ll take whoever’s left. At her old school, Grace’s friends defaulted to being the kids of the superdevout parents at Mom’s church, the kids she grew up with through years of Sunday school and youth group. She put all her eggs in the wrong basket. She lost everyone she had when they unanimously decided to defriend her when their parents decided her mother was, more or less, possessed by Satan. She cannot let that happen again.

  Grace takes a deep breath when she locates the main office. She has accomplished her first task. She has made it through the front door. Now to acquire her class schedule. If she breaks the day down into small parts, it won’t seem so scary.

  Please God, she prays silently. Give me strength. Guide me through this torment.

  She stands at the front desk for what seems like a very long time. An androgynous-looking girl with a shaved head sits on the other side, eyes glued to the screen of an ancient computer. Grace knows the girl can see her, even though she’s acting like she doesn’t.

  “Um, hello?” Grace says.

  The girl looks at her for a moment, then back at the computer screen. “I’m not supposed to be at the front desk,” the girl says flatly. “The computer I’m supposed to use is in the back of the office, but it’s broken.”

  “Oh, okay?” Grace says. The bald girl shifts from side to side, looking nervous, saying nothing. “Um,” Grace continues. “I’m here to pick up my class schedule?”

  “You were supposed to get it in the mail two weeks ago.”

  “Um, I just moved here? So I didn’t really have an address two weeks ago? So they told me to come to the office to get it.”

  The girl finally looks up. “Who is they?”

  A heavyset woman hurries out of an office in the back. “So sorry, honey,” she says. “I had to run back here for just a second.” She looks at the bald girl with what seems like a worried expression, then back at Grace. “Was Erin helping you?”

  “Um, sort of?”

  “The way you talk is called ‘upspeak,’ ” the girl named Erin says. “It sounds like you’re asking a question even when you’re not.”

  “Erin.” The woman sighs. “Will you please focus on your task and let me help this young lady?”

  “I was trying to be friendly,” Erin says softly. She takes a deep breath and moves her hands together as if she’s trying to rub lotion into them.

  “Okay, Erin,” the woman says. “Calm down.”

  “Never in the history of the world has telling someone to calm down actually helped them calm down,” Erin says.

  “How can I help you, dear?” the woman says to Grace, with a look in her eyes that says they’re in on something together, which Grace suspects is supposed to be a mutual exasperation with Erin. But what Grace thinks is that Erin seems stressed out, so shouldn’t this woman be trying to help her? If you work at a school, isn’t it your job to help kids?

  “My name’s Grace Salter. I just moved here. I’m supposed to pick up my schedule.”

  “Of course,” the woman says with far more friendliness in her voice than when she spoke to Erin. “Welcome to Prescott! I’m Mrs. Poole. I run the office here. How do you like Prescott so far?”

  “It’s okay, I guess?”

  “We are exactly eighty-one point seven miles from the nearest beach,” Erin says. “Which is not okay.”

  Mrs. Poole ignores Erin. She flips through a file on the desk and pulls out a paper. “Here we go. Grace Salter’s class schedule. Homeroom is American Literature with Mr. Baxter.”

  “Mr. Baxter is the football coach and only assigns books by dead straight white men,” says Erin.

  “Erin, that’s enough!” says Mrs. Poole with a huff, then turns to Grace with a pitiful face. “She’s going to be here every first period for the entire semester.”

  “I can hear you,” Erin says.

  “You know what?” Mrs. Poole says. “The bell is about to ring. Erin, will you show Grace to her first class? We don’t want her to be late on her first day.”

  Erin stands up, and even though she’s wearing an oversize flannel over a baggy white T-shirt and ill-fitting jeans, Grace can tell she has a model’s body, and she wonders why she’s trying so hard to hide it. Grace thinks if she had a body like that, she’d want everyone to know it.

  “Let’s go,” Erin says, and walks out the door without checking to see if Grace is coming with her.

  Grace wants to ask Erin why Mrs. Poole thought it was okay to be so mean to her, why she seemed to think it wouldn’t hurt, but what Grace says instead is “Have you lived here long?” to the back of Erin’s head.

  “More than two years,” she says.

  “Where’d you live before?”

  “Seattle.”

  “Oh, was it cool there? I heard it’s cool.”

  “You have an accent.”

  “I’m from Kentucky.”

  “Here’s Mr. Baxter’s classroom.” Erin stops in front of an open door, her eyes tilted toward the ground. Grace realizes that except for that first glance up from the computer when she first entered the office, Erin hasn’t looked her in the eyes once.

  “Thanks.”

  Erin’s eyes dart across the floor. After a long pause, she finally says, “You’re welcome.” Then she walks away.

  Grace enters the noisy classroom and finds a seat in the back. She keeps her eyes on the floor and can’t tell if anyone’s looking at her. She doesn’t know which would be worse—if they were looking, or if no one noticed her at all. The bell rings. The teacher is nowhere in sight.

  “I heard Lucy Moynihan had a nervous breakdown after she left school,” a dark-haired girl says next to Grace. “She just, like, lost it. She’s in a mental institution in Idaho or something.”

  “That’s not true,” the girl’s blond friend says. “Her family just moved to Portland because they were embarrassed and couldn’t deal.”

  “Serves her right,” the other girl says. “For all the trouble she caused. Like, couldn’t she think of a better way to get attention?”

  The two girls laugh. Grace wants them to stop. She doesn’t know Lucy, doesn’t know the whole story, but she knows in her heart that the girl who carved those words Grace found in her room was not just looking for attention.

  But mixed in with her annoyance is also the hope that these girls are possible friend contenders. She can tell they’re not popular, but they’re also not the bottom rung. They’re like her, the kind of girls no one notices. So what if they gossip? Grace may have to look past things like that. She’s doesn’t have a ton of other options.

  Grace closes her eyes. She tells herself, Say hello. She prays for strength. She opens her mouth, but just then a tall, thick, clean-cut man enters the room carrying a pile of tattered textbooks.

  “Yo, Coach Baxter,” says a beefy dude in the front row.

  “Aarons,” says the teacher. “You ready to win on Friday?”

  “Hell yes!” Then a few other guys in football jerseys high-five and whoop.

 
“Here, McCoy,” he says to one of the football guys, dropping the pile of books on his desk. “Pass these out.”

  “Yes, Coach.”

  “All right,” Mr. Baxter says, rifling through a stack of papers on his desk. “Attendance. Attendance. Where’s my attendance sheet?”

  The loudspeaker crackles. “Good morning, Prescott High School, and happy first day of school,” says a female voice. “This is Principal Slatterly.” Half the class moans. “I speak for the teachers and administration when I say we’re glad to see you and hope you are returning from your summers well rested and ready to learn.”

  Her voice turns somber: “I want to emphasize that in addition to education, the mission of Prescott High is to instill in its students a respect for authority, discipline, and order. Without these things, your school, your community, society as a whole, would fall apart. We aim to nurture and grow constructive members of society, young men and women who want to contribute to, not disrupt and destroy, the spirit of the school community.” She clears her throat, and her voice turns chipper once again. “Our varsity football team is looking stronger than ever this year, and we’re looking forward to the pep rally Friday afternoon. Remember, students, only you can take charge of your own future. Go Spartans!”

  Half the class cheers while the rest stare blankly out the window. The blond gossiping girl smiles at Grace. Grace worries that her smile back is crooked. The girl says, “Are you new?”

  “Yeah. Hi. I’m Grace.”

  “I’m Allison. Nice to meet you.”

  Her friend says, “I’m Connie.” Grace feels the flutters of hope in her chest. All girls gossip, don’t they? Even nice girls are a little bit mean.

  “All right,” Coach Baxter says from the front of the classroom. “This class is American Literature. Before we get started, there are some things I want you to know. I believe in the canon. I believe in reading great works of literature that have endured through the ages because they explore universal themes. I’m not going to waste our time with work that is popular because of passing fads and political correctness. My job is to give you a strong foundation in the classics, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. We will start with selections by Edgar Allen Poe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau. Then we’ll read Moby Dick, by Herman Melville.”