The Sharp Time by Mary O'Connell Page A

“process my grief,” as the books say, and that I would call them when I was ready to join the living? I suppose I should thank Catherine Bennett for making it clear to me: I did not need to make such a spectacle of my grief. Because I really am alone. I’m not like any other senior at Woodrow Wilson High School.
    And wouldn’t it have amped up the action in algebra class had I pulled the gun from my backpack, creamy pink and cold as iron ore in my hand, and said: Hey, thanks for asking if I am paying attention! As a matter of fact, I am paying attention . And I am paying attention: I see, I’ve always seen, exactly how Catherine Bennett is, how she preys upon students she perceives as weak or different, and now I have gone and joined Alecia Hardaway’s club.
    Except for one difference: I have a gun.
    And I hate to geek out and be Grammar Girl here, but a gun is the perfect noun for a singular pronoun: I have a gun. This house is where I live. I live alone, and I own a gun.
    It used to be we: we live here, in this house, together.
    But I try not to say we too much anymore, we being the word for my mother and me.
    Because even though I am a cool girl with a gun, it is hard to believe that I am no longer part of a family. Thinking of my mother being really and truly gone, gone, baby, gone is still so hard . I close my eyes; I cradle my gun to my heart. The difficult part is learning to think differently: This is my house. This is our house. Our house is the one with the ancient Amnesty International sticker on the refrigerator, the house stuffed with crafts from different stages of my mother’s artistic journey. My mother carried a green woven bag to the grocery store so as not to fill the landfill with plastic, and I see it now, pinned to the corkboard next to the refrigerator, looking strung out and worn at the handle. I am not my mother: I use the regular plastic grocery bags and then stuff them in the trash, not the recycling bin. I am not such a peace lover, either. Possibly no one has ever liked the feeling of a gun in her hand more than I do. I turn the music back up and I dance; I sway to the music, holding my gun to my heart. It’s a portal into all the things they do not expect from a Nice Girl Like Me. Maybe everyone has a secret life, maybe even Alecia Hardaway dissects and reassembles her world each night, trying and trying to get it right.
    I take a deep breath and I look over at the answering machine, hoping that somehow I have missed another call. But the machine is dark. I grab the remote and try to lose myself in a reality show, but I find myself merely fascinated by the spray-on tans of the women, the telltale spots they have missed, pale paisleys on their inner calves— Yes, Mrs. Bennett, I am paying attention— and I keep the sound turned low so I don’t miss a phone call.
    I had expected the head counselor, known for her halitosis and shockingly high high-rise jeans, to call last night, certainly by today. I hadn’t expected the big gun, the principal, Jack Johnson, aka Michael Jackson—nicknamed, I’m sorry to say, not for his dancing prowess—to call. So fine, he’s a prince, he’s a pal, he’s running the goddamn school, whatever, but surely the counselor, creepy Ms. Reiber, she of the optimistic posters on her office walls— WE’RE HERE TO HELP YOU, and the classic shot of the terrified kitten on the tree limb: HANG IN THERE, BABY!
    So, where is she? Ms. Reiber? Why doesn’t she call? Didn’t Mr. Hale tell anyone what he walked in on? Did Mrs. Bennett go home for the rest of the day? Did the other classes she teaches get to have study hall instead of geometry and calculus? Didn’t anyone tell anybody? Is Ms. Reiber so lame that she just doesn’t want to deal with it? O school counselor, O valiant dispenser of chocolate kisses, of sugarless gum, where art thou? I have seen her specific kindness before. After my mother died, Ms. Reiber called me into her office and counseled me to