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It was as if my eyes were washed with a good
dose of reality and opened wider. Susie Weaver
wasn't as sophisticated as I had thought. None of them
were. Maybe they were out there, doing things I never
did: drinking, smoking, hanging out late into the
night, being sexually active, but that didn't make them
sophisticated. They suddenly all looked like immature
people dressed in adult clothes. Most of them were
just as insecure as I was, if not more so. and what they
did was mock me or someone else in order to cover up
the truth about themselves.
I used to feel terrible about not having loads of
friends, not being invited to parties, not dating
regularly, not being Miss Popularity, and being
thought of as a prude, too religious, too moral, but
now I felt relieved, even lucky. What I felt terrible about missing looked more than simply insignificant. It looked foolish, wasteful. Maybe there was too much
Grandad in me. but I wasn't feeling sorry about it. I guess I really was an outsider, a loner of sorts.
I guess Chandler and I did appear made for each
other. I hurried to my locker after class and waited
eagerly for him. He deliberately lingered until most of
the school had left. When that bell ending the day
rang, it was often like a stampede. Anyone watching
outside would think we had all just been released from
doing hard time in a state penitentiary.
"What happened in the lunch room?" he asked
me as soon as he approached.
I told him how Karen Jacobs had seen him pass
me the note and then had made a big thing of it with
the others who enjoyed teasing me.
"What did they say?"
