But I will say, the good side of Dad’s incessant need to deliver a dose of optimistic self-help in the form of paper booklets commonly reserved for grief counseling and Jehovah’s Witness evangelizing was that they always came with a side of freshly baked goods. Whenever feelings of worry threatened to overwhelm my father, he kneaded them into dough, where they could rise safely away from him. And while this was a delicious way for him to cope, I automatically associated those yummy carbs with heavy conversations about emotions and feeling shrinked by my own parent.
Middle school had been the worst. Dad clearly couldn’t deal with being a single father to someone developing boobs, and he’d spent a lot of his free time in the kitchen. Once, Peter Logan grabbed my bag of raisin bread in that playful way immature boys who like someone do (at least that’s what I told myself)...and out tumbled a bright red fact sheet: Puberty is a monumental time period of physical development and discovery and it doesn’t end with just periods! He avoided eye contact for the rest of sixth grade.
As soon as a custodian wheeled by where Tatiana and I sat in the cafeteria, I tossed the pamphlet into the trash can. I debated getting rid of the bread maker when I got home. Maybe that would put a stop to Dad’s well-intentioned but slightly irritating ways. It would mean no more tasty peanut butter banana kaiser rolls made from the roasted peanuts Tati Estelle regularly sent us from Haiti, but sometimes you have to make a sacrifice. Dad could have the bread maker back when I graduated.
Besides, I didn’t need flaky, buttery pastries or a psych booklet to tell me what I already knew. With or without Mom slapping Senator Venegas, high school would always be a time of major angst and uncertainty. Some of my peers just happened to be able to navigate this dreadfully uncomfortable time better than others. In fact, quite a few of them had the I’m-going-to-act-like-I’m-much-cooler-than-I-really-am thing down to a science. But I was particularly terrible at this, because I couldn’t help but fill awkward silences with any thought that sprouted in my mind. And now that my mom had lost it on air, the tiny amount of “think before you speak” that I possessed was officially depleted. Seriously, anything that anyone said only served to remind me of her outburst.
DIRECT QUOTE #1
ALAINE BEAUPARLANT WITH FELLOW CLASSMATE AT
ST. CATHERINE DE’ RICCI ACADEMY
Kid #1 at Locker:
Ugh, I hate this jacket.
Me:
You know what I hate? When my mom assaults a government official on live TV.
DIRECT QUOTE #2
ALAINE BEAUPARLANT WITH FELLOW CLASSMATE AT
ST. CATHERINE DE’ RICCI ACADEMY
Kid #2 in AP English:
This class is the worst.
Me:
You know what’s worse? When your mom asks your class to tune in to her going bat-shit wild on live TV.
DIRECT QUOTE #3
ALAINE BEAUPARLANT WITH A VALUED STAFF MEMBER OF ST. CATHERINE DE’ RICCI ACADEMY
Lunch Lady at Lunchtime:
Rice and chicken or spaghetti?
Me:
Just juice, please. I brought my lunch. Just like my mom brought those hands. On live TV!
The Life and Times of Alaine Beauparlant
If St. Catherine de’ Ricci was the setting of a cult hit teen movie, I would be the cub reporter always snooping around for a scoop. I’d take myself way too seriously and wear tortoiseshell glasses and compete with a young Jeff Goldblum for the editor-in-chief position until we would ultimately decide to share the responsibilities. (Which is actually what happened with me and my coeditor, George Finchley, who unfortunately doesn’t have any of Jeff’s droll magnetism. SAT vocab prep strikes again.)
Tatiana—whom I love and admire very deeply—would be the girl on lockdown who is always making excuses to her parents for why she has to stay late at the library. Each morning she’d walk out the door and drop the Deferential Daughter schtick as soon as she kissed her parents (and aunts and uncles and grandparents) goodbye. Just in time for homeroom.
She’d have impressive grades but also a massive yearning to be a part of the Popular Group, or the It Crowd, or, as I liked to call them, the Peaked in High School Posse. Meanwhile, I couldn’t even will myself to be interested in who Nina Voltaire was no longer friends with or what college guy Kaylee Johnson was currently seeing. Not because I’m so above it all like everyone seems to think... I just have my priorities in order. How else am I supposed to follow in my mom’s footsteps? She didn’t get to where she was by sitting around talking about high school nonsense, so neither will I. That’s part of the reason that I want to go to Columbia in the first place—to find my tribe. It’s a fancy-pants school for sure, but how great would it be to make a name for myself at the great Celeste Beauparlant’s alma mater? And the fact that it’s in New York is amazing all on its own. I try to keep the fantasizing to a minimum, but there’s no denying the allure of the Big Apple—four actual seasons, nonstop electrifying atmosphere, some of the most driven individuals in the world who are hungry and want to show everyone what they’re made of. I know, I know. How woefully banal of me.
But alas, I am not in New York. I am at lunch in Miami and groaning inwardly as I watch Nina and Kaylee, respectively the undisputed queen and lady-in-waiting of the royal social court, make a beeline to our table because St. Catherine is the type of school that gives its students rotating assigned lunch seats “in order to foster a sense of Christlike community and camaraderie.”
Tatiana lived for these days. I...did not. She took full advantage of the screen time and had her aforementioned I’m-going-to-act-like-I’m-much-cooler-than-I-really-am skills on full display. Nina and Kaylee had barely sat down before they were sucked into listening skeptically as Tatiana explained why her nonexistent relationship with some jock would never work out.
“He’s on his way to being a double senior,” Tatiana said as she took a delicate sip of her coconut water. “That’s just way more baggage than I want to take on right now. Flings are supposed to be light and carefree, you know? I can’t spend all my time thinking about how I’m going to move on to college and he’s still going to be here.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That and the fact that he doesn’t know who you are.”
Tatiana gave me a death glare and went back to her story.
Honestly, what kind of friend would I be if I didn’t tease her just a little? She made it so easy whenever Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber Nina and Kaylee were around. Besides, it was part of the trade-off for being her alibi whenever her parents demanded to know where she was or where she was going. That’s kind of the reason that Tatiana and I became friends in the first place. It was a few days after the release of first quarter report cards during freshman year. Tatiana’s mom (Madam Hippolyte, as I call her) had barged into AP World History, the last class of the day, to demand in very broken English why Tatiana had been marked tardy for nine classes. The look on Madam Hippolyte’s face after Mr. Berger explained that Tatiana had been marked tardy because she was indeed late for each of those classes was enough to make me want to run out of the class screaming. Without a doubt, Tatiana was about to be in a world galaxy of trouble. Tatiana’s mom continued on, asking if this would cause Tatiana to be held back, and I could hear the kids in class snickering at Madam Hippolyte’s pronunciation of flunk—or “floonk,” as it sounded. Maybe it was because I couldn’t bear to watch Madam Hippolyte struggle to find her next words, or because Tatiana looked so utterly embarrassed, but I walked right up to the front of the class and explained in Creole to Madam Hippolyte that Tatiana had been late because she was helping me study during our lunch period. I promised not to make Tatiana miss the start of class again and reassured Madam Hippolyte that Tatiana wouldn’t be held back for cutting class. It was a lie of course, but it worked. Tatiana’s mom nodded her thanks and turned to Tatiana.