BirdBrain
Eve Marx
Word Count 783
In eleventh grade, I was a spelling bee champion. I won’t bore you with the trials I went through before the finals leading to the state competition. This was both exhilarating and terrifying. I wasn’t good at a lot, but competing in spelling bees came easily, and I was a serious reader with an extensive vocabulary. While words and letters were as natural to me as breathing, all math, including simple arithmetic, was a nightmare. The year before, I’d barely staggered through Algebra 2, which was all the high school mathematics my school required. On the other hand, I was comfortable on a stage and didn’t hesitate to stand in front of a microphone at a podium thanks to an elective I’d taken with an English and drama teacher, Carl T., who taught a speech writing class and cast me twice in prominent if minor roles in two high school plays.
In eleventh grade, I was dating Jim P., who was a ranked varsity track star pole vaulter. During the winter months, he wrestled. He was also a bit of a math and science whiz and was taking Calculus 2 and Trigonometry. He liked to relax playing a challenging board game called Risk and enjoyed teasing me in front of his friends about how I could never remember the rules or keep track and had no chance of winning. He came up with what he said was an affectionate nickname for me: Birdbrain. My only revenge was to repeatedly beat the pants off him at a chip & putt course adjacent to a golf course where his parents were members. He started calling me “Arnie” when we got on the course, short for Arnold Palmer.
The site of this final leading up to the state competition was held a few towns away. and my mother didn’t drive and I had no car or driver’s license anyway. Jim offered to drive and accompany me into the building where the competition was being held, get me water and hold my handbag while I was seated alongside my fellow competitors. There were thirty of us, all coming from different NJ high schools. One girl was in junior high. She was rumored to be the one to beat, and it was whispered amongst us that not only was her IQ very high, but she also brilliantly played the piano. She was the one to beat, everyone was saying. I tried to shut out the noise and concentrate on the competition.
The event flew by in a blur. When called upon, I correctly spelled every word I was given. I was almost feeling cocky. I felt things were going well. It got down to three competitors — me, a boy from Weehawken, and the junior high girl.
Throughout the competition I’d made a point of not looking at Jim, seated in the second row. I’d glanced at him once when I first took my seat on stage, and he looked just like what he was: a handsome American boy in a button-down shirt and a pair of pressed khakis. He’d chided me a little bit during the drive over about my clothes. I’d elected to wear a white blouse with a pair of navy blue tapered pants and ballet flats. I didn’t want to worry about keeping my knees together or trip in heels. Jim thought pants were a mistake because they made me appear mannish. He also thought it was a mistake I hadn’t waxed my upper lip which he said was growing a stache.
My name was called, and I took my place at the mic. I was given a word to spell. The word was “colander,” as in a strainer or perforated bowl. It turned out to be a word to this day I am unsure of spelling. I looked out into the audience and there was Jim. His mouth was in motion. I could see him mouthing the word “Lip” which was his nickname for me, when he thought I needed to address the fuzz on my upper lip, something that evidently bugged him.
My ability to correctly spell colander slipped away. It’s possible I would have blown it anyway. I spelled it in front of the judges with two “l’s or changed the “e” to an “a.” In any case, I was disqualified and went back to my seat in shame.
Driving home, we stopped at a DQ to get a bite to eat. Why did you have to call me Lip right at that moment, I asked Jim who was working his way through a double cheeseburger.
It was a joke, he said when his mouth wasn’t full. It was just a joke.
Eve is a journalist and author currently scraping out a tiny living crafting police reports for newspapers in New York and Oregon. She is the author of What’s Your Sexual IQ?, The Goddess Orgasm, 101 Things You Didn’t Know About Sex and other titles bearing some relation to her stint editing Penthouse Forum and other ribald publications. She makes her home in a rural seaside community near Portland, OR with her husband, R.J. Marx, a jazz saxophonist, and Lucy, their dog child.
