Sight Reading by Daphne Kalotay

Author:Daphne Kalotay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

Chapter 7

IN JUST ONE WEEK, THREE MORE WHITE SPLOTCHES APPEARED ON Hazel’s face; the next week, three more. She briefly considered seeing her doctor, but there was no point, really; she had been assured, years ago, that her condition was purely aesthetic, no threat to her physical health. She had been told, too, how these things usually progressed, knew that this proliferation was, like so many other things, inevitable. After all, remissions always come to an end, she found herself thinking, and recalled the homeopath telling her, so easily, to “embrace” what was happening to her body—as if Hazel did not hate, truly hate, the mottled person she had become.

That Monday night she spent a full thirty minutes reapplying her makeup. There was a meeting at Jessie’s school, and Hazel couldn’t help thinking she might possibly run into Hugh.

A midterm report had arrived explaining that Jessie was having trouble in her Earth science class, which was why her parents were being called in. This would not be a private meeting, the letter explained; each term the school held “open classrooms” for parents whose children were not excelling in a particular topic, as “a chance for the teacher to address in a more comfortable manner the main problem areas and typical points of contention.”

We find this a nonconfrontational way for teachers to communicate more generally their own expectations as well as the ways parents might help their children improve personal performance in a specific class.

Hazel had telephoned Nicholas about it, but he hadn’t been at all worried by his copy of the letter. He pointed out, as he always did, that Jessie would have other talents; she possessed them already, within her, just waiting to make themselves fully known, like the scent of baking bread. And really (he always reminded Hazel) these talents—athleticism, her good nature, her physical beauty—would propel her further than even the best grades. For now Jessie was simply waiting out seventh grade, where, Nicholas explained (based on some sort of journalistic knowledge from his friend Gary), all the worst teachers were employed, the ones with unchecked psychological disorders, the ones who had been reprimanded by administrators, who spouted extreme politics, and whom the high school teachers couldn’t bear. If she could just make it through this awkward time, Nicholas told Hazel, he was sure Jessie would make something wonderful of herself.

Hazel supposed this was Nicholas’s way of convincing her that there was no need to attend the meeting.

“I can’t, at any rate,” he had said, explaining that there was a concert at the conservatory that night. In retaliation, Hazel informed him that she was to help Maria with an event at the fabric store that same evening. And though she knew deep down that she would end up going to the school instead, she told Nicholas that it was time he stepped up and took more interest in Jessie’s academic life, hoping he might at least feel briefly guilty.

Really, though, she was less worried about Jessie’s scholastic record than about the possibility of crossing paths with Hugh.

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