At 11 P.M., my father shook me awake and shouted, “What happened!?”
I was so groggy that I thought we were in an earthquake. I was about to climb into the tub—all Californians know that’s the safest place during a seismic event—when my dad caught up to me.
He pulled me downstairs and sat me at the kitchen table.
“This is what comes of dating around!” my father yelled. “How could you lose your ranking? We worked so hard!”
“It’s okay,” my mom murmured. “Whether she is valedictorian or salutatorian, colleges will still see her courses and understand what kind of candidate she is.”
I clenched my teeth. I’d hoped to put this off until January.
“Actually, I’m not going to be salutatorian, either.”
Daddy was speechless for a moment. “What?” he said. “You’ve let yourself slip all the way into third? Come now, beta, this is not good.”
I gritted my teeth and dropped the bomb. I was getting a D in a class and I was probably not even going to end up in the top ten.
Silence.
Daddy massaged his hairless forehead. “This is not good at all,” he kept saying. “Can you see that this is not good?”
Finally, Mummy said, “You’ll be taking a drug test.”
“What?”
“It’s drugging. It has to be.”
I thought of the Adderall: “No, no!”
“I know those classes of yours. You pass them for writing your name only. You must not be turning in any of your assignments.”
“No! I never miss an assignment.”
The whole story spilled out. The poem, the C–, the regrade, the charge of plagiarism. As I gibbered onward, my mother made chai tea and placed steaming cups in front of both Daddy and me, but I let the tea cool down to room temperature without touching it. We’d squished ourselves into the open mouths of the chairs that were shaped like martini glasses: I think it was the only time we’d ever tried to actually sit in them. Mine made a faint scratching noise against the hardwood as I spoke; I kept moving it farther and farther back.
“But you said that you did not intend the plagiarism,” my dad said.
“Exactly! It was an accident.”
Mummy folded up her hands and tucked them under the table, where they came loose and fidgeted under the glass.
Then Daddy said, “I’m calling Arjuna. We’ll file suit in the morning.”
“Wait, let us discuss this,” Mummy said.
What? I didn’t necessarily want to sue, but why was she against me? This was a school that had altered its entire grading policy just to dethrone me. A school where the vice principal had shown up personally to punish me for an irregularity in a single assignment. They obviously had it out for me.
“Come now,” Mummy said. “We cannot sue twice in one year. The school, the newspapers, the town—they will all be against us. And even if we win, it will not be good for Reshma’s reputation in the end. Please. At some point we must simply let your record stand for itself.”
“Who says we can’t sue twice?” my dad said. “We can sue twice. We can sue three or four or five times if we need to! The opinion of this town does not matter. All that matters is what is right.”
My mom didn’t answer. Instead she looked at me. And, after a moment, so did my dad.
I’ve only ever had one principle in life: Never stop.
I’d always thought that if I worked harder and pushed things further and was willing to endure more than any other person, then I’d win.
But, on the other hand, these last few days had been so nice. I was getting enough sleep. I wasn’t anxious and stressed. And I was finally seeing someone!
“It is not too late for you, beta,” my mom said. “You can still get into a decent college and achieve great things. But if you do this lawsuit, then they will go through all your past writings and papers. Are you not afraid of what will happen then?”
I gulped. I’m a good student and a good writer. And I am very, very careful with my sources. But when I thought about someone combing through every single thing I’d ever written, I felt a terrible fear take flight inside me. I mean, I couldn’t stop thinking about Ms. Ratcliffe. If I hadn’t pushed her to regrade my poem, none of this would’ve happened.
Part of me was saying, No, it’s crazy. If you take this grade, then your life is over. So if it’s a choice between victory or death, then obviously you need to fight. But another part was saying, Well, that’s a little overdramatic, isn’t it? I mean, one D isn’t going to stop you from getting into some college somewhere. Whereas if I fought the grade and something else turned up, well…who knew what would happen?
I shook my head. “I’m done.”
Mummy stayed silent, while Daddy made a halfhearted effort to argue me into it. He kept saying that I shouldn’t be afraid and that he was willing to do whatever I wanted. But after getting no encouragement from me and my mom, he finally went quiet, and asked permission to go back upstairs.
It’s weird to have all this free time. Sleeping takes up a lot of it. But for the rest I’m at a loss. I downloaded some shows that I’d heard people talk about in the hallways. I tried to watch one that had a lot of good-looking twenty-five-year-olds pretending to be teens, but I could never forget it was just a bunch of actors reciting memorized lines on a soundstage.
I touched the spines of the books on my shelves. I’d read Moby-Dick in thirty-six sleepless hours, while I ran around frantically trying to arrange a charity toy drive. I’d gotten an A+ for my paper on the treatment of Islam in the novel. But had I enjoyed reading it? My only memory was of the twisty thrill of coming up with a thesis that the teacher would love, and then the anxiety, as I read through the book, that I wouldn’t find enough evidence to support it. When I finally put it down, I wrote the paper in two hours, and I felt like I’d somehow defeated the book.
My door breathed open, and Mummy said, “How are you feeling?”
I slowly swiveled in my chair. “I really didn’t cheat.”
“I’ve made an appointment for you with Dr. Wasserman.”
“I’ll be fine.”
She pursed her lips and then said, “When did you stop believing that hard work wasn’t enough?”
“I told you, it was an accident.”
“No,” she said. “That is a lie.”
“Please, I know that cheating is wrong. Do we really need to have this conversation?”
“It is poisonous to hold a position that you didn’t earn. It is better to be tenth place honestly than first place dishonestly, because at least in the former case you know who you truly are.”
“I gave up!” I said. “Isn’t that what you wanted? I gave up. I’m not fighting anymore. So please. Please. Please. Please. Go away.”
And then, mercifully, she did.
I guess nowadays this document is more my diary than it is a novel, but if I were still looking for a villain, then my mom couldn’t have done a better job of turning herself into one.
My parents obviously have something to say to me, but for some reason they keep dancing around it. When my mom came home from work a few nights ago, she looked into my room and lingered in the doorway for a moment too long before going away. I thought maybe they wanted to lecture me a bit more about the cheating.
Last night, I tried nipping it in the bud: “Come on, Mummy, it really was a onetime mistake. You don’t think I’m actually a cheater, do you?”
But she smiled at me sadly and put a hand on my shoulder for a long time before she finally went back to her work.
Since my last visit, Dr. Wasserman’s office had sprouted all these portable whiteboards; they were covered in black, red, and blue marker, with dozens of interlocking boxes and circles on one or a bunch of lines squiggling out in all directions on the other.
While I tried to talk to him, Wasserman’s eyes kept glancing behind me, until I finally twisted around and looked. The whiteboard said:
– Woman Versus
Self: struggle with perfectionism
– Woman Versus Society: fight to achieve high status by being admitted into a top college
– Woman Versus Woman: teacher is murdered? Or higher-ranked classmate?
– Internal Arc: overcoming her low self-esteem
– External Arc: is ordered by parents to go to psychologist, and must outwit his attempts to discover her crime
Wasserman hurried over and turned over the board to its blank side. “Those’re nothing,” he said. “Some notes.”
“For your novel?”
He gripped the upper corner of the board. “I was trying to get a handle on your problem.”
“I don’t have any problems. Could you tell my mom that?”
“No, no. Not your psychological problems. I meant your story problems.” Wasserman pulled at the fringes of his graying hair; they were sticking out in all kinds of crazy directions. “What would you say to including a murder in your novel? Is anyone causing difficulties for your protagonist? Maybe a teacher? Or one of her classmates?”
“Well, one of my teachers slammed me for plagiarism and the vice principal is failing me for the half-semester.”
“Perfect!” he said. “Here’s how it might work. First, the teacher tells your character that she’s found the plagiarism. Then, before calling the principal, she gives your character a chance to confess. And, in that interim, your character murders her. I think it’s very believable that such an intensely driven character would resort to murder to—”
“Are you insane? I would never murder someone.”
“I thought you wanted to write a successful novel. People like to read about murder.”
“Oh. I’m not writing that anymore.”
Wasserman’s chest sank and his shirt started to stick out a little. It was like his body didn’t take up quite as much space anymore. Outside, a stream of cars and SUVs were honking at the lead car, which had lumbered out into the intersection for a left turn. We sat in silence for a minute. Then I started telling him about everything that’d gone on since my last visit.
When he heard about how my dad wanted to sue, he clapped his hands and said, “That’s perfect!”
“Actually, it might make things much worse….” And I tried to explain to him about how I wasn’t sure I wanted that level of scrutiny on all my past work and how maybe something even more awful would happen to me, but he said:
“No! No! That is exactly what makes this perfect! Didn’t I already tell you about the inciting event? In three-act story structure, there’s usually an inciting event right in the middle of act one: it’s an event so big and dramatic that it signals the beginning is over. And the character’s reaction to that event is what drives the rest of the novel. You have your event: your character has fallen into disgrace. And you also have the perfect reaction! A lawsuit! It will increase the intensity of the conflict.”
“I don’t need any more intensity in my life.”
“Right!” he said. “That’s your internal conflict! As the external conflict—your fight against the school—proceeds, you become steadily more disillusioned with what you’re doing. The reason this external conflict is good is because it involves precisely the same issues—perfectionism and status anxiety—that fuel your internal conflict.”
I cracked my knuckles. “I think I’m done with all that.”
Wasserman scratched his head. Finally, he said, “Have you heard of the Hero’s Journey?”
“Are you going to bill my mom for this part of the hour?”
“The Hero’s Journey is a pattern that is followed by most myths. It has many elements: the call to adventure, a wizard figure who gives supernatural aid, the crossing-over into another world, a meeting with a goddess, etc. And one of the main steps is the Refusal of the Call. It’s when an ordinary person—a potential hero—is given a chance to go on an adventure, but, for a period of time, they refuse to leave their ordinary life. In most myths, it’s a transitory step before the adventure begins. But, in some myths, the refusal becomes permanent. The myth becomes an anti-myth: a story of lost opportunities.”
After that it was more plot diagrams and character sketches until the session was over. At first I was annoyed, but after a while it became almost interesting. And if I was still writing a novel, Wasserman might actually have a good point. Sure, a lawsuit might make things worse, but it also might make things better. And being willing to risk those odds is exactly what separates a hero from a regular person.
From: Linda Montrose
To: Reshma Kapoor
Subject: Wow!
Spent a wonderful hour reading the partial manuscript that you sent. I think that editors will really go crazy for this. Your protagonist has one of the most fascinating inner arcs I’ve read in a long time: her principles, though flawed, are unwavering—which makes us root for and admire her even when she’s cruel or petty, but they’re combined with an inner vulnerability, a tenderness, that resonates so deeply, even when she herself is unaware of it. Are you sure you can’t be persuaded to resume work on the book?
—linda
P.S. I know that the “Reshma” in your book is an invented character, but if, by any chance, you need me to write a college recommendation for you, then I’d be happy to do so!
From: Reshma Kapoor
To: Linda Montrose
Subject: RE: Wow!
Dear Ms. Montrose,
I’m glad that you enjoyed it. Actually, I don’t know…I suppose I could be persuaded to continue working on the novel.
Sincerely,
Reshma
From: Linda Montrose
To: Reshma Kapoor
Subject: RE: Wow!
Wonderful! When would be a good time to meet?
—linda
Today, I was on my laptop in the living room, exchanging messages with Aakash, and when he teased me about how I’d have to go to community college, I laughed out loud, which made my mom look up from her laptop.
She smiled at me, and for a second it was like it used to be, back before I took the SAT or filed that lawsuit or lost my valedictorian slot. She actually seemed happy to see me, and when she asked me what I was laughing about, I told her about Aakash’s joke.
That’s when her face became really grave. She folded her blanket over on her lap, and I felt the room collapse inward on us.
“And have you thought at all about where you will apply early for college? Is it too late for Berkeley? Or what about these liberal arts colleges? Your aunt Swati has been telling me many good things about Carleton College.”
I gulped. I’d been thinking about this for a while. “Actually, Mummy, I, umm…I already sent in my Stanford app.”
“Acha.” She nodded her head. “It is fine. You were always so good at meeting these deadlines. But we will call them, ke nahi? And we will explain that you’ve changed your mind. They will make no fuss about withdrawing your application once I explain that things have changed for you and—”
“Mummy, I sent out the application three days ago.”
“What?” Her head twitched, like she was trying to knock a fly from her ear. “This makes no sense, beta. You can’t get in.”
I tried to explain to my mom that I still refused to sue the school—that still felt like too much—but after that e-mail from Ms. Montrose, I’d started thinking that, well, who knows? I still had an agent, didn’t I? And maybe Stanford would see something in me that other people couldn’t. And the rules were actually on my side, because I’d been looking things up and I’d realized that they aren’t allowed to change my class rank until the final grades are in. So if I was to apply now, they’d be forced to mark me as number one.
My mom pulled one foot under the knee of the other leg. “But Mrs. Ozick said her son is being raised to number two for his Yale application. I do not think you are understanding the rules correctly.”
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br /> I shook my head. “No, no, that’s not right. I…I could challenge that.”
“That is silliness. Even if you were to get in, what do you think will happen when the midyear report is mailed to Stanford next semester? They will withdraw your acceptance, and you will be left with nothing.”
I was standing up now and pacing back and forth. I rubbed my palm against the outside of my blue sweatpants. Actually, no, it all made so much sense! My plan for getting into Stanford could still work! If I could just be calm and careful when I explained it to her, then I was sure my mom would back me up.
But what came out was, “You don’t think I can get in? You don’t think they’ll want me? I’m valedictorian. I’m the layout editor at the paper. I’ve won writing awards. I have an agent.”
“And those are all excellent things for which I am proud of you. And you know I have never pushed either you or Meena to go to the best college; always my primary concern has been that you should go where you will be happy. But with your SAT scores, it was always very unlikely that Stanford would—”
“I have a plan, Mummy! For years, I’ve told you that I have a plan for getting into Stanford! But no, you wouldn’t believe me. You wouldn’t trust me. Instead you’ve just been so…stupid.”
The moment the word came out, I felt the world tip over onto its side. I might’ve thought that my mom was stupid, but I’d never ever insulted her to her face before. You know how you can say “Fuck fuck fuck” and curse up a storm all day, but there’s an invisible mesh around your lips that keeps bad words from slipping out in front of your parents? Well, sometime in the last few weeks my mesh had disappeared.
“You’re such a first-gen, Mummy,” I said. “God, it’s so embarrassing to hear you going on about test scores and grades. None of that matters. What matters is looking good and seeming smart. What matters is your resume and how well you interview. You never understood that. If I’d followed your advice, I’d be just another one of the thousands of faceless Indian girls who get good grades and want to be a doctor. But instead I made a plan, and I followed it: I took the valedictorian slot; I made sure to win those awards; and I even found an amazing hook. And even with all that, you’ve always been against me. You’ve always dragged me down. You’ve always insinuated that I wasn’t good enough. Well, guess what? When I get into Stanford, you’ll finally have to admit that I was right all along, and that I knew exactly what I was doing.”
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