by Amy Spalding
“I’ll take over on this stupid project,” Kat says. “Even though this is all so you don’t have to give more false awkward hope to Gabriel Quiroga.”
“His face when you said he should work with Quinn.”
We burst into laughter and imitate his disappointment.
“He’s honestly lucky,” Kat says with a smirk. “Quinn’s way better at designing presentations than you are. She’ll do all the work.”
“Sorry you’re stuck with me.” I try to say it like a joke, but it would be a lie to say I’m not hoping for some assurance. Kat and Quinn have only been dating for a month, and it’s already assumed Kat will do everything with her and not me? But Kat just starts reformatting our slide-show, after reloading swimming otters a few times.
Mom opens the door to her new house and sighs when she sees me.
“You could look slightly less disappointed,” I say.
“James, what are you talking about?” She hugs me tightly, and I picture a giant snake slowly constricting an innocent animal in its path. Just like the last few times I’ve seen her, she’s wearing a dress and stylish boots, as if this is her new uniform. It’s bad enough that I have to stand in an unfamiliar doorway and act like it’s normal, but it’s worse that my mom looks like a stranger.
“I gave you a key, didn’t I?” she asks. “You really don’t have to knock. This is your home, too.”
“Um.” I shake my head. “It’s not. But I’m here.”
“I’m so glad,” she says in a voice that sounds sincere. When I was younger, everyone thought I was brave because I could run as fast as any boy and was constantly covered in scrapes and bruises from what I called my adventures. I liked how adults spoke of my strength, so I kept it secret that, on most days, all I wanted to do was get back home and hug my mom. Now that that’s never going to be possible again, I might as well be five years old with scraped-up knees right now.
The house is not like mine. It’s newer, and I think Mom and Todd paid someone to decorate it. Everything, from the furniture to the wall hangings to the little bowls and vases on nearly every flat surface, complements each other, and I can imagine it being the backdrop for a home catalog or something else generic.
Mom and Dad had explained to me, years ago, that when they bought their house, it was just about literally all they could afford. There was the house, and then there was food, and there was me. So we lived with furniture hand-me-downs that I know now clashed in color, style, and material. But at the time, it was all just our stuff, so I loved it. I actually remember crying when they were able to afford to switch out our overstuffed sofa for something sleek and modern. There’d been something so comforting about the mauve and sage stripes, even if now I can see through almost-adult eyes how ugly that thing must have been. One step at a time, my parents built their home into something they were proud of. And now Mom and Todd think they can fake it all at once.
“We’re just about finished with dinner,” Mom says. “I’m so glad you finished up your project in time to eat with us.”
I leave my things in the front room and follow Mom into the kitchen. Todd is tossing together one of those premade salads Trader Joe’s sells in bags, and I think of the time that Dad shoved a fresh sprig of dill at me and insisted I taste it. Whole ingredients, James, he’d said. That’s what makes flavor.
“Hey, James,” Todd greets me.
I admit I might have held out some hope that for a woman to leave her home, husband, and only child, the man involved must be thoroughly amazing. There had to be a chance that once I met Todd, everything would come into sharp focus. But Todd is just a middle-aged guy with glasses, some kind of boring office job, and the inability to cook from whole ingredients. Mom burned down her life for nobody.
“What kind of project was it?” Todd asks, and I stare at my phone until I realize he’s talking to me.
“Just for humanities,” I say. “It’s boring.”
“You guys have such interesting classes nowadays,” he says. “Back in my day, it was really just the basics. Math, science, English, history. I took French because I thought it would make me more interesting, if you can believe it.”
No, I can believe that, Todd.
“I should finish the rest of my homework,” I say. “I have calculus and statistics to get through tonight.”
“We’ll let you know when dinner’s ready,” Mom says.
I walk down the hallway to the room here that’s been designated as mine. It’s decorated like a hip hotel we stayed at the other year when we traveled to Dallas for Dad’s cousin’s wedding. I sit down at the desk and get out my textbooks, and I figure, between homework and dinner, before I know it I’ll be tired and then before I know it it’ll be morning. And I can go to school and forget all about this pretend home.
Mom calls me down for dinner before long, and I stay as silent as possible while Mom and Todd discuss local businesses they patronized two days after Thanksgiving to support Small Business Saturday. They talk like it must be new information for me, so I let them know that Kat and a bunch of her friends—though I say our friends just to keep Mom from frowning—organized a whole shopping trip that they documented on Instagram. I also manage to not mention that I didn’t actually join them.
Mom might be right about me needing to do more with my life, though, which is the actual worst part. If Mom’s world being small is why she’s given up her whole life for someone as boring as Todd, then maybe she’s not wrong about me. Or, at least, I can’t risk that she’s not.
So I make an appointment first thing the next morning with Ms. Malkasian, my guidance counselor, and slip out of my first period class to meet with her.
“James,” she says when I walk in. “Ready to talk colleges? It’s a little later than I’d recommend, but with your grades and test scores, you’ve still—”
“I’m actually pretty good there, I think,” I say. “But I had the idea that for my senior year, I’d like to take on some kind of big project, some way to broaden my world.”
“Sure, that’ll look great on your applications,” she says.
“It’s really not about that.” Why does it seem that right now everything’s supposed to be? It’s as if once you enter senior year, your life’s in limbo until college? What’s this year supposed to be, then? “I turned in most of my applications already anyway.”
“Which schools?” she asks.
“Berkeley and Michigan,” I say.
“Great choices. I thought I had UCLA down as your top choice, though.”
I almost submitted my UCLA application once, twice, so many times, when my cursor hovered over that Submit button. It felt so big, though; UCLA had been the goal for so long—but in another lifetime. How could I just walk past Logan on campus like he was any other student?
“Oh, sure, UCLA too,” I say, even though what actually happened was that I enacted my nearly nightly ritual of nearly applying and finding that I couldn’t. It was December, the November 30 deadline was behind me, and I’d let time slip away. It was always a huge possibility that I wouldn’t get into UCLA, but at least then I could tell people how hard I’d tried for what I wanted. Even if I didn’t want it anymore. Even if I didn’t have any idea what I actually wanted now. Instead I’d gotten too freaked out to even try.
“We can definitely look at some volunteer options,” Ms. Malkasian says. “In the meantime, why don’t I sign you up for the tutoring lab? You might enjoy helping other students, and I know you’re more than capable.”
It’s not even close to what I had in mind, but I agree and stay after school the next afternoon for my first scheduled shift. It’s pretty quiet, so I work on my own homework while I wait to see if someone’s going to need my help. I’m not even sure how qualified I am to do this. Plus, nothing could feel less experience-broadening than sitting in the library of my own school.
“Miss McCall?”
I look up to see the tutoring lab advisor, Mr. Charles, and—really?—Qui
nn Morgan standing in front of me.
“Miss Morgan has a few questions about her calculus assignment tonight,” Mr. Charles says. “Miss McCall will be happy to help you.”
Quinn takes a seat at my table and sighs heavily as she takes out her textbook from her backpack. “This is so weird and formal. I seriously don’t remember the last time anyone referred to me as Miss Morgan.”
“I can ask if someone else can help you,” I say. “If this is awkward.”
“Of course this is awkward,” Quinn says. “But I really need to understand this assignment so I can do well on next week’s test, and you have the best grades in our class. And my sister has cello lessons tonight, so she can’t help me.”
I flip to today’s assignment and walk her through it, and it’s impossible not to notice how tense her posture is. Her shoulders seem about six inches higher than where they should be.
“This isn’t life and death,” I tell her. “It’s just calculus.”
“It is life and death,” she says. “I need to make sure my math and science grades are all as high as possible for my college apps.”
“Well, sure,” I say. “So, do you want to try the first problem?”
She sighs but looks down at her book. Her shoulders get even higher and I can tell that it’s impossible for her to accomplish anything right now.
“Did you ever play sports?” I ask her.
“Why?”
“Because I played softball in middle school, and one thing I learned is how you’ll never connect with the ball if you’re carrying that much tension in you.”
“I wish I’d played softball,” Quinn says. “I’m really uncoordinated. But I love watching baseball, so I get your metaphor.”
“It’s not a metaphor,” I say. “You should literally try to loosen up.”
She gives me an even weirder look.
“You’re not stupid, and you know what you’re doing,” I say. “You’re choking because you’re scared.”
Quinn messes her hair around while staring at her textbook. I let her work silently for a while, and even get out my statistics assignment so that I’m not staring at her. But I glance up every so often to make sure she’s loosened up somewhat.
“OK,” Quinn says, finally. “Can you check this over? And clear the way for me to go run into traffic if I still screwed it all up?”
“There’s not exactly a lot of traffic out here,” I say, which makes her laugh. And, miraculously, her work is mostly right, and I feel a little smug that I figured out her problem so easily. Though, seriously, tutoring is not going to make my senior year any bigger or better than it currently is.
“Are you leaving now?” Quinn asks, as she gathers up her things. “Kat and I were going to take a walk as soon as it gets dark to check out all the houses that go really overboard putting up Christmas lights. I’m making hot cocoa.”
“That sounds like a couple thing,” I say. “But have fun.”
“It’s really not. Join us. I’m great at cocoa.”
I shake my head. “Thanks, though.”
She slings her backpack over her shoulder and pulls a baseball cap onto her head. Hats aren’t allowed at school but I guess after-school tutoring sessions have fewer rules. “Thanks for your help, James.”
“Well, I have to,” I say. “Tutoring lab.”
She nods, and her expression is as if she’s seeing something for the first time. I hope that she’s internalizing something about sports and calculus and believing in yourself, but the truth is that I rarely can guess what’s going on in someone else’s head.
Dad’s in the kitchen when I get home, with a pot or pan on every burner on the stovetop. “James! I’m glad you’re here. Can you start chopping the tomatoes?”
“Is someone coming over?”
“Who’d be coming over?” He chuckles. “No, I just thought it’d been too long since we had a good meal. Just because your mom’s taken off doesn’t mean we can’t eat how we’re supposed to, right?”
I’m honestly not sure, but I like seeing Dad in this state of cooking frenzy again. So I chop tomatoes and handle as much of the rest of the salad as he’ll allow. We debate how much fresh mint to use, even though I know that it’s not really up to me.
“So . . . how’re you doing, kiddo?” he asks once we’re at the table eating beef bourguignon with garlic chive potatoes. It’s nice to pretend for even a moment that it’s a few months ago, and Mom’s working late or out with one of her friends. But it comes right back, how maybe working late or out with a friend were all probably code words for Todd.
“Fine,” I say.
“You don’t have to be,” Dad says. “I’m sure not. If you want to talk to someone—”
“Like a therapist?” I ask.
“Something like that, yeah.”
“I definitely don’t need a therapist,” I say. “I just need this year to be over, and to be away at school.”
“There’s no shame in it,” he says. “I’m seeing one. It’s probably the only thing keeping me tethered to sanity right now.”
“Dad, don’t joke around like that.”
“I’m so proud of you,” he says, in a voice bursting with earnestness and, maybe, held-in tears.
“Dad.” I try to convey that this line of conversation is over, and not only because I might not be great at raw earnestness. Why be proud of someone who couldn’t even get the application in to her dream school in time? Why be proud of someone who isn’t even sure she has a dream school anymore?
“You always cook great dinners,” I finally say. “And there’s no new reason to be proud of me.”
He opens his mouth as if he’s about to argue, but then it’s as if he thinks better of it. So I concentrate on eating and then escape to my room. Kat’s posted a million photos of Christmas lights and overly decked-out houses to her Instagram, and even though I don’t follow Quinn, I check hers to find more of the same, plus a selfie of her, Kat, Raina, Gretchen, and a few of their other friends I don’t know as well. I guess it wasn’t a couple thing, but it doesn’t matter now, and it’s not like I’m looking forward to Christmas this year anyway. I can’t imagine looking forward to one again, now that I have no idea what my life’s going to be like and that there’s the huge possibility I’ve already veered too far off course to recover.
Ms. Malkasian has me paged into her office the next week. I wonder if my project request came off to her as more urgent than it actually is. Or should it be urgent? It’s hard to know objectively how urgent your own life is.
“I don’t think tutoring is for me,” I say, before I’ve even sat down. “It’s not broadening my world. It’s literally in my own school with the same people I have to see every day helping with the same homework I’m getting.”
“That’s absolutely fine,” she says. “I did put together some other ideas for you.”
She’s printed out a bunch of websites, which seems like a waste of paper, but I flip through them. Reading to kids, talking to the elderly, handing out fliers for various causes, collecting canned food, collecting used backpacks, collecting reclaimed water, and so on.
“Could I do all of it?” I ask.
Ms. Malkasian cocks her head at me and raises an eyebrow. “All of it?”
“Yeah, all of it.”
“OK,” Ms. Malkasian says. “Well, this will still certainly look good to any schools you plan on applying to.”
I sigh. “Why can’t I just want to do something good? Why does it have to be about college? Why is everything about college now?”
She lets out a heavy sigh but promises to help me coordinate with the organizations’ leaders. I think about how excited I was to be a senior, and it’s strange just how much everyone wants you to worry about next year instead. Yes, I personally would love this year to be over, but my bad year isn’t what most seniors are going through. I don’t understand why we’re so encouraged to stop living in the moment.
Gabriel’s in the hallway when
I walk out of the guidance center, and I give him a little wave.
“Oh, hi,” says a tiny girl who somehow pops up in between us. I assume she’s a freshman because she barely looks old enough to be here. “Sorry to bother you.”
“There are stairwells at both ends of the hallway,” I tell her, because for some reason no freshman class has ever figured this out and they always clog the one at the north end of the building.
“Oh, I wasn’t going to ask that, but—well, I didn’t actually know.” She laughs in what I guess is a nervous manner, and then I know what’s actually coming. “Are you friends with Kat Rydell?”
I nod, as Gabriel watches me with a smirk somehow all the way across his face.
“She’s just . . . really cool. Her and that girl are so cute together.” The girl waves and walks away down the hallway toward the north stairwell, as Gabriel laughs.
“Hey,” he says. “Is that a thing?”
“You have no idea.”
He gestures toward the counseling offices. “College stuff?”
“Oh, god!” I shake my head when I realize I sound angrier than I am. “Sorry. I’m just noticing how no one wants to talk about anything but college with us. It’s only December. Our second semester hasn’t even started.”
He grins at me. “I’m ready to get out of here.”
“Well, sure, me too. It’s the principle of it.” I look away from him. It’s easy to fix my gaze on a row of student-made posters promoting the winter choir concert. I don’t actually have to tell him nothing’s going to happen between us, do I? That fact couldn’t seem more apparent. “I should get back to class.”
He nods. “See you, James.”
For some reason, I’m not included in the discussion between Dad and Mom about my plans for Christmas, and so even though I feel like I’ve more than already fulfilled my December obligations to her, I’m expected at Mom and Todd’s for Christmas Eve. I text her that I already have daytime plans and also that I’d like to bring a cake from Porto’s, so that gets me out of a big chunk of the day but also, hopefully, makes me look thoughtful.
