Without Mr. Murphy, there isn’t much for us to do except talk to each other, which is the last thing that I want to do. So, I stare down at the puke-brown carpet instead. I count the pieces of flattened gum. I become one with the carpet fiber. Basically, I try to disappear.
It isn’t working. Which is ironic. When you think about it.
“So…” Danny says after a while; his hands are also buried deep in his pockets. “You’re the girl from the yearbook line. You’re”—he pauses to look me directly in the eyes—“the girl who can’t smile.”
It takes time for the words to even register. Then, it takes even more time for me to understand that he can be so mean. Then, it takes another full minute to get over the sting before I lamely respond, “I can smile.” Which is actually true. I can smile. Sometimes. When I’m alone with Marisol. I can…
“I’m not saying you can’t smile.” He shrugs his shoulders, so that his Abercrombie shirt rides up, and I glimpse a sliver of his milk-chocolate abdomen. “I’m just saying that today in the yearbook line you were the girl who, you know, couldn’t”—he points at his mouth and his smooth pink lips—“smile.”
“But,” I say with a lot more force, because I’m not sure what he expects to get out of this conversation, “I can smile.”
“Okay…” His face changes a bit, and I can tell that he’s getting my point. “So…” He bites his lower lip. “What grade are you in?”
I don’t answer him. What’s the point? We’re never going to be friends. Isn’t it obvious?
“Well?” he says, but I stare at him blankly. “Well?”
“Tenth,” I mutter.
“So you’re like one of those smart people. You’re, like, in honors, right?”
“AP. But I’m not that smart,” which is a bold-faced lie. Pretty much anyone in advanced-placement classes is really smart, but that’s not my fault.
“Well, you must be sort of smart, or why else would Mr. Murphy ask you to tutor me?” Danny raises his eyebrows, and a half smile flutters across his lips. It’s like seeing half of the smile he gave me in the yearbook line, and I get a flashback of me standing there, staring at him with my arms hanging limply at my sides. My face turns red, so when Danny asks what period I have Mr. Murphy, I can’t help but bark, “Isn’t that enough of us trying to be friends?”
The question makes Danny jump back. And instead of feeling just terribly awkward, like I did two minutes ago, I now feel incredibly awkward and stupid.
“Um…” Danny taps the palm of his hand against his thigh and gives me a quizzical look. “I mean, I guess so. Yeah.”
It takes a few seconds for both of us to recover, but eventually we sit opposite each other at the nearest desks. I do my best to calm myself while I ruffle through my book bag. When I feel slightly okay, I pull out a notebook and write his name across the top of a clean page.
“Why don’t you tell me what books you’re reading in class and what papers you have due in the next couple of weeks, and then we can go from there.” I try to imitate my dad’s professor-voice because my own voice seems to be scaring Danny right now.
“You’re really organized. Aren’t you?” Danny taps his pencil against my notebook. I nod my head. “Do you want to see my syllabus?” he asks, playing with a hangnail on his ring finger.
Again, I nod and he hands me a stained sheet of paper. Then we sit until the silence becomes so thick and gooey that I force myself to say, “You have a paper due in two weeks, right?”
“Yep.” He taps his fingers on the desk. “It’s on The Scarlet Letter.”
“Have you finished reading it?”
“Nope.” He circles his foot repeatedly.
“Have you even started reading it?”
“Not so much,” he mumbles, and his foot jumps to warp speed.
“Look”—my own voice comes back and it’s slippery—“I can’t help you if you aren’t willing to do the work. I have things that I could be doing, too.” I lean back and give him the stare.
“Yeah? Like what?” He stares back.
“Stuff.”
“What stuff?” he asks.
“Stuff,” I repeat firmly.
“Like…?”
“Can we just focus on you?” I ask.
He leans forward and rests his head on his forearms. For a second, I think he’s about to go to sleep. Then, real lazylike, he asks, “So, what lunch wave do you have?”
“What difference does it make?”
“Just curious.” He sits back in his chair, chews on his lower lip.
“Just read the book, okay?” I’m not going to reveal that Marisol and I practically take lunch in another country. That’s none of his business.
“You don’t want to tell me about it before I start reading?” Danny asks, which is when I realize that he’s looking at me like I’m his own personal set of CliffsNotes.
“What?” Does he seriously think that just because I AM a nerd, a geek—whatever he wants to think about me—that I’m going to sit here and summarize the book for him like he’s in first grade? “I—I—I…” I’m so mad, I’m stuttering. “You—you promised Mr. Murphy. I can’t believe you haven’t even begun to read the book!”
I start to gather my things.
Danny looks at the clock on the wall and then back to me. “Hey, it’s only been twenty minutes!”
“And?” I stuff my notebook into my book bag and give the zipper a harsh tug.
“Hey—” Danny says again, but I’m already at the door. “I didn’t say I haven’t read it. I’ve read the first three chapters,” he mutters, flipping through the pages.
I turn back to the door. I pull it open.
“Hey,” this time his voice is pleading, and even though I know I shouldn’t, I can’t help myself, I look back. “You’ll be back next week, right?” he asks. I shrug my shoulders because I don’t know what I’d say if I actually opened my mouth to speak.
“Are you always this tough?” he asks with a crooked smile.
“Maybe,” I say. But the truth is I’m not.
THREE
a quick f.y.i.
the short list:
I don’t have a boyfriend.
I don’t have any friends beside Marisol.
When I grow up, I want to be a songwriter.
Marisol thinks that I’m obsessed with my mental health.
To date, I’ve had sixteen panic attacks.
My father says that I’ve had none.
My grandmother is so completely senile, she pins wads of toilet paper to the crotch of her underwear.
My mother died in a car accident when I was nine.
Whenever I smell Caress body wash, I think about her.
The long list:
I love learning. I hate school. I live for summer breaks. It’s about sixty days, during which time I do the following: a. Days 1–10: Delete the noise in my head (Move, bitch; God, you are weird; I’m saving this seat, and that one. Yeah, that one, too.)
b. Days 11–40: Exist in a nontoxic, semicomatose state.
c. Days 41–60: Let Marisol ply her usual tactics of manipulation and lies to persuade me to return to school. (Nice people do live in this world, and once we graduate we will actually meet these people; Geek is a word to describe people so intellectually and emotionally advanced that civilization often misunderstands them, therefore, the term is a compliment; and my personal favorite: people who are assholes are only assholes because they secretly hate themselves so they want to make you hate yourself, too—and because of this reasoning, you should just ignore them anyway.)
I love Marisol. Is it gay to say that? Well, if it is, I’m going to go out on a limb and be heterosexually gay because I really do love her. Marisol makes me feel safe. She never gets frazzled. She’s totally solid. I cry…well, let’s just say that still waters run deep—like oceanic deep.
I am not being “self-conscious”: People have been saying that I was odd-looking since I was a little girl. Everyone
still says it. Some are nice enough to say it behind my back. Others say it by my back, by my locker, on my locker with a red permanent marker that says OWL-GIRL and WHOOOOO. Sometimes…they say it to my face.
FOUR
helping danny
on friday, i browbeat myself into talking to mr. murphy after English class. It takes eight students cutting in front of me, plus seven ums and sighs, before I’m able to form one complete sentence.
“Um…Mr. Murphy?” I say.
“Yes, Susie?” Mr. Murphy beams at me for no other reason than that’s how he is. “What can I do for you? I know this assignment hasn’t confused you, too.”
“No…um, the assignment’s fine. I mean, it’s great. You know I love Jane Austen. Um…” I clear my throat. “Really, I don’t have a problem with the assignment.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear that. Is there another reason you waited to speak with me?”
“Um…yeah. I wanted to…talk to you…about, about…Um. I wanted to talk to you about—”
“Danny Diaz?” Mr. Murphy interjects. He leans forward and gives me a concerned look.
“Yeah. Um…did Danny say something to you?”
It took days of internal warfare to psych myself up enough to speak to Mr. Murphy about this whole Danny situation. I never thought Danny would beat me to the punch.
“Well, Danny did mention that he was quite unprepared for your first session and that you were understandably upset. He assured me that he would not let you down a second time.”
So what? Danny was trying to play Mr. Murphy, too?
“The thing is, Mr. Murphy”—I pause to take a breath—“I don’t think I’m the right person to…help Danny.”
“Oh,” Mr. Murphy seems surprised, which surprises me because you would think he saw this coming. “Why is that?”
“Well…” The thing is when I practiced my speech—my “I’m quitting tutoring Danny Diaz” speech—I never considered that Mr. Murphy might turn it into a conversation. I thought I’d just quit and be done with it.
“Um…” The first step is to stall for time. “Um…” The second step is to repeat the first step. And the third step? Lie. “Well, I…think that Danny…might be more comfortable with someone…in his own grade.”
“Is that what he told you?” Mr. Murphy asks. He takes his glasses off and wipes them clean with his handkerchief.
“No…not in so many words. But he hinted at it.” Didn’t he?
“Well, Susie”—Mr. Murphy slides his glasses back into place—“I’ll definitely speak to Danny about his prejudice toward younger tutors, but I still believe that you are the best person for the job.”
“But Mr. Murphy,” I protest, “I don’t want Danny to feel uncomfortable. Can’t he get another tutor? How about Tamara Cruz? She’s a tutor, isn’t she?”
“Susie,” Mr. Murphy says patiently, “Tamara’s a sophomore, too. And if she were a junior, I would still say no because I believe that you are the right tutor for Danny. Is there something you’re not telling me? Some legitimate reason why you can’t tutor him?”
“Um…” And here’s where I start to consider the unthinkable. I start to think that my only way out of this terrible situation is to tattle on Danny. So I take a deep breath to prepare myself because if that’s what I have to do, that’s what I’ll do.
“Look, Mr. Murphy, the truth is…The truth”—I clear my throat—“The truth is…I’m nervous that I’m going to do a bad job and he’ll fail.”
I guess I am a lot of things, just not a tattletale.
“Susie,” Mr. Murphy says, “you’re just going to have to trust me on this. I know you’re the right tutor for Danny. I believe this. And I believe in you. Will you trust me?” He smiles, that wonderfully open smile of his.
“Yes, Mr. Murphy.” My shoulders slump in defeat.
“Good.” He rises from his desk and pulls out a piece of paper with a tiny doodle in the corner. “Now, I’m glad you stayed after. I wanted to talk to you about your Jane Austen paper. Absolutely brilliant. How do you do it?” he asks, with a wink.
“I don’t know, Mr. Murphy.” I let out a sigh. “I just do.”
FIVE
my m.i.a. d.a.d.
a week later around midnight, my dad and i cross paths in the kitchen.
“How’s school?” he asks, his face buried halfway in the refrigerator.
“Okay. I’m studying for a trig test.”
Even though my dad and I have shared space for fifteen years, I’m always unsure how to begin conversations with him. I guess it’s because I haven’t had enough practice.
“How’s it going over there?” I nod toward the study, my dad’s home away from home. He spends like 90 percent of his time there, when he isn’t teaching lit classes at the University of Miami.
He shrugs his shoulders. His eyes are red and droopy.
“How’s Grandma?” I ask, partially because I want to know, partially because I can’t think of anything else to say.
“Still forgetful.” He grabs a water bottle from the fridge. “Dad’s taking her to see a specialist on Friday. Hopefully, the doctor will be able to give us some answers.” He shifts uncomfortably on his heels. “Well, I should get back.”
“Yeah.” I grab an apple from the fruit basket. “Me, too.” And just like that, we go our separate ways.
during the year that i was ten, i used to crawl into my dad’s bed, because I was too scared to sleep alone. And no matter what time of night it was, I always found him doing the same thing—lying quietly on my mother’s side of the bed, his head turned into her pillow.
At first, I tried to get him to notice me. I’d call out his name from the doorway, but then I realized that it didn’t matter if I was there, because he couldn’t see me, not really. So I climbed up on the bed, too, and pushed myself against him so that I could feel the heat from his skin. I lay as still as possible next to him. I rested my head on her pillow. I closed my eyes and imagined that the breathing that I heard next to me—my father’s breathing—was her breathing.
Each night, I pretended. And slowly, very slowly, I learned to sleep again. But not my father. He never slept. Not in that room, maybe not in any room of the house. He never slept. And I wondered if it was because he didn’t know my trick. I wondered if I should have taught him to pretend.
SIX
two wednesdays later
two wednesdays later, i wait for danny in the library. we’re meeting for our third weekly tutorial, and he’s late. Thirty minutes late to be exact. Which is so unsurprising that…I’m annoyed at myself for being surprised.
It’s not like he’s responsible. I mean, responsible students don’t get behind in their classes. Right? Responsible students don’t need tutors. Responsible students don’t make me wait. ALONE. At school. It’s like having someone stamp LOSER in bright red ink on my forehead. Not that I need the stamp.
Where is he? I prop my head up with my fist and write out a list of places where he might possibly be. I come up with the following:
He’s decided that he doesn’t need me anymore to pass his midterm, so he’s blowing me off without even saying why.
He’s a jerk, just like I thought he was, and he’s totally taking advantage of me and my time.
He’s outside buying me a pack of Combos because he knows how much I love them.
The third thought unexpectedly pops into my head. I erase it immediately.
“Wait long?” I smell the stench of sweat and muddy grass long before I hear Danny’s voice.
“You are”—I consult my watch again to gauge the exact extent of his tardiness—“thirty-five, no, make that thirty-six minutes late.”
“Oops.” Danny shrugs his shoulders and smiles, as if dimples were meant to stand in for all apologies.
“Oops?” I repeat.
“I must have lost track of time. I just got out of practice.”
“I can tell.” I lower my eyes back to my textbook. “I can smell you
.”
“Huh?” he says uncertainly.
“Look at you.” I point to his sweat-soaked body and greasy, Combo-less hands.
He glances down at his uniform. It clings to him. “A water pipe broke, so the showers were closed. Do I really smell that bad?” He takes a whiff of his armpit and bursts out laughing. “Okay…if the rest of me smells like that, you’re in trouble.”
“You couldn’t smell yourself before you walked in?” I cover my nose with my hand.
“No…” He plops into the seat across from me with a loud thud. “Stop all the drama.”
“I’m not being dramatic. Okay? Just open your book. Okay?” I reach for my notebook and turn the page. I head it the same way I have for the last three sessions: DANNY DIAZ in capital letters. Underneath I write: The Scarlet Letter. Then I wait patiently (or impatiently, if you count my several sighs of aggravation) for him to locate his book.
“Crap. I think I left my book in my locker.”
“You left your book in your locker?”
It was one thing to show up late, but he had to show up late AND stinky AND unapologetic AND unprepared.
“I’m sorry,” he says, dumping the entire contents of his backpack onto the library table. “I thought I grabbed it before practice.”
“You thought you grabbed it before practice?”
“Yeah.” He tosses aside his cleats and rummages through fifty loose papers. “I don’t have it.”
“But you had your soccer clothes. Your”—I push the offensive cleats away—“cleats.”
“Yeah, and?”
“So you were prepared for soccer, just not prepared for me?”
“What’s your deal?” he snaps.
“My deal?” I repeat, feeling an inexplicable amount of frustration.
“Yeah,” he says, glaring at me. “YOUR DEAL.”
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