Swimming Through Clouds (A YA Contemporary Novel)

by Paulus, Rajdeep

  “So should I knight you or something?” He has never met a dragon like Dad. You have no idea what you’re saying.

  The intensity in Lagan’s voice lightens while his gaze remains fixed on me. “How ‘bout I knight you. Once Talia, dew drop from heaven, now Glaciera, frozen waterfall from Alaska.”

  It’s my turn to laugh out loud.

  “Hmm?” Lagan strokes his chin as if seriously considering his goofy suggestion. “I rather like that. Glaciera. Frozen yet moving. Slowly. If only I knew how to melt through to...?” Lagan’s dimple disappears again as he strokes his goatee and gives me his best detective stare.

  “Funny you mention that.” I throw out a line. “You have. You do. Melt me.” Woah. Did I just say that? Looking at the clock, my ears swell with heat. Bell, ring already. My heart’s done enough spilling for one day.

  Lagan’s dimple returns. As I rise to escape, my words still lingering in the air, and his hand reaches over and covers mine.

  “Were you gonna ask me something?” I attempt to ignore the obvious. His hand on mine. More melting. Hello?

  “Will you go to—”

  “I can’t.” I finish his sentence and make to leave. I am sure he knows the answer before he asks.

  He insists. “Wait, let me finish.”

  I sit down again. He has thirty seconds to change my mind. From running away. Far away.

  “Will you come to my graduation party?”

  “You know I can’t go anywhere.” I shake my head and look off to the exit doors. “Why do you even bother asking?”

  “It’s just that there’s someone I want you to meet. Her name is Rani. You two really need to meet. She’s my cousin, and we’ve been best friends since we were kids. I can’t believe I haven’t even told her about you yet. Maybe if you meet first? Anyway, maybe you could show up. Just for a bit. Like how you asked me to stop by your house. Just for a second.”

  I still shake my head no, thinking only one word: impossible. When he says two words that give me goose bumps. “Sneak out.”

  If he only knew the consequences of such a risk. “I’ll try,” I lie.

  I just want this conversation to be over. Dream, go poof already. Cuz that’s about all his request will ever amount to. Another daydream to file away in my shuffled playlist of distractions.

  The bell rings. His hand moves off of mine. Another day. Another dance with fire.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  With graduation a little over three months away, the high school buzzes with end-of-the-year planning, and most seniors who have received their college letters have checked out academically and show up to primarily socialize. I’m not one of those. I have received a few college letters. Each envelope skinny, and everyone knows what that means.

  I don’t get it. My GPA is 3.9. My record clean. My teacher recommendations raving. Why hasn’t any college said yes yet?

  I have an appointment during third period today with my guidance counselor, a Mr. Donatelli, whom I have avoided long enough. The word counselor suggests advice, support, and a person you can confide in—three things that warrant the guillotine in my house.

  The only other time I saw Mr. D. was when my gym teacher forced me to pay him a visit when I refused to take my long sleeve shirt off from under my gym uniform.

  “You hiding something under there, Talia?” A girl named Katie snickered in the locker room, egging on the other girls to break out in catty laughter.

  I’d played this game before. I simply pulled up the sleeve on my good arm. But Miss Robinson insisted. “Go to guidance and come back to class when you have a note.”

  Mr. Donatelli didn’t ask me many questions, really. I knew the routine. “Call my Dad. He’ll explain why I have to wear long sleeves.”

  After a two minute conversation, Donatelli scrawled a few words on a pink slip, slid the paper over to me, and said nonchalantly, “Return to class.”

  I walked back to gym class staring at the same excuse I had read over the years: Cultural Customs—Excused. That was back in October. We’re halfway through February now.

  According to the school policy, even if a senior never heeds his or her guidance counselor’s suggestions, each senior must review his or her academic file on the appointed date in order to assure all ducks are in order and no careless details ignored causing delays in processing of diplomas...blah, blah, blah. I read the student handbook, and whoever composed this has a serious problem with run-on sentences. It could have simply said: Meet your counselor once or you don’t graduate. That’s about as many words most seniors can process these days, between their lack of sleep and hangovers.

  I hear the stories in every class. “Hey, did you hear so and so hooked up with the geek from Calc at so-and-so’s party last night? Anything can happen! It’s senioritis till June, baby! Senior-frickin-itis!”

  I secretly wish I could participate in Senior Skip Day, the one day when every senior meets at the beach on Lake Michigan, the Millennium Park Bean, or the ferris wheel at Navy Pier to begin celebrating graduation. Anywhere but school. I’ll be one of two or three rejects (the others will be seniors who wake up and forgot to check their calendars) who walks from class to class to stare at a blank whiteboard for thirty-nine minute intervals.

  Most teachers take off, too. At least mentally. Which helps, since I plan to catch up on my sleep and a few assignments. No plans to engage in any personal interviews as to why my dad won’t allow me to skip school, even when the incident won’t show up on your permanent record, the one liberty seniors get in the name of tradition. The system lets this one day slide. Just this one.

  Anyway, Senior Skip Day is sometime in May. Today is Thursday, February 13, and third period is my designated time slot to meet with Mr. Donatelli. I stick a lilac-colored Post-it on Lagan’s locker to tell him I won’t be in math class. He’s been handing me different colors all week.

  Tuesday’s were pink for Mom. I filled that one up with all the words I knew Mom to be. And all the words I knew she would have been had she had the liberty to be who she wanted to be. Wednesday was blue for Jesse. Those were easy to fill out too. I love Jess so much, and finally observing his strength growing each day has renewed a sense of hope that neither of us have felt in a long time. Perhaps never.

  Today is lilac for me. For today’s me. What do I wish for me? Today? At first I consider writing the word “freedom” on the cover and putting ditto marks on all the subsequent sheets. Then I think of a different way to say the same thing. A way to tell Lagan how much I want him to stay a part of my world today—every day—without freaking him out. I hope.

  I write in code. Not the kind that takes a genius to figure out. Just a very long run-on sentence. With one word per little square sheet, I carefully print the words: I. Yes. Dew. Drop. From. Above. Have. Dropped. Fallen. Actually. Is. Falling. In. To. Deep. Waters. With. You. Who. Have. Found. After. Searching. For. Days. And. Weeks. A. Way. To. Swim. Through. The. Clouds. To. Reach. Me.

  “Talia Vanderbilt?” A voice startles me, nearly knocking me off the bench. “Mr. Donatelli will see you now.”

  I place my Sticky notepad in my sweatshirt pocket, tuck my pen into my bag, and follow the short, stocky woman with bifocals and a pen that holds a makeshift bun in place, back into the office cubicles separated by thin partial dividers. No room for secrets here. Perhaps the principal has a real office with four walls and a door. The guidance counselor, an average-sized, blond, white male in his thirties, wearing a deep purple button down and a pink, pin-striped tie, points to a chair opposite his desk with his pen and continues perusing a file with my name across the side of it. Maybe the pink tie is for Valentine’s day. But that’s tomorrow. Then again, perhaps he’s celebrating all week too.

  “Well, well, Talia,” he says, still turning pages over in the open manila folder. “It appears that you have been very thorough. All your graduation requirements are complete, and your record is impeccable.”

  “Thanks.” I don’t know wh
at else to say.

  “There’s just one thing.”

  Isn’t there always? Sigh. “Yes?” I try to tame my eyes to keep them from rolling.

  “Talia?” He finally looks up at me. “Have you ever participated in any extracurricular activities?”

  “No.”

  “Clubs?”

  “No.”

  “Sports?”

  “Nope.”

  “After school job?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Volunteered anywhere?”

  “Not unless raking my neighbor’s leaves counts?” The ones that blow onto our yard, of course.

  Mr. Donatelli chuckles, a nervous kind of laugh. “Not quite. More like volunteering at a hospital? Shelter? Elderly home?”

  “Umm. Never had the chance to.” I slip a hint without thinking.

  “What do you mean exactly? Do you have any particular explanation for your complete absence of participation other than at the academic level?” Mr. Donatelli’s voice sounds almost accusatory. He holds up the copies of my rejection letters from colleges. “Do you realize that colleges are looking for much more than a stellar GPA these days? They seek well-rounded applicants. Students who do more than just crack their books open and perform well on tests.”

  “Thank you for your time, Mr. Donatelli.” I have my speech rehearsed and memorized. “I’ll look into everything you have mentioned. Thank you again.”

  I rise to leave, hugging my book bag in a futile attempt to still my pounding heart.

  “Please sit down, Talia.” Donatelli begins at the start of my file again and shuffles through several papers before pulling a single sheet out.

  I lower myself back into the chair. The clock reads 11:22 a.m. Technically, he still has eight minutes to remind me of the obvious. I have nothing that makes me shine, and I probably will not get into college.

  “I see that Loyola has not replied yet.” He holds the paper up like I can read it from where I sit.

  Regardless, that is my dream school. If breathing counted for something, Loyola’s admission board might give me the time of day. “I don’t really expect to get a favorable response from LU, sir.” My eyes shift back to the clock. “I just applied there since the school is close enough to commute to. I don’t plan to live on campus.”

  “Actually,” Donatelli carries on, “there’s a note here in your file saying you are a finalist in their essay contest, and the English Department is considering offering you a scholarship. Of course, they still require evidence of at least one extracurricular.”

  I feel like I’m listening to someone else’s life story. “I’m sorry, Mr. Donatelli. There must be some mistake. I never entered any writing contest.”

  Mr. Donatelli slides the paper over to my side of the table to read for myself. “No one formally enters the Loyola Essay contest. Each applicant’s personal statement automatically qualifies as an entry, and the English Department chooses the top ten as finalists from which three are chosen nationally to receive substantial scholarships upon entry of freshman year. Granted, the student must maintain a certain...”

  His voice drones on regarding the history of the contest and how no one from Hinsdale North has ever won. All the while I skim the letter. The impossible escape lay in my lap. This paper displays the following words: Talia Grace Vanderbilt—Finalist. Essay titled: “Addicted to Thinking.” The typed, eight-by-eleven sheet with Loyola’s logo above lists all my information. Shock, sandwiched between terror and cynicism, cements my fingers to the page and my bottom to the seat. Not to mention my tongue to the roof of my mouth.

  “Didn’t you receive a copy of this letter at home?” he asks. “Perhaps it got lost in the mail. Let me call them over there at LU and request an official copy be sent to your house, and I’ll make a copy for you to bring home and discuss with your father.”

  Bubble of possibility pops. Crash landing back to reality. Of course. Dad saw the words pending one extracurricular activity and probably ripped the letter into shreds and didn’t think to even tell me about it.

  When Mr. Donatelli puts the receiver down on his desk, he hasn’t hung up yet.

  “Dr. Deans, the English Department head, wants to ask you a few questions.”

  He hands me the phone, and I hear a woman’s voice asking for me to identify myself.

  “Yes.” I clear my throat to find my voice. “Yes. This is Talia Grace Vanderbilt.”

  “Hello, Talia,” the voice on the other end says confidently. “My name is Professor Katherine Deans. And I am pleased to inform you that your chances to be chosen as one of the top three of this year’s ten essay finalists are really good. You are a very gifted writer, young lady. We in the department have all read your personal statement and are in agreement. We would like you to join us for your undergraduate studies. Perhaps even consider working part-time in our Writing Center to help other students with their assignments? We would be delighted to have you enroll in our Creative Writing Program, if you choose to accept our package, pending one small condition.”

  “Yes.” I finally interject since I hear a pause, my mind still spinning off its axis.

  “Talia,” Professor Deans details the condition, “we need proof that you have participated in at least one alternative activity in addition to your academics. We cannot officially mail you a decision regarding admission prior to the completion of your application. If you can establish a minimum six-month volunteer position with a reputable organization by the end of this week, we trust you will complete your commitment, and we will begin processing your admission. Immediately following, we will enclose your financial aid package with which I believe you will be very pleased.”

  I need a pen. I motion script in the air with my free hand to Mr. Donatelli. I am thinking ten steps ahead. Dad doesn’t know anything about this yet. Translation: Time. Hope. A dream not shot down. Yet.

  Mr. Donatelli reaches across the desk, handing me a black ball point. “Professor Deans, should I call you once I’ve researched my options and made a decision? Okay. I’ll get in touch with you no later than next Friday. And, Professor Deans, thank you. Thank you very much.”

  Deep breath, then I hand Mr. Donatelli the phone to hang up. He takes the receiver without removing his eyes from his computer screen. Several sheets slide out of his printer, which he hands to me immediately.

  The bell rings. Lunchtime. I stand to shake Mr. Donatelli’s hand. He smiles. “Take a look through these volunteer opportunities and consider one that interests you ASAP. I would hate to see you lose this chance of a lifetime. And if you need me to call your father...”

  I shake my head as I turn to leave. “Thanks. You’ve already done plenty. Thank you, though. It’s up to me now.”

  Ball in my court, papers folded in my hands, I float to the cafeteria to play one-on-one with my thoughts for a few moments longer. I reach into my sweatshirt pocket to make sure it’s still there. Can’t forget about my lilac Post-it book confession. Bet casserole surprise is on the menu today.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “What is that you’re reading?”

  I recognize the voice instantly, and my heart sinks faster than an Olympic diver in the pool of despair that I am all too familiar with. As I raise my head to look into the eyes of my father I think of two things that must remain out of sight for me to live: the lilac Post-it notepad in my pocket and Lagan. Where are you?

  “D-d-d-d-ad.” I stutter, shifting my cafeteria tray as if worried the imperfect alignment with my body constitutes a failure in Dad’s books. “What a surprise! What are you doing here? Is everything okay? Is Jesse okay?”

  I frisbee questions to Dad to mask my relief of avoided bombs and my anxiety over simmering grenades. The burning wick shortens every second Lagan nears the cafeteria. Where is he?

  “Justice is fine,” Dad says, still standing. “I was on my way to stop by the house on my lunch break when a Mr. Donatelli calls me on my cell.”

  Didn’t I tell that man n
ot to call my father?

  “He tells me you have a scholarship to Loyola, because you won a writing contest. When did you enter a writing contest? And when were you going to tell me about this?” His voice begins to crescendo.

  “Dad.” I need some air. “Do you want to talk outside? I can sign out early from school. We can discuss this while driving home.”

  “I have a client I’m meeting in twenty minutes. You have the next three to explain this, and we’ll discuss it further when I get home tonight.”

  “Okay.” I swallow. Still no sign of Lagan as I scan the cafeteria.

  “Are you waiting for someone?” I avert my eyes back to him immediately.

  “No.” I shake my head as the lilac sheets burn inside my pocket. “I was just checking the clock. Umm? The letter. Loyola. Basically...”

  And I explained the happenings of the last hour inside Mr. Donatelli’s office, finishing by offering over the sheets of volunteer options to Dad, who has been nodding the entire time.

  “Keep them.” He sounds amazingly calm. “We’ll discuss this in the evening. In the meantime, cross out the options of any hospital or clinic. Too many snoopy people work in those places. That garden place sounds like it might work, but I’ll check it out thoroughly before deciding. Make a call and set up a time for us to visit the place and review the time commitment and security of the grounds.”

  He looks at his Blackberry and turns to leave. “I have to run. Get your list done and then make the calls. And, Talia, if this works out, you’re gonna save this ol’ man a ton of money.” Do I detect a smile forming at the corners of his mouth?

  With that, I watch Dad’s back exit the cafeteria, and the first word on the lilac notepad has grown dark and thick, the ink now combined with the sweat from my palm, which held onto it for dear life every second Dad stood across from me. Always watching. Always testing. I don’t know when the shaking began, but I can barely hold the paper straight as I force myself to read the printed description entitled, “Volunteer opportunity: Calling all Green Thumbs.”