C.1-P.2
Christmas break was over, and Kimber stood in front of the school she would now be a part of. The bell had already rung, and the remaining stragglers were making their way to class with bored, expressionless, nonchalantly beautiful faces. Kimber gripped her map and schedule, adjusted her backpack and stepped over a crack in the ground, onto a strange campus.
Even with a map it seemed to take forever to make her way towards her first class, and already the differences between her current and past life were seeping through the stone walkways.
Kimber’s previous school had been large, with a teacher to class ratio of one to thirty-five. The janitors there were slow, underpaid, and uncaring. But this campus was immaculate, with a teacher to class ratio of one to twenty. Not less students, more teachers. A bigger campus, a larger course selection. They were wrong when they said everything was bigger in Texas, because California had it all.
She found the room and stood outside the door for a few moments, taking deep nervous breaths. The kind of breaths she took before stepping on set at a really big taping, only worse. Acting was easy, you could be anyone, but life; that was harder.
As she was reaching for the door and was about to enter into her first-period fate, she was stopped by a loud, booming voice.
“You, there. Stop.”
Kimber spun around, breath caught in her throat, to find a large black man pointing a finger at her.
“Me?” she asked, pointing to herself.
He nodded, one of those who-the-hell-do-you-think-I-was-talking-to looks on his hardened face.
“You’re late.”
Kimber looked around, there were at least ten other people walking slowly to class. She looked back at the man, trying to put on her sweetest acting face on.
“Sorry,” she said. “It’s my first day-”
“Right, right. First day back from break, like I’ve never heard that one before. What’s your name?”
“K-Kimber Vargas.” she said, wincing at the stutter she had been rid of for the past three years.
“Okay, K-Kimber,” the guard said, accentuating the stutter. Kimber’s eyes narrowed as he laughed, a booming laugh that echoed in the halls. He shook his head, still laughing at himself, and pulled out a pad of yellow detention slips.
“What are you doing?” Kimber asked, standing up taller and trying to see what he was doing.
The door to the classroom opened and a tall woman with raven black hair stuck her head out. She sighed when she saw the guard and rolled her dark brown eyes.
“Derik, could you take this elsewhere please? I’m trying to teach a class.”
“Sorry Ms. Hirsh. It’ll only be a moment.” He handed Kimber the detention slip and laughed again, just as loud and booming. “See, I’m done.”
He turned around and walked off calmly as if he had nothing better to do, ignoring the remaining students moseying their way to class. Kimber rolled her eyes and turned around, opening the door which Ms. Hirsh had just disappeared into.
Day one and she already had detention.
Instantly, twenty set’s of California eyes turned on Kimber, watching, dissecting, and studying. They followed Kimber as she handed Ms. Hirsh a slip of paper.
“I guess you’re supposed to sign this,” she said.
Ms. Hirsh sighed and her heels clicked as she stormed over to her desk, muttering about distractions and trying to teach a class. Kimber hovered near, trying to ignore the eyes on her. She could feel their gazes boring into her, through her, some with fiery interest and others with vague boredom. But when it came down to it, everybody was fascinated by something new to take the edge off of habit.
Ms. Hirsh handed Kimber her paper and waved her away. “Take a seat. I don’t care where.”
Kimber looked around the room. There were at least ten open desks, mostly in the front and sides of the room. Everybody had congregated to the middle of the room. Kimber picked a spot as close to the middle as possible. By now, most of the other students were talking amongst themselves, no longer interested.
A girl with long, bone-straight white blonde hair tapped Kimber on the shoulder. Kimber turned to two of the greenest eyes she had ever seen, complete with golden freckles and perfect makeup.
She looked like what Kimber had always imagined actresses to look like; too beautiful for comparison, strong and secure in themselves. The kind of person who stepped outside everyday knowing that they had some power over the world around them.
“What’s up, new girl,” she said.
Kimber’s mind raced through possible comebacks, but in the end nothing seemed to be right. Nothing seemed to say, I am a self-assured, confident woman. You don’t scare me.
“Not much.” There was a lilt at the end of her words like a question mark. The blonde girl laughed and even that was perfect to Kimber. She was beginning to feel like a fish out of water. And an ugly fish at that.
Kimber ran a nervous hand through her wavy auburn hair, hair she had once taken pride in, but now it just felt like unraveled yarn in comparison with the straight hair all around her. In Texas, everybody’s hair was some form of curled, or thick, but here it was just the opposite. Thin, silk hair and expensive highlights.
“You’re too precious,” the blonde girl said. “I’m Veronica, by the way.”
“Kimber.” She didn’t have to second guess herself on that one, and for once, managed to not sound like an idiot when she spoke.
“Cool,” Veronica said. “Is that short for Kimberly or something?”
She shook her head. “No. Just Kimber.”
“Your parents must be wicked cool to give you a name like that. I wish my parents were like that.”
Kimber laughed nervously, debating whether to tell the truth about her not-so-cool parents. She decided against it, not wanting to give off the wrong impression.
“Let me see your schedule.”
It was more of a demand than a question, and Veronica reached over and took the sheet of paper. She studied it with squinted eyes, like she needed glasses but never wore them.
“Looks like this is the only class we’ve got together, brainiac.” Veronica tossed the page back onto Kimber’s desk and turned towards the front of the room, and again Kimber didn’t know what to say to keep the conversation going.
Eventually she turned back towards the front of the room, where Ms. Hirsh was leading notes on invisible numbers.
Kimber was watching the dust particles swim in the sliver of light coming through the white blinds as the bell screamed through the school. She jumped, falling back into consciousness, and shook out the boredom of the last hour.
She stood up and grabbed her schedule, surveying the map for her next classroom.
“It’s the big building, front and center. Can’t miss it.” Veronica flipped her perfect hair and slung an expensive looking silver bag over a shoulder.
“Thanks.” Kimber nodded and shoved the paper in the pocket of her best jeans, which were several shades too light and several inches too high in the rise to be right. She was beginning to see what her mother meant about the slob comment, and that was the worst part.
They headed for the door, which the entire class was trying to shove themselves through, all ignoring Ms. Hirsh yelling out homework above the noise. Kimber listened in, making a mental note to brush up on her invisible numbers.
“Look, I don’t do this often and it could end in disaster for me,” Veronica began, pulling a pair of large sunglasses out of her bag and placing them on her nose, where even they managed to hold themselves with some amount of grace. “But I like you.”
Kimber nodded and looked around the school. There were so many people. So many little side conversations and customs to behold. It seemed that everybody wore the same jeans, the same simply elegant styles. There were more sunglasses like Veronica’s, coming in every color, but holding the same feel. Everybody in the school seemed tied together by one seemingly simple thing, something that connected odds and evens with grace and poise, and Kimber had no idea what that was.
“So what do you say?”
In the overwhelming sensation of dropping into a world so different, Kimber had missed Veronica’s possibly disastrous offer.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
Veronica rolled her eyes and ran a hand through her hair again. “Eat lunch with me and my people. I’ve got to get you before the wrong sort comes and snaps you up. Oak tree, center of the school.”
Veronica walked off, turning and joining the colorful group of students, but there was still something about her that drew the eye. People nodded at her, smiled, talked to her. There was something about Veronica that stood out in the best way.
Some people watched Kimber as they walked by, eyes following her movements with curiosity and in some cases distaste. It was obvious that she was out of place, from a different world. Like Veronica, she stood out as well, only in a very different fashion.
She took another deep stage breath and fell into the energy of the group, the feel of the warm winter and high fashion. She tried to immerse herself in the world, hoping, praying, that even the most miniscule portion of this new culture would rub off on her.
