Four Truths and a Lie

by Lauren Barnholdt

  On Thursday night, my mom comes to take me shopping for a dress for the dance. So what if James is going to be there? I’m not going to let him stop me from having a good time. Besides, since I’m only on a level one probation, I’m allowed to attend school functions. So I figure I should take advantage. My mom doesn’t mention the fact that the last time I saw her, she pretty much was so mad at me she didn’t want to look at me. It’s hanging over our heads, though, kind of like this elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about.

  “What about this one?” she asks, holding up a strapless, flippy pink dress with hearts all over it.

  “Cute,” I say. “But those hearts are a little too cute.”

  “Right,” she says, putting it back on the rack.

  “How about this one?” I ask, holding up a baby blue dress that’s filmy with a long skirt.

  “Nice,” my mom says. “Add it to the others.” I put it on top of the pile she’s holding of stuff I want to try on. It threatens to topple over. “Time to hit the dressing room,” she says.

  My mom sits on the little bench outside while I try on my first dress.

  “How’s it look?” she asks.

  “I love it,” I say. It’s emerald green, with glitter over the skirt, and short sleeves. Sooo cute. “This is it!” I declare. No one else is going to be wearing emerald green. I glance at the price tag. Yikes. I’m not exactly sure what the deal is with my parents and money, but I’m assuming that since, you know, my dad is about to go to jail for stealing, things might be getting a little tight.

  “Is it okay?” I ask, as I fling it over the dressing room door. I hold my breath as my mom checks the price.

  “It’s fine,” my mom says. “Are you sure you don’t want to try on anything else?”

  “Nope.” If I find something I love, why waste my time? Plus I know the dress I picked is a little on the expensive side. There’s no way I’d feel comfortable asking for something else. I sigh and remember the days when I’d flounce into a store, pulling things off the rack left and right, not even looking at price tags. I pick my jeans up off the floor and slide one leg in.

  “So,” my mom says, and I stop mid pant-putting-on. Something in her tone makes me think something else is coming. And I’m right. “Are we going to talk about why you were wandering around after curfew?” she asks.

  “Mom, really, I don’t want to say. But just know that I had a very good reason.”

  “Scarlett, you and I need to be able to communicate about the things that are going on.” I don’t say anything. “Your father was asking about this boy who you’re going to the dance with. He wanted to make sure he’s good enough.” She sounds amused, like it was a normal situation, and she wasn’t talking to him while he waits to see if he’s going to jail or not.

  “How does he know I’m going to a dance?” I ask, biting my lip. I think of my mom and dad discussing me, talking about me like everything’s normal. “Scarlett’s going to the dance” or “Scarlett’s doing well in math.” It makes my heart hurt.

  “I told him.”

  “Oh.” I finish pulling on my jeans and reach for my shirt.

  “He mentioned that he e-mailed you a few times and sent you another letter.”

  “Yes,” I say. “He did.” Which I never opened. But I don’t say that.

  “Are you going to e-mail him back?”

  “I’m not sure,” I say, trying hard to keep my tone light.

  “Scarlett, you know you can’t just ignore this whole thing. You have to acknowledge it in some way, even if you’re getting mad about it.”

  “I know,” I lie. “And I will.”

  I throw open the dressing room door. “Ready to go?”

  When I get back to the dorm, Amber informs me she’s going to the dance with Louis Masterpole. This is a very interesting development, since a) Amber has never met Louis Masterpole and b) she has never even expressed any kind of interest in him whatsoever.

  “I thought you didn’t like him,” I say, throwing my bags down on her bed.

  “Well, I don’t think I do,” she says. “Not like that anyway, but he asked me and so I figured it would be fun.”

  “It will be fun,” I say. “I’ll do your hair and makeup! And if it turns out he’s totally crazy, you can hang out with me.”

  “Yay!” she sings. “It’s my first date.”

  “Yay!” I say. And we dance around the room.

  ***

  After math class the next day, I stay after to talk to Mrs. Walker.

  “Mrs. Walker?” I say, trying to sound serious. “I wanted to discuss something with you.”

  “What is it, Scarlett?” she barks. She’s taking all our graph papers and arranging them into a nice, neat pile. I wonder if it’s something she has to do because she’s a math teacher. Like, wanting everything to be nice and perfect, just like a solved equation. Is that why people get into math? Because they want everything to be nice and neat?

  “I wanted to discuss my math grade.”

  “Good improvement you’ve been showing,” she says. “You might be able to get a C if you keep this up.”

  “Yes, well, I feel that when I started at Brookline, I was, um, severely lacking in a lot of my basic skills. So I was wondering if I could possibly make up those first few tests that I did so badly on.”

  “What do you mean?” Her beady little eyes narrow suspiciously over her glasses, and I almost lose my nerve. But then I square my shoulders.

  “I mean, could I retake them?” I hope I sound professional. I hope I look professional and responsible too, not like the type of girl who is in danger of getting expelled and has a horrible family secret.

  “Well,” she says slowly. “That’s not something I usually do, especially since those tests have already been given.”

  “Well, maybe I could be given different tests,” I say. “And I could do it in a supervised classroom without the aid of my textbook or help from anyone.”

  She frowns. “You want me to come up with totally different tests for you, just because you had trouble catching on?”

  Yikes. I’m losing her, and so I decide to take another tactic. “Look, Mrs. Walker, I’ve been working very, very hard. And now that I’m on the same level as the rest of the class, I would never ask for special treatment like this. But I’d hate for my math grade to pull down my GPA, especially since it depends on me staying in this class.” I give her my sweetest smile, the one that got me out of doing a detention last year when I skipped gym class so many times the teacher was convinced I’d moved.

  “Let’s see,” she says, looking at her calendar. She has one of those math calendars that gives you a new equation to solve every day. There’s some pencil scratches on today’s page, like she was trying to figure it out.

  “Can you stay on Friday? I have a staff meeting after school, but could you meet me in the classroom at around six o’clock? I’ll give you one new test, encapsulating everything we learned at the beginning of the year. I’ll add those points to your average, but that’s the best I can do.” She looks almost giddy at the fact that I’m going to have to give up my Friday night to do math. I think she expects me to say no, but there’s no way.

  “Of course,” I say. “I would be available at that time, yes.” I run through it in my brain. Friday is the day of our first basketball game. It’s also the night I’m supposed to be meeting James. And since it’s an away game, I need to be in the gym and ready to go by seven. Which should give me just enough time to finish the extra credit, run out to meet James, run back to change, and hop on the bus. Yay!

  Later, in basketball practice, I’m so tired that I think I might just keel over. Coach notices it too. “Let’s go, Northon!” she yells. “Gotta hustle!”

  “Sorry, Coach,” I say afterward, when we all gather in the locker room for a strategy meeting. “I didn’t get much sleep last night and I—”

  “I don’t want to hear your excuses, Northon,” Coach says. “We ha
ve to be ready for Friday, and if we’re not …” She trails off, as if some sort of horrible fate will befall the team.

  Andrea sits over to the side on the bench, looking dejected. I swallow.

  “Now!” Coach says, blowing her whistle, even though we’re all already assembled in the chairs in her office and paying attention. Well, I’m paying attention as much as I can. Sometimes it’s hard for me to focus during these little strategy sessions. “Let’s go over the plan for Friday. First order of business.” She pulls a box out from the closet in the corner and opens it. “Your jerseys. Thanks to the fund-raising efforts of last year’s team, and a grant from a former student who now plays in the WNBA, we were able to afford new jerseys this year.” Wow. A former student playing in the WNBA? How come I’ve never heard of this? Coach holds up a jersey. It’s gorgeous. White with blue and gold on the collar and sleeves. She hands them out, one by one.

  I’m number seventeen. I vaguely remember putting that down on one of the first days of practice, when we had to decide what number we wanted to be. I picked it because one time I found the perfect Calvin Klein sundress handbag in the seventeenth store I went into, when I couldn’t find anything anywhere else. It’s been my lucky number ever since. But now I wonder if lucky numbers can change into unlucky numbers. After all, number seventeen is the number James and I got assigned. Which obviously I should have taken as a bad omen. Hmmm.

  My jersey is beautiful. It has my last name, “Northon,” on the back, all spelled out in blue with gold trim. I immediately put it on over my pink T-shirt.

  “Northon,” Coach barks. “What are you doing?”

  “Oh,” I say. “I just wanted to try it on.” The rest of the girls are looking at me like I’m nuts. “I’ve never had a jersey before.”

  “Right,” she says. “Well, keep those in your locker, please, and whatever you do, don’t lose them.”

  “Oh, I won’t lose it,” I say.

  “Now listen up,” Coach Crazy says. “Friday is our first game.” A ripple goes through the team. “Which means we need everyone in top condition.” Is it my imagination, or does she look right at me? Hmm. Guess I’m not quite on par with everyone else just yet.

  “I’m not just talking about basketball, either,” she says, hitching up her shorts. Coach is always hitching up her shorts. I’m not sure why this is — either she buys shorts that are too big for her, or she’s lost a lot of weight recently and hasn’t bought new clothes. Either way, her body would be much more flattered in a pair of shorts that actually fit her. I wonder if I should point this out to her, but then decide it’s probably not a good idea. People are very weird about fashion. They sometimes get a little testy, even if you are just trying to help them. “I’m talking about everything. Everyone has to stay healthy. Everyone has to keep their grades up.”

  “Keep their grades up?” I whisper to Andrea Rice, who’s sitting next to me. Even though she’s injured and out for the whole season, she’s still been showing up to every practice. She helps Coach Crazy come up with plays to put on the whiteboard, and yells at us to keep us motivated.

  “Yeah,” Andrea whispers. “One time, like, twenty years ago, the starting center let her grades slip to a C average, and it was this big debacle. She got kicked off the team. Even though it hasn’t happened since, Coach lives in perpetual fear that it’s going to happen again.”

  “Stay away from shellfish,” Coach Crazy is saying. “We don’t need anyone getting any allergic reactions. Stay away from poison ivy.” Why would anyone want to head toward poison ivy?

  “Someone got it one year when they went home for the weekend and decided to go hiking,” Andrea whispers, as if she’s reading my mind.

  “Also!” she says. “Since it is an away game, please make sure you are on time for the bus. The bus leaves at seven o’clock sharp. That means you must be on the bus by seven o’clock. Not seven-oh-one. Got it?”

  We all nod.

  The next couple of days go flying by in a blur. Coach is working us extra hard in preparation, and my study schedule is pretty hectic as well. On Thursday, Crissa finds out that I’m going to be allowed to make up the math tests tomorrow, and she’s not happy about it. In fact, she kind of pitches a fit. Well, as much as Crissa can pitch a fit. It’s like a Crissa fit. There’s no screaming or stomping or anything; it’s more like a bunch of haughty words and a lot of references about what’s fair. She says to Mrs. Walker right in front of the rest of the class that she doesn’t think stupidity should be glorified. She actually says “glorified,” like I’m somehow trying to be some kind of pop starlet or something, getting glorified for my lack of intelligence. And then Mrs. Walker says it’s hardly glorifying, and that allowances need to be made for those who aren’t given the same privileges as others. Which is very surprising, coming from her. And then Crissa starts to say something else, but Mrs. Walker starts talking about polynomials, and Martina Miko, this girl who sits in the back and is kind of a bully, mutters “Shut up” under her breath, and so Crissa does. But then later in the library I see her paging through the Brookline Academy Student Handbook and Rulebook for Policies and Procedures, and I totally know she’s trying to find something to prevent me from making up those tests.

  “So are you going to be able to hang out at all tonight?” Amber asks the next afternoon. It’s Friday, the day of my game, and we’re in my room. She’s sitting on my bed, painting her nails blue to match mine. Hello, blue nail polish is never a good idea, I know, but tonight’s the one exception, since it’s one of the school colors. I wanted to do half-blue, half-gold, but I didn’t have any gold polish.

  “What do you mean? I have a game.” How can she have forgotten? I mean, she’s painting her nails blue as we speak. I’m bouncing around in my sneakers, up and down, up and down, trying to get myself psyched up for tonight. I’m listening to pump-up music, like “Eye of the Tiger,” which I burned onto a CD during math one day last week in the computer lab while Mrs. Walker was in the other room.

  “I mean after your game,” she says.

  “Um, yes,” I say. “I’ll be back by ten, I think.”

  “No,” she says. “I’m going.”

  “You’re going where?”

  “To your game,” she says.

  I stop hopping. “You’re coming to my game? How?”

  “Jennifer Benjamin’s mom is taking a bunch of us,” she says, shrugging. “She got special permission from Headmistress O’Neal. I guess since it’s a school function, it’s okay.”

  “Oh, yay!” I say, throwing my arms around her. “I’m so glad you’ll be there. Make sure you cheer for me, even if I do something that looks stupid. Maybe that way Coach will be happy with my performance.” My stomach flips as I think about people being in the stands, watching me play.

  “So do you want to grab some dinner?” she asks, jumping up from the bed. “You should have pasta or something.”

  “Why pasta?” I ask.

  “Because you’re supposed to eat carbs before a game. I looked it up online.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “But I think I’m going to chill in here for a little bit, try to calm down.” This is halfway true. The thing is, with all the things I have to do tonight (meet James, make up my tests, and get to the game bus on time), I have no time for anything else. Of course, it involves some planning on my part, and lots of outfit changes. But I think I’ve figured it out.

  Here is the new schedule:

  1. From 6 to 6:30, I will quickly finish my math test. I’m going to be wearing a cute blue wrap dress, which I found in the bottom of my laundry bag after my mom took all my clothes home with her. Over this wrap dress, I will be wearing a pair of warm-ups, and under it I will be wearing my basketball uniform.

  2. From 6:30 to 7:00, I will rush out to behind the school to meet up with James. I will remove the warm-ups and shove them in my bag on the way over, revealing the wrap dress.

  3. At a little before 7:00, I will head back toward school fo
r the bus. On the way back to the bus, I will remove the dress and put that in my bag as well, and I will be in my uniform and ready to go.

  Honestly I think I should become one of those time management people who write books about how to manage your time wisely and sometimes even end up on Oprah to talk about it. My mom reads lots of books like that. Which is probably one of the reasons she thinks spending time reading romance novels is a waste. In my time management book, I will make sure to allocate time for romance novel reading, and low-budget makeovers. Hmm. Low budget, time management makeovers. What a fab idea.

  I also think it’s very interesting that I will be able to wear three different outfits—casual, dress-up, and sport—all in one. This is very good for time management. I think I am also going to look in to designing a line of clothes that can change into outfits for all occasions. Then I can possibly tie those in to my time management book, for the busy girl on the run. And they’ll be affordable, too, of course. Maybe I’ll even get to come back to Brookline for a special assembly, where I’ll premiere my line of clothes that are aimed at juniors! How fun!

  “So I guess I’ll see you at the game, then,” Amber’s saying.

  “Yes,” I say. She heads down to the dining hall and I pump the air with my fist and pretend I’m throwing the game-winning shot.

  6:07. 6:07 and Mrs. Walker is not here. The clock is ticking, getting closer and closer to the time when I have to leave. I am sweating. Of course, this may have less to do with worrying about the time, and more to do with the fact that I’m wearing a warm up, a wrap dress, and a basketball uniform.

  Tick. Tick. The second hand on the clock is moving around, faster than a speeding bullet. And obviously this is not good for my mental state, because I have never used a Superman reference before. Ever.