BAGS by CLAIRO. Story by Jennifer Manoogian.

Maths classroom in a western Sydney high school, Year 12, 2018

I start every Friday morning at school the same, with the sign of the cross in the little chapel. Attendance at Friday morning mass becomes mandatory after being reluctantly voted in as a prefect, and so I fall into my role as a devotee.

When the bell rings, I head to the oldest building in the school. The one with red brick walls and fireplace facades in every classroom. Friday period one was always maths. There’s a twinge against my shoulder as I sling my backpack over one side. The strap digs into the rosary hidden under my dress collar. I received it at my First Communion, made of purple glass beads. I wear it to support a classmate who is going through a tough time this year, but hidden under my clothes. It feels embarrassing to wear as someone who had recently discovered they were agnostic. Like I’m walking around with a sign pinned to my uniform reading, only religious when she needs something.

I take my usual spot in the stuffy classroom with blue carpet, heading to the second row from the right. She’s already sitting there, pulling out her textbook and smiling at me. I spend the whole class mustering up the courage to talk to her between scribbles of quadratic equations. Did you do the homework last week? How’s your baby sister? Did you cut your hair?

I laugh way too loudly at her jokes, but it makes her smile when I do. My name sounds different when she says it, and often, I ignore her the first time so I can hear her call it again.

She draws a smiley face on the top corner of my exercise book, and I retaliate by scribbling on the bottom of her page. The bell rings and we go our separate ways, her reconnecting with her friend group, and me with mine.

It becomes my own ritual every Friday, starting with the sign of the cross, ending with a smile goodbye. The rosary starts to leave an indent on my shoulder, my body still unaccustomed to the pressure of the beads beneath my bag strap.

I never tell her the truth. I hope she can read between the lines of my incessant need to sit next to her in class, and try talk to her away from both of our friend groups. I hear rumours about her from other girls; girls that she’s held hands with and kissed. I sit beside her every Friday, hiding behind friendly smiles and small talk and hope and hope and hope that she can put the pieces together for me. I don’t dare pray for it.

Clairo wouldn’t release the song Bags for another year, but it clouds my memories of that classroom. A gentle song about the desire to be open versus the inability to speak.

Every second counts I don’t wanna talk to you anymore.
Can you figure me out?

I could always feel every second of the class passing. Wasting time by talking in circles about nothing but relishing in the fact that I had her attention for fifty minutes a week.

I can’t read you, but if you want, the pleasure’s all mine
Can you see me using everything to hold back?

*

For years after I wondered if she knew how I felt, or if she thought I was just a friendly classmate. Did she know that when she said I had nice cheekbones, I thought about it for weeks? That I can still recall the memory of her calling out to me across the room at formal? Her hands cupped around her mouth to be heard over the music and a huge grin stretched across her face, shouting, Jen, you look so pretty! That memory carved out a space in my brain, that even now, I still remember that feeling of being seventeen and seen.

Seven years later, I spend my weekends hand in hand with a girl I met in my twenties. Confident enough to speak my truth into existence; random I love yous whilst lounging in parks, laughing loudly into the phone until late at night, falling asleep on her shoulder, kissing on escalators, sneaking my hand into hers as we walk the streets while humming the lyrics to Bags. I am the happiest, most self-assured I have ever been.

But when I close my eyes and think of seventeen-year-old Jen listening to this song, with rosary beads around her neck, and a maths textbook cradled in her arms, I know the chorus stings.

Can you see me? I’m waiting for the right time.

Stereo Story 835

See also Martina Medica’s story, Je Nen Connais Pas Le Fin.