Beginnings

Ocracoke
1995

I woke to sunlight streaming through my window. I knew my aunt was long gone, though in my haze, I imagined I heard someone rummaging in the kitchen. Still groggy and dreading the barf because it’s morning thing, I gently pulled the pillow over my head and kept my eyes closed until I felt like it was safe to move.

I waited for the nausea to take over while I slowly came back to life; by then, it was as predictable as the sunrise, but strangely, I continued to feel okay. I slowly sat up, waited another minute, and still nothing. Finally, putting my feet to the floor, I stood, certain that my stomach would start doing cartwheels any second, but still there was nothing.

Holy cow and hallelujah!

Because the house was chilly, I threw on a sweatshirt over my pajamas, then slid into some fuzzy slippers. In the kitchen, my aunt had thoughtfully stacked all my textbooks and various manila folders on the table, probably to get me kick-started first thing in the morning. I pointedly ignored the pile because I wasn’t just not sick; I was actually hungry again. I fried an egg and reheated a biscuit for breakfast, yawning the whole time. I was more tired than usual because I’d stayed up late to finish the first draft of my paper on Thurgood Marshall. It was four and a half pages, not quite the five pages required but good enough, and feeling sort of proud of my diligence, I decided to reward myself by blowing off the rest of my homework until I felt more awake. Instead, I grabbed the Sylvia Plath book from my aunt’s shelf, bundled up in a jacket, and took a seat on the porch to read for a while.

The thing is, though, I’d never really liked reading for pleasure. That was Morgan’s thing. I’d always preferred skimming bits here and there to get the general concept, and after opening the book to a random page, I saw a few lines that my aunt had underlined:

I frowned and read it again, trying to figure out what Plath had meant by that. I thought I understood the first part; I suspected she was talking about loneliness, albeit in a vague way. The second part wasn’t so hard, either; to my mind, she was just making it clear that she was talking about loneliness specifically, not the fact that being in a quiet place is depressing. But the third sentence was trickier. I guessed she was referring to her own apathy, perhaps a product of her loneliness.

So why hadn’t she just written, Being lonely sucks?

I wondered why some people had to make things so complicated. And, frankly, why was that insight even profound? Didn’t everyone know that loneliness could be a bummer? I could have told them that and I was just a teenager. Hell, I’d been living it since I’d been marooned in Ocracoke.

Then again, maybe I’d misinterpreted the whole passage. I was no English scholar. The real question was why my aunt had underlined it. It obviously had meant something to her, but what? Was my aunt lonely? She didn’t seem lonely and she spent a lot of time with Gwen, but then again, what did I really know about her? It wasn’t as though we’d had any deeply personal conversations since I’d been here.

I was still thinking about it when I heard an engine and the sound of tires crunching gravel out front. After that, the thumping of a car door. Rising from my seat, I opened the slider and listened, waiting. Sure enough, I eventually heard someone knocking. I had no idea who it could possibly be. It was the first time I’d heard a knock at the door since I’d been there. Maybe I should have been nervous, but Ocracoke wasn’t exactly a hotbed of criminal activity, and I doubted a criminal would knock in the first place. Without a care, I went to the front door and swung it open only to see Bryce standing before me, which pretty much made my brain freeze in confusion. I knew I’d agreed to let him tutor me, but somehow I’d thought I had a few days before we’d begin.

“Hi, Maggie,” he said. “Your aunt said I should come by so we can get started.”

“Huh?”

“Tutoring,” he said.

“Uh…”

“She mentioned that you might need some help preparing for your tests. And maybe catching up on your homework.”

I hadn’t showered, hadn’t brushed my hair, hadn’t put on makeup. In my pajamas and slippers and jacket, I probably looked homeless. “I just got out of bed,” I finally blurted out.

He tilted his head. “You sleep in your jacket?”

“It was cold last night.” When he continued to stare, I went on. “I get cold easy.”

“Oh,” he said. “My mom does, too. But…are you ready? Your aunt said to be here at nine.”

“Nine?”

“I talked to her this morning after I finished working out. She said she’d come back to the house and leave you a note.”

I guess I had heard someone in the kitchen earlier. Oops. “Oh,” I said, trying to buy time. There wasn’t a chance I’d let him come in with the way I was looking now. “I thought the note said ten.”

“Do you want me to come back at ten?”

“That might be better,” I agreed, trying not to breathe on him. For his part, he looked…well, a lot like he had the day before. Hair slightly windblown, dimples flashing. He was wearing jeans and that cool olive jacket again.

“No problem,” he said. “Until then, can you get me the stuff that your aunt Linda set out? She said it might help me get a handle on things.”

“What stuff?”

“She told me it was on the kitchen table.”

Oh yeah, I suddenly thought. That thoughtful stack on the table, for the morning kick-start.

“Hold on,” I said. “Let me check.”

I left him waiting on the porch and retreated to the kitchen. Sure enough, on top of the stack was a note from my aunt.

I reminded myself to keep my eye out for notes in the future. I was about to grab the stack when I remembered the paper I’d written. I went to the bedroom and retrieved it before scooping everything else into my arms and carrying it all to the front door, where I quickly realized my mistake.

“Bryce? Are you still here?”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“Can you open the door? My hands are full.”

When the door swung open, I handed him the stack. “I think this is what she set out for you. I also wrote a paper last night, so I put that on top.”

If he was surprised by the size of the pile, he didn’t show it. “Great,” he said, reaching for it. He took the stack, bobbling it slightly before rebalancing. “Do you mind if I figure this out here on the porch? Instead of going home and coming back?”

“Not at all,” I said. I really, really wished I’d brushed my teeth. “I need a little time to get ready, okay?”

“Sounds good,” he said. “I’ll see you whenever. Take your time.”

After closing the door, I went straight to my bedroom to find something to wear. Quickly undressing, I pulled out my favorite jeans from the pile in the closet, but when I buttoned the top, it dug into my skin and hurt. Same thing with my second-favorite pair. Which meant I’d probably have to wear the same baggy ones I’d worn on the ferry. I sorted through my tops, but thankfully they still fit. I picked something maroon with long sleeves. For shoes, though, I didn’t have much. Sneakers, slippers, rubber boots, and Uggs. Uggs it would be.

With that decided, I showered, brushed my teeth, and dried my hair. After dabbing on some makeup, I slipped into the clothes I’d picked out. Because my aunt had been so insistent about the cleanliness thing, my room was all set, so all I really had to do was straighten the sheet, pull up the comforter, and prop Maggie-bear against the pillow. Not, of course, that I had any intention of showing him my bedroom, but if he needed to use the bathroom and peeked in, he might notice that I kept things tidy.

Not that it mattered.

I washed and dried the plate, glass, and utensils I’d used for breakfast, but other than that, the kitchen was all set. I pulled open the drapes, letting more light into the house, and taking a deep breath, went to the door.

Opening it, I saw him sitting on the front porch, legs perched on the steps.

“Oh, hey,” he said, no doubt hearing me behind him. He realigned the pile and got to his feet, then suddenly froze. He stared as though seeing me for the first time. “Wow. You look really nice.”

“Thanks,” I answered, thinking that maybe I looked all right, even if I would never be as pretty as Morgan. But even so, I felt my cheeks redden slightly. “I just threw on whatever was lying around. You ready?”

“Let me grab this stuff.”

He gathered up the stack and I stepped back so he could squeeze through the door. He stopped, no doubt wondering where to go.

“The kitchen table is fine,” I said, motioning. “That’s where I usually work.”

In those rare instances I do work, I thought. And when I wasn’t doing it in bed, which I wasn’t about to tell him.

“Perfect,” he said. In the kitchen, he set the stack on the table, pulled out the manila folder at the top, and settled in the chair I’d used for breakfast. Meanwhile, I was still thinking about what he’d said to me on the porch, and even though I’d invited him inside, the fact that he was actually at the kitchen table felt bizarre, like something you might see on television or at the movies but never expected to experience in real life.

I shook my head, thinking, I need to get hold of myself. Starting toward the kitchen, I veered to the cupboards near the sink. “Would you like some water? I’m going to get a glass.”

“That would be great, thanks.”

I filled two glasses and brought them to the table, then sat in the spot that was usually my aunt’s. I was struck by the thought that the house looked entirely different from this angle, which made me wonder how it appeared to Bryce.

“Did you see the paper I wrote?”

“I read it,” he said. “He’s one of the most prominent justices ever to serve. Did you choose him, or did the teacher assign it?”

“The teacher picked it.”

“You got lucky there because there’s so much to write about.” He folded his hands in front of him. “Let’s start with this. How do you think you’re doing in your classes?”

I hadn’t expected the question and it took me a second to answer. “I’m doing okay, I guess. Especially considering that I’m supposed to learn all this on my own without having a teacher. I didn’t do all that great on my recent quizzes or tests, but there’s still time to get my grades up.”

“Do you want to get your grades up?”

“What do you mean?”

“I grew up hearing my mom say ‘There is no teaching, there is only learning’ over and over. I must have heard it more than a hundred times, and for a long time, I didn’t know what she meant. Because she was my teacher, right? Was she telling me that she wasn’t a teacher? But as I got a little older, I finally understood that she was telling me that teaching is impossible unless a student wants to learn. I guess that’s another way I could have phrased it. Do you want to learn? Really and truly? Or do you simply want to do enough to get by?”

Just like on the ferry, he came across as more mature than other people his age, but maybe because his tone was so nice, it made me reflect on what he was really asking.

“Well…I don’t want to have to repeat my sophomore year.”

“I get that. But it still doesn’t really answer my question. What grades would you like? What would make you happy?”

Straight A’s without having to do the work, I knew, but I didn’t think it would do me any good to say it out loud. The fact was, I was normally a B or C student, with more C’s than B’s. Sometimes I got an A in the easier classes like Music or Art, but I’d had a couple of D’s, too. I knew I’d never compare with Morgan, but part of me still wanted to please my parents.

“I think that if I averaged B’s I’d be happy with that.”

“Okay,” he said. He smiled again, dimples and all. “Now I know.”

“That’s it?”

“Not exactly. Where you are and where you would like to be aren’t aligned right now. You’re at least eight assignments behind in your math homework, and your test scores are pretty low. You’re going to need to do outstanding work the rest of the semester to get a B in Geometry.”

“Oh.”

“You’re way behind in Biology, too.”

“Oh.”

“Same situation in American History. And English and Spanish, too.”

By then, I couldn’t meet his eyes, knowing he probably thought I was an idiot. I understood enough to know that West Point was almost as hard to get into as Stanford.

“What did you think about my paper?” I asked, almost afraid of the answer.

His gaze flickered over it; it wasn’t in the folder—he’d placed it on top of the stack of textbooks.

“I wanted to discuss that with you, too.”