Edited by Kumani
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Reparation (re-pə-rā-shən)
n.:
replenishment of a previously inflicted loss by the perpetrator to the victim through amendments, apology or giving satisfaction
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The bells rang over the murmuring of people around her who took a collective sigh. The captain announced that he was beginning his descent. She admonished herself for being nervous, she had been on many flights with smooth landings, but she couldn't stop her heart from picking up a stronger beat. She squeezed her eyes and grimaced as the plane made jarring sounds below her.
She knew it was more than the landing that was giving her anxious jitters. It all started six months ago, in the dead of winter when a little "save the date" postcard arrived in her mailbox. It was for that time of the season,
summer
, which meant reunions- family reunions, club reunions, college picnics. And now her friendly postman put an innocent little postcard that was more dreadful than the envelopes of bills...her high school reunion. She remembered laughing with her work mates about going back to the States for this rite of "real" adulthood passage. A ritual that she really wanted to skip and loathed the idea of facing the people that had ridiculed and taunted her, and the boys she had crushed on who wouldn't be caught dead talking to her. It was her best friend who convinced her to fly back home to her rinky-dink small town, where there seemed to be more farmland than inhabitants. She cursed Maddie for talking her into this as the plane finally skidded loudly onto the O'Hare tarmac.
She peered out the small window taking in the Midwestern scenery. The sun was shining bright, she couldn't help but smile. She loved summer. She realized how much she had missed having an unhindered sun living in London. She sat peering out of the window for awhile in deep thought, remembering her first trips from this airport to London while she studied at Oxford. Her parents were so proud and had mustered up a lot of courage to let her go far away for school. Realizing that she had indeed left the nest after graduating and became an expat, her parent moved to Florida for a year round sunny climate.
The stewardess, eager to clear the plane out to do whatever flight attendants do, came up to her breaking her reverie, and she quickly un-crammed herself from the seat to grab her carry-on to depart the plane. She grabbed her luggage and hunted down the rental car desk to get her car for the second leg of her trip.
Driving through her hometown in her luxury car, she made sure to rent a high end car to make the best of the weekend, she heard the familiar sounds of her childhood during the summer months. The frogs and grasshoppers still made an eerie buzzing sound as their songs mashed together in the wetlands and corn fields along the highway. The occasional car that drove the opposite direction was not as welcoming as the fireflies in the distance that blinked red, green and white lights. The city limits did not look as sleepy as they had when she left the town, new national fast food chains lite the night and a few chic coffee shops, had blossomed in the downtown area.
Pulling up to the mid-level hotel, the idea of bed was beckoning her through the bricks and topiaries outside. A young woman, listening to her ipod swayed to a beat. She stood behind the counter, the television on the wall flashed announcements of town events. Lo' and behold it said,
Welcome Alumni Class of 1994. Go Knights!!
She let her bags drop loudly to get the young woman's attention but she kept swaying to her music and busied herself texting on her phone. Irritation and the bed screaming for her, made her patience wane completely. She rang the bell on the desk and the girl snapped to attention with a scowl.
She rolled her eyes at the ipod girl and said under her breath,
Unbelievable!
"How may I help you?" the young woman scoffed. Her head tilted to the side and she stuck her hip out to the other.
"I have a reservation, it's under Mananger."
The young woman began typing her name into the system. "Ma-Nan-Ger." The girl stopped and looked up, her mouth dropped. "Paige? Paige Mananger?"
"Yep," Paige rolled her eyes. "That's me."
"You don't remember me, do you? We had business club together. Sue, Suzy Swanson?"
Paige stood with an awkward blank mind. She was already feeling she would have many moments like this over the weekend as people would remember her but she not them. She shook her head apologetically and smiled kindly.
"No problem, I was an underclassmen. Class of 1996, Baby!" Sue, Suzy Swanson finished typing Paige's info into the computer. "Ahh! Executive Suite, you must be moving up in the world."
Paige sheepishly grinned, the room was another attempt to make the best of the weekend and feel superior over the people she would see again who gave her much grief. Maddie had convinced her not to worry.
They're probably all fat,divorced and with three screaming bratty children, they can't even handle.
Maddie's words ran through her mind.
You're the junior exec of a huge London marketing firm. No kids, no baby-daddy-mama-drama, ehh?
"I'm sorry I just flew in," Paige apologized to Suzy and regretted saying that much as the woman leaned in eagerly.
"Flew? Wow, Paige where are you living now?"
Paige sighed, the feeling of wanting to gloat about her international success was too premature for the weekend now. "I'm in London."
"Wow," Suzy said in more of a fake nasal lion roar. "You dig the accents don't you. Just don't do the Madonna thing, you won't fool anyone here. You still hick as us."
"Miss Swanson," Paige said firmly, lack of patience had turned into irate annoyance. "I need my keys to my room. Thank you. I want a wake up call at 10am."
Suzy quickly handed her keys to her suite and gave the spiel of where the amenities were and the time breakfast would start. She helped her carry Paige's bags and said it was nice seeing her again.
The room wasn't as luxurious as an executive suite in a major metropolitan city but her small hometown made the best with a country style motif and chocolate pieces on the floral pillow.
She flopped into the ultra soft bed and immediately jet-lag won as she drifted off to sleep.
***
"One, two, three We're here to fight we're here to win. We want to hear you Knights SCREAM." The cheerleaders cheered and clapped in unison as the crowd at the assembly screamed as loud as they could. "Freshmen, Ninety-Seven, let me hear you scream! Sophomores, Ninety-Six, let me hear you scream! Juniors let me hear you scream!"
The junior section of the gym screamed their cheers, it sounded heftier than the underclassmen. The cheerleaders moved to the seniors section, which were already chanting Ninety-Four and rumbling their feet in the bleachers.
"Seniors, Ninety-Four; Seniors, Ninety-Four, let me hear you scream."
The seniors roared loudly and the cheerleaders departed in jumping jacks and high kick splits.
Paige was glad this was the last school assembly of her life. She was excited to leave this school when she finally got her letter of acceptance into Oxford. Her whole entire school experience in the small town was unrelenting. She was one of the few honor students in her class that didn't fit the majority demographic. With cocoa skin she was always the single black student in her honors courses and often ridiculed by the other black girls for her good girl attitude where she managed to stay out of trouble.
She had crushes on a lot of boys and when one, Mitchell found out that she had a small crush on him, the rest of her class would often gang up on her. She was ridiculed for her tight curly black hair. They made faces at her, whispered cruel things in front of her, and even barred the way for her to enter into the classroom. Mitchell gloated at the fact that she liked him and was very quick to toss it in her face that he would never be even seen with an ugly black girl. The worst of all the ridicule that she faced was how they had changed her name, they taunted her by calling her Piggy Manigger.
She was on her own most of the time and defenseless. Whenever her name was called a boy or girl was quick to cough, Manigger under his or her breath and the teachers did nothing. It would take her years to see herself in her own mirror just as she was and see that nothing was wrong with her. Even so, most times she still had a hard time gazing at herself in the mirror.
It was the last assembly, the prom assembly where the prom royals were announced and came to the middle of the gym floor to be sashed. That year the school had adopted a teacher vote policy in order to not make the entire prom court based on popularity, so the teachers choose one boy and girl to be on court with the rest of the three couples.
"The votes have been counted and we are going to announce the four couples to be your prom court. Tennessee Chavon and Mitchell Greene, Theodore Winslow and Michelle Owens," The crowd clapped as each couple came down from the bleachers. The girls squealed as their friends names were call. "Benjamin Vonseal and Paige Mananger"
Her eyes shot open in shock. She could barely hear her name being massacred by the crowd, Manigger they chanted. Then dread snuck in. She was one of the teacher's picks, it was obvious and everyone would know this was the fact. She was paired with her latest crush that had lasted all throughout her junior and senior year, Benjamin Vonseal. It was evident that he was not a teacher pick. The second teacher pick was a bulky Korean kid that most of school could not find fault to tease. She came down from the bleachers and Benjamin seemed to instantly recoil away from her.
Now prom was ruined, her last rite of passage in this horrible town.
All day she tried to calm herself and focus on what was most important and that was the fact that she was leaving for London in less than three months. She just had to get through these last three weeks and she would never have to see these people again.
She was pretending not to listen while putting her books in her locker when she heard people apologize to Benjamin for having Paige Piggy Manigger as his prom court princess. She liked Benjamin because he didn't tease her as much as the other students in her class. He was in almost all of her classes and really never said a word to her. He was probably going to succeed and go to Illinois to attend Northwestern University or somewhere far away. He always had a girlfriend and when he didn't the girls loved to fawn on him. He was exceptionally handsome, not too tall, had a great smile like a Trident commercial and seemed so confident. She had been crushing on Benjamin for two years but was very careful to not let anyone know. Instead she sat in class trying to seem unappealing to everyone less she be teased but also to not draw attention to her lust for Benjamin.
