Page 20 of My Own Kind of Person

Steph Rooney, a girl with such good posture I think it might be bad for her back, raises her hand. “The one we use with ourselves?”

“Possibly.” Mr. Mazzei walks to the window. “But how do we discover what that language sounds like?”

“Read a person’s diary.” Steph always sounds exhausted when teachers don’t get straight to the point.

“Possibly.” Mr. Mazzei repeats, not getting straight to the point.

The room is silent, but Mazzei could sit in silence for a month.

Jay doesn’t raise a hand. “My true voice comes out when I order Burger King.”

“Is that right?” Mazzei says.

Jay leans his elbow on Elijah’s desk and speaks with mock seriousness like he’s delivering lines in a soap opera. “I believe love brings out our truth.” He looks around as though we’re his captive audience. “And I love beef.”

A couple people laugh. Mr. Mazzei nods, but it’s the kind of nod that I think is a shrug, and the kind of shrug I think is a no.

“Maybe the voices we use with ourselves,” Mazzei begins, “in our diaries and even at fast-food restaurants, are only another place for us to posture, to perform. Most of us are likely far from knowing our true voices. Where would we even find them?”

Steph shifts in her seat. Jay scans the room. Mazzei takes a stack of paper from his desk and hands some to each row.

“Take one and pass them back. Please turn and talk with the person next to you to complete this activity.”

My phone buzzes and buzzes. It’s Christy.

Overslept

Blah

Whatever

I’m not coming in

Relief rushes through me because not seeing her today means there’s no chance for me to get it wrong with her, but I immediately feel guilty for thinking that. I send her a frowny face and take a secret selfie of me frowning and send it.

The kid in front of me passes back a slip of paper and I see it’s a list of styles of talking. We’re to take turns speaking in them with a partner and discuss what is different on a syntax level in each.

I count the desks and see I’m paired with Elijah.

“That works out,” he says. His voice is light and quiet.

“Yeah!”

“How are you today?”

“Good!” I say. “How about you?”

“I’m okay. The rest of your yesterday was all right?”

“It wasn’t bad. It may have even been good.”

“Whoa.”

“I know.”

He laughs and looks down at his slip.

Christy replies, thinking of you