hi. this is part 4 of a prose thing i’m doing. here be the beginning.
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The stares started as soon as the sleek, black town car pulled up to the curb. While everyone else in school walked home, or took the bus, or braved the dubious vicissitudes of a sibling's second-hand station wagon, Andrew took the town car his mother sent. Every single day. He wondered if she was intentionally trying to sabotage any hopes he had for normalcy, or if the rigors of her age has somehow rendered her completely oblivious. Some days, Andrew truly believed that old people were a curse.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Glory leaving; the bronze coils of her hair reaching out in all directions as she skipped along, arm linked with Lupita Adichie, a perfectly nice girl. A nice girl he did not despise in the least. Andrew slipped inside the car, shutting the door before what ever joke the two boys to his left were making had a chance to reach his ears.
"Good afternoon, Mister Monroe," he said to the driver, who smiled at him in the rear-view.
"Afternoon, Andrew. How were the unwashed masses today?" Andrew blinked slowly, regarding the man with shocked dismay.
"I mean...that is..." Mister Monroe rubbed his chin and looked away. Andrew thought it best to do the same. Though Countee Cullen Junior High was far from perfect, he didn't like to hear its name besmirched by an outsider.
Andrew's being allowed to go to public school had been all Brooks' doing. While his not-quite-a-step-father Harold had sucked down yet another pre-diner martini, Rosalee Darling had coolly debated with her eldest offspring, while Andrew had put up a fairly convincing impression of a marble statue. He'd been preparing for weeks. Building on the platform that continued exposure to the diversity he'd been privy to in elementary school would be beneficial to Andrew's development in the long run, Brooks had reasoned. His alma mater, Benton Astor was a day school not widely known for its inclusivity.
"Besides, everybody that graduates from that hole comes out caustic little snobs," he'd said, swiping a sip of her cocktail, "You don't want him ending up like me, do you?" Their mother had shuddered at the thought, to Brooks' obvious delight. He'd won out in the end, as he so often did. At the time, Andrew had been elated. He had no way of knowing that by the start of the new school year, his only friend would have decided that he was no longer worth her company.
A twenty-five minute in which he counted every second drive brought Andrew up to the driveway of his house, a white Neo-Georgian he knew for a fact he's mother hated. Not that she let on very often, but Andrew spoke less and listened more than most, and so was privy to a wealth of information for which he had very little use.
Andrew began to exit the car, but stopped with one hand on the door's handle.
"See you, tomorrow," he said to Mister Monroe, who mumbled something unintelligible, coping poorly with having embarrassed himself in front of a twelve-year-old in a waistcoat. The car drove away and Andrew allowed himself the slightest of slouches. The stared up at the house as if in a trance. It was awful, he decided. Awful and stark and forbidding and lonely as...lonely as...
