Standing Out: Sometimes Alone

By Gena Mabee

In her first week as a college freshman, Gena recalls the
misery of middle school, the redemption of high school
and the challenge of social maneuvering as a devout
Christian in the LDS Church who secretly craves
popularity and a boyfriend. Now she wrestles with the
uncertainty of her bold decision to go to a college where
she will once again have

• Language: English
• Publisher: One World Press
• Release date: Sep 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9780989834711

Book preview

Chapter 1

This is it

❖

Am I in the right place? Even after five days of college, I couldn’t answer the question.

Like all teenagers, I’d fantasized about this. For years I’d carefully planned and prepared, like a diver for a competition. I jumped off the board—Mom and Dad drove away—and the edgy thrill of free fall cinched my stomach. I went through the anticipated motions, the tucks, reaching, and rotations of settling in, buying books, and finding my way around campus. But five days later I still yearned to complete the dive; I still waited for the satisfaction of slicing into the refreshing pool.

Five days earlier, my family had waved back at me through tinted windows. My hand hung suspended in the air until the silver and maroon van disappeared around the corner. Officially dropped off at college on my own and ready to follow a dream I turned to face the dormitory.

On that hot Wednesday afternoon, I headed toward the dorm wearing shorts and a white t-shirt with blue lettering that read California Girls State 1988. On my right, a mother sobbed her goodbyes while her daughter reassured her with a hug and a confident smile. I wanted one of those—the smile, not the hug.

Like any college dorm in any made-for-TV movie, this one was surrounded by hypermanicured bushes and patches of bright, crisp mowed lawn. Families schlepped boxes, desk lamps, comforters, and bicycles from vans, trucks, and trailers into the building. I paused at the door to let two girls lugging a black trunk pass. My flip-flops echoed as I ran up the stairwell. Three flights later, I turned into Room 3208. I perched on the windowsill and considered the scene below.

Coeds buzzed around the parking lot and grounds in pairs and small groups. Like me, they wore shorts and t-shirts, but they were smiling, tossing their hair, and laughing with their books, boxes, and suitcases. Will I be friends with any of them? I thought I was making the right choice four months ago when I sent in my letter of intent. Now, as fast as reality sank in, indecision bubbled up. Is this really where I belong?

Yanking a tissue out of the box, I mopped my face as I sniffed. Get a grip, girl. I focused on the photographs dotting the bulletin board across the room, above the other desk. Squinting at the faces, I wondered which one was my roommate. A few of them appeared repeatedly—a man, a woman, and two girls who I concluded must be their daughters. It had to be her family.

On her dresser, a shallow, square wire basket showcased green-packaged Clinique™ products—mostly skin care, not much makeup. I studied the two huge colorful posters pinned to cork-board above. The poster on the left showed a tall jar of large goldfish sitting on a pink table. The one on the right showed a country hillside painted in bold strokes of greens, blues, and yellows. The bottom read David Hockney: a Retrospective. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Never been there.

Above the posters a long shelf held crisply folded pullover sweaters stacked by color: green, white, cream, striped, brown, black, and red. This girl owned more sweaters now than I had in all my teenage years put together.

I stood on my bed and ran my fingers along the slick cinder block walls painted antique white. I pinned up a poster that read ADVERSITY will make you strong. Beneath the writing a chick poked her beak out of a cracked egg.

Next I put up a collage of illustrations I cut out of my Seminary manual with a picture of Jesus Christ in the middle. I loved Seminary. High school students at my church took Seminary every day before school for an in-depth study of the scriptures. My freshman year, the girl I carpooled with challenged me to match her goal of one hundred percent attendance. If I weren’t so doggone competitive, I might’ve slept in a few mornings. But it turned out to be a great way to start my day and worth the effort.

I hung my 1989 Far Side calendar and opened it to August. Next to that I taped a poster of Michael Jordan, tongue wagging, making a slam dunk. I placed my mom’s old jewelry box with the secret drawer on the shelf beneath the poster.

I stretched out on my freshly made bed draped in a blue and white-striped Mexican blanket I’d gotten for five dollars in Tijuana when I was ten. I hadn’t used it before, just kept it neatly folded in the closet for some future special time. Hands behind my head, I wondered when this roommate of mine would return. Hopefully I’d like her. More important, I hoped she liked me.

To share such a small space, we’d have to really get along. Unfortunately, I was not going to be rooming with my high school buddy, Pauline, as I’d hoped. I knew the roommate situation would have a big impact on my freshman year. I really needed a good year.

Anxiety burned my stomach as I remembered a bad year… well, three bad years, actually—middle school. That’s where I learned the importance of fitting in. Kids in elementary school are like siblings who have no choice but to get along. They learn to share, take turns, include everyone in the game, and say, I’m sorry. But in middle school everything changes. The teachers aren’t so loving. They don’t send home lists with names to make sure everyone gets a Valentine. There are no referees and no one makes other people play nicely or say they’re sorry. In middle school, the social rubber hits the road and the somebodies are sorted out from the nobodies and the wannabes. I thought I was a somebody, but everything changed in middle school.

Chapter 2

Bruised Heart

❖

According to the district boundaries, I should’ve gone to Piedmont Middle School. But my mom heard rumors of students using pot there. That got her investigating other schools for me, which is how I ended up at Sierramont Middle School, a few miles north of Piedmont Middle School.

I didn’t think it would make that much difference. East San Jose seemed really nice to me. We moved there from the south side when I was six years old. It was a growing suburb with lots of young families of different ethnicities. Our house on Terra Noble Way sat at the bottom of a beautiful hill dotted with large homes, dream homes of the 1960s and 70s. Ours was just an average tract home with Spanish influences. A single story, white stucco house with an espresso colored roof, it rested on the inside corner of the L-shaped street. Ivy vines stretched out along the side of the property, providing me the outdoor chore of trimming it back during the summers.

The well-established neighborhood boasted trees and bushes of many kinds. Olive trees adorned the sidewalk next to our house. Juniper bushes grew, scented berries to pick and throw at the neighborhood kids. Like the song of the Sirens drew sailors, the heady scent of Mr. Don’s freesias coaxed me to stop and smell them on my way home from elementary school. The bright orange California poppies at Mr. Ribisi’s tempted me to pick them daily.

Four houses down and across the street was Noble Elementary School. After hours and on weekends, the school’s playground was perfect for my roller-skating and bike-racing adventures. I won many imaginary Olympic competitions there. The park beyond that had a play structure, a man-made pond, and the library where I participated in summer reading programs, earning book marks, stickers, and bags.

A quarter mile to the south, tall, lanky eucalyptus trees lined the usually shallow Penitencia Creek. Cars zoomed on nearby Berryessa Road, competing with the sound of the lively water tumbling over and pooling around smooth grey rocks. The road wound into the hills and ended in historic Alum Rock Park, which offered fine creek walking and bug collecting for a tomboy like me.

Our house was just minutes from the freeway and about anything we wanted: nature, malls, movie theaters, or famous places like the Winchester Mystery House. We did country things like picking strawberries at U-Pick farms in Watsonville. We did coastal things like playing at the Santa Cruz beach and Boardwalk. We did city things like browsing Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.

The weather in San Jose was ideal—all four seasons, none of them particularly extreme. In the winter, the lawn turned crunchy with frost for a few mornings. In the summer, the hills turned brown and, by August, we would have a week-long heat wave of a hundred degrees and sleep with the windows open. Once in a while on a Friday night we went to the Capitol Drive-In Theatre. That’s where I saw Star Wars, right under the stars in 1977.

Living in a place like that, it was hard to believe there would be any reason to avoid a local school. Most of my friends from Noble were going to Piedmont Middle. People like Cami, who always had gummy bears in her lunch and shared with me, or Jimmy, the school crush, or Vicki, the other student besides me who played the flute in band. Even Jeff, my friend from church, was going to Piedmont. How could it be such a terrible place with people like that enrolled? If it were really that bad, would their parents let them go? I was nervous about leaving so many friends.

On the other hand, I liked at least two people going to Sierramont Middle School—Maria and Tanya.

Maria and I became friends at the end of fifth grade. When sixth grade (middle school) started, we ate together, swapped notes, talked on the phone, shared our secrets, and had slumber parties like best friends do. She was Mexican, shorter than me, almost chubby, and had lovely dark brown eyes with long lashes. I liked her wit and self-assurance, or what I thought was self-assurance. It thrilled me the first time I heard her refer to me as her best friend. Sure, I had had friends, but never had been ranked as someone’s number one friend. If I had, I didn’t know, so it didn’t count. Everybody knows best friends declare their exclusive friendship publicly.

I’d known Tanya longer. A mild-mannered Caucasian girl, she often blended into the background. She was soft spoken, academically ordinary, and not athletic, but her long, honey brown hair glistened around her soft face, making her too pretty to be chosen last in any playground game. She was one of the first people I knew with divorced parents. In the third grade, she said her mom told her dad to get out after she caught him growing marijuana in the closet. I was fascinated. (Maybe that guy had gone to Piedmont Middle School.)

Maria and I were more outgoing and Tanya was quiet. We made an odd, lopsided trio—two best friends and a sidekick. But we made each other laugh and enjoyed each other’s company. With them, I had people to talk to at break time, a place to sit and eat at lunch, and automatic invitations to birthday parties. It was comforting to have a place to belong every day at the middle school that wasn’t really mine.

Back then, we wore polo shirts and the IZOD® alligator was a status symbol. We turned up our collars, pegged our pants, and feathered our hair. Well, I didn’t really feather my hair. Black girls don’t have much success in that area. But I could easily make my bangs stand up real high, so I got in on that fad. Boys dragged sheets of cardboard and hefted boom boxes to school so we could watch them break dance during lunch.

Sometimes I took the city bus to school, walking quite a ways to the stop. It was nerve-racking, too, because I was usually running late. On the way home, I worried about weirdos on the bus and being kidnapped on the long walk back to my house. Other times I rode my bike. As much as I loved riding my bike, I hated being sweaty and winded by the time I got there (remember, I usually had to hurry). On cold mornings, my knuckles went numb and my fingers burned for the first fifteen minutes of class. On the way home, I peddled uphill all the way. I hated it. Once in a while I got lucky and my dad would agree to give me a ride to school on his way to work.

A few months into middle school, I had one of those lucky mornings. Dad dropped me off and I walked up to the school, comprised of buildings that looked like giant connected boxes, very modern for the early 1980s. The stucco walls were painted an odd mustard color reminiscent of mucus. Around the school, tall cement planters and half walls stood like modern functional art. We used to sit on them. I walked up to Maria and Tanya at our usual planter. Hi! I said, smiling.

Maria rolled her eyes and turned her back to me.

What’s wrong? I asked her.

Did you hear something? she asked Tanya.

Tanya shook her head. No.

Maria! C’mon, you guys, what’s up? I asked. Tanya looked at me, but said nothing. I faced Maria, but she moved at the same time, turning her body so I couldn’t step into her line of sight.

Tanya grinned and Maria struck up a conversation with her as if nothing was unusual. I stepped back, confused. Surely they were playing a joke. I shook my head and chuckled.

Ha-ha, very funny. You guys, what’s going on? I persisted. They turned their backs in one swift movement and walked away.

I spent the next two class periods mentally reviewing our most recent interactions, trying to identify some misbehavior on my part that would warrant such treatment. I came up with nothing. At first break they ignored me again. At lunchtime I hoped they’d accuse me of my crime already. I went to the bench where we usually ate.

Okay, obviously you’re mad at me. What did I do? I asked.

Maria’s eye grew large and incredulous. She pursed her lips. I waited. My heart pounded harder. She said nothing. I looked at Tanya. She looked off into the crowd.

Finally Maria spoke. Let’s go! she commanded. They left the lunch table in a huff.

Turning around, I scanned the faces of the nearby students, happily going about their lunch hour. Hiding my humiliation, I opened my lunch bag as if everything was fine. I felt small and alone. I chewed on my tuna sandwich, but I couldn’t swallow it. My mouth was too dry. I looked up and considered the beams holding up the awning. I had never noticed them before today. I felt other students looking at me, but I couldn’t look back at them. My eyes were too wet.

I called Maria at home, but she wouldn’t come to the phone. I wrote her a couple of letters apologizing profusely for whatever it was I’d said or done to offend her. One I sent through the mail and the other I brought to school and passed on through a third party. She never acknowledged either one. I asked around through other people what had caused her to suddenly hate me. They couldn’t get an answer for me.

Hate would be the proper word. In a group of other students, she’d walk past me and make rude comments about me, loud enough for me to hear. They would all laugh. Her glares were menacing. I never looked at her for long. At one point, a rumor went around that she wanted to beat me up after school. I looked over my shoulder constantly. I inconvenienced myself daily to avoid crossing her path. This went on for months.

One day while I ate lunch at a long table a group of girls came and sat across from me and one next to me. The last to arrive, Angelita, stood over me.

Hey, you, she ordered, Get up. Move!

I looked up. Her right hand balanced her hot lunch. Her left was on her hip.

There were no more chairs, nor space at the table for me to make room for her. Sorry, I’m sitting here already, I said and turned back to my food.

She pushed me.

I said get up, I wanna sit there. If you don’t move I’m gonna slap you! she shouted. The table noise hushed. All eyes were on us.

I was already sitting here, I repeated, apologetically.

She whipped her left palm at my face and I caught her wrist with my right hand an inch away from my cheek. I was so relieved to stop the blow, but terrified to see the fury on her face. She jerked her wrist out of my hand and launched a series of curse words and promises about terrible things that were going to happen to me after school. She and her friends left, but not my anxiety. Now I had to watch out for her too everyday at lunch and after school. I only felt safe in a classroom.

I tried to put Maria and Tanya out of my mind, but not knowing why they abruptly cut me off and attempted to deny my existence always lurked somewhere in the back of my mind, tormenting me.

It finally occurred to me that my efforts had all been appeals to Maria. Perhaps an appeal to Tanya might get me a reason, if not reconciliation. She was probably just going along with whatever Maria told her to do. That’s just how she was—a follower. I watched for an opportunity to speak with her alone. One afternoon, towards the end of second break, I saw her standing with her book bag resting on a cement planter. She was waiting for someone. I gathered up a bucket full of courage and approached her. She didn’t see me coming until I was about ten feet away.

We made eye contact. In one motion, she swung her bag strap up onto her shoulder, turned, and started to walk away.

Wait, I pleaded.

She stopped and looked at me. It was a start. My pulse quickened. Thinking maybe I had a chance to finally get some answers, I took three long strides. We were face to face. Her eyes went wide. Obviously, I was violating her imaginary no contact zone.

Tanya, I began. It had been so long since I had talked to her that her name sounded odd with my voice behind it. I’ve done everything I can think of to try to get Maria to talk to me. I can’t figure out what I did to make her hate me. Will you please tell me what I did?

She shrugged and looked around on the ground nervously.

Why won’t you guys talk to me?

She said nothing. My upper body tightened. My heart felt too big for my chest.

She blinked a few times and shifted her weight. Her forehead creased. Breathless, I waited. Oh, please, I begged in my mind. Let me out of friendship prison!

Well, she folded her arms, I do remember you saying something about her boyfriend and getting pregnant, she offered with a sour look on her face.

What? I replied.

Maria had a new boyfriend about the time we stopped being friends. I vaguely remembered that Tanya and I complained to each other about how she spent more time with him than us.

I didn’t say anything about her getting pregnant! I insisted. I stood with my mouth hanging open.

I remembered seing them behind a building kissing. I thought they were just kissing. Was I being naïve? I certainly didn’t think she was going to get pregnant. Did she think that I thought that? Did she think I was saying that to people? I hadn’t heard any such rumors. I would’ve stopped and corrected them if I had.

She smirked.

Who said I said that? I demanded.

Maybe you shouldn’t talk about other people, she said with satisfaction. She tossed her long brown mane over her shoulder, a wry smile settling onto her face.

But I hadn’t been talking about her with anyone except…

I closed my mouth and knew—I was speaking with the enemy.

In a split second, thoughts darted through my head. Grab her lifeless hair and beat her to the ground! She stole your best friend! I’m so stupid, why didn’t I figure it out weeks ago? What should I do?

Could I salvage the relationship? Maria was so mean to me now, was it even worth it? Did I even want her friendship anymore? Certainly Tanya deserved to be exposed, and kicked to the curb. I studied her face and clenched my fists.

But, Tanya had been my friend; how could she do that to me? Suddenly I changed my mind. It was just too mean to be true. Surely it was all a misunderstanding. I opened my fists. I must be crazy. She wouldn’t do that—would she? Could she? I decided to throw her a bone to find out.

Oh, I exclaimed, I think I know what happened. I think someone heard something I said, misunderstood it, and told her a different story. They probably didn’t even realize it wasn’t true. They were probably just trying to protect Maria. Now here I am apologizing for something I didn’t even say! Isn’t that sad? We were all such good friends. I shook my head and waited. C’mon, Tanya. If you were innocent in all this, now is your chance to speak up, I thought. The silence continued. I gave one more nudge. Tanya, would you try to explain it to her for me? I smiled and raised my brows.

Huh? she asked with a horrified look.

Just tell her that I think someone misunderstood something I said. That’s all. I’m sure that person wasn’t trying to be mean to either one of us. I held my breath.

Tanya looked down. Uh, yeah, I guess so.

I had my answer now.

Shocked and hurt, I finished the façade, Oh, would you? I’m sure she’ll listen to you. Thanks, I said, no longer able to hold back the sarcasm.

I felt like I’d swallowed a cactus. I didn’t know if I should cough it up or try to push it down the rest of the way. I walked away and never spoke to either one of them again.

Their shunning bruised my heart and spun my head around, leaving me socially dizzy for the next few years. I staggered around as a loner, a few steps towards this person, then back the other way towards those people. All the while, I neither embraced nor was embraced by any definable group of kids.

I didn’t trust anyone my age, nor did I feel trustworthy. I was hyperaware of what I did, analyzing it over and over. I was very careful about what I said and slightly paranoid about people changing my words around. Slightly may be an exaggeration. I was paranoid.

I had plenty of acquaintances. At school, people knew who I was, but if they actually liked me, I couldn’t tell. Consequently, outside of my home, I wasn’t sure I liked me either.

On weekdays I went out to do emotional battle, but I spent weekends safe in my shelter. At home I was not only loved, but liked. My mom, Beverly, would not let us kids hit each other or call each other names like dummy or stupid. She didn’t tolerate name calling in joking around or in games of make-believe. If she overheard anyone doing it, she hollered, I have a Gena, Cherie, Jason, Teri, and a Tyler. I don’t have any stupids! Then she demanded an apology, even if the victim wasn’t offended.

Mom’s physical vision wasn’t 20/20; she wore large blue glasses with round frames. But, having been raised on the waves of alcoholism, she had sharp moral vision framed by the strife of her childhood. I thought her reactions to name calling were extreme, but, especially in middle school, I felt grateful I could relax in a place where all meanness was off-limits. That place, fiercely guarded by Mom, was home.

A fashionable, fair-skinned black woman, Mom’s passions were her family and the Lord. Her raisin-colored, excitable eyes pierced me with sincerity. Her perfectly curved lips spoke words that breathed self-belief into her children. She tended to love too much and do too much. Highly creative and generous, she made life fun. When we drove we were never lost, only having an adventure. For fun, she took us to model homes where we would claim our bedrooms and she taught us to dream of the future we could build. A whirlwind of energy swept behind her ever changing projects and pursuits. She graced our home with all sorts of music and arts, be it sewing, gardening, or cooking. She had a high school diploma and used the library, personal networking, and the telephone to educate herself in whatever was necessary or tickled her fancy.

My father, Gene, was blessed to come from a stable, loving, God-honoring family. The first in his family to attend college, he, too, valued his family and the Lord. He honored his parents’ request by waiting until graduating from Penn State to marry his childhood sweetheart, which he did the weekend after graduation.

He was once mistaken for Mohammed Ali while jogging on a beach in Malaysia. He was well built, with the social graces of Sidney Poitier. He had big opinions, a big heart, and noticeably small ears that he passed on to each of us