by Liz Miles
“Let’s just turn off the faucet and be done with the stupid problem,” I said. “That’s what any fool would do if they were worried about the tub overflowing.”
“Well, it’s not just bathtubs.” Connor was always straining to show me how calculus could be used in real life. “Imagine if you had a leaking tank.”
“If you have a leaking tank, you shouldn’t be adding anything to it, don’t you think?”
He sighed. “Okay, let’s start over. If—”
My phone went off again, Annie this time. Connor said, “I’m gonna throw that phone in—”
“—a leaking bathtub,” I finished, clicking on the phone. “Yeah, Annie, what’s up?”
“We have head things,” she said.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“For the wedding. We have these things we’re supposed to wear on our heads.”
“Hats?”
“No, not hats. Hats would be something normal people could at least recognize. These are big poufy things that clip on to your hair.”
“What are they? Bows? Flowers?”
“They don’t look like anything you’ve ever seen before.”
“Imagine if a yellow marshmallow exploded,”Monica yelled in the background. “That’s what they look like.”
“So we’re going to wear exploded marshmallows on our heads?” I said. “Are you sure?”
“Ohhh, very sure. Emily told us herself, and what’s more, she thinks they’re the cutest, most clever things ever.”
Connor tapped his calculus book. “You know I have to go to work in half an hour, right?” he said.
“Oh, Annie, look, I have to finish this exam. Talk to you later.”
“Well, if you don’t object to looking stupid at the wedding …”
“Annie, I’ve seen the dresses, remember? We were already going to look stupid.”
In the half hour we had left, Connor managed to help me unravel one of the seven remaining problems.
“What do I do about the other six?” I asked, frowning at the blank spots on my page.
“You can do them,” he said. “Just take your time.”
“Maybe you can help me when you get back?”
“I’m working late tonight.” He kissed me, hunted out his car keys, and paused in the doorway. “But you can stay here a while longer, if you want.”
I smiled at him. Something about the way the doorway framed him, the way he jingled his keys, the piece of hair that stuck up just over his left eye, made me want to snap his picture right then.
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “I’m not stupid, and I have your notes to go by.”
• • •
Nine-thirty. I had to leave; neither Connor’s parents nor mine wanted me staying here this late. Yet all I had for these last six problems was a big smudge, the sign of repeated erasing.
I dropped Connor’s notes and mine, and stared at the folder where I knew he had stored his completed exam. I would just look at the first line of Connor’s answer, I told myself. As soon as I saw where he was going, I’d be able to take the next step myself.
No, I decided. As much as Connor and I worked together, we had never just plain copied from each other. We’d joked about a guy at school who also wanted to be a doctor, and who was known for cheating: What’s he going to do in surgery, read the instructions off the back of his hand?
“Sarah!” Connor’s mother called up the stairs. “Do you need a ride home?”
“Um, in a minute, thanks!”
I was out of time. And so I looked.
I copied down Connor’s first line, but I didn’t see what to do next.
I’m so tired, I told myself. One more line, and I’m sure I’ll see how to do this.
My phone beeped then—Mom, calling me home. I stared at my test paper, unable to imagine several more hours at home alone, wrestling with these unbelievable problems. I looked at Connor’s paper, at his nice, neat, worked-out solutions.
My phone beeped again. I could hear Connor’s mother shuffling around at the foot of the stairs, her footsteps and the clink of her keys.
I started scribbling.
I wasn’t worried about the teacher seeing that Connor and I had solved the problems in exactly the same way. She knew we worked together, and we were both A students, and we both knew our stuff when she called on us in class. Although it took me longer to get the material, I always did learn it eventually, and I could answer any question she might have about how I’d solved my problems. I had never just copied blindly from Connor; he’d helped me figure things out. He’d taught me how to solve the problems myself.
Until now.
Enough, I told myself, as I packed my book bag for the next day and set it beside my bed. The calculus was done, and I wasn’t going to worry about it any more. I had plenty of other things to worry about—like having to wear an exploded marshmallow on my head and an asymmetrical pineapple dress on my body at Emily’s wedding. Like Gramps using up all the hot water tomorrow morning if I didn’t get in the shower first. And Gramps was hard to beat, since he didn’t sleep much and was always up by 5 a.m.
When I closed my eyes, I still saw equations, scribbled figures, variables. I had calculus poisoning of the brain, I told myself, rolling over in bed.
Hopefully, you didn’t need calculus to be a doctor.
• • •
On Wednesday, we got back our calculus exams. Connor and I both had our usual As. My paper said nothing about copying; the only mark on it was the A.
I stuffed my paper in my pack, and Connor and I walked over to the bridal shop. “I want you to see this monstrosity,” I told him.
“You’ll look fine.”
“Keep saying that. You have to see the dress now so you can prepare yourself. That way, you’ll be able to keep a straight face on the wedding day.”
When I came out in the pineapple concoction, complete with what Annie had called “the head thing” wobbling above my forehead, Connor looked up. He’d been sitting in a pink vinyl chair next to a three-way mirror, studying his shoelaces, but when I swept out of the dressing room, he lifted his chin.
“Well?” I said.
His eyes skipped over the dress and fixed right on my face. “Beautiful,” he murmured.
• • •
My grandfather turned out to have an unexpected appetite for brains—the chocolate-peanut-butter kind, at least. Connor and I came home from the bridal shop to find one lonely brain left in the box.
“I can’t believe they’re almost gone,” I said.
Connor peered into the box and smiled. “If you eat that, will you have no brains left?”
“Ha ha. You want to split this with me?”
“Nah, you go ahead.”
“Oh, come on. At least take the occipital lobe.”
He bit into one end of the brain I held up for him. I licked a stray thread of peanut butter from his lips and popped the rest of the candy into my mouth. He kissed me as soon as I swallowed.
“Break it up,” Gramps said, shuffling into the living room. “Where the hell’s the remote?”
“Haven’t seen it,” Connor answered.
Gramps squinted at him. “What are you doing here, anyway? Do you live here now? You ought to pay rent.”
Connor laughed, but his face flushed. I took his hand. “I’m at Connor’s just as much, Gramps.”
Gramps just grunted. I led Connor up to my room, where we had to keep the door open, but sometimes we could kiss a little before anyone passed my doorway.
Connor flopped on to the bed. “What’d you get in calculus?”
“A. You?” As if I didn’t know.
“A. See, I knew you could do it.” A grin spread across his face. “You must’ve been up all night Sunday.”
I took a breath, the peanut-butter brain seeming to have grown to a bowling ball in my stomach. “Not too late,” I said.
“The last one was tricky, wasn’t it? I heard a lot of people
got it wrong.”
My face was heating up. I sat on the desk chair and said, “Mm, sort of.” And I was thinking, I should tell him. He probably won’t even care. He won’t, will he?
But what if he did? He sat there, open-faced, smiling at me. Connor had never cheated, as far as I knew.
He never had to, a little voice whispered in my brain. He’s too smart.
So had I been, until Sunday night.
But was “never needing to” enough? Was that all that had kept me honest?
Forget it, I told myself. It’s over and you didn’t get caught, and nobody cares. It’s not like you didn’t try to do the problems the right way. It’s not like you couldn’t have figured them out yourself eventually, if you’d had another week.
“What’s the matter?” Connor said.
“What?”
“You look kind of … strange.”
“Strange how?”
“I don’t know. Are you okay?”
“Wonderful. Amazing.” I pushed stray hairs off my damp forehead. I took a deep breath, thinking, Tell him. No, don’t tell him.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” I sat down beside him and laced my fingers through his. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
It was like I’d stolen something from Connor.
That’s exactly what it felt like. When his lips touched my neck, his hand stroked my hair, all I could think about was the fact that I’d copied from him. And worse, that he didn’t know I’d copied from him. First I was a cheater, and now a liar, too?
“What’s wrong?” he said. “I know something’s wrong with you.”
“Nothing. It’s just—my mom is going to walk past any second, I know it.”
I should stop making a big deal out of this. It wasn’t grand larceny. Connor wouldn’t even care. At least, I didn’t think he would care.
Probably not.
• • •
Emily’s father let us all have wine at the wedding-rehearsal dinner, which was probably a mistake. Annie took Monica and me aside after the dinner, and we huddled on the steps of the restaurant. “Tomorrow we’ll be doing this all over again, except then we’ll be dressed like idiots,” she said.
“With poufy things on our heads,” Monica moaned.
“And Emily’s going to be married. Like a grown-up.” Annie shuddered.
“Things’ll never be the same again,” I said.
“Oh, look at you, pretending like that’s such a tragedy,” Annie said. “Don’t tell me you aren’t about this close to getting married yourself, Sarah.”
“Whaaaat?”
“You and Connor are practically married already.”
My face, already heated with wine, seemed to ignite. “No, we’re not.”
“Oh, come on. I bet he’s buying you a diamond any second.”
“God, Annie, we’ve still got another year of high school. And Connor can’t afford a diamond.”
“All you need is a down payment.” Annie gulped wine, her eyes bobbling a little, the way they did whenever she’d had too much. “You know what? I asked him out when we were freshmen.”
“What?”
“Connor. Before he started going out with you. I asked him out.”
“I never knew that!” Monica said. “What happened?”
“We went to a movie,” Annie said, her eyes avoiding mine. “We had a great time. But then—nothing.”
“You went out with Connor?” I said, still unable to digest it. I thought I knew every guy Annie had ever seen, or thought about seeing, or fantasized about seeing.
“It was while you were in Chicago with your family—and I didn’t say anything because it was just that once. I told him I wanted to see him again, and he gave me the ‘You’re great but I just want to be friends’ speech.”
“Ugh, I hate that speech,” Monica said.
“There was no point in bringing it up, it was too humiliating. And then later, when you started going out with him—what was I supposed to do? Say, ‘Oh, by the way, I once went to a movie with him?’ It wasn’t like anything much happened.”
“Did you kiss him?” I said.
“Whoa,” Monica laughed.
I expected Annie to say, No, of course not. Hadn’t she just said that nothing happened? But she stood silent, staring out across the restaurant’s parking lot. Metal car hoods gleamed coldly under the lights.
“Annie!” I said. “Did you kiss him?”
“Well, yeah,” she said. “I mean, that was all. Just one kiss. Like I said, it never went anywhere.”
I turned and walked back into the restaurant, where people had clumped up into quiet groups. I dragged Connor away from Brian’s side.
“What’s up?” he said.
“Did you go out with Annie?”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Did you go out with Annie when we were freshmen?”
“No.”
“You didn’t? To the movies?”
He blinked at me, and then something flashed in his eyes. “Oh! Yeah, I forgot all about that.” He stared past me, at the velvety wallpaper. “That’s right, we went to a movie once.” His eyes refocused on me. “What about it?”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“I didn’t even remember it.”
I closed my eyes. The wine burned in my stomach.
“You’re not actually upset about something that happened three years ago, are you?”
“Connor.”
“What?”
“I copied your calculus test.”
“What?”
I opened my eyes. “The last six answers, the ones we didn’t get to, I copied them right off your paper.”
He pushed the hair back off his forehead. “Sarah, what’s with you tonight? You’re acting crazy.”
“Didn’t you hear me? I copied your answers.”
“Yeah, I heard.” He looked past me again.
“What do you—think about that?”
“I think it was stupid. You didn’t learn anything that way, and we both could’ve gotten in trouble.”
“I know.”
“The teacher could’ve thought I copied from you.”
I hadn’t thought of that before, but he was right. “I wouldn’t let you take the blame if that happened.”
“Great,” he said, his voice dead as a flat tire.
• • •
As I came down the stairs the next day, teetering on my golden shoes, Gramps said, “In my day, girls knew how to dress.”
“In your day, I’m sure bridesmaid dresses were just as ugly as they are now.” I concentrated on each step, thinking that a bridesmaid with a fractured ankle would ruin Emily’s day. Not to mention mine.
Gramps rifled through the chocolate-brain box, as if hoping the empty ruffled cups would magically reveal a leftover brain we’d overlooked. I glanced at the door. Connor was usually early, but today he was on the verge of being late. And after the silent car ride home last night, I was wondering whether he’d show up at all. Then again, Connor had never failed to show up in his life.
The doorbell rang. I exhaled and said, “Bye, Gramps, Connor’s here.”
“Ask him where to get more of this candy,” Gramps hollered after me.
“You ready?” Connor asked, not meeting my eyes.
“Yeah.” I decided to try a joke. “Can’t you tell? I mean, you don’t think I’m just wearing this to the church and I’m going to change into some other hideous dress when we get there, right?”
He jingled his keys without laughing. “Let’s go, then.”
We were in the car, his eyes on the road and mine on the side of his face, when I said, “Can we at least talk about this?”
“Okay.”
I licked my lips. “I’m sorry.”
“What I can’t figure out is why you did it,” he said. “You’re smart enough. You didn’t need to.”
“I did need to. I could not get those last problems.”
&
nbsp; “Then why didn’t you leave them blank? You still would’ve passed the course.”
“We have to do more than pass. We have to get good grades to get into a good college to get into a good med school.” I swallowed. “I never knew you were so strict about rules. I seem to remember you forging an absence note so we could go to the beach last year …”
“It’s not about rules,” he said. “It’s just—I thought I knew you. Knew what you would and wouldn’t do. I never guessed you would cheat on a test.”
“I never did before.”
After a minute of silence, I said, “I thought I knew you and Annie, too.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I can’t believe I never knew you two went out!”
He jerked the wheel to the right and shifted the car in to park. Turning to me, he said, “You never knew because I didn’t remember it. It wasn’t important. It’s not like she was ever my girlfriend, or …”
“I think she has a crush on you,” I said. “I think she has for a long time. And I didn’t even know that until last night.”
“Annie? No way.”
“You should’ve heard the way she talked about you. She does.”
He frowned as if trying to absorb that piece of information. “Well—but I’m with you.”
“Even though I’m a cheater?”
He laughed softly. “Yeah, even though.”
“And even though I’m dressed like the Pineapple Freak Queen of the Eastern Seaboard?”
“Well, that’s giving me second thoughts …”
I poked him in the shoulder.
He said, “We’re going to be late for this wedding.”
“I guess you’re right.”
He shifted back into drive and we rolled onward, toward the church. “Connor,” I said, “I’ve felt horrible ever since I finished that test. I didn’t know what else to do. I was desperate, and I was so sick of looking at those problems, and I knew your answers would be right, and …”
“School’s only going to get harder,” he said. “Wait until we hit med school.”
