Let's Pretend

The first time I met Eric Garner was when I was ten-years old. We had moved from New York City, New York to weird Skokie, Illinois. We stopped for some last minute furniture at the Crate&Barrel in the Old Orchard Shopping Center on Golf Road and Skokie Boulevard.

“Wait here,” Lauren Munson, my mother, said, leaving me to stand in the middle of the home office section.

I sighed and planted my butt in the nearest chair. Yes, it may seem cliché that I had moped around in my new home and complained how my mother ruined my life by moving me to a village in the middle of nowhere, and thus ending me friendless—but it’s true! Except for the part where she ruined my life, because I apparently had no life in NYC and I definitely didn’t have many friends there, so I guess the only cliché part of this whole ordeal is that she moved me to a village in the middle of nowhere. It sounds so primitive, when you think about it.

I swung myself around in the chair right after I noticed it was one of those office chairs that swivel and stopped myself when I took notice of the black desk before me. Unlike most girls my age, I didn’t dream to grow up to be a princess, actress, or pop artist. I had different intentions – I wanted to be an engineer. I didn’t know what kind, then, but even at a young age, I was enthralled by mathematics and science. I gripped onto those subjects firmly, afraid they would fly away.

I gazed at the dark gray object lying at the center of the black desk and stared at the faux keys that popped up. I placed my tiny fingers on top, exactly like how I’d seen people on TV doing it, and pretended to type. My fingers moved swiftly and repetitively, up and down. If I were to be really typing, I was sure it would have looked like: ‘adlfjaldfjiegaljfkd.’ Keep in mind that those keys didn’t have any letters on them and I wasn’t really aiming to make words. I was just trying to pretend to be an adult in a successful career.

“I think you misspelled a word there,” someone said from behind me. I jumped at the sound, and spun around to see a boy around my age…if not, older. Being ten, I didn’t know what sarcasm meant, due to the fact I hadn’t even heard of the word before. So, I just glared at him and told him I was only pretending and that it wasn’t possible for me to misspell a word if the computer keyboard wasn’t real.

He rolled his gray eyes at me and replied, “Of course I knew you were pretending and that the computer was fake. It’s called sarcasm, kid. Look it up.”

I huffed, putting my fists on my hips. “I am not a kid,” I spat defensively. “I am ten-years old and am turning eleven in one month.”

“Oh, big whoop,” he said, twirling his pointer fingers in a circle next to his head. “I’m Eric, by the way…and I’m already eleven.”

He stuck a hand out, expecting me to shake it. I stared at it hesitantly, and then slowly brought my own hand forward to shake. “Zoe.”

“Look, kid-“ he began, but I had cut him off.

“Zoe.”

He sighed and rolled his eyes again. “Look, Zoe. Are you new here?”

He ran his hand through the dark, unkempt pile on the top of his head that I assumed he called hair. With his other hand, he leaned on the desk I was sitting at.
I was taken aback by his question, because it seemed so forward…and demanding.

“Yes?” I answered, which sounded less like the statement I hoped for and more like a question.

“Which school are you going to?”

“I don’t know!” I exclaimed. “What’s with the questions? I just got here not even an hour ago!”

And that was how I met Eric Garner. Now, it is present day – 6 years after my encounter with Eric at the Crate&Barrel. Ever since then, he has never failed to annoy me with his obnoxious and sarcastic loud mouth. It isn’t one of those clichés you read about, where he’s my arch nemesis and I hate him to death. We’re more like...acquaintances, than enemies. Immaturely spiteful acquaintances, yes, but we don't hate each other. It's just a mutual feeling of annoyance.

So when I entered Fairview Middle School in August (a month after my birthday), I caught sight of him in my homeroom. Of course the teacher had me introduce myself in front of the whole class, because I was the new student and since everybody knew each other from the year before, nobody would know who I was…except for Eric. And so, I progressed through the three years of middle school. Occasionally, Eric would make small talk, though it would usually end in him making fun of me for pretending to type on a fake keyboard. I didn’t know how he did it, but it always ended up in him making fun of me for that incident.

“Hey, kid!”

Did I mention he kept to calling me ‘kid’?

“What do you want, Gardener?” I ask, turning the dial of the lock on my locker at Niles West High School.

There was this incident in grade nine, when his mom, Angelica Garner, volunteered him for the annual school beautification weekend. He ended up having to plant some store-bought flowers into the dirt and sprinkle the surrounding area with stinky mulch near the school bungalows. Unfortunately, my own mom volunteered me as well, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t make the most of the event, right? That particular day gave me the opportunity to create an innovative and somewhat degrading (to his “manly macho-ness”) nickname for him. And so, ‘Gardener’ was born.

By the time he reached my locker, my books were placed neatly inside the metal cubby and I grab for the books I need for my next class, which happened to be English. Unluckily, Eric has that same class with me.

“I heard from Dave that Connelly had assigned a class project on Shakespeare,” he says, leaning against the locker next to mind.

I shut the metal door and turn to him, sighing in the process. “And what does this have to do with me?”

“Connelly posted up the partner list for every block period up on his door.”

“…and?” I grew suspicious of what he was suggesting.

“God, are you really this dense?”

“Shush, jerk. I hope you’re not implying that we’re paired up together.”

I look up at him with narrowed, green eyes. He just grins sadistically at me, chomping on his gum.

I hiss out a couple of choice swear words, glaring at everything around me.

He puts his hands up in front of him in surrender, still chewing away. “It’s not like I had anything to do with it. Blame Connelly for his ignorance.”

I just walk away towards the room of which I now dub Hell, steam smoking out of my ears.