Chapter 9, Part 1 - Dawn

Dawn needs to find a way to adapt - and soon, because she'll need it again later.

 

January is always a little weird. Some might think that the new semester should start with the new year, but it doesn’t, at least not at Juniper. Instead the last semester wraps up by the end of January, and we segue into February through Finals. I think we should just finish up in December and start new after the holidays, but apparently this way is better. I don’t know who it’s better for, but the administration seems to like.

            I wasn’t too thrilled about January. Not only did I have to take the regular Finals, but two of my classes were Advanced Placement and there are special exams that go with them for the possibility of earning college credit. Luckily, AP English was three marking periods long, so we just had a normal test and the AP Exam wasn’t until the class finished up in the spring. AP Macroeconomics was another story. And even with just one major exam, I still had Chemistry breathing down my neck. The only class that I didn’t have nightmares about was Latin 2, and only because that class brought a whole different level of stress in the form of narcissist teenage girls.

            Not to mention that I started work again the same week I went back to school and January was a surprisingly busy month. I found myself pouring over flash cards in the fitting rooms when I wasn’t busy hanging clothes.

            I warned everyone early on that I was going to be especially snappy and mean until Finals were over, even though most of them already expected it. Maggie was the same way, to my relief. She suggested that we spend our lunches in the library to study, which was especially nice because she had taken Chemistry in junior year so she could help me from time to time.

            One day while Maggie and I were reading at a table on the far end of the library, Asia burst through the security gates by the doors and hurried towards us.

            “What’s she doing in here?” Maggie poked my arm and pointed. “I didn’t think she even had a privilege card.”

            Privilege cards were distributed to students who had at least a 3.2 GPA, which I thought was going easy on most people.

            “She’s probably using Andrew’s; you know they don’t check,” I reminded her.

            Asia shook off her backpack and fell into the seat across from me. She flipped her hair over her shoulder as she pushed up the sleeves of her heavy sweatshirt and rolled her eyes.

            “You know what’s awful?” she asked.

            “Your face?” I replied, feigning malice. Maggie snorted briefly and leaned in to hear the retort.
            Asia didn’t even blink at me. “I was sitting there in English during our final speeches, and the whole time I kept thinking about how I’m going to Pizza Hut for dinner tonight. And I’m getting a large, thick crust pizza with extra cheese and green olives, and family sized breadsticks, and a salad with lots of cheese and ranch. Like on repeat. And now I’m craving pizza, but they’re serving that gross frozen stuff in the cafeteria and it’s so not appetizing.”

            “How awful.”

            “I know, right?” Asia nodded, spreading her hands to emphasize. “Grant was talking about DNA or something, and it made me think of olives.”

            Maggie made a face. “How’d you make that connection?”

            “I have no idea! I’m not even actually hungry, I’m just thinking of food.”

            “I mean, I understand the connection between olives and the Odyssey, but not DNA. That’s just weird.”

            “The scene with the Cyclops?” I grinned. “I get the same thing. It always makes me want olives.”

            Asia cleared her throat. “Hello, we’re talking about my problems right now.”

            “Did you even notice that we’re trying to study?” I asked her, waving my Latin book in front of her face.

            “Dawn, as my personal psychologist, you’re obliged to tell me something I don’t know, preferably something profound, so that I can go make myself better.”

            As if she took half of my advice anyway? I laughed at her. “Maybe in a few years! I don’t know, maybe you’re just excited about Pizza Hut. It’s not entirely unheard of.”

            “Give me a reason,” Asia whined.

            “Just humor her,” Maggie sighed. “I can’t concentrate with this going on.”

            “Okay, let’s do this semi-professionally.” I crossed my legs and let all my thoughts clear out of my head. It was always easier to at least try to deal with other people’s problems when I wasn’t focusing on my own. My face felt cooler, as if the absence of so much thought was like turning off the heat. “When was the last time you daydreamt about Pizza Hut?”

            Asia shrugged. “This is the first time, I think.”

            “What about other foods?”

            “Ever, or recently? Because I couldn’t stop thinking about cheesecake last Fourth of July.”

            I shook my head. “Probably because your mom was serving it that night. Let’s narrow it down to the last week.”

            “This morning. Isabella had a bagel in first period, and I didn’t pay attention for awhile because I was thinking about breakfast foods. Like those cinnamon buns my mom makes for Christmas! The ones with the icing one them, remember? And the cinnamon mixed in, so it’s kind of grainy…”

            “What did you have for breakfast this morning?” I always got hungry earlier when I didn’t eat breakfast, although I usually didn’t fixate on food because of it.

            “A bowl of Wheaties, a strawberry Pop Tart, a blueberry muffin, and a granola bar with chocolate chips in it. Oh, and peanut butter.”

            “On a spoon?”
            “No, in the granola bar. Chocolate and peanut butter.

            Maggie dropped her book unceremoniously on the table and stared at Asia. “And you’re still obsessing over food?”

            “Yeah, it’s really weird! Actually, that’s been my breakfast for like the past week. I just get so hungry overnight. I think I must dream about breakfast or something,” Asia explained.

            “And you haven’t put on any weight. Figures,” Maggie sniffed.

            Asia smiled radiantly, although it hadn’t been meant as a compliment. “Well, that’s my metabolism. I just think it’s weird that I’m so hungry!”

            “I though you said you weren’t actually hungry,” I pointed out.

            “I changed my mind. Now I am.”

            Maggie glanced at me and kind of shrugged with just her mouth. “Maybe she’s finally snapping out of her anorexia?”

            “Bulimia,” I corrected her. “If she was anorexic there’d be no question.”

            “I do not have an eating disorder,” Asia said crossly. “Well, I don’t know, maybe this is or something. But nothing like that.”

            “Maybe it’s just a growth spurt,” I told her. “I always get hungry during those.”

            Asia leaned down on her folded arms. “You mean I’m going to get taller? I already can’t wear heels!”

            “Oh please. You’re not that tall,” Maggie snapped. “Maybe you’re growing out instead of up.”

            “It certainly couldn’t hurt her,” I agreed.
            “I bet a few extra pounds would make her look even better,” Maggie said, mocking bitterness. “Andrew would probably appreciate it.”

            Asia was not amused by our predictions. “Hey, I skipped my lunch to come ask for your advice, even when I’m so hungry. You don’t have to be mean,” she said sharply.

            “We’re just joking, Asia. You know you look fabulous.”

            “I don’t think it’s funny! I get this crap all the time from everyone else about being too skinny, I don’t need it from my friends.”

            “You do understand why people think that, though, right?” I asked. “I mean, here you are whining about being so hungry, and having had so much to eat lately, and you look as thin as ever. People just worry about you, that’s all.”

            Asia folded her arms tightly and pouted at the floor. “Yeah. I still don’t like it.” She scooped her bag onto her elbow and stood to face the doors. “I’ve gotta’ go, I told Stacy that I’d only be a minute.”

            We watched her breeze out of the library, black hair fanning out behind her as she marched back through the security gates. Something was weird about her, but I wasn’t sure what. I didn’t think it was the hunger; although it wasn’t always so pronounced, Asia had always had a bottomless stomach.

            Maggie nudged my arm with her elbow. “Was she about to cry, do you think?”

            “I don’t know,” I replied. “That was funny.”

            “Strange-funny, maybe.”

            “That’s what I meant. She seemed a little less stable than usual.”

            “Oh man, you should’ve seen her in International Relations yesterday!” Maggie’s eyes widened on the memory. “Isabelle and Lindsay were so obviously talking about her, and she didn’t tell them off or anything.”

            “That is weird,” I agreed.

            “I know! Remember last year when she caught Madison talking about her to Danella? She chewed her out in front of everyone! And she and Madison are actually friends!”

            “She was kind of off-balance when I talked to her over break also,” I remembered. “She got mad over things she normally wouldn’t.”

            “Maybe she’s freaking out about finals. I know I am, and she has way more to worry about that I do. She hasn’t gotten above a seventy on any of the map quizzes yet!” Maggie whispered. “I think she needs serious tutoring.”

            “Oh, great,” I groaned. “If this is a repeat of freshman year, I’ll shoot myself. I spent half the year pushing her and Stacy to do any work at all! Shouldn’t she have grown up by now?”

            Maggie shrugged. “You’d think. But then, I thought that Iran and Iraq were next to each other,” she showed me her opened atlas. “And apparently, that is not the case.”

 

            A week before finals, I found myself cramming relentlessly in the break room at Marshall’s. A woman from the men’s department offered to show me flashcards for Latin, and one of the cashiers helped me with some questions over Macroeconomics. When my eager-to-please coworkers couldn’t help me, I read pages of text until I went cross-eyed. Sometimes I huddled in the coat closet because the actual break room was too crowded and noisy to concentrate. I snuck my flashcards and folded pages of notes into the fitting room with me. When I had a three second break from attending to customers, folding and hanging clothes, and sweeping through the stalls to make sure they were clean, I ran to my little desk to pour over a line of information. I would get in one or two new facts, and then memorize them as I auto piloted through my actual job.

            Heidi caught me one day, reading through my notes as I folded a cart full of clothes from the service desk. Worried she would punish me for not concentrating only on the clothes, I quickly apologized and explained that finals were coming up. Instead of looking mad or even understanding, Heidi laughed.         

            “Dawn, I don’t think a week has passed that you haven’t been studying or working on homework here. You don’t need to explain,” she giggled. “I wish my kids were as studious as you.”

            I could tell I was blushing by the hot sting on my nose, which always turned red before my cheeks.

            “Listen, I know school is really important to you. Do you need a few days off, just until finals are over?” Heidi offered. I couldn’t believe she was just going to give me free days to do nothing but study. The sad part was that I really would spend those days doing nothing but studying, unlike my peer coworkers, who had requested a few days off for studying but were more than likely socializing and getting into trouble instead.

            It was tempting. For a moment, plump little Heidi with her tangled brown hair and wrinkled chin looked like an angel of mercy. I could just about see the halo, shimmering dark gold above Heidi’s head.

            My parents wouldn’t appreciate the late car payment, though. They would probably lecture me about being honoring responsibilities and deadlines and the importance of time management. It was enough to make me want to choke myself with my own flashcards. Time management indeed – my life was nothing but dividing my time between work and school.

            “Oh, thanks,” I smiled sadly at my boss. “I really need to get the hours in, though. You’ve already given me so much time off anyway, I should be okay.”

            Heidi shrugged off her halo. “Well, alright. You’re doing a really fantastic job, Dawn. None of the other kids your age have paid so much attention to detail in the fitting rooms while I’ve been here.”

            I looked behind me to the clothes hanging on sorting rack, all properly hung, labeled, buttoned, zipped, and arranged according to department, size, and color.

            “It’s what you pay me to do,” I said shortly, and it was true, wasn’t it? Why take a job if you aren’t going to do it? If you don’t do it right, then it won’t get done. That was life – nobody was going to do the work for me if I didn’t do it the way it was supposed to be done, they were just going to blame me for it being wrong. Why bother with being wrong?

            Heidi smiled, relieved. “Thank God, you get it. Nobody else in the store does.”
            I watched her stalk towards the Shoes service area, looking for someone to chastise. Shoes were always a mess – customers never put the right pairs back together and there were just too many boxes and not enough employees to keep up with the disorder. Of course, Shoes had that excuse – sheer number inequality. The rest of the store, which was always being combed by employees to check for misplaced clothes and such, looked like someone’s jumbled closet. I knew for a fact that a bunch of the girls hid in the coat rack and gossiped instead of tidying the stores. It made me angry that I spent so much time doing things right, when they were just going to go backwards thanks to my lazy coworkers. I would have to ask Asia if sending Heidi an anonymous tip would be too spiteful, or if I owed it to myself and to the customers.

            “Excuse me,” I was interrupted from my contemplation by a middle-aged blond woman in bulging spandex.

            “Hi, could you hang your items on this bar please?” I asked, patting the metal rail in front of my desk.

            The woman sniffed at me, but complied. I leafed through her selections, simultaneously counting and taking note of what she was trying on. Seven pairs of jeans from the juniors department, sizes three through seven. This pretty much meant that this was a hopeful woman, one who had probably spent the last week on the treadmill, and was about to find out that she was just too old anymore to fit into clothes meant for tween girls and the anorexic. I hid my pity, and I really did feel bad for her, through an impassive stare.

            “Alright ma’am, you can take back six items at a time, so I’ll hold one pair of jeans up here for you until you’re done with the first six,” I said slowly, so that she wouldn’t misunderstand and think I was stealing her seventh item from her, and handed her a plastic green card with a big “six” on it.

            The blond woman sniffed again and smiled tightly, forcing herself to accept the absurd rules. At least she didn’t fight them, which was always a reward for me. I watched her choose a fitting room before turning back to my notes. I had to lean on the desk to ease the ache in my lower back, which had begun to plague me over the past few days.

            Not five minutes had passed before the blond lady was back. The jeans were tossed over her arm, no hangers in sight, and her lips were pulled into a small ball under her nose. She took one look at the lonely jeans waiting on the rail, and shoved the first six into my chest.

            “I’m not even going to bother with those,” she nodded at the seventh pair. “These were way too small.”

            I wanted to tell her to stop denying that she was a middle-aged woman, that of course the junior jeans were too small for her, and that she would look perfectly normal in a pair of pants from the ladies department. So many women tried to fool themselves and me with them into thinking that they could wear what the youngest of teenagers were fitting into. The reality of not being able to even squeeze the jeans over their hips usually led to bitterness and openly hostile behavior, which was always aimed at me or the store in general. They seem to convince themselves that we, foretelling that that particular woman was on her way to visit us, would run out and purposely shrink all our clothes just to make them feel ridiculous and fat. And that’s a far easier thing to believe than admitting to yourself that you’re just not that small and you shouldn’t be anyway.

            It made my back throb to think that I had never met a customer who admitted to grabbing too small of a size. People liked to say that things were too big, or to say “it fits here but not there”, but they were unable to say that they needed a bigger size because they were bigger than they wanted to believe. I caught myself in the mirror as I retrieved the discarded hangers out of the blond woman’s stall, and repeated in my head that I was a size six in ladies pants and a medium in ladies tops. If I wanted to fool myself into the junior’s department, I would need at least a thirteen in pants and a large in tops. But I wasn’t so desperate as to believe that the junior’s clothes were so much more attractive than standard sized clothes, so I didn’t have to worry about it.

            I finished hanging and sorting the jeans and forced myself to stop mentally venting about crazy delusional Marshall’s shoppers. I had bigger things to worry about; finals, and that burn in my back.

“What are you doing, Dawn?” I looked up to see Penny hovering in the entrance to the fitting rooms.
            I blinked. “Studying for Chemistry. What are you doing?”

Penny laughed and shook her head. “I mean, why are you standing like that? You look like you’re eighty years old.”

My arms were propping me up on the desk, hands splayed over the edges of my notes, my knees bent as much as they could be without affecting my height too much. I didn’t want to be hanging on the desk, legs curled up beneath me, but I was inching towards that position without even realizing it.

“Oh, yeah. My back is killing me today,” I told her.

“What did you do to it?” she asked.

“Sorry, did I say today? I meant this past week.”

“Bad spill or something?” Penny managed to remind me of my grandmother and still seem completely young.

“No, nothing like that. It just started aching a few days ago.”

She laughed again; she was the laughing sort, always smiling even when things weren’t particularly funny. “Uh oh! You should’ve been at Psych Club the other day. We talked about Somatoform disorders.”

“I’m not just imagining it. I’m seriously in pain. It’s probably because of finals, I’ve been studying like crazy,” I explained.

“That’s right, it’s you I’m talking to,” Penny threw her hands up as if she had just realized it was me. “And you’re probably obsessing over all your tests, aren’t you? You’re a ridiculous overachiever.”

“I’m not ridiculous, I’m just ambitious,” I corrected her.

“Well, there it is. You’re just way too stressed,” Penny diagnosed. “Have you considered doing things to relax at the end of the day?”

“I try to sleep at the end of the day,” I said plainly.

“You should do something else, like walk or exercise or whatever. Something to relieve stress and won’t make you think about your finals.”

“I’ll try it,” I said dubiously, “but I always stress anyway.”

Penny shrugged. “As long as I’ve told you, I’ve done my bit. Now count my stuff, wench,” she thrust a small handful of clothes onto the rack. “I’m on a schedule.”

 

I did try the anti-stress activities. When I got home at nine-thirty, I made the executive decision to set aside studying for the night and instead got on my mother’s exercise bike in the basement. Anne let me borrow her Jock Jams cd, which was so old that I let myself get nostalgic instead of wonder if I remembered how to translate Fahrenheit into Celsius.

“You look different,” my mom said as soon as I went upstairs.

“Sweaty and gross?” I suggested, painfully aware of how my hair was clinging to my damp forehead, but she ignored it.

“Less uptight,” she said finally. “For once your shoulders aren’t up around your ears! What made you relax? Finals aren’t over yet, are they?”

“They haven’t started yet, but thanks for reminding me.” As if I could forget! All the same, though, I did feel more at ease. There was definitely a difference in my back, probably from not carrying all my weight on my shoulders. I fled upstairs, eager to shower and sleep before I had to start all over again tomorrow, anxious as always.

 

Author's Note

Constructive criticism is welcomed, as always.