One of the perks of attending a private catholic, all-girls high school is that the bus picks you up at your front door. It’s a short bus, but a bus nonetheless. The driver is Medrell, a large, tough woman whose ample rear hangs over the edge of the seat and who doesn’t wait around for anyone.
And so there is no panic like the one you feel when you wake up at 7:20 to hear Medrell leaning on the horn, see the yellow lights flashing outside the front door. Before you can get your wits about you, she hits the gas and leaves you behind.
Oh, the dread. On the heels of that horn, your mother’s sharp cry—the only person who could turn your name into a blade to cut you with—she thought you were up and dressed but you are not.
Now it was her problem. Because you can’t miss school, simple as that, not unless there’s three inches of snow on the ground with no signs of stopping, or you’re sick enough to let Medrell sit there on her horn, until your mother steps out in her robe to wave her on.
But now you have to get dressed and eat something quickly, knowing you’ve already screwed up everyone’s day, because your mother has to take you, and really, how hard is it for you to set an alarm and respond to it. You drive in silence along the snaking, choked streets through Livingston and Short Hills, past the grocery and the tux rental and five different pharmacies, and then past the mall, that palatial temple where you’d love to wander loose and free and touch all the sweaters you’ll never buy.
Finally, up Blackburn Road where your mother deposits you at the front door, gives you a swift, cool kiss goodbye. Everyone’s already been to their lockers and had their Diet Cokes and are just now settling into chemistry or English or AP History and the teacher has started talking. Everyone looks up as you take your seat, your backpack hanging awkwardly on one shoulder like an apology. You haven’t really missed anything, but there’s that lingering fear that from now on, you’ll always be just a moment, a half-step, behind.
Of course, you won’t be. There will be plenty of times when you’re early and ahead of schedule. You’ll apply early, and get in. Arrive to a meeting somewhere 10 minutes early, coffee cooling your hand. You’ll be the first one at the restaurant, sitting across from an empty plate. Slide into seat 23A in the nick of time, heart racing as the main door closes and the plane starts to push away from the gate.
Timing is everything. And if you’re anything like me, you’ll get caught in that sometimes, flipping back through the hours and weeks and years like album covers, trying to remember the music of what you did and who you were, but the lyrics escape you. You wonder if, perhaps, you might actually have missed something along the way (a look, an opening, a stray comment left behind like a single glove), or something even bigger. It’s possible.
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