Take Me to the Water

PART 10 // School

I asked Felix to pretend to be my uncle so that I could get back into school and he agreed, but not before offering to find me a new club to perform at.

"Lucille's spot ain't the only gig around here, Eve. I can get you in somewhere else."

"I already tried," I said as we sat in the principal's office at Clover High School.

Mrs. Jones had spread the word throughout the clubs that I was off limits and no club owner would even let me stand outside of a bar. Felix believed in me more than anyone though, and he wanted me to make it big. He had driven me down to Detroit a few times and I won a few talent shows and even got to sing in front of record executives, but nothing ever came from it so school was my only option.

To me, school was no different than prison. I just had to do my time (which was two years) and then I'd be free.

I enrolled back in school as a junior and I kept to myself. My new mindset was school over everything. School was going to be my way to a better life. I was going to do my two years, get my diploma and leave Clover just like Leah did. I was going to travel the world as a singer and my first stop would be New York City, but before I could do that I knew I had to get school out of the way.

When I was in school before, all I wanted to do was be normal and make friends, but now I had no interest at all in making friends, and I had no interest in being normal either. Ever since that night in Uncle Calvin's room, I'd been praying regularly for God to make me normal again, but like always, God didn't listen. In fact, I was getting more powerful. Now, I could feel things that normal people weren't able to feel. I could feel others' emotions, fears and worries. I wished that I could just lock myself in my room and never leave, but what would that solve? Instead, I just decided to fight through the awkwardness of my powers and avoid physical contact with humans at all costs, that meant no friends. At first, I was doing really good with that, but then I met Jewels and she wouldn't let me not be her friend.

*******

I didn't know much about Jewels at first, but I knew that she had a lot of friends. Her locker was right next to mine and everyday there would be a group of girls congregated near it. I'd hear them gossiping about boys, sex and what girls they hated this week. I thought Jewels and her friends were airheads and I couldn't ever imagine being friends with them—but then I found out Jewels could sing.

Jewels and I were in the same music class junior year, and we were the only two students to take the class seriously. Music was a throw away class for most people, and almost everyone took the class because they knew it was an easy A, but that wasn't the case for Jewels and I. Music was our passion and we took every assignment seriously. We even took our teacher, Mr. Fields seriously, and that wasn't easy.

Mr. Fields was an older white man who had no business teaching black city kids about music. He was a trained classical pianist but he could only play something if he had sheet music, so I thought I was better than him. I could play anything, and I didn't need sheet music. Mr. Fields was out of touch with the culture and with the times too. To him, good music was Bruce Springsteen or The Beatles, and all of the songs we sang came from them. Naturally, he was met with resistance.

"Aw come on Mr. Fields! That's some white people stuff!" Students would yell when he introduced new songs.

"Yeah Mr. Fields! How come we can't play some Aaliyah or TLC, or some Outcast?"

Mr. Fields had no idea who and what they were talking about and he didn't care. He would just work with students that wanted to learn the music while everyone else pretty much just got a free period.

I didn't mind Bruce Springsteen, The Beatles, or anyone else that Mr. Fields introduced us to. I just loved music and wanted to consume all that I could. Mr. Fields would work with me in the corner on learning different techniques on the piano and if he wasn't working with me then he was working with Jewels. He never worked with us together because I told him I didn't want to, so I didn't find out Jewels could actually sing until the day of our first recital.