In the morning, I watched my father for signs that he had seen my mother. He didn’t seem especially upset or exhausted, and there was no physical evidence of a visitor, no glasses on the coffee table, nothing that had been moved. He ate his cereal and sipped his coffee and didn’t seem to notice me staring.
“Did you hear anything strange last night?” I asked.
“What?” he grunted, turning the page of the newspaper. “What do you mean, strange?”
“Like the door opening and closing? Anything like that?”
My father looked up.
“Door opening…?” he repeated.
“I saw Mom last night.” He didn’t respond to me right away, and that was how I knew he had seen her too.
“How often do you see her?” I asked. “How often does she come here in the middle of the night?”
“Your mother and I need to talk together now and then,” he said. He moved his cereal around in his bowl as though he’d seen something interesting at the bottom.
“About what?” I asked. “Why can’t she come over in the daytime? Why doesn’t she want to see all of us?”
“You saw her last night,” my father pointed out lightly. Then he got up and rinsed out his dishes. This was true, of course. But I couldn’t get past the idea that he should be able to make her come back for good.
It occurred to me that Mr. Biersdorfer hadn’t treated her to an expensive hotel after all; maybe she’d had to check herself in somewhere, somewhere cheap, the type of motel not by the beach but by the highway, run by a retired couple, painted garish colors, and eaten away by salt. The kind of motel where on either side of each door squats a metal patio chair, the rivets circled with rust. From each window protruding an air conditioner, its metal gills smashed and bent out of shape.
My mother would be unhappy to find herself there—she would crave marble bathtubs, thick sheets, room service, two champagne flutes side by side on a silver tray. At the highway motel, she would try to make the best of things. Maybe, as she slipped her key into the ill-fitting lock, felt the doorknob give and the thin door swing open, the thought occurred to her: His wife would never let him get away with a place like this. It made her feel tired and shabby, a used-up mother, to understand that this was what he thought of her, that she was not a luxury, a rare confection, but a bargain, a compromise, a second choice. She wanted to be his prize, but she must have known, even then, that she was only his respite.
I almost cried for her. It surprised me, the level of emotion I could elicit for her, now that she wasn’t here, just by imagining the worst for her.
Each desk had a mimeographed OTA on it when we walked into the room, all of them perfectly lined up. As instructed, we each held a single pencil, sharpened.
“Are you ready?” Dr. Schuler said imperiously from the front of the room, his face deadly serious. The room was hushed and tense. I looked to my left and right: the kids on either side of me were tapping their feet, playing with their pencils with trembling fingers. One girl hugged herself and rocked back and forth, very slowly. Somehow, despite all our complaining and mocking, we had been convinced to believe in his OTA. I felt that if I failed to impress Dr. Schuler with what I wrote on this piece of paper, if I didn’t Achieve, he would know I wasn’t smart enough. I would not be astronaut material. I’d be just another mediocre girl.
The questions on the OTA were just what I should have expected from Dr. Schuler—no fill-in-
the-blank, no multiple choice, no true-or-false. There were only word problems: If you jumped off the Empire State Building and shot a gun due east at the exact same moment, how many seconds would pass between your splat and the bullet’s hitting the ground? If you dropped a ten-kilogram weight onto a scale on an elevator moving up one hundred meters at five kilometers per hour, how would the scale’s reading change over time? Why does the space shuttle create a double sonic boom when it reenters the Earth’s atmosphere?
Each question was followed by a full page of blank space in which to show our work. I started with the first question, the Empire State Building one, and sketched a diagram. I answered the question in as much detail as possible. I knew Dr. Schuler would want to see not only the right answer, but that we understood the concepts involved—in this case, that motion in the x direction has no effect on motion in the y direction—and all their implications, all the ways motion can be predicted and described, all the laws of the physical world. I dumped everything I knew onto those pages, taking extra time with details I knew he savored especially. My OTA was like a weird valentine from my mind to his, showing him I understood physics the way he wanted us to, in the way that he did. I wrote until the bell rang, long after everyone else had put down their pencils.
15.
STS 61-A, Challenger.
Launch October 30, 1985, on schedule at 12:00 noon.
This mission carried eight crew members, more than any other, including two West German astronauts and one from the Netherlands. A German Spacelab carried life sciences experiments.
My father didn’t take me to this launch because he couldn’t get out of work.
I rode in the car with my father to Elizabeth Talbot’s house. When she had called the night before to invite me to a slumber party, I’d been so surprised to hear from her I couldn’t think of any excuses not to go. I anticipated a long evening with her and Abby and Jocelyn, listening to them giggle and gossip about people I didn’t know, trying to answer their questions about the Gifted program, about high school. I planned to exaggerate my new sophistication with a bored nonchalance. If any of them questioned me or criticized me about anything, I thought, I could always imply that high school kids would find their opinions immature, and that would shut them up.
My father hummed and tapped his wedding ring against the steering wheel.
“Do you need some money?” he asked as he pulled up at Elizabeth’s house. He was already contorting himself against the seat to reach his wallet.
“No,” I said. “I don’t think we’re going anywhere.”
“Well, just in case,” he said, and gave me a ten-dollar bill. “Call tomorrow when you’re ready to get picked up.” I thanked him, and he kissed me goodbye.
Elizabeth opened the door wearing a bright green minidress. She had cut her hair so short it curled into a bowl, which made her face look fat. She led me through the living room into the kitchen. I remembered the first time I’d seen her house, the way all the fussy furnishings, the wicker and chintz, had seemed so delicate and unapproachable, like museum pieces. Now that I wasn’t afraid of Elizabeth, the room seemed girly and busy, too many things crammed together, too many patterns and curlicues.
Abby and Jocelyn were nowhere in sight.
“So what’s your Gifted program like?” Elizabeth asked politely, perching on the couch. “Our class is so boring. It’s just like seventh grade, except the guys are taller.”
I didn’t know what to say. I thought of telling her about Tina and Chiarra, Dr. Schuler, the parking lot.
“Oh, school is good, I guess,” I said. “I mean, it’s fun being in high school. Everyone is much more mature.” She nodded and murmured appreciatively. When I had anticipated bragging about my new school, it had been for the purpose of taking Elizabeth down a notch, but I wouldn’t be able to do that if she refused to try to act superior. I was surprised by how much this disappointed me.
“When are Jocelyn and Abby getting here?” I asked.
“Oh,” Elizabeth said carefully, “they’re not coming.” Her round face didn’t change or register any emotion. I felt an unexpected surge of annoyance. As much as I wasn’t looking forward to an evening with the three of them, an evening with just Elizabeth was even less appealing.
“Jocelyn and Abby and those guys have been kind of mean to me lately,” she said quietly. “I don’t really know why. Actually, they don’t seem to like me at all anymore.” A large tear welled out of one of her eyes and plopped onto her raised knee. She rubbed it in
with her thumb. I knew I should ask a question, but I wasn’t sure what.
“Do you still sit with them at lunch?” I asked.
“I still sit at that table, yeah. But they don’t include me. I mean, they don’t do anything to stop me from sitting with them, but they don’t really talk to me either. They sort of talk around me.”
Elizabeth took a tissue from a box on the side table and blew her nose daintily. I found it hard to imagine Jocelyn and Abby daring to ostracize Elizabeth, daring to take control. But maybe they had seen enough to understand how Elizabeth’s power only existed if everyone agreed to believe in it. I hadn’t understood that myself until I got away from her.
“But we don’t have to talk about that,” she said. “What’s new with you?”
“Actually, I have a boyfriend,” I said. This lie popped out without warning.
“You do?” Elizabeth said. “What’s his name?”
“Josh. He’s a senior. He’s so cute. I wish I had a picture of him to show you.”
“God, Dolores,” Elizabeth breathed. “A senior. I can’t believe it. Does he drive?”
“Yeah,” I said modestly.
“Wow,” she said. “There aren’t even any eighth-graders who like me.”
“Oh, I’m sure there’s lots of boys in your class who like you,” I said. “You just have to find them.”
“I don’t think so,” she said quietly. I wished she would pretend, as I was, for the sake of making this evening go more smoothly.
“Well, what should we do?” Elizabeth asked, sniffing. “Are you hungry?”
Elizabeth’s parents were out for the evening, so we helped ourselves to the dinner her mother had left for us, spaghetti and meat-balls, which we ate cold, right out of the serving dish. I felt trapped. My father wouldn’t be picking me up until the next day. After we had watched two movies and dutifully consumed all the popcorn and candy, we went to bed. Elizabeth’s mother had made up the trundle bed with fresh sheets for me. They had a strange flowery smell and felt coarse, unfamiliar. For the first time I could remember, I felt homesick.
“Did you want to use the phone before we go to bed?” Elizabeth asked suddenly.
“No,” I said. “That’s okay.”
“I thought you might want to call your boyfriend to say goodnight.”
“We don’t really do that. We don’t talk on the phone that much. We see each other after school.”
“Oh,” Elizabeth said. “You probably think I’m so lame, I don’t even know how you’re supposed to act with a boyfriend.”
“You can act any way you want,” I said in a wise and reassuring tone. “The important thing is to be yourself.”
“I’ve been being myself,” Elizabeth pointed out. “Do you know I’ve never even been kissed?”
“It’s not that big of a deal,” I said knowingly. “I mean, when it happens, it happens.”
“I know I shouldn’t worry about it, but I can’t help it. I know if it ever happens, I’ll screw it up. I won’t know what to do.”
“Sure you will,” I said confidently. “You don’t have to do anything. He just kisses you, and you kiss back.”
“Will you show me?” she asked, sitting up in bed.
“What, you mean like this?” I kissed the back of my hand. “It’s just a kiss. Just like that.”
“No, on the lips,” she said shyly. “I mean, unless you think it’s gross.”
“No, I’ll show you,” I said, and sat up. I had come this far; I couldn’t drop my confident act now. But I wasn’t doing it just to save face—I actually wanted to show Elizabeth how to kiss, even though I didn’t know myself.
“I’ll be the boy,” I announced, and without any hesitation or awkwardness, I took her round face in my hands and kissed her, firmly, on the lips. At first she pursed her lips against mine, a false kiss, but then her mouth relaxed, and I could feel the square edge of her teeth under her lip, the moisture of her mouth. I tasted her toothpaste and, faintly under that, the organic taste of her breath, different from my own.
“There,” I said decisively as I let go. “Now you’ve been kissed.” Elizabeth smiled at me, a tranquil smile, the first real smile I’d seen on her all evening. We both lay back in our beds.
“You’re right,” she said. “It’s not that big a deal. Did I do it right?”
“Of course,” I reassured her. “You’re a pro.”
“Thanks, Dolores,” she said after a few minutes. “I wish you were still in our class. You’re my only real friend.” We were both quiet for a long time. I could tell she was still awake.
“Dolores,” she whispered, very quietly. I didn’t answer. Soon I heard her breathing become louder and more regular.
I lay on the trundle bed for a long time, nowhere near sleeping. At some point in the night, I heard Elizabeth’s parents come in, quietly take their turns in the bathroom, then close their bedroom door. Soon I sensed they were asleep too. I got up to dress quietly in the dark.
While I waited for the cab to arrive, I wrote Elizabeth a note. I couldn’t sleep and I didn’t want to bother you. I’m going home to sleep in my own bed. I’ll call you tomorrow. Thanks for everything. Dolores.
I was waiting on the front steps when the cab pulled up. I gave the driver the address, and it was only about fifteen minutes later when we arrived at the Biersdorfers’ house.
“This is it?” I asked. I remembered the house being much farther away.
“This is it,” the driver said. He turned around in his seat to look back at me, and the vinyl squeaked loudly. “You want me to wait?”
“No,” I said. I paid him with the money my father had given me.
The house looked even bigger than I remembered. Floodlights bathed tall exotic plants on the lawn. The houses on either side were set far away, so I could barely make out their shapes. Not like in my neighborhood, where we could hear the neighbors’ air conditioners whirring as loudly as our own. All of the windows were dark.
In the back yard, a swimming pool that I didn’t remember being there before shimmered palely, sending up waves of light over the back of the house. White wrought-iron furniture was grouped in clumps by the side of the pool, and I decided to sit in one of the chairs.
I watched the back of the house and thought of Eric sleeping inside. I thought about whether he had grown, whether he had changed. He might have become someone unrecognizable to me by now, the way some boys at school had decided, seemingly overnight, to become more aggressive, to stop smiling or showing any kindness. I tried to picture Eric with a hard look, his hair gelled, muscles bulked from working out. I couldn’t actually imagine it. My thoughts of him would keep him pure, I hoped, my fantasies of how we would come together again. There were ten windows on the back of the house, and one hundred ninety-seven bricks across. Somehow I’d imagined once that Mr. Biersdorfer had brought my mother here. This was a ridiculous idea, childish, something Delia would imagine.
Toward morning a thin blue sunlight began to show itself through the trees. I imagined I could feel Eric’s dreams, his dreams seeping out to wash over me in the back yard and disappear into the pool. I thought I could feel his love for me as he slept, a big reluctant love, alive and permanent. I enjoyed the feeling that no one knew where I was and no one was looking for me. I could go anywhere. People thought they knew where I was and what I was doing, but really, it was up to me.
“I have your OTAs,” Dr. Schuler announced when we took our seats on Monday. “Most of you”—and now he was back to his old self, strutting and smirking—“most of you did not make full use of this opportunity to achieve. Most of you chose to remain largely ignorant of the workings of the physical world. The median grade for this class was fifty-eight.”
He paused, looking out over us with a bemused look, while an outraged exhalation traveled around the room.
“A few of you, a sadly small number of you, took this opportunity to achieve according to even the most modest definition of the word. An
d only one of you”—and here he raised a single crooked finger—“one of you chose to seize this opportunity to actually achieve in a real way.” He lifted above his head an OTA with the score marked in huge red numbers: 102. He was too far away for anyone to make out the name.
“Only one among you chose to acquaint herself with the workings of the physical world and to try to master the mathematical descriptions of those workings.”
I heard annoyed hisses and groans from around the room as boys noted the herself. I started to flush then, imagining that he might mean me.
“This scholar not only demonstrated her thorough grasp of all the concepts we have explored thus far, she also distinguished herself by being the only student to correctly answer the extra-credit question on the gravitational constant.”
“Cunt,” a low voice said clearly from somewhere behind me. Everyone watched Dr. Schuler closely for a reaction. He hadn’t heard, or else chose to pretend not to have heard.
“Are you still going to grade on a curve?” someone asked.
“What do you mean, still?” Dr. Schuler asked, perplexed. “This is the curve.” He brandished the paper over his head again. With one bony finger of his free hand, he tapped the red circled number.
“One. Oh. Two. That’s the curve. That is what a young mind from one of your peers is capable of. What one of you is capable of, all of you are capable of. I firmly believe that, scholars. This person, Miss One Oh Two, has set a standard. She has, as you say, ruined the curve.”
Now I felt desperate for the OTA to be mine, even while I hoped not to be the person everyone else hated. I hoped that, if the 102 were mine, Dr. Schuler would wink at me as he handed me my OTA, facedown; we would share a knowing look before he worked his way down the row of desks. I was still lost in this scene, imagining exactly how Dr. Schuler would word his praise of my abilities later in private, when the actual Dr. Schuler took three quick steps forward and, with a lunge and a flourish, placed the OTA on my desk.
The Time It Takes to Fall Page 18
