True Biz

The following chapters address events that occur six months prior to the events of Chapter 1.

The summer before her sophomore year, Charlie’s parents file for divorce. As a result of the separation, Charlie’s father earns full custody of his daughter, who is Deaf. Almost immediately following the separation, he signs himself and Charlie up for ASL classes and enrolls her at River Valley School for the Deaf. Two weeks before the semester begins, Charlie and her parents meet with February, who encourages Charlie to immerse herself into the school and the community.

After meeting with Charlie and her family, February finds herself in an awful mood. She feels frustrated on Charlie’s behalf; she is enraged that Charlie was forced to stay in a mainstream education setting that made no efforts to accommodate her deafness. She immediately recognizes that Charlie is an intelligent girl, but this is not reflected in her poor grades.

Later, February’s wife, Mel, and her mother help her feel better at home. February’s mother recently moved in with the couple, as she has dementia.

Charlie and her father attend their first ASL class together. It consists mostly of adults who are learning to sign, though Charlie realizes quickly that most of them are already ahead of her in their knowledge of the language, as she knows only the ASL alphabet. She and her father struggle to follow along at first but eventually fall into a rhythm. Charlie realizes in the moment that her situation is somewhat quirky, given that she is a Deaf person going to Deaf school but somehow does not know sign language.

February takes an afternoon off to spend time with her mother on her birthday. They have lunch in Colson, where February was born. As they drive into town, February takes note of its changes over the past 20 years or so.

Charlie became aware at a young age that she is not the daughter her mother wanted. Though her deafness certainly factors into the issues they have with one another, Charlie chalks their conflicts up to a clash of personalities. She spends much of her childhood angry about the ways her mother misunderstands her, but she feels empathetic in the face of the divorce.

Before school starts, Charlie’s mother offers to take her to the mall to shop for clothes. Given that she lives with her father now, Charlie feels obligated to agree to the excursion. The outing is somewhat awkward, as usual, but they share a moment of affection when Charlie’s mother asks her to teach her a sign. As they eat lunch, Charlie invites her mother to take ASL classes with her but can tell from her reaction that she is unlikely to do so.

The beginning of the chapter includes a diagram about fingerspelling in ASL. It also includes photos of each letter sign in the alphabet.

On the first day of the new school year, February is excited, as she is every year. She knows that River Valley is a haven for many of her students, and she takes pride in being able to provide that for them. Despite her enthusiasm, February often wonders how long it will be before the school is shut down, an action that she sees as inevitable.

She is also excited because she will be teaching a class for the first time in almost a decade, filling in for a teacher who is on maternity leave. As is her tradition, February sleeps on the school’s grounds in the Old Quarters above her office. She thinks about the year ahead of her and worries about how Charlie will acclimate to the school.

Austin Workman-Bayard is a fifth-generation Deaf person on his mother’s side. For the Workman family, deafness is regarded as a family heirloom. Austin’s mother and her parents and grandparents are all Deaf; like Austin, they all attended River Valley. Given that his entire family is deeply entrenched in the Deaf community, Austin has a rather charmed life, especially compared to many of his classmates.

While Austin is closest to his mother, they became distant from one another when she announced that she is pregnant. By the end of the summer, Austin is so eager to head back to school that he begins packing two weeks early.

The end of the chapter includes a diagram describing how to use nouns, verbs, and adverbs in ASL, along with illustrations to demonstrate the respective signs.

When she first arrives at River Valley, Charlie finds herself reflecting on her time in the mainstream school system, where she received speech therapy and realized that the adults around her would never be able to give her the help she needed. Charlie cannot help but wonder what her life would be like if she had always gone to River Valley.

Charlie meets her roommate, Kayla, who does not seem enthused to be rooming with her. Once her father leaves, Charlie panics, as she is unable to understand most of what Kayla is saying to her. After unpacking, Kayla invites her to dinner, where she sees some of the other students. Charlie immediately recognizes that she is far behind, as everyone signs fluidly. After dinner, she isolates herself in her room, afraid to interact with anyone due to her limited signing abilities. Trying to calm herself, Charlie eats a weed gummy that is a leftover from Kyle, a boy from Jefferson she used to hook up with.

When Austin’s parents drop him off at school, he makes them promise to call him when his mother goes into labor. In the dorm, he greets his roommate, Eliot Quinn, whom Headmistress Waters asked him to room with at the end of last semester. Austin is aware of less-than-pleasant rumors about Eliot and hopes that rooming with him will not lead to any drama. When Eliot starts smoking despite the strict no-smoking rule, Austin waits until the cigarette is burned out completely before he leaves the room.

On the first day of school, Charlie is so nervous that she brushes her teeth twice, which makes her late for class. When she finally shows up, she is both apologetic and embarrassed, and she notices some students already snickering at her poor signing skills. By lunchtime, she is exhausted from trying to keep up with all the signing. While she is eating, Austin approaches her. Headmistress Waters assigned him to show her around campus. Austin gives her a name sign and tells her he will give her an extensive tour of the school the following day. Later that night, before bed, Charlie scrolls through an ASL dictionary until she falls asleep.

February gets home from work one day and can tell that she and Mel are going to get into an argument. Mel, who is hearing, is not happy that February spent the night at school; she picks this fight every year. Mel is especially annoyed this year, having recently learned that February and one of the teachers, Wanda, used to be romantically involved. This discovery led to a major fight, after which Mel refused to speak to February for several days. Now, Mel is angry that Wanda is still at the school, despite February’s having told her that she and her husband are moving away. February tells Mel she has nothing to worry about, but Mel is not convinced. When she is unable to concentrate on her work, February consults her mother, who assures her that Mel will calm down eventually.

At school, Austin is apprehensive about running into Gabriella Valenti, his ex. She and her sister are both second-generation Deaf students and were brought up similarly to Austin. Although he dated her, Austin realizes when he gets back to school that Gabriella is not a very nice person. Still, he feels guilty that their relationship ended very publicly at the pool.

Trying to get his mind off her, Austin thinks of Charlie, to whom he feels attracted despite their language barrier. The idea of being friends with her both intrigues him and makes him nervous. When he meets up with her to give her a tour, they are both a little nervous. He tells her about his family and is happy to discover that she seems to like him. Back in his room, Eliot asks Austin if he has a thing for Charlie and tells him to ask her out before someone else beats him to it.

The beginning of the chapter includes a diagram explaining visual syntax and the art of storytelling in ASL and encourages the reader to practice the signs illustrated in the diagram.

Things remain awkward between Mel and February following the argument about Wanda. February decides to throw herself into her work to avoid the problem. However, she reaches a breaking point when Mel ignores her question about what she wants for dinner. Mel folds and brings February into an embrace. They catch up on the past couple of weeks, letting the argument dissolve.

The beginning of the chapter includes a lesson on deaf mythology. It describes the concept of the eyeth, which is another word for utopia in the Deaf storytelling tradition.

While in her office reviewing her students’ work on her eyeth unit, February gets a call from Superintendent Swall. He tells her to meet him for lunch the following day at the local Panera Bread. February can tell that he has bad news to share.

Over lunch, Swall informs February that River Valley is closing. This will leave her without a job or a home, since the house she lives in belongs to the school. February is furious at the impact that this news will have on her students.

At home, she decides to keep the news to herself for a little while.