Flour Baby
Illustration by Kat Morgan By the spring of Reggie’s junior year, there was only one thing she looked forward to each day: Matt Shames, smiling his lazy smile. Sometimes it was even directed at her and receiving Matt’s smile made Reggie proud of herself.
She and Matt weren’t exactly friends, though Reggie was hopeful. Matt was easygoing with everyone, most of all himself. Every so often he caused trouble and got suspended, but a few days later he’d roar up again in the ’67 Mustang he’d refurbished himself, flinging the car into its assigned spot, yelling a friendly obscenity to a pal across the parking lot.
He was a junior, too. Reggie longed to have him swear at her like he did his friends. He had beady eyes, but Reggie liked his look, which was a little bit punk. He was thin and looked half-starved, but he wore it well, like a badge. Rumor had it he did drugs. And a reciprocation of Reggie’s feelings wasn’t out of the question. Lately he’d been paying her more attention in their sociology class, and Reggie clung to that attention. It helped her get through the day.
She needed a distraction from what was wrong in her life: her mom’s new boyfriend (a loser), her father’s three-year prison sentence (vehicular manslaughter), her midsemester progress report that showed a 1.7 GPA (for the whole month of February she hadn’t been able to find her chemistry book). Unlike these problems, the absence of Matt’s affection for her could be remedied. There might be room in his life for her. Often she saw him hanging out with people she wouldn’t have expected: the religious kids from the megachurch; the geeky president of the robotics club; or the willowy blond named Arielle, an exchange student from France who—thankfully—would be gone at the end of the school year.
Besides Matt, Reggie had one other sort-of friend, a prickly girl named Jewel with whom having fun was a chore. Jewel and Reggie argued all the time, but no matter how angry they made each other, Jewel always returned to school the next day ready to be friends again. Reggie suspected that Jewel thought she could fix Reggie’s life somehow. She was always burdening herself with projects—people, pets—if only to feel the satisfaction of disappointment.
Officially, Reggie was getting help from Ms. Thorne, the school guidance counselor. Ms. Thorne was young and had been a cheerleader at Michigan State, a characteristic that in Jewel’s mind made her unfit to counsel anyone. Reggie didn’t mind Ms. Thorne. She was on the receiving end of no one else’s sympathy at the moment. In fact, most people hated her, and in the glare of their derision she was simply shutting down, as though her life were a large switchboard and she was throwing one switch at a time. Her affection for Matt was the only thing she was truly devoted to right now.
***
One morning in March, Reggie was called out of her life skills class to see Ms. Thorne, who’d heard that Reggie had burst into tears in the cafeteria the previous day.
“I’m worried about you,” Ms. Thorne said. She’d braided her mahogany hair into a crown around her head as
