Jess Farris is as flat as this board

Todd Montgomery earned my everlasting gratitude in 7th grade by erasing a blackboard. At the end of 6th grade, after numerous daydreams of him leaving Jeanmarie for me, I asked Todd to sign my yearbook and he did. “Too bad you got braces. HAGS, Todd.” HAGS? HAGS?? I panicked. What does it mean? Is it mean? Should I show my mom? My friend Gina said, “It’s have a good summer, Jess. Relax.” Ah, I thought. Have a good summer. Todd is the most sensitive and caring man I have ever almost known.

My braces stayed on into the next year and with them some additional insecurities. Sure, Jeanmarie got braces, too, but her braces attached to a huge smile, in a dewy face, surrounded by sleek hair falling above perfect B cups. For me, there were too many things going on with my general head area and not enough going on with my general chest area. I was splattered with freckles; I grew funky eyebrows and spring-loaded hair big enough to eat Manhattan. My chest was, as Mike Gouveia blazed on the algebra blackboard, like the plains of Montana.

I walked into history class that morning after the first bell and well before our lazy teacher. Everyone was looking at me. More than normal, more than my paranoid 13-year-old eyes usually noticed. I sat at my desk and looked up to see

JESS FARRIS IS AS FLAT AS THIS BOARD

written in hot and unrelenting white. I was ambushed, stun-gunned, and spotlit, dragged by those chalked words to rest between the bearded lady and the wolf boy as the flattest and reddest 13-year-old on earth. Everyone whispered and stared for my reaction. Someone leaned over to ask if I was alright as I burned up with my own embarrassment. Todd Montgomery walked in, looked at me, looked where I was looking and, as there were no erasers near, smudged the words out with his own sleeve. “You’re such buttheads,” he said, “Grow up.”

He was a lemming who stopped at the edge of a cliff. The whole class, me included, gawked at him. If there was anything more shocking in 7th grade than random cruelty it was acting on pure kindness. Both were as arresting and daring as car chases or people making out in public. I left my state of mortified dumbness for gratitude and realization. I felt like my mom had just told me the glasses I’d been looking for all morning were on my head, or like Dorothy, when she found out she could have been home at the beginning of the movie if she’d just clicked her heals. Really, it was that easy? We could just stand up and fix things? Whoa. My world changed.

I’m still occasionally reminded of middle school and Todd Montgomery. I was reminded recently in a bar with friends when a man told me I dress like a deranged grandma. I smiled, re-fell in love with my floral dress and cardigan, and called him a butthead. I am my own Todd, I thought. I was reminded yesterday when I stood in a crowded Metro North train and saw a pregnant woman walk the aisles. Nearly everyone watched her and some asked if she wanted to sit, but one man stood up and pointed to his seat, saying, “Here, sit here.” He has the Todd. And I’m reminded when I see people I know hurt, shocked into immobility by the direct and unexpected harshness of someone else. Oh, this is easy, I think. We can just stand up and fix things.