Sean Griswold's Head

by Lindsey Leavitt

  Breaking up with Sean (well, we weren’t together. Cut things off? Unfriended?) makes me realize just how much I hate to be alone. I cry a lot when there is no one to witness it. Being alone makes me think about things … about Sean, which is a topic I need to UN-focus on from now on.

  Un-focusing, as it turns out, is harder than focusing. I can’t just turn off my brain or my heart. I may have pushed him away physically, but the boy is still haunting me.

  So I double my spin class sign-ups. Spin is the best brain emptier. Luckily, I discovered that Trent has a secret crush on Yessica and use this information to con him into driving me to the Y in exchange for an introduction. He makes me practice the conversation we’ll have, the conversation that begins, “Oh, there you are, little sis. I was just helping out a senior citizen in need at the pool. And who is your friend—”

  Trent’s got the punk rock at full ear-destruction mode. He stops at a red light and uses his free hands to wow me with his air guitar skills. I look past him at the shopping complex right next to the gym and see a florist. It reminds me of our biology lesson on pollination, which makes me think of Miss Marietta and boom—an idea. A fuzzy idea, but it seems important for some reason.

  “Hey, can we stop at that flower shop real quick? It will only take a second.”

  “Sending tulips to your boyfriend? Let me guess the card—‘Our tulips should be one lip.’ ”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” I snap. “And even if he was, things are over now, so stick to your stupid air guitaring and shut up.”

  The light turns green and without saying a word Trent turns left into the shopping center. He parks in front of the florist, turns down the music, and says softly, “Take as long as you need.”

  It’s 5:50 and the sign on the door says they close at 6:00. No one is behind the counter, so I clang the bell.

  “Hello? I know you’re about to close but I need—”

  A woman so small and skinny she could be Tinker Bell’s body double appears from the back room, dressed in a prim periwinkle suit, a tulip pinned in the lapel. She looks like she should be at afternoon tea, not selling carnations in a strip mall. When she speaks, it’s with a British accent.

  “What can I get you?”

  “Flowers.”

  “I think we have a few of those lying around.”

  I close my eyes and form my words carefully. I hadn’t realized why exactly I was here until this point.

  “My teacher’s dad died.”

  The woman, Fern according to her name tag—although that is too cute of a coincidence to be real—clucks her tongue. “Are you looking into a burial wreath?”

  “You mean those things with carnations? Heck no.” I scrunch up my nose. “I want something for her. Is that weird? I didn’t know her dad, and I’ve never done this. I mean, never bought flowers for … a situation like this.”

  “There are plenty of flower rules. What color and when to send and what size. But the best rule to follow is your instincts. If you want something to comfort her, think of who she is as a person and what kind of flower would give her happiness or peace.”

  Miss Marietta as a person? I know maybe three things about her. She likes, or maybe liked, to party. She likes science. Her dad is dead. What flower sums it all up? Exotic flowers seem too wild for her, but traditional roses are too tame. And who came up with condolence flowers anyway? They’re a slap in the face. Flowers die. Why give the mourner more to mourn about?

  I look around the shop, my attention diverted by a large banana plant in the corner. It reminds me of Miss Marietta’s lectures, how her eyes sparkled when she shared the joys of pollination. “We can learn a lot from the plant world,” she’d said. “Survival seems unlikely. The fate of you and your posterity are usually beyond your control. A strong wind. Forgiving soil. A hungry insect. But there’s a certain amount of grace, giving yourself up to the hope that things will work out if you, the plant, just produce as many seeds as possible. With enough work, enough effort, one of those seeds will grow.”

  “This is going to sound weird, but do you send just regular plants?” I ask. “It seems kind of sad to send something that will die when someone … isn’t here anymore. I want to give her something alive.”

  “She’d have to take care of it.”

  “Yeah. I think that’s the point.”

  “I have just the thing.” Fern plops a large, worn catalog onto the counter and flips to the back. “There. How’s this?”

  She points to an exotic-looking tree with sharp crimson flowers and palm tree–like bark. The name has one too many syllables for me to pronounce. Three feet tall, according to the catalog description, and first found on a Polynesian island. Folklore says the blossoms are reincarnated souls looking for peace. “Perfect. Is it expensive?”

  “It’s not a handful of dandelions. But, like you said, it’s perfect.”

  “I’ll need a card too. And I want to write it myself.”

  She leads me over to a rack of cards. I pick one out, wispy clouds with “Deepest Sympathies” on the front, and stare at the vast, white blankness inside. I’m supposed to fill it with words of solace. Somehow, “Sorry about your dad” doesn’t seem right. Maybe I should color the whole inside of the card black, because that’s how I felt when I found out about my dad, and that’s how I’d feel if he … was in the same situation as Miss Marietta’s dad.

  “When do you want this delivered?” Fern asks.

  I have no idea where Miss Marietta lives. Until recently, she was my lush partying bio teacher, not a person with a home and a father. My bright idea is dimming with each step. “You know, I don’t even know where it’s going exactly.”

  “It’s a special order, so it won’t be ready until Thursday. Why don’t you call me and let me know what you want to do then. And that’ll give you time to work on the card.”

  The store door chimes tinkle as Trent huffs in. “Can you hurry? You don’t want to be late for your class. I don’t want you to be late for your class.”

  I hold out my hand. “Give me some money.”

  “Whatever, beggar. I’m broke.”

  “Yeah right. We both know you make crazy money.”

  “It’s all in savings.”

  “Then give me Dad’s just-for-emergencies credit card.”

  “You’re going to use Dad’s own credit card to buy him flowers?”

  I scoff. “I’m not buying flowers for Dad.”

  “I thought you said you and that boy were off.”

  I pat my open palm. “They’re for my teacher.”

  “Look, sis.” Trent shifts uncomfortably. “I saw this episode on Dateline and guys can get in some serious trouble—”

  “My female teacher whose dad just died. Do I need to deliver his eulogy to you or will you give me the money?”

  He grumbles but hands me the credit card. “You better pay Dad back.”

  “I will. Just as soon as I get a job.”

  He swears under his breath and walks back to the car. Five minutes later I join him, still-blank card in hand, wondering what I could write that would possibly do Miss Marietta any good.

  Yessica is in a particularly heinous—or maybe it’s good—mood that evening. It’s hard to tell because no matter the range of her emotions, she kicks our butts. Tonight, I’m faking the ride, too busy thinking about everything else to care about my intensity level. Around me, the other riders are in a similar mode, going through the motions and praying Yessica won’t single them out. Halfway through the ride, Yessica senses the class apathy and turns off the music.

  “All right. We’re going to take a break. Story time. Go ahead and cruise, you’ll know when it’s time to go again.”

  Too tired to care, we comply.

  “I want you to imagine you’re in the African wilderness. That’s right, an African wilderness. Straight-up Lion King here, folks. You’re walking down a trail, no, crawling down a trail because you’re so thirsty. Put that water down, Frank.
”

  Frank ducks his head and sticks his bottle back in place.

  “So. You’re thirsty. You see an oasis in the distance, and you know the only way you’re going to survive is if you get to it. Okay, start pedaling. Don’t go nuts, resistance is low, let’s just get it going.”

  We pedal, glances passed among strangers. A safari in the middle of spin class. Now it’s happened. Yessica has lost it.

  “You’re almost out of energy, so it’s going to take everything you have in your core to make it. You’re focused on that oasis. You’re not worrying about how you look in your safari wear or how much it hurts to keep going. All that matters is the water.”

  I’m getting into it now, less aware of what the other spinners are doing. I like the whole not-thinking thing. Jungles, oasis, whatever … just keep me going.

  “Now, Africa isn’t the most forgiving place, and as luck would have it, a big old jaguar is behind you now on the path, eyeing your butt as you pump on that bike.”

  I look back at my butt. I could feed the whole jungle.

  Yessica flips the music back on. “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns and Roses blares from the speakers. “Now get going! There is water at the oasis. Water and fat antelope that will make that jaguar forget about your scrawny butt. You’re biking toward something and away from something but it’s the same direction. The same goal. Now, straight sprint until the end of the song. GO! GO! GO!”

  Faster and faster my legs turn, except I’m not thinking about the ride or the pain. It’s something Yessica said. Biking toward something and away from something and it’s the same place. I should be getting something out of it, I know it, but I can’t quite grasp how it applies to me. I wish I had someone to explain it better.

  The song ends and we all grab our water bottles. Yessica begins the toweling off ritual. You know, I bet Yessica and Ms. Callahan would be great friends. They could sit around and spit self-help garbage out to each other. And they’re both big on the focusing thing. Except Yessica’s a little more one-dimensional. Her solution to everything is to spin harder. Ms. Callahan, if I were still seeing her, would slow the wheels down. Maybe Ms. Callahan is like the water or jaguar or something. Whatever—the metaphor is played out.

  But you know what? Maybe it’s not a bad idea for me to take the help that is available, to not be the idiot who won’t drink the water being handed to them. I should probably go suck up to Ms. Callahan and see what advice she has about all this crap I have going on now. At least her form of therapy is a lot more forgiving to my butt.

  I’m sitting outside Ms. Callahan’s office the next morning before she’s even there. There’s that bad coffee and paper smell that dominates school offices. The secretary keeps glancing at me, then the clock, then the counselor’s door. Finally she asks, “What time was your appointment, dear?”

  “Oh, I don’t really have one. I just need to talk.”

  “Ms. Callahan is always the last one here.” She cocks her head to the side. “You might want to get to class.”

  I grip the sides of the brown upholstered chair, prepared to stage a sit-in if I have to. “It’s kind of an emergency.”

  “Do you want me to have someone come and get you out of class?”

  “I want to sit right here in this chair until my guidance counselor walks through that door.”

  The secretary shrugs and turns on her radio station again. Michael Bolton this time. Save me, Ms. Callahan.

  Three minutes before the morning bell, Ms. Callahan breezes in wearing what can only be described as a muumuu. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a muumuu before, but I’m pretty sure this fits the description. Big, shapeless dress in a print screaming, “Hey, is the dress big and shapeless or is it just me?”

  Ms. Callahan is halfway to her office before she even notices I’m there. “We don’t have an appointment, do we?”

  “No, but … do you have a minute?”

  “I have three,” she says with the slightest edge in her voice.

  “I’ll take it.” I follow her into her office, where she heaves a large grocery bag onto her desk. A few cans of cat chow, the gourmet kind, roll onto the floor.

  “Oh, Mr. Nippers won’t be happy!” She sighs.

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Nippers. My cat. He hates dented cans.”

  Mr. Nippers. Riiiiight. She sweeps the cans back into the bag, plops into her swivel chair, and looks up at the ceiling. “All right, Payton. What can I do for you?”

  “Okay. Look. I never gave you a fair shot. I never gave any of this a fair shot. I’m sorry for that, and I’m sorry for the fight with Jac. I’m all alone now and I could really use some help.”

  Ms. Callahan busies herself shuffling papers around her desk. She’s looking down and she starts sniffing. Crap. Please don’t start crying. I do not need to deal with another emotional person. I’m emotioned out.

  She nods toward the seat in front of her desk and I take it. She clears her throat a few nasty phlegmy times before looking me square in the eye and saying, “Let’s figure this out.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  It’s pretty easy to like Ms. Callahan once I decide I don’t hate her. That, and it’s kind of hard to dislike someone when all they do is sit there and listen to me lament about life’s perils for sixty minutes, even when she said she only had three and even though she gets five calls on the intercom while I’m talking. And when I’m telling her everything, she never says, “Start talking to your dad or open yourself up to Sean.” Not all problems are that cut and dry. Mine’s more cut, wash, rinse, repeat.

  When I’m done, she gently recommends self-explorATION as a cure for my alienATION, which is personally one too many -ations for me, but I let it go.

  “But don’t you think I’ve done enough self-exploration? Can’t I do some team searching or something?”

  “With whom? You’ve severed ties with those you love.”

  “Well, what if I fix that?”

  “Is that what you want?” she asks.

  “I don’t want to make things better. I just want them to be better. I want the problems that caused all my messed-up relationships to just be gone so everything can be right again.”

  “Well, sorry, but that’s not going to happen. Think about it for a moment. I’m going to get some coffee.” She leaves and returns with two mugs. She passes me mine—purple with cartoon hands clasped and printed with the prayer, “Lord, please help me accept what I can’t change and change what I can’t accept.”

  I set it down on her desk without taking a sip.

  “Start small,” she says. “What do you think is the easiest fix?”

  “Well, making up with Jac maybe, although I wouldn’t call it easy …”

  “But easiest.”

  “Probably. Yeah.”

  “Try talking to her. See where it goes. Things can’t get any worse than how they are, right?”

  I nod noncommittally. If there is one thing I’ve learned in the last few months, things can always get worse.

  I think about it for two days and finally decide to just do it. Talk to Jac again. So maybe she hates me, maybe I’ll confirm my suspicion that she blabbed to Sean and then hate her, but at least we’re moving in a new direction. I’m being proactive. Or something.

  I already know one thing that’ll help, and I hide it in my locker the next day. Unfortunately for me, I have no idea where Jac is. Now that we’ve switched our hallway routes, I don’t know which way she gets to class. I try to hang by her locker, but this short Hispanic kid comes up and opens it. I start to ask why he is breaking into my friend’s locker when I see a bunch of anime pictures hanging inside. Jac locker swapped.

  Bio is shot because we’re in the small theater listening to a guest lecture by some nuclear physicist who discovered a rare bug (or maybe a sickness? A virus? A computer virus? Obviously I’m alert). Can’t be that important of a scientist if a high school is on her lecture circuit.

  I’m yanked from my
vegetative state when I overhear the skater kid, Dexter, talking to one of his shaggy-haired buddies about prank ideas. At first, it’s annoying chatter, but then I think of an idea of how I can use the Dextmeister to my advantage.

  “You guys want pranks?” I lean in between them. We’re in the farthest backseats of the theater, close to the door where I hoped to corner Jac after the bell.

  “You think you can pull a prank?”

  “No. I think you can.”

  Dexter shrugs. “What is it?”

  “Fire alarm.”

  His buddy snickers. “That’s original. Maybe we’ll put a tack on teacher’s chair too.”

  “Yeah, or stick ABC gum in her hair.”

  I lean back, my hands behind my head. “Suit yourselves. I mean, we do have the most anal hall monitors ever, and the alarms are now encased in glass and displayed in highly visible areas. You’d have to be Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible to make it happen, which is why we’ve never had a bogus fire drill, like, ever. But, you’re right. It’s elementary school stuff. Stick to Ex-lax in the brownies. Or whatever you guys put in there.”

  Dexter eyes me suspiciously. “How do you know all that?”

  “You’re looking at the leader of the school safety council two semesters running.”

  “Impressive.” They giggle. Like little girls. Doubt they do that around their skating friends. They’d be kicked off the half pipe. Whatever that is.

  “Fine. I’m just the only one who knows the hall monitors’ schedules and where the cameras are and which alarm to pull. But if you’re not interested—”

  “What’s in it for you?” Dexter asks.

  “Um …” I blink a few times. “Pure fun?”

  They stare at me expectantly.

  “Look, I could use a little rule-breaking in my life. Just do it and I swear upon my brother’s life I won’t tell a soul.”

  The boys study each other for a moment.

  “Dude, should we?” Dexter asks.

  “It’d be killer.”

  “We would reign.”

  “So, it’s on?” I interrupt before they grow some brain cells and realize the likelihood of a girl like me blindly aiding their master plans is slim to zilch.