Today, we’d be driving that beautiful beast into a new world. A world that would give me a new title and hone a new facet of my identity. I wanted to become a b-girl in the full sense of the word. It would be so much better to be called a b-girl, a breakdancer, than the Girl Who Wore That Thing on Her Head.
The event was even more exciting than I hoped it’d be. I’d seen battles before, of course—we’d been watching old breakdancing competitions on VHS for years—but it was something else entirely to witness these things in person. The space was relatively small—it looked like a converted art gallery—and people were assembled like cigarettes in a pack, pressed up against the walls and doors, squeezing together to leave enough empty space in the center of the room. The energy was palpable. Music was reverberating against the walls and ceilings, the bass pulsing in my eardrums. In here, people didn’t seem to care at all about me; no one looked at me, eyes merely glanced off my face and body as they scanned the room. I didn’t know why it suddenly didn’t matter what I looked like, why my appearance garnered no reactions. Maybe it was because the self-selecting demographic in here was different. I was surrounded by diverse bodies and faces; I was hearing Spanish in one ear and Chinese in the other. We were white and black and brown brought together by a single interest.
I loved it.
Somehow I knew, in that moment, that all that mattered in this particular world was talent. If I were a decent breakdancer, these people would respect me. Here, I could be more than the settings applied to my life by society.
It was all I’d ever wanted.
I came home that night feeling more exhilarated than I’d felt—maybe, ever. I talked my mom’s ear off about the whole thing and she smiled, unimpressed, and told me to go do my homework. School would be waiting for me, bright and early the following day, but tonight, I was still aglow. Echoes of the music were dancing around in my head. I got ready for bed and couldn’t focus on the schoolwork I’d left unfinished. Instead, I cleared a space in the center of my room and practiced the crab pose for so long the carpet began to burn my palms. I kept falling forward—kissing the floor, as my brother liked to say—and couldn’t get it quite right. I still had a long way to go before I’d become even a decent breakdancer, but then, I’d never been afraid of hard work.
9
Nine
My second class of the day was called Global Perspectives. My teacher was one of those wild, creative thinkers, one of those guys determined to make breakthroughs with teenagers. He was cooler than most teachers, but it was obvious, most days, that he was trying a little too hard to convince us of this fact. Still, I didn’t hate his class. The only thing he ever required of us was class participation.
There were no exams; no homework assignments.
Instead, he forced us to discuss current events. Politics. Controversial topics. He wanted us to ask each other hard questions—to question ourselves and our ideas about the world—and he wanted us to engage directly with each other in ways we otherwise never would. Those of us who refused to participate—refused to voice aloud our opinions—would fail.
I was into it.
Thus far, the class had been pretty drama-free. He’d started out with softballs. We’d walked in on the second day of class to discover he’d divided all the desks into groups of four. We were supposed to start there, in a smaller group, before he’d change things up.
After thirty minutes of intense discussions, he came by our little cluster and asked us to recap what we’d talked about.
And then, he’d said—
“Great, great. So what are the names of everyone in your group?”
That was the thing that got me to take him seriously. Because wow, we’d been talking for a while and we’d never once asked to know each other’s names. I thought maybe this guy was smart. I thought maybe he would be different. I thought, hey, Mr. Jordan might actually know something.
But today was a new Monday. Time for a change.
I’d barely gotten to my seat when he shouted at me.
“Shirin and Travis,” he called, “come over here, please.”
I looked at him, confused, but he only waved me over. I dropped my backpack on the floor next to my chair and went, reluctantly, to the front of the class. I stared at my feet, at the wall. I was feeling nervous.
I hadn’t met Travis yet—he wasn’t one of the four people in my group—but Travis was everything television taught you a jock was supposed to look like. He was big, blond, and burly, and he was wearing a letterman jacket. He, too, I noticed, was looking around awkwardly.
Mr. Jordan was smiling.
“A new experiment,” he said to the class, clapping his hands together before he turned back to us. “All right, you two,” he said, turning our shoulders so that Travis and I were facing each other. “No squirming. I want you to look at each other’s faces.”
Someone kill me.
I looked at Travis only because I didn’t want to fail this class. Travis didn’t seem thrilled about staring at my face, either, and I felt bad for him. Neither one of us wanted to be doing whatever the hell my teacher was about to make us do.
“Keep looking,” Mr. Jordan said. “I want you two to see each other. Really, really see each other. Are you looking?”
I shot a hard glare at Mr. Jordan. I said nothing.
“Okay,” he said. He was smiling like a maniac. “Now, Travis,” he said, “I want you to tell me exactly what you think when you look at Shirin.”
And I lost feeling in my legs.
I felt suddenly faint and somehow still rooted to the ground. I felt panic and outrage—I felt betrayed—and I had no idea what to do. How could I justify turning to my teacher and telling him he was insane? How could I do that without getting into trouble?
Travis had gone bright red. He started sputtering.
“Be honest,” Mr. Jordan was saying. “Remember, honesty is everything. Without it, we can never move forward. We can never have productive discussions. So be honest. Tell me exactly what you think when you look at her face. First impressions. Off the cuff. Now, now.”
I’d gone numb. I was paralyzed by an impotence and embarrassment I didn’t know how to explain. I stood there, hating myself, while Travis fumbled for the words.
“I don’t know,” he said. He could barely look at me.
“Bullshit,” Mr. Jordan said, his eyes flashing. “That’s bullshit, Travis, and you know it. Now be honest.”
I was breathing too fast. I was staring at Travis, begging him with my eyes to just walk away, to leave me alone, but Travis was lost in his own panic. He couldn’t see mine.
“I—I don’t know,” he said again. “When I look at her I don’t see anything.”
“What?” Mr. Jordan again. He’d walked up to Travis, was studying him, hard. “What do you mean you don’t see anything?”
“I mean, I mean—” Travis sighed. His face had gone blotchy with redness. “I mean she doesn’t, like—I just don’t see her. It’s like she doesn’t exist for me. When I look at her I see nothing.”
Anger fled my body. I felt suddenly limp. Hollow. Tears pricked my eyes; I fought them back.