Page 1 of September Lessons
Chapter 1
CARRIE
What was the only thing worse than starting a new school year in a new town?
Doing it senior year.
That’s what Carrie Sage thought as she stood in the isolated parking lot of Clark High School. Although the number of signs asking everyone to please refrain from smoking on public property did not deter her as she lit up and sat on the hood of her car, she minded her manners when a man in collared shirt and dress slacks walked by with a briefcase in hand and jacket slung over his arm. He had all the markings of ateacher.Possibly the principal. Carrie had been sizing them up as they rolled up in their Fords, Hondas, and Toyotas, some old and beat up and others straight off the truck lot – and complete with hunting racks in the back. The other high school students who had their own vehicles likewise lingered in the parking lot, squealing in delight at the sight of one another and bemoaning the fact they still didn’t get decent phone reception out there.It’s pretty messed up to have a school out in the middle of nowhere.The school buses chugging by served “Paradise Valley-Roundabout School District” and to accommodate the towns that were seven miles apart, the district long ago decided to build the new high school on a parcel of flat land right smack dab in between them.
Which meant nobody could damn well walk to school.
Suited Carrie fine. She had packed up her meager things into her car a month ago and drove from Alabama to Oregon, taking in the sights and smells of middle America as she kept her cigarettes out the window and the wind in her hair. Her parents didn’t want her no more? Fine. She’d redo senior year in a place that was more suited to her tastes. Luckily for her, her aunt and uncle had offered to take her in so she could complete high school. As long as she got a job, anyway. Even luckier? Her uncle was good friends with the owner of Paradise Pizza and agreed to give Carrie a trial run a couple days a week to get her started.
You know, in case I mess up, like I always do.
Carrie knew she was different from her new schoolmates before meeting a single one. Oh, she knew all about the area’s reputation as a haven for the gays.Why do you think I moved here? Don’t have no cares about that!That wasn’t what set her apart from the hormone-riddled fifteen-year-old freshmen starting a new journey toward adulthood. Or her fellow seniors who giggled about ruling the school before they had the chance to think about college. No, what set Carrie apart had nothing to do with the color of her skin, the sexuality she was born with, or where she came from.
I’m the oldest one here.
Granted, she was “only” nineteen, but Carrie knew how it looked when the new girl at school was already a year older than the oldest senior. Everyone would whisper that she was held back a year, and they wouldn’t be wrong. Carrie had been on track to graduate on time back in Alabama. Before she was involved in a big enough scandal that got her expelled before Christmas break and ended up so pissed at the world that she didn’t bother going back to school until her parents gave her an ultimatum. The solution was hilariously simple once her aunt agreed to take her in and enroll her in the local high school.It was either that or get my GED. I didn’t survive three and a half years at my old school for a GED, though.Carrie was stubborn like that. As much as she hated being a nineteen-year-old Southerner sitting on the hood of her car on the first day of school – in Oregon, of all places – she would rather do that than attend GED classes back in Alabama. Especially if it meant living with her parents or suffering through two part-time jobs to afford a room in somebody’s house.
“Hello, there.” A woman in an ivory white sundress stood a few feet away from Carrie’s car. “I’ll pretend I don’t see that cigarette in your hand and instead ask if you’re one of the new students we’re expecting today.”
Her sweet voice didn’t sway Carrie, who had known plenty of small-town schoolteachers who were cherry sweet on the outside but sour as sin inside. This lady would be no different.
“You a teacher?” Carrie smashed her cigarette beneath her old, worn Adidas shoes. Her uncle had quipped that she better upgrade to Nikes if she wanted to be taken seriously in northern Oregon. Carrie hadn’t understood it until she saw the million Nike billboards on the highway. Something about Portland.
The woman tilted her head with a knowing smile. “I’d correct your grammar, but I save that for the classroom. Who’s your homeroom?”
“Don’t you meanwho’s my homeroom teacher?”
“Something like that.”
Carrie snorted. “Somebody named Mrs. Cooper. Math. First thing in the dang morning.”
“Senior, huh? You must be Ms. Sage. I look forward to seeing you for third period English.”
“So youarea teacher. Either that or a really old teacher’s assistant.”
“These days, you can never tell, huh?”
Carrie didn’t let her amusement show, lest this teacher think they were now buddy-buddy. “First bell hasn’t rung yet, right? So I’ve got time.”
“You know where the classroom is?”
“I’m pretty resourceful, and this school is the size of a shoebox. Think I’ll be okay.”
“Like I said, see you for third period English. Pardon me, I have freshmen first period, and I fully expect at least one to cry.”
Was that sarcasm? Or did freshmen really cry on the first day of school in these parts?
The bell rang. Students rushed inside. Carrie slid off the hood of her car, made sure everything was locked, and secured her backpack over her shoulders. She calculated that she had about five minutes to throw things in her locker and get to her first class at a new school. How was that for first period math?
Carrie knew what would happen as soon as she walked down the junior-senior hallway. She was new. Nobody recognized her. From the moment she turned the corner and looked for locker #27, her fellow Clark High students whispered in her direction. When Carrie stood in front of her locker on the senior side of the hall, the whispers turned to shouts of excitement. A new kid! On the first day of school! Anew senior!What were the odds?
It would have been funny (or annoying,) but Carrie got it. She anticipated it. She was from rural America like these kids, after all. Whether Alabama or Oregon, not much changed when a new kid showed up on the first day of school.We used to look around the halls on the first day every year, hoping to see unfamiliar faces.The media depicted huge high schools that bullied the new kids, but it wasn’t like that in these super small towns at all. Not when kids were eager for new friends.It was like The Hunger Games, man. As soon as we heard there was a new kid, the boys gathered their wits and the girls prepared to pounce, depending on the gender of the student.If a new girl walked into their classroom, the few friend groups that had chiseled out over the years would take turns pitching their circles, hobbies, and boasting about who lived where, all in the hopes of attracting the new girl into their fold. Social circles were easy enough to find in these small schools. Kinda hard to ignore kids when there were only twenty of you in a class. But true friendship? Great girlfriends or boyfriends that really matched your personality? That was way harder. Friendships that blossomed in these small schools weren’t usually founded on personalities and interests. They were relationships of convenience, because being friends with someone you tolerated but had nothing in common with was better than being alone, and that was the only alternative when twelve girls sat in your class and planned a sleepover.
Except that was more common in middle school, maybe. By the time these kids made it to senior year, they had become so set in their ways that a new kidmightbe taking over their turf, so to speak.Good thing I’m not a kid, then.Carrie may have recently turned nineteen that past July, but after everything she had been through, she liked to think she was more mature than the average high schooler. For God’s sake, she was the age of majority. She had already voted. She bought her own cigarettes instead of paying someone else to do it or bumming them off her older friends. Some of her acquaintances back home had already shown up in adult videos at this point in their lives.
