by Lara Avery
I watch the screen. Stuart is typing. Shit. Maybe I pushed him too far. Why can’t I just be casual and cool and whatever? Because I’m not casual and cool and whatever, that’s why. And I have been waiting on him for two years. I don’t want to waste another minute. I put my phone under a throw pillow and decide to never check it again.
Squidward gets a bucket of water dumped on his head at the Krusty Krab.
SpongeBob tries to get the bucket off, and ends up pulling so hard he lodges it on Patrick’s head.
I check my phone.
Stuart: Short answer? Yes.
THE CLOCK HANGS IN THE JUNGLE
My tongue was heavy yesterday, Future Sam. Numb, like I had just gotten a dose of Novocain from the dentist. I noticed it when I was brushing my teeth. It was like having a huge piece of meat in my mouth that I couldn’t chew or spit out. A shot of fear ran through me, and I started to cry.
I was just going to stay in bed and let it pass, grateful it was a Sunday and I didn’t have to talk, but the goddamn NPC Task Force of Feminist Icons practically winked over on the wall above my desk. I recalled that I had promised myself that, in the spirit of Elizabeth Warren, I would find out everything I could about the disease, and approach it with nothing but straight talk. Even if straight talk was impossible because I had a steak for a tongue.
So I took the day off from school today, and Mom was going to go in late for her shift at the medical center so that she could bring me to Dr. Clarkington’s office.
“Did you talk to her on the phone?” I asked Mom.
“Yes.”
“There’s medicine for this, right?” My heart hadn’t stopped beating hard since it happened, thinking about having to cancel my speech. Or worse, pushing through it, leaving my classmates with the impression that I had guzzled a slushie before graduation and couldn’t get rid of my brain-freeze.
“Yes, there’s medicine for it.”
“Do I sound like a dog who suddenly started talking?”
Mom laughed. “No, you don’t sound like a dog who suddenly started talking.”
“That’s how I feel.”
“I’m sorry, honey,” Mom said. “You sound much better this morning. And hey, I’m glad you told me. You can always tell me when you’re feeling bad.”
“What about when I’m feeling good?” I asked, thinking of Stuart’s text Saturday night.
“That, too.”
We sat in silence for a bit, watching a toddler bang two blocks together on the floor. Stuart and I emailed back and forth all day yesterday, about our romantic pasts (or rather his past), about our impressions of boyfriends and girlfriends and what we thought they were supposed to do, about our fears.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Mm?”
“Guess what.”
“What.”
“I have a boyfriend.”
She turned to look at me, eyes wide. “The same guy you went to the Canoe Club with?”
“Stuart Shah.”
Mom gasped, a sly smile growing on her face, though I could tell she was fighting with her is-this-a-good-idea instincts. “You have had such a crush on him forever!”
I smiled with her. “How did you know that?”
“Honey, you made us go to Hamlet three times. You couldn’t take your eyes off him.”
“Oh, yeah.” I laughed, thinking of my poor family three years ago, suffering through Alex Conway putting on a fake British accent as Ophelia. Maddie was fantastic as Hamlet’s mother. You would have never known she was only fifteen. “Time is passing so quickly.”
Mom put her hand on my knee and squeezed. “Tell me about it.”
“So, in that case…” I began, trying to swallow so I could speak as clearly as possible. “I would like to, you know, be able to spend time with him without you worrying…”
Mom made her sound. “Mmhmm. Hm.”
“Mom?”
“I’m thinking,” she said. Then, “Does he know?”
She meant about NPC. “No. But he will.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll be so careful,” I offered.
“Mmhmm.” Mom laid her head back and closed her eyes. She had been up way too late the night before, helping Harrison finish a science project.
“He’s a good person.”
“I’m sure he is,” Mom said, eyes still closed. “I’m going to worry about you either way, Sammie. Just be careful. Don’t go anywhere without telling me, or without thinking about the possible medical repercussions.” She smiled to herself. “Guard your heart, too. This is your first real romance. Don’t jump in too quickly. Then again, you probably don’t have to worry about that. You have never been much of an impulsive one. Too much of a planner.”
I thought about the night of Ross Nervig’s party, of speaking my mind to Stuart without planning to, and grabbing him suddenly and kissing him. Maybe there was a part of me Mom didn’t know. There was a part of me I didn’t know myself.
“I don’t know, Mom. Now that I’m about to graduate, I plan on being more spontaneous.”
Mom opened her eyes and burst out laughing.
I said, “Got spontaneity on the calendar for next Tuesday.”
She doubled over again, letting out a snort. I joined her and we laughed until the nurse called my name.
TWO, FOUR, SIX, EIGHT, WHO’S GONNA HELP ’EM GRADUATE?
SAMANTHA!
SAMANTHA!
SAMANTHA!
THREE, FIVE, SEVEN, NINE, AND SHE WON’T FORGET THE LINE!
ANXIETY!
ANXIETY!
ANXIETY!
I did it, though. I wrote the speech, and transferred it to notecards. I’d prefer to memorize it without any resource, but, you know. At least I’m not going to read it off a paper like some kind of amateur. I went with an “overcoming your obstacles” theme. I’m digging it. Some highlights, for posterity (as in, at least someone should be able to experience this if I have a repeat blank-out on the stage this coming weekend and have to be carried off like an invalid):
“I think it’s easy to group all the factors that get in your way into one big wall: money, race, sexuality, relationships, health, time. These are the forces we supposedly have no control over, that conspire against us. But we’ll never get over them if we look at them that way. As we grow older, we have the opportunity to learn where exactly these obstacles find their root.
“If we keep learning about the history of our obstacles, we will have the opportunity to dig the poison out of the world. We will have purpose. Whether the obstacles are individual, like a disease, or bigger than that, like a societal injustice, once we clear one, we have room for hope.
“Optimism does not have to be blind.”
Et cetera.
I just wrote the speech that I would like to hear, you know? After listening to Dr. Clarkington tell me that I might start declining more rapidly, I kind of, just… I don’t know. I wanted to write about optimism. I wanted to write the speech I need.
Because honestly, who’s to say that I won’t improve?
We can’t eliminate that as a possibility.
I could get way better instead of getting worse. Is it likely? No. Is it possible? Absolutely. I mean, just getting this disease in the first place was against all odds. One in one hundred fifty thousand. Was that likely? No. I have a hot boyfriend who is a published writer. Was that likely? No.
Not much is likely. Anything is possible.
PDA
I’m at dinner with Stuart (well, technically I’m in the bathroom on my phone—I couldn’t wait to record this). Over Vietnamese food, we got into a disagreement about whether the formation of capitalism was an inevitable part of human nature.
When it got so heated that I banged on the table, lifting the hot sauces a centimeter out of their brackets, Stuart said, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to argue.”
He looked actually worried, as if I would storm out or something, and took my hand across the table. “You’re really torn u
p about this,” he continued. “We should stop.”
He looked so cute. He was wearing a blinding-white button-down that brought out the best brown in his skin and the lights in his eyes.
I leaned across the table and whispered, “Are you kidding?” I hadn’t argued like that since before Nationals. I could feel my cheeks full of blood and heat, and my head was still climbing all over his position, scrambling to spar with a worthy opponent. “This is the most romantic thing we could possibly do.”
“Really?”
“I want to…” I looked around. The place was full to capacity with chattering families. “I want to make out with you in the middle of this restaurant.”
Stuart leaned back in his chair and raised his eyebrows. “Then do it,” he said, daring me.
So I did.
I mean only for a few seconds. But I did it.
LAST FINAL, LAST DAY OF SCHOOL
I drew a blank.
It was not as huge as Nationals, but all of a sudden, in the middle of an equation, I forgot what I was doing. And again, Future Sam, it was so strange because, yes, I was confused and upset, but there was also this sort of loopy happiness that made no sense, like I had just woken up from a long nap. And again, I almost laughed or smiled or something at the absurdity of it. Like, huh, what did I come in here for? What was I doing? Was I multiplying something? Huh, well, la-di-da.
As the fog cleared, I retraced my steps. I went back to the beginning of the problem and tried it again. But I couldn’t keep track of where among the numbers I went astray. I couldn’t reroute without erasing everything and starting completely over, and I didn’t have time for that. I was panicking.
So I cheated. I thought of which of Coop’s methods would work, and I really, really cheated. I made sure no one was watching, I licked my thumb, and I moved it across the ink of the next problem until the numbers were unrecognizable.
While Mrs. Hoss looked closer at my paper, I zeroed in on Felicia Thompson’s desk in the front row. As I walked back to my spot with a new test, I chanted her answers quietly to myself. A, A, B, D, C, C, A…
Over lunch I felt so guilty, I completed an entire practice test, just to prove I could have done it if it hadn’t been for NPC. (I aced it. But still.)
On the last hour of high school, while everyone in the senior hallway was ripping papers and books out of their lockers with vicious glee, I caught up with Coop and told him.
“Aw, baby’s first guilt trip,” he said, and put his hand on top of my head, ruffling my hair. “It’s over! Who cares? You would have killed it, right? You didn’t do anything wrong. Sometimes it’s just about timing.”
“Sure,” I said. For Coop it was.
Coop stopped in the middle of the hall, next to me. “What are you doing now?”
“Walking,” I said without thinking, because I was thinking about a million other things.
“People are coming over to my house to grill hot dogs.”
“That sounds fun!” I said, and waved good-bye.
Later I realized he might have been inviting me. Oh well. Me and social cues.
As we walked out of Hanover’s doors for the last time as high schoolers, I wasn’t reminiscing, I wasn’t crying, I wasn’t celebrating. I was praying. God, Jesus, Mary, and all the saints, I said over and over. Please, please, please let graduation day be the right timing.
BUT WHAT IF IT’S NOT
It’s three a.m. and I just woke up in a cold sweat from a nightmare where I got onstage to give my speech, but a bear started moving through the crowd, and no one was scared of it except for me, and it came barreling through and everyone stepped aside for it even though it was heading straight for me, slowly, and right before it went up on its hind legs to maul me, I woke up. And I realized: Coop’s methods may work for tests and class time, but they don’t work for speeches. I’ll be up there with nowhere to escape, and no way to avoid it.
UNTITLED, IN A GOOD WAY
This morning I was up again at sunrise. I recited my speech in a long, hot shower. It’s a beautiful spring day, practically summer. Mom and I had picked out a dress from one of the boutique sale racks earlier this week, simple white with thick lace, and Mom took in the waist and let out the shoulders so it fits just right. She also bought some stuff to make my curls less frizzy, which I worked through my wet tangles, and I even brushed on some of her mascara.
Soon Grandma and Grandpa (just the ones from Dad’s side—Nana can’t make the trip from Canada) will meet us for lunch before the ceremony. Stuart asked if he could take me out before all the craziness and family stuff began, and Mom said yes, since today was a special occasion.
We went to the 4 Aces Diner in Lebanon and sat in a booth. Because I was so nervous and my stomach couldn’t take solid food, and hell, because today was the first day of the rest of my life, I ordered an Oreo milk shake for breakfast. Stuart burst out laughing and ordered one for himself, too.
“You look adorable,” he said as we sucked on our straws.
“I feel like I’m going to start puking into this glass in two seconds.”
“Good puke or bad puke?”
“Both.”
“You probably wouldn’t be the first person to lose it over a milk shake here. They are so good.”
“I can barely taste it.”
Stuart dug in with a spoon. “That’s a tragedy.”
“We’ll have to come back here after this whole thing’s over,” I said.
“Two milk shakes in one day? Living fast and loose.”
I laughed. “No, I mean later this summer.”
Then we were both quiet for a minute. Even though we talked about our futures constantly—Stuart finishing his collection of short stories, me going to NYU—we never really talked about what our future looked like, or whether there was even an our future in the first place. I had moved so fast to make things clear between us, I didn’t really think about why.
Maybe it had a lot to do with the fact that I thought it was almost too good to be true. That I wanted to get as much out of him as I could before he moved back into a world where there were thousands of girls just as smart as me and just as encouraging and ten times more pretty, and there he would move on.
I wondered if he was thinking the same thing.
“Stuart…” I began.
“Yeah?” he asked, still digging into the glass with his spoon.
“Look at me,” I said.
Looking puzzled, he stopped and took my hand across the table. I loved when he did that. I always had the urge to look around to see if anyone was looking at us when we held hands, a sort of silly, vain little thought that they might look at us and think, Aw. That couple is in love.
But my words caught in my throat. Maybe now wasn’t the time to have this conversation, on the brink of one of the biggest moments of my life thus far. And anyway, we had never said “love.” I’ve said it here, but I realize I have a very small understanding. A very true understanding, but a pretty small one.
I took a breath and said, “I should have gotten peanut butter cup.”
“Ha!” he said, shaking his head, and resumed eating. “Oh! You know what?”
“What?”
“This just reminded me—there’s this ice cream parlor in Brooklyn, I can’t remember what it’s called, but they have the best milk shakes. Like maybe even better than here. I’ll have to take you there.”
I swallowed another gulp. “Take me there?” My heart started beating hard. Even harder than it already was, which was very hard.
“Yeah, this fall,” he said, and gradually, my pulse slowed. Relief melted from the top of my head to my toes. This fall. As in, we would be together then. Together enough to go to an ice cream parlor. Suddenly, I got very hungry.
“Thatta girl,” he said, watching me dig in with my own spoon.
I swallowed a mouthful of milk shake, and didn’t try to hide my smile.
“What?” he asked, smiling with me.
�
�Nothing,” I said. “Just happy.”
I HAD TO WIPE THE SWEAT OFF MY PALMS ON MY DRESS SO I COULD TYPE
I’m hiding from everyone in the girls’ locker room. My graduation gown keeps dragging on the floor so it’s hanging on the hook on the door.
After Mom and Dad and the kids dropped me at the gym entrance to park the car, I thought I had forgot everything until I pushed out the first words to myself in a whisper, “Oliver Goldsmith once said…” and the rest would come. I kept repeating it, Oliver Goldsmith once said, Oliver Goldsmith once said, as if every time I said it I had been drowning and came up for air.
As all the teachers and administrators grouped together at the front, I saw Mrs. Townsend, her black poof of hair rising above the others.
“Hey, Mrs. T,” I said, and she turned around.
“Sammie,” she said slowly with a soft smile, and pulled me into a hug. She smelled like so many different products mixed together, lotion and shampoo and perfume, but in a good way, in a way that fit.
“Thank you for everything,” I said, and choked back the tears I had been holding in all day.
“You’re going to be great,” Mrs. T said.
Then I couldn’t help it, the tears came for real, because of how many times she had said that to me over the last four years, before my first week in AP classes, before my first tournament, before the beginning of my senior year, before the disease came along and tried to mess up everything, and after. I knew this would probably be the last time she’d ever say something like that. Before she moved on to say her good-byes to someone else, I touched her arm.
She turned back to me.
“Will you introduce me out there? I mean, the speech?”
“Oh!” she said, considering.
“I know Principal Rothchild is supposed to do it, but it would mean a lot… you know… because you’re the only one who knows how big…” I swallowed back more tears. “How big a deal it is for me to do this.”
Mrs. T smiled again, determined. She nodded. “Of course I will,” she said. “I’ll go chat with Mr. R.”
