Absolutely Almost

by Lisa Graff

I was feeling like a pretty disappointing person.

  But my dad surprised me. Because he pushed back his laptop on the table and said, “Did you want to be vice president very badly, Albie?” And he looked like he really wanted to know.

  So I thought about it. “Yeah,” I said at last. “At first I didn’t, but”—I twirled my pencil in my fingers—“then it seemed like it would be fun. It would’ve been nice to win something.”

  Dad shut his laptop.

  “Did I ever show you how to make a famous Schaffhauser grilled cheese?” That’s what he asked me.

  Which seemed like a weird thing to ask.

  I shook my head.

  It turned out that the famous Schaffhauser grilled cheese was a grilled cheese sandwich that my dad learned how to make from his dad and that he said he wanted to teach me to make too.

  The famous Schaffhauser grilled cheese was made with sourdough bread, not regular white.

  The famous Schaffhauser grilled cheese had three different kinds of cheese in it—Swiss cheese and two other ones with funny-sounding names I couldn’t pronounce. We had to walk six whole blocks in the snow to the fancy grocery store to get them all, which you’d think wouldn’t be worth it, but Dad said it would be.

  The famous Schaffhauser grilled cheese had a secret layer of Dijon mustard.

  The famous Schaffhauser grilled cheese had to be made very precisely. First you put all the bread and the mustard and the cheese together. Not too much mustard.

  Then you heated up the pan on the stove to exactly the right temperature, without anything even inside it. That part was important.

  Then, while you were waiting for the pan to heat up, you spread butter on the outside sides of the sourdough bread. That was important too. Some people thought you melted the butter in the pan first to make grilled cheese, then put the sandwich down, but that was wrong because then the butter wouldn’t spread even on the bread.

  After that you had to stand and wait, patient patient patient, until you heard the Schaffhauser sizzle. That’s how you knew to flip the sandwich over. I did it perfectly, exactly right. Dad said I was a natural.

  The famous Schaffhauser grilled cheese was the best sandwich I ever ate.

  “Can I ask you something, Albie?” Dad said while we chewed. “About the election?”

  I looked at my famous Schaffhauser grilled cheese and found the perfect spot to take my next bite. “Sure,” I said.

  “Did you really want to be vice president?” Dad asked. “Or did you just want to win?”

  I thought about that. Back before the elections, I would’ve said I wanted to be vice president more than anything. But really, who wanted to turn the classroom lights off?

  “Maybe just winning,” I said.

  Dad nodded when I said that. “I think the hard thing for you, Albie,” he told me, wiping his fingers off on a napkin, “is not going to be getting what you want in life, but figuring out what that is. Once you know what you want—really, truly—I know you’ll get it.”

  I looked up at Dad while he took another bite of his famous Schaffhauser grilled cheese. There was a funny thing about Dad, I thought. Because sometimes he didn’t understand me at all. And sometimes, he understood me more than anyone else.

  “Thanks,” I said. And I took another bite of my own.

  new lunch.

  I stopped sitting at the lunch table with Darren and Candace and Lizzy and everyone. And reading Captain Underpants on the bench by myself. Now me and Betsy and Darissa ate our lunch in Mr. Clifton’s room, which Mr. Clifton said was okay, even though Betsy wasn’t actually in math club.

  “We want to eat in here because we’re not cool,” I told him. Darissa wasn’t cool either. She told me that right away, I think because she could tell I was worried she might be. But she didn’t seem too upset about it. Darissa was friendly and funny and weird. She even knew how to do the Vulcan salute. She knew more about TV than any girl I’d ever met.

  “Not being cool is cool with me,” Mr. Clifton said. And after that he let us eat in there every day while he worked on lesson plans. The only rule was that we had to listen to one of his math jokes, which meant that I had to sit through two different ones every single day, which sometimes could be tough.

  “Why didn’t the quarter roll down the hill with the nickel?” That was the joke he told us on Tuesday.

  “Because it had more cents!” That was the answer.

  Betsy laughed at that one. She laughed at pretty much all of them.

  After we were done eating, the three of us usually went outside to the blacktop. Darissa taught us a new handball game called Butt’s Up, which none of us were very good at, but we liked playing because it had the word butt in it. And while we played, me and Betsy would tell her New York things she needed to know. Well, mostly me, but Betsy helped a little.

  “The carriages with the horses are in Central Park,” I told her. “But those aren’t too much fun because the horse always poops a lot, and it smells bad.” Betsy nodded to agree with me. “The better thing to do is to see the penguins in the Central Park Zoo, because they have a moving sidewalk in front of them, and the window steams up real good, so you can draw pictures on the windows for the penguins to see.” I didn’t tell her about the Bronx Zoo, and the python and the pig. I wasn’t sure why, but I wanted to keep that one to myself.

  Betsy nodded again. “You can wr-write n-notes on the w-window too,” she said.

  “Maybe we could go this weekend,” Darissa said. “I’ll have my dads ask your parents.”

  “Cool!” I said.

  “Cool,” Betsy said.

  “And maybe we could ask my friend Erlan to come?” I asked.

  “Is that the one who likes Star Trek?” Darissa wondered.

  I told her he sure was, and Darissa gave the Vulcan salute. I was pretty sure that meant yes.

  wednesday.

  On Wednesday, Mr. Clifton told the best joke of all.

  “Where’s the best place in New York to learn multiplication?” he said.

  And you wouldn’t believe it, but I raised my hand. I’d never heard that joke before, but somehow, I don’t know why, I knew the answer. It just popped into my head. So I raised my hand, good and high in the air.

  “Albie?” Mr. Clifton said, calling on me.

  Everyone turned to look at me then. No one hardly ever guessed the joke, except when it was a super-easy one we all knew anyway, like “seven ate nine.” I was starting to get real nervous, like maybe I only thought I knew the answer but really I was wrong. But I answered anyway, just in case.

  “Times Square?” I said.

  And when everyone laughed and Mr. Clifton smiled huge, well, I knew I’d been right.

  “That’s a good one!” Jacob hooted.

  Mr. Clifton gave me a gold star sticker. Me! A gold star sticker! I wore it all day on my sweatshirt. And when Darren Ackleman saw it and wrinkled up his nose and said, “What, do you think you’re special or something?” I just told him, “Yep,” and walked right on down the hallway.

  gummy

  bears.

  On Monday we got our spelling tests back, and I got eight right, more than I’d ever gotten. That was a B. Which I figured I should’ve felt pretty happy about, because a B was better than a C or even a D, which was what I used to get on spelling tests. And I figured I should probably be pretty proud of myself too, because Betsy and I had studied really hard, and I knew that was why I did so well—the studying.

  But actually I wasn’t as happy as I probably should’ve been. Or as proud either. Because maybe it was silly, but I guess I thought just once I would get an A. And I guess maybe I thought it would happen that time.

  I wondered what getting an A would feel like. The best feeling in the world, probably. Like going to a Yankees game with your dad and eating three hot dogs with extr
a everything.

  But I didn’t get an A. I got a B. Getting a B didn’t feel like the best feeling in the world. It felt almost good. Almost happy. Almost proud. But not as good as an A.

  I guess Betsy could tell I was feeling a little bit sad about the B, because when I was up at the front of the room sharpening my pencil, Betsy turned over the paper on my desk so you could see the grade, and right after the spot where Mrs. Rouse had written the B with her big red marker, Betsy wrote two other words, so that it said

  B is for

  And then after the for, Betsy had placed a gummy bear, right at the top of the test. A red one.

  “B is for Bear,” I said, reading. And I popped the gummy bear in my mouth. Betsy smiled at me, and right then, I felt really glad about getting a B. I could tell Betsy was proud of me.

  “You should get a gummy bear too,” I told her, looking at her test. “You should get a bunch, since you got an A.” An A was way better than a B, so it only made sense that you would get more gummy bears for that.

  Betsy shook her head, and before I could ask her why, Mrs. Rouse shushed us for talking during silent reading, so she wouldn’t’ve been able to talk anyway. Instead she wrote a note on the corner of her notebook, and twisted it so I could see.

  A isn’t for Bear. That’s what the note said. Only B is.

  I thought about that, and then I wrote a note on the corner of my own notebook.

  What’s A for?

  That’s what my note said. Usually I always thought A was for Albie, but that didn’t make sense this time.

  Betsy just shrugged, and when Mrs. Rouse got up to get something from the closet, Betsy wrote me a new note.

  Anchovies?

  It took me a long time to sound out the word, but when I finally did, when I figured out that Betsy meant those tiny smelly fish that no one ever wants on pizza, I laughed so hard I almost got both of us in trouble again.

  If A was for anchovies, then I was glad I got a B.

  • • •

  I thought about it a lot that whole afternoon, and finally I decided that I didn’t think A was for anchovies after all. I worked really hard on my plan all night, and the next morning I gave Betsy the card.

  A is for Art!

  That’s what it said on the front. And on the inside, it was full of all the best drawings that Calista had taught me how to do—superheroes and unicorns and donuts and all my favorite stuff to draw. It said Good job, Betsy! in huge blue letters.

  I could tell that Betsy liked it, because she tucked it carefully into her folder, and then she looked up at me and said, “Thanks, Albie.” And Betsy only said something when she really meant it.

  smoothing

  out the edges.

  After a while, Darren Ackleman mostly ignored me completely, like he didn’t know I was alive at all. Not all days. But most days.

  Some days, he pushed his shoulder into me while I was getting into my cubby.

  Some days, he called me “dummy” or “retard” or worse.

  Some days, it bothered me.

  Some days, it didn’t.

  But every day, what I tried to do was to roll the names Darren called me around in my head, over over over, until the edges were smooth and the words weren’t so painful.

  Sometimes it worked.

  Sometimes it didn’t.

  But still I kept rolling. That was the only thing I had to do.

  superpowers.

  I hadn’t been to visit Hugo in a long time, because I guess I just wasn’t feeling that much like donuts, but Monday after school I decided to go. I told my new babysitter, Nadine, that I wanted to go downstairs to get a snack and that Mom always let me go by myself, and after I said that, she let me go right down the elevator and right out the front door of the building, even though what I’d said about Mom letting me go by myself was a lie.

  I figured out that maybe Nadine was not a very good babysitter.

  Hugo was super happy to see me. He finished scooping sugar into a customer’s coffee cup and waved at me. “Albie!” he said when I walked through the door. “What’s new?”

  “I got two B’s in a row on my spelling tests,” I told him.

  “Albie!” he said. “That’s great. You’ve been really studying, huh?”

  I shrugged. Then I got to picking out a donut. Hugo didn’t say anything else, just went back to straightening things behind the counter.

  But then he did say something.

  “You know, Calista was here the other day.” That’s what he said.

  My head shot up. “She was?” My heart felt like it was racing just a little bit in my chest. “Did she say anything?”

  Hugo straightened a box of gum packs on the counter. “She said to say hi when I saw you,” he told me. “So, hi.”

  “Hi,” I answered. I felt a little bit sunken-in, in my chest, all of a sudden. I wished I could’ve told Calista about my B’s in spelling. She’d be real excited for me, I knew it. “I wish she’d come to see me,” I said. But even right when I said it, I knew she couldn’t. I knew she couldn’t come up to my apartment to see me for the same reason I couldn’t call her on the phone anymore, even if I wanted to all the time. Because she wasn’t my babysitter anymore, and my mom would be mad. And it wasn’t fair to Calista to have people be mad at her, even if it was people who were only trying their best to be good moms.

  “I’ve missed you around here, you know,” Hugo said.

  “You have?” I asked. I thought Hugo only liked talking to Calista.

  Hugo nodded. “Course I did. Plus, I’ve got coffee cups up to my eyeballs.” Hugo swept his arm toward the corner where, sure enough, the tower of coffee cups was teetering like it was about to topple. But it wasn’t quite up to his eyeballs. I think he was exaggerating about that.

  “I guess I better get to work, then,” I said.

  “I guess you better.”

  I headed over to the coffee corner.

  “Albie?” Hugo said. I looked back. “Calista asked if she could check the stock when she was here, and she said she thought there might be something wrong with the newest shipment of coffee sleeves.”

  “Something wrong?”

  Hugo shrugged. “I don’t know. But if I were you, I’d look in the back.” He pointed. “The stack closest to the door, I believe.”

  • • •

  The first thing I noticed about the pack of coffee sleeves by the door was that the plastic was already open. That was weird.

  What was weirder, though, was that two sleeves from the top, when I pulled them out to check, there was a picture. In thin black marker, right on the sleeve, someone had drawn a picture. And I thought I knew who.

  Underneath it was another coffee sleeve, with another picture.

  Then another one, right under that.

  On the next one, the picture of Donut Man looked just how I felt.

  And then there was another coffee sleeve with a picture of Art Girl, and then under that, four with mostly just words.

  • • •

  When Nadine came down to the bodega thirty minutes later, she was mad, because she said she thought I’d run off and been hit by a bus or something, and also she talked to my mom who said that no way was I allowed to leave the apartment by myself, so boy, was I in trouble. But I didn’t mind. That’s because I had a secret.

  Under the sleeves of my sweatshirt, I had two cuffs around my wrists, just like the superheroes sometimes wore in the comics. One had a drawing of a donut on it. And the other one said KIND.

  And for the first time in maybe forever, I really did feel like I might just have superpowers.

  almost.

  I took that B is for Bear spelling test from a couple weeks before, and I taped it to my door, right underneath my letter from Mountford. I knew what Dad would probably say if h
e saw it, that even if a B was almost an A, that almost wasn’t good enough.

  But I knew something else too.

  You couldn’t get where you were going without knowing where you’d been.

  And you couldn’t be anywhere at all without having been almost there for a while.

  things i know.

  I know the quickest way from JFK to 59th and Park in a cab, and I can tell the driver too.

  I know all the best dog parks in Manhattan to go look at dogs, and all the best playgrounds, and which avenues go south and which go north and which ones go both ways.

  I know how to put the key in the lock in our front door nearly-all-the-way-in-but-not-quite, so it won’t stick.

  I know how to slice an apple with only four cuts, so there’s no core, only fruit.

  I know that Erlan could beat me at Spit if he really wanted to, because he can be fast as lightning. But I know he never will, because he doesn’t mind when I win (and I don’t mind it either).

  I know that when Betsy bites her lip, she’s nervous. I know that when she jiggles her left foot in class, she knows the answer but doesn’t want to raise her hand. I know that Betsy knows a lot more than she says.

  I know that sometimes math isn’t as terrible as you might think, especially if it has to do with cup stacking. Or joke telling.

  I know that parents don’t always know exactly what they’re doing, even if they’re trying their hardest.

  I know that even cool kids wish they weren’t cool sometimes.

  I know, at least I think I do, maybe, sometimes, definitely, what I’m worth.

  I know what I’m worth.

  I absolutely almost do.

  There are a lot of things I know.

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