The Great Perhaps: A Novel

by Joe Meno

  “Should I go right now or should I wait for school to end?”

  “No, you need to go now,” Madeline says.

  “Okay. Do I need to talk to her principal, too?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure he’ll want to talk to you.”

  “Okay. I’m getting dressed. I should probably wear a sweater or something nice, don’t you think?”

  “Jonathan?”

  “Yes?”

  “You have to figure it out by yourself, okay? I have to go.”

  “Okay.”

  Madeline hangs up the phone and hurries back to the lab.

  ANSWERING IMAGINARY QUESTIONS from the imaginary principal, Jonathan puts on a black sweater, then changes his mind, puts on a brown shirt that is much too small, then goes back to the black sweater. As a matter of fact, yes, we are quite proud of her political interests. We only wish she would exercise some restraint, maybe learn to listen more? Yes, that’s exactly what we think. Jonathan brushes his teeth, still talking. Maybe she does need to get involved in other activities. Lacrosse sounds great. We didn’t even know lacrosse was an option. We love lacrosse. Yes, we’re great admirers of people who play lacrosse.

  AS USUAL, HIS CAR, a rusted red Peugeot from his college days, will not start. He has to coax it, talking to it like an unresponsive friend, Okay, pal, okay, buddy, come on, now, pal, until it turns over. At his daughter’s high school, Jonathan circles around for a parking spot, finds one, then stumbles out, searching for the principal’s office. He sees his reflection in a trophy case and is astonished that his hair looks the way it does, blond, uncombed, standing up straight along his neck. When he finds Amelia in the principal’s office, sitting in a powder-blue chair, her chin resting in her hands, he begins to feel angry. She starts to stand and Jonathan sees she has been crying. Are they real tears? Yes, they are. His anger immediately turns to something else as he pats her shoulder gently.

  “What happened?” he asks.

  “I got in trouble for writing something.”

  “Writing what?”

  “I said that the school is racist because all the cafeteria workers are black.”

  “Oh.” Jonathan looks around the tiny office, sizing it up. “Well, are they?”

  “Yeah. Except Maribel. She’s Bolivian.”

  “I see.” He wonders what other questions he should be asking. He shrugs his shoulders and asks, “How long are you suspended for?”

  “Like a week, I think.”

  “Okay, wait here. I think I have to talk to your principal or something.”

  “Please don’t make this worse, Dad.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  Jonathan nods, itching his beard. He introduces himself to the red-haired receptionist who nervously picks up the phone and whispers, “Mr. Hearst is here.” Jonathan gives her a dirty look, squinting hard. The receptionist blushes, hangs up the phone, and says, “He’ll be right with you.” Jonathan glances back at his daughter, trying to figure it all out. Amelia has always been the smart one, the mature one, the one who knows the answer to the question before you’ve even had a chance to finish asking it. Maybe she is a little too bossy. Maybe she is a little too quick to tell you what your problem is. Maybe she is a little too proud, a little too superior. Looking at her sitting there, Jonathan knows that she’s going to end up being somebody great. Maybe she ought to keep her mouth shut a little more often. But look at this place, this awful dreary office, this awful dreary school, with its little wood-veneered desk and coffee machine and fax and absentee reports. It would drive me nuts, too, Jonathan thinks. Maybe it’s better that she’s testing her limits than just following the same, simple-minded rules. Maybe it’s better she make a few big mistakes than to never try and do anything big at all. Jonathan begins to nod to himself as the principal, Mr. Stuart, steps out of his office, extending his hairy hand.

  “I don’t believe we’ve met before. I’m Mr. Stuart.”

  “Jonathan Casper, Amelia’s dad. Thanks for calling me.”

  Jonathan follows the principal into his office and takes a seat at Mr. Stuart’s urging.

  “Well, I’m sure Amelia has told you what has happened,” the principal whispers.

  “She has.”

  “Good. We’re all very upset by the incident. Has she also shown you a copy of the editorial in question?”

  “No.”

  The principal nods, reaching for the school paper lying on his desk. He solemnly hands it to Jonathan, who quickly begins scanning it. Jonathan nods, trying to hide his smile, then decides not to bother.

  “I don’t see anything wrong with this,” Jonathan says. “It’s her opinion. She put her name right there next to it. She’s not doing it anonymously or anything. I think she’s pretty brave for saying what she did.”

  “Brave, or a little inconsiderate, perhaps.”

  “I don’t know if I see a difference here.”

  “Well, perhaps Amelia will have some time to think about that.”

  “When can my daughter come back to school?”

  “We expect to see her on Monday the twenty-fifth.”

  “That’s more than a week.”

  “Your daughter called me a savage. And a dickwad, Mr. Casper. If it wasn’t for her outstanding grades, we would be looking at possible expulsion.”

  Jonathan nods, scratching his beard. “Okay.” He stands up and looks around the terrible little office. “I want you to know I’m taking my daughter to get Chinese food right now. Cantonese. I think what she did was wrong but I don’t think punishing her makes any sense at all.”

  “Well, we’ll see her on Monday the twenty-fifth, regardless.”

  Jonathan nods, opens the office door, and stands over his daughter, frowning.

  “We’re done here. You got your things?”

  Amelia nods.

  “Did you talk to your teachers? You know what you’re missing in your classes?”

  She nods again.

  “Let’s go get some Chinese.”

  AT NICKY’S CHINESE FOOD Restaurant, Amelia orders lo mein and shrimp fried rice and shares it with her dad. Her dad always gets the same thing: two egg rolls, chicken kow, and an almond cookie. He refuses to try anything new. They sit in the same red vinyl booth, the one in the corner, and after switching entrees, Jonathan looks up and says, “Just because you’re smart doesn’t mean you can get away with things other people can’t.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Just because you’re smart doesn’t mean you can get away with certain things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like today.”

  “Dad, I knew what I was doing was right.”

  “Sometimes there’s the right thing to do. And then sometimes there’s the thing you do because the right thing is going to get you in trouble, when you really don’t need to be in trouble. Being smart and going to school and being able to write for the school paper, those are all privileges.”

  “I can’t believe you’re saying I should like…be a sheep. All I did was write down my opinion—”

  “I’m not saying you should be a sheep. But kiddo, you’re still a student. You’re still seventeen. Those people, that principal, is an adult. He’s not your equal.”

  “Well, that’s not what you and Mom taught me. You always said just because we’re kids doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have an opinion. All I did was write down my opinion.”

  “Amelia?”

  “Yes?”

  “I want you to think about this.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you think anything you did today, that column you wrote, do you think that helped anybody? Do you think that helped those ladies, in the cafeteria? Or do you think it was something you wrote because you knew you could put it in the paper and get away with it?”

  “What?”

  “On the outside it looked like it was brave, what you did, but you and I know it really wasn’t. Don’t we?”

  Amelia sets down her or
ange chopsticks, sulking. “I’m done eating.”

  Jonathan nods, wondering if Madeline would agree with anything he has just said. He pushes his food around his plate, staring across the table at his daughter, who sits there looking haughty.

  “Are you finished?” he asks, and she nods. He waves to the petite waitress, who comes to deliver the check. Jonathan reaches for his wallet and finds it’s empty. He places his credit card down next to the bill. Spotting it, Amelia leans across the table, alarmed.

  “Mom said not to use the credit card anymore.”

  “I know what she said. I don’t have any money.”

  “You guys really don’t communicate very well, do you?”

  “Amelia. Give it a rest.”

  Amelia nods, laying her chin on top of her hands.

  “Do you think you’ll get separated again?”

  “Do you?”

  “It doesn’t look good,” Amelia says with a sigh.

  MADELINE, IT TURNS OUT, is a lot less sympathetic to the whole Amelia/protest/Chinese food situation. She does not care what Amelia’s motivations actually were. In the kitchen, when she gets home from work, she calls Amelia snotty. She calls Amelia totally spoiled. She tells Amelia to go to her room so she and her dad can talk in private.

  “I am not eight years old anymore!” Amelia shouts.

  “Really? Because this, this all sounds like something an eight-year-old would do.”

  Amelia storms off to her room, then stops at the top of the stairs to listen. Her dad does a good job of explaining the situation, but when he gets to the part about the Chinese food, Madeline begins to whisper angrily, “What is wrong with you? What kind of lesson are you trying to teach her?”

  “I don’t know,” Jonathan says. “It’s a pretty complicated situation. I thought you and I could talk about it and figure something out. As a team. That’s what parents are supposed to do. Work as a team.”

  “Jonathan, I don’t even know what I’m supposed to say to you right now. I can’t believe you’re actually proud of her for writing that shit.”

  “She’s a great kid, Maddie. She just did something stupid.”

  “So she shouldn’t get rewarded for doing something stupid.”

  “Maybe she should. Maybe my way is not so bad. I let her know I was disappointed. Maybe your way isn’t necessarily the only way to do things.”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “Awesome.” Jonathan turns and begins to walk off, shaking his head.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Back to the den. It’s quiet in there. Nobody’s in there shouting all the time about nothing.”

  “Great. So how long is this going to last?”

  “I don’t know. I’m beginning to like it.”

  Madeline nods, hurt, her eyes already wet with tears. “Wonderful.”

  Amelia quietly creeps from the top of the stairs, then goes to lie in her bed.

  AROUND MIDNIGHT, Amelia comes downstairs to eat some yogurt. She sneaks down the hallway and sees her father has indeed moved into the den—he has made a bed out of the tiny sofa and has his clothes hanging from the bookshelves. She peeks in and sees her dad holding a magnifying glass up to a large color photo, a photo of what looks to be a squid tentacle, and he is mumbling. “Not so fast, my old friend. You thought you could trick me with your seizing tentacles. But you can’t. I now believe you may be an Architeuthis. Ha, ha.”

  AMELIA DOES NOT sleep much. Instead, she stays up, searching the Internet, trying to learn how to build various types of bombs. She has already figured out how to construct three different kinds: for her science project, she is trying to learn how to build a pipe bomb with a timer. Already she has plans. Already she is thinking of blowing something up—like the principal’s office at her high school or the new Starbucks in her neighborhood or maybe an SUV dealership. Just like the Earth Liberation Front. Or just like the Weathermen. She will take every precaution not to injure anyone. It will be a spectacular show of force, a moment to remind people that they are alive and that their lives need to be more meaningful. They will see the dazzling explosion and reconsider what it means to live in a world with other people in it. Or maybe not.

  Four

  FOURTEEN YEARS OLD, THISBE CASPER HAS BEGUN RIDING her bicycle around Hyde Park looking for God. Before each school day and after, she pedals up and down the street in a gray skirt and blue sweater, ignoring her wheezy asthma, searching for signs of providence in the miraculously trimmed hedges and perfectly kept trees. When she does not find His Holiness in person, she will often seek one of her neighbors’ pets for an impromptu baptism instead. This morning, holding Mrs. Lilly’s small white cat, Snowball, to her chest, Thisbe whispers a prayer of her own invention:

  Please

  Please

  Please let there be a heaven for everything that is too pitiful to believe, and then the animal hisses, scratching Thisbe’s wrist. Thisbe turns the poor cat loose, watching it hurry back to its spot beneath Mrs. Lilly’s shadowy porch. Thisbe grabs her wrist and sees three red marks, already dappled with blood. She retrieves her math notebook from her book bag and makes a small tally mark, next to a dozen others, noting Snowball’s unsuccessful redemption.

  THISBE PRAYS FOR a number of things each day, usually in this order: for her neighbors’ pets, for her hair to look okay, for her asthma not to get any worse, for her sister not to make fun of her, for her sister to act like she knows her in school, and for all the homosexuals she sees on television—who she truly believes can be saved with the right kind of prayer. She also prays for her singing voice to become an instrument of God, something miraculous, something to fill the world with wonder. Finally, she prays for all the black people in her neighborhood. Black people terrify her. She does not ever ride her bicycle west of Cottage Grove Avenue or south of Fifty-ninth Street into the tired confines of the adjacent black neighborhood. She does not like the way the black people dress, she does not like their music, she does not care for the way they look at her, like she is an intruder in her own neighborhood. She does not like their worn-out-looking storefront churches. She thinks these churches are an insult to God. She does not like the boys, her age or younger, standing shirtless on the corner, wearing silver chains, drinking from bottles hidden in brown paper bags, calling out to passing cars. She hates that some of them wear crucifixes. She does not believe they want to be saved. She thinks they are where they are in their lives, in this world, because they are all lazy. She does not like to ride past their sad little houses. She does all she can to avoid the few black girls at her high school, all of whom, without trying, can sing better than her. Thisbe pedals past them all, hoping no one makes fun of her skirt, which has just begun to come undone at the hem. There are a few loose threads there that anybody could see.

  AFTER SCHOOL, Thisbe has chorus practice, which she loves, though she spends most of the day dreading it. Thisbe is an awful singer, worse than awful, very, very bad. Her classmates are forced to stand beside her, listening to her wail without tone or melody. Mr. Grisham, the very weird chorus teacher, a man strangely fond of Cary Grant—a signed photograph of the famous star rests on his desk—a man with a passion for songs by Bette Midler and by Bette Midler only, does not believe in turning students away from the performing arts. His chorus, for the past eight years, has received no major awards and has failed to place in even the lowliest of regional competitions. In his soft tan suit, his bushy brown mustache covering his moist, thin lips, Mr. Grisham always manages to make Thisbe feel unwanted, moving her from first to second to third to fourth soprano. Mr. Grisham was relieved when he discovered Thisbe could play piano. Susannah Gore, a hulking senior with oily dark hair, had been the accompanist, and though her scratchy tenor was nearly unbearable, it was an obvious improvement over Thisbe’s caterwauling. Mr. Grisham made the switch, vainly hoping the heavy, melodious tones of the piano would drown out Thisbe’s harsh though earnest wailing. They have not.

  TODAY
THE CHORUS is preparing for its first recital of the year, which is to take place that very evening. Thisbe folds her skirt under her thighs and takes a seat in front of the out-of-tune, upright piano. The rest of the girls take their places, gossiping quietly. Mr. Grisham is paging through his songbook when the door to the recital room bangs open. A girl with short blond hair and a funny-looking smile enters. Thisbe looks up from the piano and watches as the girl, a girl whom Thisbe has never seen in school before, unbuttons her gray sweater and wanders into place beside Alice Anders, a soprano. The new girl looks a little mean, with green eyes outlined in arrogant-looking mascara.

  “Glad you could make it, Roxie,” Mr. Grisham says, nodding, adjusting his small-framed eyeglasses. “We’re happy you’ve decided to return to our little family again this year.”

  The girl, Roxie, nods and when Mr. Grisham turns his attention back to his awful songbook, she immediately flips him off. Thisbe, at the piano, is shocked. The other girls all laugh nervously. Mr. Grisham announces the first number, “The Rose.” Thisbe flips her music book to the correct page, studies the fingerings for the opening chords, and places her digits above the keys, waiting. Mr. Grisham gives a nod in her direction, and Thisbe begins, much too slow, then much too quick, Mr. Grisham tapping his foot to set the pace. When the girls finally begin to sing, Thisbe is struck by how beautiful the new girl’s voice is; and although she is standing there in the back line, rolling her eyes, the sound appears effortlessly in the air around her dirty-looking mouth. Each note is like spun gold, each phrase echoing like a single prayer, the girl’s perfect tone confirming the startling order of the world. Thisbe feels a sad sting of envy as she glances out of the corner of her eye; the girl Roxie is not even trying, the lilting voice becoming stronger and stronger, filling the recital room with a magnificent glow. Thisbe decides she hates this girl with the beautiful voice, hates her for having something she does not even seem to appreciate, standing there in the back line, chomping on a mouthful of gum, rolling her eyes. She hates her and at the same time she feels clumsy, awkward, hammering her fingers along the keys without the smallest bit of talent, that voice, that one particular voice like a song she has always wanted to sing, a dream of a sound that she has so often wished would arise from her throat. Thisbe, no longer looking at the musical notes, closes her eyes and immediately pretends it is her voice singing brightly. When she makes a terrible mistake, missing the last chorus of “The Rose,” and Mr. Grisham begins shouting, she is reminded it is not.