As Cornelia sat at the desk in her bedroom that night, she thought about Mrs. Hakim’s words, “Write about any form of discrimination you have experienced or witnessed.” Cornelia couldn’t think of one situation where she had been discriminated against. “People often make assumptions about other people, whether it is because of their race, religion, gender, the color of their skin, or simply because of the clothes that they wear, or the people that they love,” Mrs. Hakim had said. But this did nothing to jog Cornelia’s memory. The only event of any substance she could think of was her own crime against Mrs. Hakim.
Cornelia looked up at the Daruma doll sitting on the bookshelf next to the desk. His one eye was fixed on her. She thought for a moment that he looked like Popeye the Sailorman, but his evil wink was much more sinister. She felt guilty every time she looked at Daruma. She felt that he could see inside her soul. He knew her every wish and her darkest fears. He knew what she did and his eye reflected her guilt. Daruma was sitting on the shelf above her shoulder the way a devil or angel would sit on people’s shoulders in cartoons giving them advice about what to do. Only Daruma didn’t speak. He just starred knowingly with his one beady little eye.
Cornelia turned her attention to her laptop screen. Her word processing program was open but the page was completely blank except for her name. She didn’t even know what to title her story since she couldn’t think of a plot. She thought perhaps she could make something up, but she was certain that Mrs. Hakim would see right through it. No, she had to tell the truth. Unfortunately, the only truth she could come up with was the crime of discrimination that she committed herself, not anything that was done to her.
She wondered if the other members of Writers on the Storm were having the same trouble. She thought about Ralph and Brenda. Surely they wouldn’t have trouble coming up with something, she thought. She knew what Steve was going to write about already and she thought it probably wouldn’t be too hard for Valerie to come up with something. She wondered what Amanda, Andy and Randy were going to write. She knew Sandy was going to write about being discriminated against because she’s a girl and she thought Amanda would probably do the same, but she couldn’t imagine what Andy and Randy were going to come up with.
After staring at the blank screen for what seemed like an hour, Cornelia decided to give up for the night. She wanted to instant message Rebekka and Sarah but she was grounded from the internet. She called Rebekka in secret instead. She snuck out into the hallway, looking around for her mother. She could hear the television on downstairs so she picked up the phone in the hall. She turned it on but did not dial. If her mother was sitting by the living room phone she might see the light that indicated that the phone was in use, so Cornelia waited for a minute. Unfortunately, she waited too long and the phone started making that horrible loud beeping noise that happens when you don’t dial quick enough.
Cornelia quickly pushed the off button and waited silently, breathing heavily after the start she was given. She could still hear the TV but she didn’t hear her mother moving around. After a few minutes she pushed the green button and waited for a shorter amount of time. After a few seconds she figured her mother hadn’t seen the “in use” light go on, so she dialed very quickly and tip-toed back to her room with the cordless phone.
Rebekka told Cornelia that she was convinced that David Warton, the captain of the football team, winked at her in seventh bell. Cornelia told her she must be crazy because David is Kenzie Phillips’ boyfriend and there is no way he would even look in another girl’s direction. Rebekka told her Sarah saw it too, but Cornelia expected nothing less from Rebekka’s lapdog. After some banal banter back and forth, Cornelia told Rebekka that she was going to bed because she had had an exhausting day. Cornelia tip-toed back to the hallway and hung up the phone then snuck back to her room and went to sleep.
The rest of the week at school flew by. There were no more signs hung on Cornelia’s locker and no one even mentioned the spray paint incident, much to Cornelia’s relief. She saw Admeta every day in English class, but the two did not speak. Cornelia stole private moments with Chad as often as she could and complained about Writers on the Storm to whomever would listen. That did not include Amanda, who was barely speaking to her. When the week was finally over, Cornelia did not breathe a sigh of relief. Not only had she not worked on her story, but she had to continue her community service on Saturday and she was not looking forward to it. The only bright spot was that she would get to cheer at the football game that night.
After school, Cornelia rushed out of the SUV and flew up to her room to get ready for that night’s game. Her perfectly pressed uniform was hanging in her closet. Cornelia had worn a uniform to school that day as all cheerleaders were required to do on Fridays, but the uniform in her closet was her game uniform. It had to be perfect. Cornelia got undressed and put on her fluffy pink robe. She sat down at her vanity with her make-up lined up before her like little toy soldiers. There were eye liner pencils, lipsticks and blush galore. Even though she had put make-up on before school, she had to touch everything up before the game.
First she darkened her blush and applied some lipstick, and then she concentrated on her eye liner. After drawing dark lines on the edge of her eyelid and below her eye, she pulled out the pad she used for smudging. She carefully pulled her left eye to the side and starting smudging the lines. Every few seconds she would let go and look at herself in the mirror to evaluate the results. She was trying to get a smoky line, not too smudged and not too straight. When the left eye was to her liking she turned to her right eye. As she pulled it to the side and looked in the mirror, she suddenly thought of Valerie.
Cornelia was shocked at herself for thinking that she looked like Valerie when she pulled her eye toward her temple. It was mean and she knew it. She didn’t like having these thoughts, but how could she help it? She couldn’t control her impulses. She thought it was a very rude thing to think. She had never met Valerie before but she had nothing against her except for the fact that she was overweight. Cornelia thought fat people were lazy and gluttonous and she was sure that if they just exercised a little they could lose weight quite easily. But she didn’t have anything against Valerie because she was Asian. She thought Asian kids were really smart.
Cornelia pushed her thoughts aside long enough to finish the liner on the right eye. She quickly finished up with some eye shadow and checked her make-up in the mirror. She looked over at Daruma whose eye was staring at her contently. Cornelia thought that Daruma’s expression changed from time to time. She usually thought he looked quite mean, but now she thought he had a sad look on his face, almost as if he felt sorry for her. Cornelia’s eyes narrowed as she addressed the little doll.
“You should look so good after spending nine years meditating in a cave without blinking an eye,” she said. Just then she heard her mom calling her down to dinner. “Coming!” she yelled. “And,” she said, looking at Daruma, “that’s enough out of you.”
Cornelia swiveled in her chair and went downstairs. She and her mother were silent for most of the meal. Cornelia was still upset with Veronica for signing her up for Writers on the Storm and she was angry that she wasn’t able to go out to dinner with the rest of the cheerleaders like they usually did before a game. She resented eating dinner with her mother and didn’t speak unless spoken to. Cornelia and Veronica spent most of their days that way. When they were finished with dinner, Cornelia put her dishes in the sink and ran back up the stairs.
She heard her mother yell after her, “CC you’re doing the dishes tomorrow!” Cornelia ignored her and went into her room to get dressed. She could hear her mother loading dishes into the dishwasher as she flipped on the curling iron on her vanity and proceeded to get dressed. It took her a long time because she had to have everything just right. Her uniform was blue and white, the colors of Storm River High School.
Cornelia thought it was funny that her s
chool colors were blue and white when the school mascot was a falcon. She had never seen a blue falcon before. The entire uniform was blue except for two white stripes across the bottom of the skirt and the V-shaped part at the top of the vest above where the blue letters with white trim (SRHS) were. There were two blue V-shaped stripes below the letters that Cornelia thought looked like a sign for victory. The shirt she wore under the vest was also blue and Cornelia wondered how the school was able to find cotton fabric that matched the polyester uniforms so perfectly. Even the briefs were blue. She wore plain white socks and sneakers with little blue and white pom poms tied to the shoe strings.
Before she got dressed, she had to put lotion on her legs so they would shine. She always used scented lotion to help cover the smell of her sweat while she was cheering. After she was dressed, Cornelia made sure her skirt was straight, her shirt was tucked in and her vest wasn’t twisted. She wished she could wear the vest without the shirt underneath. She thought that would have looked much better, but the principal would not allow it. He thought the vests were too revealing.
When she was finally dressed, Cornelia looked at herself in the full-length mirror she kept in the corner of her room by the closet. She was nearly ready. All she had to do was curl her hair. She walked over to her vanity where the curling iron had been heating up on the fireproof pad that was placed beneath it. When Cornelia first bought her curling iron, she put it down on the wood and nearly burned the house down. At least that’s how Veronica put it. Cornelia thought she had overreacted to a little burn mark. The mark was now hidden under the pad. Cornelia pulled the front of her hair back into a barrette. It’s wasn’t her grandmother’s diamond crusted barrette; that was far too precious to her to risk losing at a game. It was a simple blue barrette with blue and white ribbons hanging down the back. Cornelia slowly and meticulously curled the ends of her long blonde locks being careful not to get the ribbons caught in the iron. When her hair was perfect, she went back to check her make-up.
She used a close-up mirror to make sure the lip liner was just right. Over her shoulder she once again saw her Daruma doll staring at her with his one beady little eye. Through the magnified mirror he looked even more ominous and she shuddered for a moment. The doll gave her the creeps every time she looked at it, but since it was a gift from Chad she tolerated the mild annoyance. She tried to fend off her annoyance by imagining that Daruma was winking at her because he thought she was gorgeous. Unfortunatley, that thought creeped her out and she shuddered again. She decided to ignore the one-eyed annoyance and concentrated instead on perfecting her lipstick.
When Cornelia was finally ready, she grabbed her purse and pom poms and went downstairs to get her mother. Veronica dropped her daughter off at school and reminded her that she was to call home the moment the game ended so she could be picked up. Cornelia was not permitted to attend any parties after the game. Cornelia usually received a ride from Rebekka’s parents who dropped Cornelia, Sarah and Rebekka off at the Chili Parlor down the street from school. That’s where the cheerleaders met up before games because it was close enough for everyone to walk back to the school afterward. Some of the girls didn’t eat at all and those who did seemed to be having a contest to see who could eat the least. But since Cornelia was grounded, she was not permitted to attend the gathering or the after party.
After Veronica dropped her off, Cornelia walked into the girls’ locker room to lock up her purse. She ran into Sarah and Rebekka on her way back up the stairs. Rebekka was wearing her uniform but Sarah was in jeans and a blue baby doll tank top. Sarah didn’t make the varsity squad, so she had to cheer at junior varsity games on Saturday mornings. She had to wear her cheerleading uniform to school on Fridays, just like everyone else, but she wasn’t allowed to wear it to the games since she wasn’t cheering. Of course Sarah was still allowed to go to dinner and the after party even in street clothes and Cornelia was jealous.
“Hey girl,” Rebekka said in a high-pitched shriek.
“Hey girl!” Sarah mimicked her in the same high-pitched shriek.
“What’s up?” Cornelia asked.
“We’re just going to lock up our purses, wait for us, I have loads to tell you,” Rebekka said excitedly and she and Sarah descended the stairs in a hurry. Cornelia waited on the stairs for the duo to return. She checked her nails and was saddened when she realized that she hadn’t touched up her finger nail polish before leaving for the game. She had little chips here and there and made a mental note to fix them in the morning. Then she remembered that she had community service in the morning and decided to wait until afterward. Painting the town was brutal on her nails.
“You will never guess what happened!” Rebekka shrieked, jostling Cornelia from her thoughts.
“What?” Cornelia asked with great curiosity and Sarah let out a giggle making it obvious that she already knew what Rebekka was going to say.
Rebekka lowered her voice to a whisper, “David Warton kissed me!” Rebekka could hardly contain her excitement and Sarah was giggling again as if she were the one who had been kissed.
“No way,” Cornelia said in disbelief.
“I’m not lying!” Rebekka shrieked again, a little louder than she had intended. Lowering her voice again she said, “It was out behind the band building a few minutes ago. Sarah was there, ask her!”
“It’s true. I was there,” Sarah echoed, smugly.
Cornelia looked at the pair with disbelief. She couldn’t imagine any boyfriend of Kenzie Phillips cheating on her. “How did this happen?” she asked.
“Well, I told you he winked at me in seventh bell the other day and there were some other things too. He kept staring at me all week but he never said anything. And I ran…”
“WE ran into him,” Sarah corrected.
“Yeah, WE ran into him,” Rebekka said, “but I’M the one he kissed.” She shot Sarah a scolding look.
“Wait, go back a second. He just walked up and kissed you?” Cornelia asked.
“No, no no!” Rebekka was growing impatient, “Sarah interrupted me,” she said, giving Sarah another dirty look. Sarah rolled her eyes, but remained silent so Rebekka could finish her story. “So WE ran into him behind the band building.”
“What were you doing behind the band building?” Cornelia interrupted.
“Would you people please stop interrupting me long enough for me to finish my effing story?!” Rebekka shouted, then looked around to see if anyone could hear. The corridor was empty. “God!” she added. Cornelia gave Sarah a knowing look but the two of them remained silent as Rebekka lowered her voice once again and continued. “It doesn’t matter why we were behind the band building. We just were, o.k.? Anyway…we ran into him and he asked if he could talk to me alone for a second. I said ‘sure!’ Sarah went off to the edge of the building to stand guard, you know, so no teachers would catch us.
“So anyway, he leaned in really close to me so that he was kind of whispering in this really sexy deep voice. Oh my God he is so hot. So then he says to me, ‘Bekka, I wanted to talk to you in seventh bell but I couldn’t work up the nerve.’ Bekka! Do you believe that?! He has a pet name for me already!” Rebekka gushed. Cornelia wanted to throw up but she remained silent.
“So I said, ‘What did you want to tell me?’ And he said…are you ready?” Rebekka asked, hypothetically. “He said, ‘I wanted to tell you that you have the most beautiful blue eyes I have ever seen.’ Oh…my…God, do you believe that?!” Rebekka was jumping up and down on the step so much so that Cornelia was sure she was going to fall.
“Rebekka, your eyes are green,” Cornelia interjected.
“Green, blue, what’s the diff?!” Rebekka screeched. “You’re missing the point.”
“Well, what is the point, then?” Cornelia asked, trying to bring her friend back to reality.
“God, CC, you sure know how to ruin a story,” Rebekka said with one hand on her hip.
“I??
?m sorry, do go on,” Cornelia said with a British accent. Sarah snickered.
“Well, then,” Rebekka continued after giving Cornelia a dirty look, “I said, ‘Really?’ And he said, ‘yeah, I always thought that but I couldn’t tell you with Kenzie and all.’ Then he smiled the most brilliant smile I’ve ever seen. He has perfect teeth, you know. He was looking all dreamy and then he leaned in and kissed me right on the lips. Can you believe it?!” she repeated.
“No,” said Cornelia. When Rebekka shot her another nasty look Cornelia back tracked. “I mean that’s amazing. What happened next?” Rebekka wasn’t sure whether or not Cornelia was being sarcastic but she didn’t care. She was too caught up in her story to worry about it.
“Well the kiss lasted for five minutes at least,” she boasted.
“At least!” Sarah chimed in.
“Yeah, that’s what I said, Sarah. God! So then after what seemed like hours we broke apart and he asked if he could have my phone number. Can you believe it?!” she screeched without any thought to how loud she was being. Cornelia was still skeptical but Sarah was nodding her head. Just then their conversation was interrupted by footsteps coming down the stairs. It was Kenzie Phillips. Rebekka froze.
“Hey,” Kenzie said to the trio as she passed them on the stairs.
“Hi, Kenzie!” Sarah yelled a little too enthusiastically.
“Hey,” Cornelia said, but Rebekka remained silent, her eyes wide with fear.
Kenzie looked at Rebekka funny. She thought Rebekka looked like the cat that just ate the canary. She shrugged it off and opened the door to the locker room at the bottom of the stairs and stepped inside.
The second the door closed Rebekka said, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, do you think she heard what I said?” Without waiting for a reply, she continued, “What if she heard? Did you see the dirty look she gave me? I think she may have heard!”
“She didn’t hear,” Cornelia assured her, “but she will if you keep yelling. Come on, let’s go to the stands.”
“Are you sure, CC? I could have sworn she gave me a dirty look,” Rebekka said and Sarah nodded in agreement.
“It was your imagination. She said ‘hello’ to us. Would she have said ‘hello’ if she heard?”
“I guess you have a point,” Rebekka admitted.
“I know I do. Now let’s get upstairs,” Cornelia said in exasperation.
The rest of the evening was filled with a lot of hard work. Kenzie would call out the cheers she wanted the squad to perform and they would do so dutifully. Sarah and Amanda met up and sat in the stands together, boy watching. They would shout the loudest when a cheer required a response.
For example, when the squad yelled, “Are….you…proud to be a falcon?!”
Sarah and Amanda would scream at the top of their lungs, “Yes…we….are!”
Or if the squad yelled, “Hey, it’s time to fight, everybody yell blue and white!”
Then Sarah and Amanda would echo, “blue and white!”
Cornelia and Rebekka took a break at halftime and spent some time with Amanda and Sarah, even though Amanda didn’t say much to Cornelia. It gave Rebekka another opportunity to tell her story. Despite the fact that Cornelia despised listening to the story again she was glad for the time to socialize. Chad’s family didn’t approve of sports, so Chad wasn’t allowed to be there. Spending time with her friends was the next best thing. When Rebekka was through, Amanda looked at her in disbelief, just as Cornelia had. But since Sarah was backing up her story there was little she could do to deny it. Cornelia could tell that Amanda was not pleased with Rebekka’s behavior, but she, like Cornelia, remained silent and the two fans returned to the stands while the two cheerleaders returned to the front of the bleachers.
It was an uneventful game for the most part. There was one time when David scored a touchdown and Rebekka yelled at the squad, “Let’s do David’s cheer!” Rebekka wasn’t captain of the squad and wasn’t supposed to be calling out cheers in the first place. The squad was so caught up in the game, however, that they obeyed without thinking: “Stronger than steel, hotter than the sun, David won’t stop until he gets the job done!” They followed up with different jumps to the tune of “Go! David!” or “Good job, David!” Rebekka’s was the most enthusiastic by far, and she even ended by doing the splits. Cornelia was concerned that Kenzie might figure out what was going on. Kenzie indeed looked annoyed, but Cornelia got the impression it was more because Rebekka called the cheer than anything else.
Cornelia’s fears were confirmed when Kenzie confronted Rebekka after the game. Rebekka told her she was sorry, that she had just gotten carried away. Kenzie shot her a dirty look and told her not to let it happen again or she would see to it that Rebekka would be demoted to junior varsity. Cornelia could tell that Rebekka was biting her tongue under the contrite smile she was giving Kenzie. Sarah looked hurt by the “demotion” comment.
When Kenzie was finally out of earshot, Rebekka said in a snide voice, “I kissed your boyfriend!” Cornelia thought Rebekka sounded like a five-year-old but she said nothing. She had to call her mother to come get her. Rebekka and Sarah agreed that it sucked that Cornelia couldn’t go to the party at David’s house. Rebekka was angry that Kenzie would be there, so she and David weren’t likely to get a lot of alone time. Amanda said nothing. Cornelia suspected she was still angry with her, so she decided to adhere to the silent treatment so as not to upset Amanda further. Rebekka, Sarah and Amanda eventually left for the party in Rebekka’s father’s car, leaving Cornelia standing alone on the curb waiting for her mother.
After she stood there for a few minutes she could hear the sounds of some teenage boys talking behind her. She did not turn around. The voices started to dissipate when she heard one of the boys distinctly say, “See you at your house, David.” Cornelia froze. She could hear David’s footstep coming up behind her. She wondered if he would be able to see that she knew about him and Rebekka. She hoped he would pass her by without comment.
“Hey, Corny,” came the booming voice of David Warton. Cornelia cringed a little, partly because he had stopped and partly because he had called her Corny. “What’s up?”
“Not much,” was her curt reply. She thought the less said, the better. David walked up and stood beside her. Cornelia was a tiny china doll in his shadow. He was a bulky figure with strapping arms and a muscular build. He stood over six feet tall and had dark hair with a military-style haircut. His skin was tanned and Cornelia was jealous. Since she started community service she hadn’t found the time to keep up on her tanning visits. Her skin was getting lighter by the day. She had a naturally porcelain complexion. Her mother was constantly telling her how bad tanning was for her skin, but Cornelia ignored her.
“Why is a girl as pretty as you standing here all alone? Where’s that hippie, what’s his name? Harrington?” he asked and put his arm on her shoulder.
Cornelia picked up David’s arm and lightly threw it off her shoulder. As she turned out of his grip, she said, “His name is Barrington, Chad Barrington, and he doesn’t happen to like football. And DON’T call him a hippie!” Cornelia’s cheeks were burning with anger. She could strangle anyone who insulted Chad.
“Doesn’t like football?” David asked, not seeming to notice that his hand was removed. “What is he, queer?” he laughed and playfully jabbed at Cornelia’s midsection with his fists. Cornelia bent over to avoid David’s hands touching her stomach.
“Rude much?!” Cornelia asked, suddenly thinking about Steve from Writers on the Storm.
“What’s your problem?” he asked.
“My problem?” Cornelia asked. “I don’t have a problem.”
“Then why are you acting like this?”
“Acting like what?!” she shouted a little louder than she had expected, startling both of them.
“Like a bitch,” he said, smirking.
“Because I won’t let you hang all over me I’m a
bitch? Because you’re a homophobe and I called you on it I’m a bitch? That makes sense,” she said sarcastically. Cornelia didn’t know what had come over her. David was the head of the popular clique right along with Kenzie. Ticking him off was not a smart thing to do if she wanted to fit in. She felt overcome by anger. She was angry with David and Rebekka for betraying Kenzie. If they wanted to carry on, the least David could do is break up with Kenzie first. The thought of Chad cheating on her made her sick to her stomach. She couldn’t help but feel sorry for Kenzie in that moment. She was also realizing the kind of torture Steve must have to endure on a daily basis with people like David running around school.
“Yeah, you are,” David continued. “I was just stopping to say ‘hello.’ You can forget about coming to my house tonight if you’re going to be that way.”
“I wasn’t going anyway,” Cornelia replied curtly.
“Oh come on, Corny, you don’t have to be that way,” David said, trying to touch her waist.
Cornelia drew back and this time screamed on purpose, “My name is Cornelia, not Corny! I’ll thank you to remember that and to keep your filthy hands off of me. And you can keep your homophobic comments to yourself while you’re at it. Do you think no one knows what you and Rebekka were doing behind the band building? Everyone knows about it. I think it’s disgusting,” she said without thinking.
“Is that right?” he asked. Cornelia braced herself for what was about to happen. “Well if I were a stuck-up bitch like you,” David began, and Cornelia was reminded of the judge’s harsh words.
She could hear his booming voice in her head, “You’re a stuck-up, spoiled rotten little hooligan who will amount to nothing in this life.”
David continued, “I would keep my opinion to myself and shut my mouth about things that didn’t concern me,” he said, giving Cornelia a threatening look. He stood there, staring into Cornelia’s eyes for what seemed like hours. His eyes were menacing, his brow furrowed and his arms crossed in front of his enormous chest. Cornelia could tell that she pushed all of the wrong buttons. She didn’t even know why she was saying what she was saying. Normally she would have simply kept her mouth shut as she did earlier when Rebekka told her story. “I’ll see you around, Corny,” David added. And Cornelia was relieved to see him walk away to the parking lot, yelling for another boy to wait up.
Her mother pulled up right at that moment and asked Cornelia who she was talking to. “No one,” Cornelia replied. In her head she was thinking, “no one but the boy who has the power to make or break me at this school.” She didn’t sleep well that night wondering whether or not David was going to tell Rebekka what she had said.
Chapter 8
Service to Others