Normal People

She just felt different from most girls, like she was in between two things—one in the past, the other yet to happen. Maybe it was simply because she wasn’t from this place. Maybe she’d be a different person if she still lived in the Netherlands, living a different life, moving toward a different future, as if there could be two versions of Marcia, the same person but not the same life.

She looked at her plate: fish fingers, baked beans, instant potatoes, a roll, a patty of butter covered by a tiny square of waxed paper.

“Fresh caught from the Illinois River,” Donna said to her.

“It’s like they’re all trying to look like The Beach Boys or something. Not the football team, the normal boys.”

“Is that the one with Herman Hermits? Yum.”

“That’s a band—the wrong band—not a person. And please stop saying yum.”

“It’s actually not bad,” Marcia said. “The fish, I mean.”

“Oh, you thought that was fish?” Donna said. “Where are you from again?”