her forties. She was also overweight—I’d say honestly she pushed two fifty—and she had
a fondness for wearing flower-patterned muumuus. She had thick, dark, horn-rimmed
glasses, and she greeted every one with, “Helloooooo,” sort of singing the last syllable.
Miss Garber was one of a kind, that’s for sure, and she was single, which made it even
worse. A guy, no matter how old, couldn’t help but feel sorry for a gal like her.
Beneath her name she wrote the goals she wanted to accomplish that year. “Self-
confidence” was number one, followed by “Self-awareness” and, third, “Self-fulfillment.”
Miss Garber was big into the “self” stuff, which put her really ahead of the curve as far as
psychotherapy is concerned, though she probably didn’t realize it at the time. Miss Garber
was a pioneer in that field. Maybe it had something to do with the way she looked; maybe
she was just trying to feel better about herself.
But I digress.
It wasn’t until the class started that I noticed something unusual. Though
BeaufortHigh School wasn’t large, I knew for a fact that it was pretty much split fifty-fifty
between males and females, which was why I was surprised when I saw that this class was
at least ninety percent female. There was only one other male in the class, which to my
thinking was a good thing, and for a moment I felt flush with a “look out world, here I
come” kind of feeling. Girls, girls, girls . . . I couldn’t help but think. Girls and girls and
no tests in sight.
Okay, so I wasn’t the most forward-thinking guy on the block.
So Miss Garber brings up the Christmas play and tells everyone that Jamie Sullivan
is going to be the angel that year. Miss Garber started clapping right away—she was a
member of the church, too—and there were a lot of people who thought she was gunning
for Hegbert in a romantic sort of way. The first time I heard it, I remember thinking that it
was a good thing they were too old to have children, if they ever did get together. Imagine
—translucent with freckles? The very thought gave everyone shudders, but of course, no
one ever said anything about it, at least within hearing distance of Miss Garber and
Hegbert. Gossip is one thing, hurtful gossip is completely another, and even in high school
we weren’t that mean.
Miss Garber kept on clapping, all alone for a while, until all of us finally joined in,
because it was obvious that was what she wanted. “Stand up, Jamie,” she said. So Jamie
stood up and turned around, and Miss Garber started clapping even faster, as if she were
standing in the presence of a bona fide movie star.
Now Jamie Sullivan was a nice girl. She really was. Beaufort was small enough that
it had only one elementary school, so we’d been in the same classes our entire lives, and
I’d be lying if I said I never talked to her. Once, in second grade, she’d sat in the seat right
next to me for the whole year, and we’d even had a few conversations, but it didn’t mean
that I spent a lot of time hanging out with her in my spare time, even back then. Who I
saw in school was one thing; who I saw after school was something completely different,
and Jamie had never been on my social calendar.
It’s not that Jamie was unattractive—don’t get me wrong. She wasn’t hideous or