“That witch placed me in the decoration section!” Arthur whines in an annoyed voice after they walk out of the aforementioned witch’s office, aka Miss Flynn, their English teacher. “Christmas decoration! That sounds fucking dreadful.”
“I was asked to help the cards section,” this time Frank chimes in with a disgusted tone. “That’s even more dreadful. Goodbye my reputation in front of the girls. Rest in peace my dignity and pride.”
Ellen stares back and forth at her two friends. “This is all because of you! That was a stupid idea! Why the hell did you release the rats on Miss Flynn’s class?”
“I did not!” Arthur denies quickly. “They got out by themselves.”
The initiator of the silly idea of “brightening up” the dull class was Frank. And then Arthur thought that it’d be a good idea to release his pet rats during the class. Then Ellen said to do it on Mr. Green’s history class. He is not the type of teacher who likes to rage. He’s just going to complain about how kids these days are so brutal. They’re sure they’re not gonna be punished or anything.
But one way or another, Arthur’s white rats managed to let themselves go and caused a raucous scene in the middle of the English class. Most of the girls were screaming, even most of the boys did too, they all jumped up and stood on their tables. But in the matter of screaming, Miss Flynn came out as the champion. It was the first time Ellen witnessed her teacher screamed in fear of her life when one of the rats sped ahead towards her.
“It was all your idea, and it was your rats,” Ellen says, pointing her finger towards Frank, then Arthur. “I don’t understand why I even got punished. I didn’t do anything.”
“Because you laughed the hardest, my friend,” Frank said lightly.
“You were practically rolling on the floor,” Arthur chimes in with a giggle.
Ellen scowls. Yes, she did find what happened to be outrageously hilarious. But apparently, Miss Flynn didn’t agree. With a face as red as a lobster, Miss Flynn dragged the three of them to her office, and lectured them for 20 minutes. She also gave them a ruthless punishment. They have to help prepare the upcoming Christmas bazaar.
“Which group should you help, Ellen?” Frank asks. “I couldn’t quite hear her because my ears were still bleeding after hearing her scream.”
“The baking group,” Ellen grumbles.
“Ha! Still much better than decorating things,” Arthur says. “At least you can eat a lot of cakes and cookies. Shame we can’t switch place.”
Miss Flynn has made damn sure that there is no way the three of them can get away from their duty. She has informed all of the responsible teachers about their punishment. They have to work in their own respective group, whether they like it or not.
This is a disaster for Ellen. She has a plan on approaching Grace Sanders during the bazaar. Now she’s gonna have to wear an apron and sell cookies instead.
After parting ways with her friends, Ellen makes her way towards the school’s kitchen, which has been turned into the base camp of the baking group. The responsible teacher for this group is Miss Jenkins, the art teacher, who is young and kind. She flashes a big smile when Ellen comes and says, “Welcome to the club, Ellen. Pleasure to have you here.”
Ellen curses inwardly but forces a stiff smile to be polite. She looks around the room and sees that they are all girls. She subconsciously smirks to herself. Cookies and girls. Perhaps it’s not gonna be such a nightmare after all.
“Alright, Ellen, you can get on with it,” Miss Jenkins says, clasping her hands together and walks away without any further explanation. Apparently, she expects Ellen to know what to do.
Once again Ellen throws her glance around the room. She doesn’t really know anybody there. There are some familiar faces but none of them is her friend. Truth be told, most of them are people she avoids because they’re deemed to be ‘freaks’ at school. Finally Ellen decides to approach a girl with ginger hair and freckled face. She looks like her junior.
“Hey, is there anything I can help you with?” she asks nonchalantly.
The girl gasps in surprise and her eyes widen a little bit. According to Ellen, gawking like that in front of someone isn’t really polite, but she’s used to people kind of being immediately fixated on her inborn blue eyes.
“I….. That….” the ginger-haired girl stutters. Then suddenly her eyes dart to somewhere behind Ellen and she smiles in relief.
Ellen turns around and sees a blonde haired girl is walking towards them, bringing a plastic shopping bag that looks heavy with both hands.
“Hey, Anne-Marie, can you…”
The girl’s words are quickly interrupted by her friend. “Portia! This…” she points at Ellen.
Ellen pushes back the urge to roll her eyes. Pointing your finger at someone like that is also very impolite.
Ellen notices that the girl has blue eyes too, but they're a little darker than hers.
“Yes?” she asks. “Can I help you?”
Oh, this one doesn’t stutter. Although somewhat petite and skinny, her voice is quite mature. Ellen shrugs and says, “Well, that was my question to your friend. I was told to help around here.”
“Oh, I see. Alright. You can start by carrying this bag to the table over there,” the blonde says to her, practically shoving the plastic bag towards Ellen.
Ellen receives it and realizes that it is as heavy as it looks. “Wow,” Ellen mumbles automatically.
The girl raises her eyebrows. “What, too heavy?”
Ellen blinks. “No,” she says quickly. “No, of course not.”
And to prove her words, she holds the bag only with her left hand and sticks out the right one. “By the way, I’m Ellen.”
The girl welcomes her hand firmly and smiles. “Hey, Ellen. I’m Portia and that’s Anne-Marie,” she says. “Let’s get to work.”
In December, in the last year of high school, Ellen met Portia de Rossi for the very first time in her life.
***********
“Cursed weather.”
Her mother’s grumbling snaps Ellen back to reality. She lifts her face and finds her mom stepping into the apartment’s kitchen, wrapped in a bathrobe. “Morning, Mom. Did you sleep well?” she says, taking another sip of her coffee that has turned cold. Good gracious, how long has she been sitting there, lost in her thoughts?
“I did, actually,” her mom responds in a hoarse voice. “Haven’t you turned on the heater here?”
“Of course I have,” Ellen says, looking around. She thinks it’s reasonably and comfortably warm. “Are you still cold?”
“I hate cold weather,” her mom grumbles again, finally taking a seat across Ellen, but not without the typical groan of an old woman. “Coffee, please.”
Ellen quickly pours the hot coffee on the pot to an empty cup for her mom, then for herself once more.
“So what do you think?” her mom asks out of the blue.
“What?” Ellen asks back, taking a sip of the fresh coffee with satisfaction.
“What do you think about Portia? I've given you one night to think about it.”
Ellen already knew that her mom will not let go of this one thing. Last night when she drove her home, she didn’t talk about this at all. Along the way, her mom talked about other things: how the cold weather in December in New York makes her body stiff and sore, how the traffic in New York almost makes her have a heart attack, their family who is very excited to celebrate Christmas back in Chicago.
Since Ellen still hasn’t responded, her mom continues, “She’s sweet, isn’t she? You should thank me because I've picked you a fiancée as sweet as Portia.”
Ellen sighs desperately. “If you like her so much, why don’t you go ahead and ask her to marry you?”
“Ha! I wish I was 30 years younger and gay.”
“God, Mom. Stop,” Ellen shakes her head.
“What? I’m just saying,” Betty shrugs and sips her coffee.
“Look, Mom,” Ellen starts in a serious voice. “I’m used to your weird sense of humor, but Portia is not. So you better not talk about this whole engagement thing in front of her.”
Betty shrugs again. “But she already knows.”
“What?”
“Yesterday when you went away to get me a drink, Portia came back to our table after the dance with her brother,” her mom explains. “I told her that you should’ve asked her to dance with you because you’re both engaged to each other now.”
“What?!”
“She looked at me as if I was crazy.”
“Of course she did! She… you… I…” Ellen moves her hands in a feverish manner, not being able to find the right words. Finally she sighs again and leans back to her chair. “For god’s sake, Mom, she hates me enough already, you don’t have to provide her with new reasons to do so.”
“Why do you think she hates you?” Betty frowns.
Ellen looks at her mom, then looks away. She is sure that if there’s anyone upon this earth that Portia de Rossi hates the most, it would absolutely be her. After thinking for a minute, she says reluctantly, “I…. may have offended her back then.”
“Offended her?” her mom repeats in suspicion. “Elaborate.”
“I…. may have said things that I shouldn’t have.”
The frown on Betty’s forehead is getting deeper. “Did you say something about her background? Or about her sexuality? I mean, perhaps you outed her before she wanted to?”
“Eh, no?” Ellen mentions that single word with hesitation.
“Well, good,” her mom says and nods. “Because I would’ve been very disappointed in you if you did.”
Ellen frowns a little.
“Well, all you have to do is apologize,” Betty goes on. “Have you apologized to her?”
“I haven’t had the chance,” Ellen replies, again, with reluctance. “Not so long after that incident, her father died in a traffic accident or something and she had to move out from Chicago.”
“Apologize to her right now,” her mom says. “After that, everything will be fine.”
Ellen sighs. She wishes that things were that easy.
“I can help you….. get close to her?” her mom offers.
“No,” Ellen says rapidly. “I can handle this on my own.”
“Fine. As you please,” her mom mutters.
Ellen stares at her mother with subtle suspicion. Her mom can’t give up so quickly, but she chooses to stay silent anyway. “You want pancakes for breakfast, Mom?” she asks instead and walks towards the cabinet.
“That’d be nice,” Betty says.
Ellen gets down to the business of making pancakes.
It is peaceful for some minutes, but then, “You know, she’s got a patisserie in Madison Avenue.”
Oh, God, here we go again, Ellen groans internally.
“It’s called A Piece of Cake.”
“Very original.”
“She’s always there, just in case you want to see her.”
“Mom.”
“And don’t take her to the cinema. She only likes Broadway shows, theatre, opera, things like that, you know.”
For the millionth time in an hour, Ellen sighs. It looks like it’s gonna be a long morning.
******
Portia is walking down the hallway of the school with a basket of cookies. She’s just making her way towards the hall where the Christmas bazaar is being held in when she accidentally hears that conversation.
“….then why are you always with Portia de Rossi?”
Portia stops on her track once she hears her name being mentioned. The unfamiliar voice of a boy was heard from the empty classroom on her right side. Portia turns and sees that the door is slightly ajar.
“What kind of bullshit is that? I don’t recall being with her all the time.”
Her curiosity aroused when she hears Ellen DeGeneres’ voice emerged. She’s hesitant for a second, but her feet bring her to the door. She peeks from the little gap and sees Ellen with two other boys that she doesn’t recognize. Ellen is sulking with her hands crossed in front of her chest while one of her friends is sitting by the window, smoking a cigarette, and the other one sitting on the floor, yawning.
“I saw you, Ellen,” says the friend who just yawned. “You’re practically glued to that weird kid during the bazaar. You didn’t even look when Grace Sanders passed by.”
“I smell something fishy here,” hums the boy who is smoking. “Does Ellen DeGeneres like little Portia? Aww… Is Ellen DeGeneres in love?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Ellen says sharply. “You guys have got to be crazy if you think I could ever be attracted to that skinny expressionless kid.”
Portia gasps and takes a step back mechanically.
“You really don’t like her or are you just ashamed of confessing it?”
“Yeah, Ellen. Tell us. You know no one ever have any problem with you liking girls, so what’s the big deal?”
“Did you guys know that she’s an adopted kid? She doesn’t even know who her biological parents are,” Ellen says. “Use your brain and think, how could I ever like someone whose background is so blurry? What if her biological parents are….. murderers or criminals or crazy? What if she has it in her blood?”
“She’s adopted?”
“Yes!” Ellen sounds vehement. “And she really doesn’t know who her real parents are! See what I mean?”
“I have never thought about it that far.”
“Seriously, guys. Think. Do you really still think that I like her?”
“Alright, alright. We believe you.” Then a sound of a window slammed shut. “I guess we better get back to our posts now before someone realizes that we’re missing.”
Portia hears footsteps approaching the door. She knows that she has to go right now, but Ellen’s words are still echoing in her head, paralyzing her.
The door is pulled open and Portia meets Ellen’s face. Her blue eyes widen in shock when she sees Portia and she stops under the threshold.
“Oh, shit,” curses the boy who Portia saw smoking. He steps past Ellen and points his finger in front of Portia’s nose. “You didn’t see me smoke. Understand?” he says.
Portia stares at them for a second, then without saying a word, she forces her feet to move. She turns around and walks along the hallway. Step by step, step by step.
“Freak. She’s dumb or what? I guess you’re right after all, Ellen. There must be something going on with her brain.”
Portia heard it, but still she forces herself to walk away with her chin up. She is not going to cry in front of them. She’s not.
Nonetheless, one drop of tears fell down on her hand which is grasping the cookies basket so strongly that it goes white.
And from that day on, somehow, weird rumors about her starts to spread around the school. People who were her friends start to avoid her. People stare at her in a different, odd way. Then stares turn into sneers. Sneers turn into verbal assault. And verbal assault quickly turns into physical assault. Her days in school drastically turn into nightmares in a blink of an eye.
And it all happens because of Ellen DeGeneres. That girl has started crazy rumors about Portia and she doesn’t even feel guilty at all. Once Portia was walking with her hands full of essay papers that she had to hand in to a teacher. Someone stuck their foot out deliberately. She fell down along with her essay papers. Everybody laughed. Not even one single person helped her. Not one. Ellen was there, too. And she laughed with them.
In December, in the last year of high school, for the first time in her life, Portia felt like her life was worthless.
***********
“What’s on your mind, darling?”
Portia jumps and averts her gaze from the window of her mom’s living room on West End Avenue. “Nothing, Mom,” she says, throwing a forced small smile.
“Come here,” her mom pats the empty place on the couch next to her.
Portia obeys, places herself beside her mom and snuggles her head on the crook of her shoulder.
They are waiting for Michael to arrive so that they can have lunch together. Their mom lives alone, so Portia and her brothers always try to visit her as often as they can.
After Portia graduated from college and felt like it was time to move out, her brothers and her didn’t want to see their mom living alone in Brooklyn. But because Margaret refused to live with one of them, they tried to coax her into living in an apartment complex in Manhattan that is vastly facilitated, especially for retirees and elderly people. At first, Margaret didn’t agree, saying that she doesn’t want to live in a ‘nursing home’. However, after she saw the apartment for herself, and the list of the daily activities for the residents to keep them active, she finally said yes and moved there.
“You know that you don’t have to worry about anything, right?” her mom asks. “I will never force you to be in any relationship whatsoever with Betty’s daughter.”
“I’m not worried,” Portia mumbles.
“And if I did force you anyway, I’m gonna have to face your brothers. You know I’m too old to face those rascals.”
Portia laughs. Only her mom would be able to refer to her brothers as ‘rascals’ even though they’re both over 30 years old. Fortunately, neither Michael or Andrew were anywhere near them when Betty DeGeneres mentioned something about Portia and Ellen’s engagement last night. Portia can’t imagine what her brothers’ reaction would be if they heard about it.
“But, Mom, how could Betty say something like that?” she asks out of curiosity. “That her daughter and I are engaged?”
“Well, who can ever know what’s actually going on inside Betty DeGeneres’ head?” her mom asks back. “Maybe she’s highly impressed with you that she’s so adamant on matching you up with her daughter.”
“Hmmm,” Portia mumbles flatly.
“But you don’t seem to be very impressed by Ellen,” her mom takes a guess.
“Not impressed at all,” Portia answers frankly.
“So what has she done to you that made you so unimpressed?” her mom asks again, just like Michael’s question last night.
Portia sits up-straight and sighs. “It might sound very unimportant and petty if I tell you now. After all, 10 years had passed.” She pauses, then finally adds, “She’s just one of those popular kids in school that finds happiness in other people’s suffering.”
Her mom is silent for a while, thinking, then asks, “Has she ever apologized to you?”
Portia turns to her mom and smiles. She will never know how her mom can always draw the right conclusion and ask the right question. “No,” she mutters, shaking her head.
“And if she apologizes now?”
“I am not waiting for her apology, Mama,” Portia says in a daydreaming voice. “And either way, an apology will not change anything. It won’t make everything alright.”
Her mom reaches for her hand and pats it lovingly. “Okay. But just so you know, Betty is probably the most headstrong woman in the world,” she warns her.
Portia takes a deep breath. “Don’t worry. I’m sure I’ll never have to see Ellen DeGeneres again. Not now, not tomorrow, not ever.” Then feeling like she should change the subject, she finally says, “By the way, where is Michael and the cheeseburger he promised us?”
