This Jinxed Scene- Chapter Two: A Terrible First Impression

Vivetta's first day at her new school began with her father arguing with the front desk secretary.

Keith had brought a folder containing her enrollment documents, which he placed on the counter in front of a woman who seemed considerably more interested in her computer screen than in either of them.

"I'm sorry, sir, but we can't accept those in person anymore," the secretary explained. "Everything has to be submitted online."

Keith stared at the folder.

"Since when?"

"For some time now."

He sighed, took out his phone, and began navigating the school's enrollment website.

While he struggled with the forms, the secretary turned her attention to Vivetta.

"And where are you from, sweetheart?"

"Ann Arbor."

The woman considered this.

"Is that a state in America?"

Vivetta blinked.

She was young enough that she still assumed adults knew things, particularly adults employed by schools. She had never expected to encounter one who apparently didn't know Michigan existed.

She was trying to decide how to explain that Ann Arbor was a city when Keith interrupted.

"All right. Done."

He slipped his phone into his pocket.

The secretary directed Vivetta toward the cafeteria, where the other students were waiting to receive their schedules.

Keith opened his wallet, pulled out a folded bill, and handed it to her.

"Here. For lunch."

Vivetta tucked it into her pocket.

"You're taking the bus home," he added, already turning toward the exit.

Before she could ask which bus, he was gone.

She stood in the office for another moment, watching the doors swing shut behind him.

Then she adjusted the straps of her backpack and made her way down the main hallway.

At least, she thought, the worst part of the day was probably over.

The cafeteria was crowded with students arranged in three long lines, each designated by the first two letters of their last names.

At the front of each line, school employees handed out printed schedules. Students collected theirs and hurried off toward their classrooms, apparently knowing exactly where they were going.

Vivetta joined the appropriate line and waited.

And waited.

By the time the majority of the students had been processed, she was among a handful whose schedules hadn't been ready. An aide directed them to a table in the corner, where they were told to sit until someone called their names.

There, Vivetta met Selene and Chevy.

Selene was repeating a grade, a fact she mentioned without the slightest embarrassment.

She was outgoing, confident, and already seemed to know half the people passing through the cafeteria. Every few minutes, someone stopped to say hello to her.

Chevy, meanwhile, lived with her blended family and seemed determined to tell Vivetta everything that had ever gone wrong in her life.

Every time Vivetta tried to contribute to the conversation, Chevy interrupted with an experience of her own, inevitably worse or more interesting than whatever Vivetta had been about to say.

She reminded Vivetta of Megain, only with an even greater talent for interrupting and one-upping people.

Vivetta quickly found herself hoping she would share classes with Selene instead.

Eventually, an aide returned with their schedules and explained the school's alternating block system. Students were divided into two groups, Sparrows and Toads, with different classes on A and B days.

Selene was a Sparrow, which meant her schedule began on A days. From what Vivetta could gather, the Sparrows seemed to have the more advanced classes.

Chevy and Vivetta were both Toads.

Their first day would follow the B-day schedule.

Vivetta tried not to look disappointed.

Selene departed almost immediately, greeting another group of girls on her way out.

Chevy lingered.

"Hey, we've got the same lunch," she announced, comparing their schedules.

Vivetta looked down at hers.

They did.

"We should sit together," Chevy said.

Vivetta agreed. She wasn't especially enthusiastic about the arrangement, but she was new, knew nobody else, and didn't want to spend her first lunch period sitting alone.

Besides, perhaps Chevy would be more pleasant once she had finished telling everyone about herself.

Vivetta's first class was home economics.

She was relieved to discover that the day's assignment involved baking cookies. Each group would prepare a batch, and the class would vote on the results. The winning group would get to choose the recipe everyone made during the next class period.

It sounded fun.

More importantly, it seemed like an excellent opportunity to make a good impression.

Vivetta liked baking. She understood the assignment, and she thought that helping her group win might be an easy way to make friends.

There were four students in her group, including herself. The other three already knew one another, and their familiarity left Vivetta feeling like an uninvited guest at somebody else's party.

A boy named Brad Carter immediately appointed himself leader.

"We're making one giant cookie," he announced.

Vivetta looked at the recipe sheet.

The assignment specifically instructed them to prepare individual cookies for judging.

Brad didn't appear concerned with that detail.

Neither did the other two group members, who had settled into their seats and were playing on their phones.

Vivetta began measuring the ingredients and preheating the oven. By the time she had started mixing the dough, Brad had contributed little beyond his original announcement.

He finally approached and reached for the bowl.

"Give me that."

Vivetta hesitated.

"But if we make one big cookie, we won't have enough individual cookies for everyone to judge," she pointed out. "And it probably won't bake evenly."

Brad stopped.

He stared at her as though she had deliberately insulted him.

"We're making one big cookie."

"But the instructions say—"

"I know what the instructions say."

Vivetta glanced at the other students, hoping one of them might intervene.

Neither looked up.

She didn't want to argue. She certainly didn't want her first interaction with her classmates to turn into a confrontation. But she also didn't want to fail an assignment because someone had decided to ignore the directions.

Fortunately, Mrs. Mendoza, their instructor, was making her rounds.

Vivetta raised her hand.

"Mrs. Mendoza? I think we might have a problem with our recipe."

The teacher approached their table.

Vivetta explained that Brad wanted to pour the entire batch onto one baking sheet instead of making individual cookies.

Mrs. Mendoza listened, then moved beside Brad.

"Vivetta, you're working in a group," she said. "That means you don't get to make every decision."

Vivetta stared at her.

"But the assignment says—"

"Part of working with other people is learning to compromise."

Mrs. Mendoza gave Brad an encouraging pat on the back.

"Carry on, but don't forget to clean as you go. You're being graded on it."

Then she walked away.

Vivetta looked from the teacher to Brad, then to the other two students, who still hadn't bothered to put down their phones.

She wasn't entirely sure what she had just witnessed.

"God, you're such a goody-goody," Jamie, one of the other group members, remarked.

Brad snatched the bowl from Vivetta.

"Why don't you just shut the hell up?"

He dumped the dough onto the baking sheet, spread it into an enormous uneven circle, and shoved it into the oven.

Vivetta stepped away.

There seemed little point in saying anything else.

The cookie baked exactly as she had expected.

Its thin outer edges darkened and began to burn while the thick center remained pale and doughy. Before long, the smell of scorching sugar drifted from the oven.

Brad seemed pleased with himself.

When the bell rang, Mrs. Mendoza announced that there hadn't been enough time for all the groups to present their finished cookies. They would have to postpone the voting.

Brad, however, insisted that she taste theirs.

He scooped a spoonful of the undercooked center onto a plate and offered it to her.

Mrs. Mendoza took a bite.

Her face brightened.

"Why, this is wonderful!" she exclaimed. "The best cookie I've tasted all day!"

Vivetta looked at the burned edges, then at the uncooked middle.

Mrs. Mendoza turned toward her with a smug little smile.

"See? Isn't this better? I hope you've learned something about being a good team member today, missy."

Vivetta said nothing.

She couldn't think of a response that wouldn't make matters worse.

Brad grabbed his backpack.

"Bitch," he muttered as he passed her.

Vivetta gave him the fiercest glare she could manage.

He didn't seem to notice.

Then he left, along with the other two members of the group, abandoning the dirty bowls, measuring cups, and baking utensils on the counter.

Vivetta looked around.

Everyone else was leaving.

She couldn't bring herself to walk away from the mess, particularly after the teacher had already singled her out for supposedly being a poor team member.

So she washed the dishes.

By the time she finished, she was late for her next class.

Vivetta hurried through the crowded hallways, clutching her schedule and searching for the science classroom.

She found room 307C and slipped inside.

The teacher was already taking attendance.

Vivetta found an empty desk and sat down, hoping her late arrival hadn't attracted too much attention.

When the teacher finished calling names, she realized he hadn't called hers.

She raised her hand.

"Excuse me? I don't think you called my name."

The teacher barely glanced at her.

"Hold on. I'll get to you after I finish assigning seats."

Vivetta lowered her hand.

He moved several students around the classroom, rearranging them according to a seating chart.

Then he began his lecture.

Vivetta waited.

She tried to follow along, but the material didn't seem to match what she had expected from her schedule. Several students referred to assignments she had never heard of.

Perhaps the class had already begun working ahead.

Perhaps she had missed some introductory material.

She considered raising her hand again, but after what had happened in home economics, she was reluctant to draw attention to herself.

Twenty minutes passed.

Then forty.

The teacher continued talking.

With only five minutes remaining, Vivetta finally worked up the courage to interrupt.

"Excuse me, sir? Should I write my name on the attendance sheet?"

He frowned.

"What's your name?"

"Vivetta."

He searched his roster.

"You're not on here."

"I know. That's what I was trying to tell you earlier."

"Let me see your schedule."

She carried it to his desk.

He examined the paper, then looked up at her.

"You're in the wrong classroom."

Vivetta froze.

"What?"

"You're supposed to be in 307D. This is 307C."

He said it loudly enough for the entire class to hear.

Several students giggled.

Vivetta looked toward the door, feeling heat creep into her face.

Room 307D.

One letter.

One door.

She had spent almost an entire class period sitting in the wrong room.

In retrospect, there had been plenty of clues. She should have noticed that the lecture didn't match her schedule. She should have insisted on having her name checked earlier.

But she'd been anxious, embarrassed, and desperate not to make another mistake.

Instead, she'd made a spectacular one.

"Well, go on," the teacher said, waving toward the door. "You're holding up the class."

He ushered her into the hallway without a pass.

The bell rang almost immediately.

Students flooded out of classrooms in both directions, filling the corridor with noise and movement.

Vivetta pushed through the crowd toward 307D.

When she finally reached it, the room was dark.

The door was locked.

Apparently, that class had been dismissed early for lunch.

She stood there for a moment, staring at the empty room through the narrow window.

Then she folded her schedule and put it away.

At least it was lunchtime.

Lunch was much earlier than Vivetta was accustomed to eating. She wasn't particularly hungry, but she welcomed the opportunity to sit down and recover from the morning.

She joined the cafeteria line and was relieved when Chevy appeared beside her.

"There you are!" Chevy exclaimed.

Before Vivetta could respond, Chevy slipped directly in front of her, cutting ahead of several other students.

"Hey!" someone protested.

"You can't just cut!"

Chevy ignored them.

Vivetta opened her mouth to explain that she hadn't invited Chevy into the line, but a cafeteria aide had already noticed the commotion.

"You two. Back of the line."

Vivetta blinked.

"But I was already—"

"Both of you. Now."

Chevy shrugged and started walking.

Vivetta followed, her face burning as the other students watched them pass.

A few clicked their tongues disapprovingly.

She had been at the school for only a few hours, and somehow she had already managed to be reprimanded in nearly every room she'd entered.

At the back of the line, Chevy launched into an account of her terrible morning.

Apparently, she'd been assigned a seat near the front of one of her classrooms.

"And I hate sitting up front," Chevy complained. "It's so annoying."

Vivetta thought that, with a last name like Abertson, Chevy should have been accustomed to being near the beginning of any alphabetical seating chart.

She kept that observation to herself.

Instead, she tried to tell Chevy about the disaster in home economics.

"You won't believe what happened in my first class—"

"You're so serious," Chevy interrupted.

Vivetta stopped.

"What?"

"You take everything way too seriously."

Then Chevy resumed complaining about her assigned seat.

Vivetta looked toward the front of the line.

She was beginning to think that eating lunch alone might have been preferable.

Eventually, they reached the serving counter.

Chevy loaded her tray with one of nearly everything available, being sure to double up on each dessert.

Vivetta took the standard lunch and nothing extra. She wasn't particularly interested in the food, and she still wasn't sure how much it cost.

At her old school, she'd received free lunches. All she had needed to do was present the barcode on her lanyard for the cashier to scan.

Here, apparently, things worked differently.

Chevy reached the register first.

Then she turned toward Vivetta.

"Oh, I forgot my lunch money."

Vivetta stared at her.

"Really?"

"Yeah. Can you get mine?"

Vivetta hesitated.

She didn't want to spend her first day arguing with someone who was supposed to be her friend.

Besides, her father had given her money that morning.

She reached into her pocket and unfolded the bill.

She hadn't looked closely at it earlier. She'd assumed it was a twenty-dollar bill.

She handed it to the cashier.

The woman glanced at it.

Then she looked again.

Her expression changed.

"Just a moment."

She held the bill up to the light, examined it, and called over the cafeteria aide.

The same aide who had sent Vivetta and Chevy to the back of the line.

Vivetta felt a familiar sinking sensation.

The cashier handed the bill to the aide, and the two women began whispering.

Vivetta stood awkwardly at the register while the students behind her grew impatient.

What could possibly be wrong now?

The aide turned toward her.

"Where did you get this?"

"My dad gave it to me."

The woman narrowed her eyes.

"Did you steal this?"

Vivetta stared.

"What?"

"Come on. Now's the time to come clean."

She waved the bill in front of Vivetta's face.

Only then did Vivetta notice the number printed in the corner.

One hundred.

Her father had given her a hundred-dollar bill.

"Oh," she said, surprised. "I thought it was a twenty."

The aide's expression hardened.

"That's your explanation?"

"My dad gave it to me this morning. I didn't know it was a hundred."

Chevy leaned closer.

"Ooooooh," she said, drawing out the word with obvious delight. "You're in trouble."

Vivetta turned and gave her the same murderous glare she had practiced on Brad.

Chevy grinned.

The aide took Vivetta by the arm and directed her away from the register.

"You're coming with me."

Vivetta glanced back at the lunch trays.

Chevy casually informed the cashier that she had a free lunch voucher on her account, then took her tray and found a seat, leaving Vivetta to deal with the embarrassment alone. She had never needed Vivetta to buy her lunch in the first place; she had only wanted to use her friend's lunch money to get herself a few extra desserts.

And now, apparently, neither of them was going to eat.

The school resource officer's office was small and unpleasantly bright.

Vivetta sat in a chair across from his desk while the officer examined the hundred-dollar bill.

She was beginning to regret ever speaking to Chevy.

Not only had Chevy failed to defend her, but she'd seemed positively delighted by the accusation.

Vivetta made a private decision.

She was not going to be friends with Chevy.

The officer set the bill on his desk.

"What do you have to say for yourself?"

Vivetta looked at him.

"My dad gave it to me."

He waited.

She waited.

Apparently, that wasn't the answer he wanted.

"Can I call him?" she asked.

She reached into her pocket for her phone.

"Give me that."

The officer held out his hand.

Vivetta hesitated, then surrendered it.

"Students aren't permitted to use their phones during school hours."

"But I was just trying to call my dad."

"I'll call him."

He placed the phone in a drawer and reached for the office telephone.

Vivetta sat silently as he dialed.

It took several rings before Keith answered.

From the sound of his voice, he had gone back to bed after dropping her off.

"Mr. McRoy?" the officer began. "I'm calling from your daughter's school. We've confiscated

a hundred-dollar bill she was caught with during lunch."

Vivetta's stomach tightened.

Caught with?

He made it sound as though she had been apprehended carrying stolen jewelry.

"She says you gave it to her."

There was a pause.

Vivetta leaned forward, waiting for her father to explain.

He only needed to say that he'd accidentally handed her the wrong bill.

It was a simple mistake.

Anyone could have made it.

Instead, Keith sighed.

"Well, she's going through a lot right now," he said. "Her mother just dropped her off on me this week."

Vivetta stared at the telephone.

That was it?

That was his explanation?

He made it sound as though she were a troubled child who had been abandoned on his doorstep and had already begun stealing money.

The officer nodded sympathetically.

"I understand. We also have her marked truant for one of her classes today."

Vivetta wanted to protest.

She hadn't skipped class. She had spent the entire period in the wrong classroom because a teacher had refused to check her schedule.

But the officer was already listening to her father again.

The conversation ended without Keith ever clearly confirming that he had given her the money.

The officer hung up.

Vivetta sat there, dumbstruck.

Surely he couldn't still think she'd stolen it.

Surely her father hadn't made things worse.

The officer opened a drawer and put the bill inside.

"We'll hold on to this until your father comes to claim it."

Vivetta stared at the drawer.

"But he gave it to me for lunch."

"Your father can collect it in person."

He stood.

"Come on. I'll take you to your next class."

Vivetta followed him out of the office.

She had missed lunch entirely.

Her money had been confiscated.

Her phone had been confiscated.

And somehow, despite attending every class she'd been able to find, she had already been marked truant.

She wondered whether there was some kind of award for having the worst first day in school history.

If there was, she thought she deserved it.

By the time the officer escorted Vivetta into her next classroom, she felt like a dangerous criminal being delivered to a maximum-security prison.

She might as well have been wearing a Hannibal Lecter mask.

Her stomach was beginning to ache with hunger.

"Mr. Newton," the officer announced, "I picked this one up for you."

The teacher, a balding man whose elaborate comb-over did little to disguise the problem, looked up from his podium.

"Thanks."

He waved the officer away and gestured toward the front of the room.

"We're doing student introductions," he told Vivetta. "Come on up."

Vivetta looked around.

Every student in the room was staring at her.

Of course they were.

"Just tell us your name, your favorite book, and your dream car."

Vivetta stood in front of the class, trying to think.

Her favorite book was easy enough.

The car was another matter.

She didn't know much about cars and had never spent much time imagining what kind she might own someday.

"My name is Vivetta," she began. "My favorite book is Scythe, and my dream car is a... Mazda?"

There was a brief silence.

Then several students began murmuring.

"Dumb," someone whispered.

Vivetta looked down.

Apparently, the other students had been naming expensive sports cars.

She hadn't realized there was a correct answer to a question about personal preferences.

Mr. Newton nodded.

"All right. Thank you, Vivetta. You can find a seat."

She looked around.

There weren't any.

Every desk was occupied.

Mr. Newton seemed to notice the problem at the same moment.

"Well, just stand over there for now."

He pointed toward the back wall.

Vivetta walked to the rear of the classroom and leaned against it.

For the remainder of the ninety-minute period, she stood there while everyone else sat comfortably at their desks.

Her stomach growled.

Her feet began to ache.

She tried not to think about the lunch she'd never eaten.

The rest of the school day was mercifully less eventful, although it wasn't particularly enjoyable.

By the final bell, Vivetta wanted nothing more than to disappear into her bed and forget the entire experience.

She made her way toward the exit and waited beside the doors.

When the bell rang, a stampede of energetic boys surged past her, shoving her out of the way as they rushed outside.

Vivetta stumbled, caught herself, and followed them.

Then she remembered something.

She didn't know which bus to take.

She looked around at the rows of yellow buses parked outside.

Students were climbing aboard, laughing and shouting to one another.

Vivetta checked her schedule.

There was no bus number.

She approached a school aide and explained the problem.

After looking up her information, the aide informed her that the transportation section of her enrollment had never been completed.

Apparently, Keith had neglected that part of the process too.

Without a bus assignment, she wasn't permitted to board.

The aide escorted her back to the front office.

There, Vivetta was finally allowed to reclaim her phone.

Along with it came a disciplinary form that her father would have to sign, acknowledging the school's phone policy. According to the paperwork, future confiscations would result in escalating fees beginning at twenty dollars.

Vivetta stared at the form.

She had only taken out her phone because she'd wanted to call her father after being accused of stealing.

Now she'd been penalized for that too.

She asked about the hundred-dollar bill.

The secretary informed her that it was still in the resource officer's office and that only her father could retrieve it in person.

Vivetta didn't bother arguing.

She called Keith.

He didn't answer.

She tried again.

Voicemail.

A few minutes later, her phone buzzed with a text message.

Get a ride home with one of your friends.

Vivetta stared at the screen.

What friends?

She'd been at the school for one day.

The only person who had offered to sit with her at lunch had spent the afternoon treating her like a criminal.

She texted back that she didn't know anyone who could drive her.

There was no reply.

She waited.

And waited.

Students disappeared from the campus. The buses departed one by one. Teachers and office employees began leaving for the day.

Eventually, the school became quiet.

Vivetta sat near the entrance, watching the afternoon stretch into evening.

Three hours passed.

Her father still hadn't answered.

Her phone battery was almost dead.

She finally opened the map application and entered his address.

Four miles.

She stared at the route.

Then she looked at the empty parking lot.

There was nobody left to ask for help, and she had no money for transportation.

So she started walking.

By the time Vivetta reached the house, her feet were throbbing.

Her backpack felt twice as heavy as it had that morning. Her stomach ached with hunger, and she was exhausted from trying not to cry.

She opened the front door.

"Hello?"

Silence.

She stepped inside and found a note waiting for her.

Keith had written that she'd just missed him.

He was going to Sacramento for the rest of the week.

Vivetta read the note twice.

He hadn't answered her calls.

He hadn't arranged for anyone to pick her up.

He hadn't even waited to make sure she'd gotten home.

And now he was gone.

She set the note down.

For a moment, she stood in the quiet house, listening to the hum of the refrigerator.

Then she went into the kitchen.

She searched the pantry until she found enough food to make herself a simple dinner. She carried it into the living room, turned on the television, and watched old cartoons while she ate.

The familiar voices were comforting, even if she wasn't paying much attention.

When she'd finished, she washed her dish and unfolded the bed where she was sleeping.

Outside, the neighborhood settled into its evening routine.

Somewhere nearby, two neighbors were arguing loudly about something that sounded utterly unimportant. Cars rushed along the highway in the distance, their tires producing a steady, hollow hiss.

Vivetta curled beneath her blanket.

She thought about the secretary who didn't know where Ann Arbor was. About Brad and his burned cookie. About Mrs. Mendoza congratulating him. About the science teacher who had let her sit in the wrong classroom for almost an entire period.

She thought about Chevy, the cafeteria aide, and the resource officer who had treated her like a thief.

Most of all, she thought about her father, who had managed to make her look guilty without ever accusing her of anything himself.

She had wanted so badly to make a good first impression.

Instead, she'd spent the day being embarrassed, reprimanded, ignored, and abandoned.

She wondered how many of her classmates would remember her tomorrow.

Probably all the wrong ones.

She pulled the blanket closer.

Surely tomorrow couldn't be worse.

She would find her classrooms. She would avoid Brad and Chevy. She would figure out the

lunch situation, somehow, and perhaps someone would finally tell her which bus she was supposed to take.

She would try harder to fit in.

She would be more careful about what she said.

She would do everything she could to make the next day better.

Not because she believed any of those things would necessarily work, but because she couldn't think of anything else to do.

And with that small, desperate plan for tomorrow, Vivetta finally closed her eyes.