classmates this weekend. See it as a chance to reconnect with your thoughts and react in a safe space on paper. More specifically, I want you to write to someone. Anyone. Someone you’ve never met, someone you love. Whoever you’d like. By having a focus, it feels more like a conversation, except without the interruption, of course. I’m hoping it will be meditative, a chance to be with your inner thoughts. A destination toward healing,” she paused, looking around the room. “So, uh, take out your notebook, if it’s not already out, and start writing. Begin with ‘dear’ and then whomever you are writing to. This is more generative than anything else. What I mean by that is this doesn’t need to be formal. In fact, it shouldn’t be. Just let your thoughts and words fly. Roam. Be free.”
“Are you collecting this?” Deanna asked.
“No, I’m not. Allow that to give you permission to write without edit, without judgment, without fear. And I want to encourage you to keep this going. When tragedy happens, writing can be one of the best medicines to make sense of things.”
Behind me, I heard someone say, “Which one was he? I don’t remember a James.”
“Yeah, I don’t know. I think he sat by the window? Maybe he had black hair?”
I stared at my blank page. Turquoise straight lines. I used to write letters to Dara when she went to summer camp. I loved feeling like I could say whatever I wanted without any interruption. I’ve written letters to Dad, even though he’s just thirty minutes away. I wrote to Shirley when she was in the hospital. Sometimes I write to Greta. I didn’t think I’d miss her when she went away to college, but I do. So much.
Ms. Raimondo is a newer teacher at our school, younger than the others. Sometimes I feel like I can see her thoughts grow inside her, but maybe that is just me staring way too hard because I think she’s so pretty. When she walked into the classroom on the first day of school, I couldn’t believe she was the teacher. She looked so cool, with double-pierced ears and purpley lips like she had eaten a whole bunch of pomegranate seeds before she arrived. On the first day of class, she had us write love letters to ourselves, which I thought was really strange. Then, we put them in an envelope she gave to us, which we had to address. She promised she’d mail them to us, eventually. When we forgot. After school that day, I went home and told Shirley all about her. She thought Ms. Raimondo sounded like a hippie, which I wasn’t exactly sure was a good or bad thing. Shirley can be quick to judge at times.
I peered around the room and noticed a few people already writing. In front of me sat Aggie, slightly hunched with her dark glistening braid leaning on her right shoulder. Sometimes I forget Ms. Raimondo is even talking because the back of Aggie’s head mesmerizes me. I’ve spent most of September trying to think of something to say to get her attention. She talks in class, but I haven’t seen her talk to anyone else yet. She’s new to this school, though I’m not sure where she’s from. I’ve written pages of poems just about Aggie’s braid. I wouldn’t dare show them to anyone, of course.
It hurt to allow myself to think that James was gone. And then I couldn’t quite understand why I was feeling this way. We weren’t friends. The only words he flung in my direction were mean ones. But I guess it’s that he succeeded. He did what Shirley has tried to do so many times. That’s when I knew whom I needed to write to.
Monday, October 18, 1993
Dear James,
Ms. Raimondo looks like a grasshopper today, dressed in a long, tight dark green skirt and lime-green blouse. You used to be in this room, but of course we never spoke to each other. I kind of hated you. Or I was scared of you. I guess a little bit of both. You never raised your hand or spoke at all really. But I can hear your voice because it used to make fun of me. It’s so strange being at home without Greta. Quieter. I miss her more than I call my mom Shirley because I think Ms. Raimondo is really beautiful when she wears her hair back and I can see her ears. I still have a difficult time trusting Shirley since she Why did you kill yourself?
Tuesday, October 19
Dear James,
Something happened today in study hall. I can’t stop thinking about it, and I figured I might as well tell you, since, well, you know.
By the time I get to study hall I’m so hungry, but lunch isn’t for two more periods, so I often sneak in some kind of snack to eat while the teacher isn’t looking. We aren’t allowed to eat or talk, which is super annoying. Sometimes, though, I’ll stick something in my pocket and sneak bites. Usually just loose cereal that I suck on to eliminate the loud crunching sound. Is that weird?
Today, I dipped my hand into my pocket and found only crumbs. I tried slyly emptying it out, dropping bits of flesh-colored preservatives to the floor.
“You know, if we were outside, birds would eat that. In here, you are basically just encouraging the cockroaches to come out of hiding.” Aggie had tapped me on the back. She was sitting behind me, diagonally. That’s right, two classes together, though not sure study hall counts as a class. And homeroom too, although that’s just like a half hour or whatever.
I couldn’t believe she saw me do that.
“Yeah, I . . . I was just . . . hey . . .” Wow. Real smooth, Eleanor.
Her voice was deep, not like the ocean, but more like Shirley’s, whose vocal chords have been charred from decades of cigarette smoke.
“It’s not like I’m judging, I’m just noticing,” she said. I took all of her in. This was the first time I really could, since she was looking directly at me. She didn’t exactly match, but from what I noticed through my many weeks of watching her, she never does. She had on a shirt with lots of stripes and an oversized vest (her father’s?), a long skirt, and a tie that went well beyond her waist. “I’m Aggie, by the way,” she paused and moved a little closer to me. “Agnieszka,” she whispers, “but only my dad calls me that now. I feel like you’re in all my classes and yet we’ve never talked to each other. Fromme comes before Glackhzner, so you sit in front of me in homeroom.”
Agnieszka Glackhzner. A mish-mosh of letters. A song.
“Oh, uh . . . yeah,” I dribbled out.
“My dad is a garbage man. ‘Sanitation worker’,” she emphasized proudly, using her fingers to wrap around those last two words. “I’ve been brought up to locate garbage cans like exit signs. I’ve never had to make my bed, but I’ll get punished if I’m caught littering.”
I smiled. “Jeez . . . sorry. I mean, yeah, I didn’t realize.”
“It’s all right,” she smiled back, and I suddenly forgot how to breathe. “Eleanor, right?”
I nodded.
“Who are you writing your letters to? You know, from English class?” Aggie smiled. Her lips spread wide, and I quickly noted all her teeth, so white and slightly crooked.
“Oh, uh . . .”
“I mean, you don’t have to tell me.” Aggie brought in the corner of her mouth and bit down on her lower lip. Why couldn’t I breathe? The air had asbestos in it. Mold. Cancer. What was happening? Why couldn’t I stop smiling?
“I’m writing to Richard Brautigan,” she said.
“Is
