“You’re standing close now.”
“If you can talk, you aren’t gonna throw up. So I can stand here.”
He’s irritating, but not untrue.
“When did you start smoking?” He asks. “Thought you were all clean-cut and going to Harvard, or some shit.”
“When did you?” I fire back.
“When my old man told me I was too wussy to smoke. Out of spite, I guess.”
“Where’s he now?” I ask.
“Jail.”
There’s a long quiet. Knife-guy puts his cigarette out.
“You’ve seen it, right?” He looks at me.
“Seen what?”
“That thing on Isis’ arm.”
“What thing?”
He chuckles. “For someone so smart and observant, you sure are slow.”
I don’t have the energy to do much more than curl my lip in his general direction.
“It’s been fun,” he finally speaks again. “Watching you two. Most fun I’ve had in a long time in this shithole. So I’ll give you some advice; don’t smoke around Isis.”
“What makes you think –”
“She won’t like it. Trust me.”
“Did she tell you that she hates it?”
“She didn’t have to.”
Knife-guy squints, and before I can interrogate him further, he’s gone around the wall. I mull it over for minutes, wracking my brain to put the pieces together. And then it clicks. Just as the bell rings for next period, it all clicks together.
My insides start to boil.
If I ever come face-to-face with Will Cavanaugh, it will be his death sentence.
***
Principal Evans is thrilled to see me. And by that, I mean he’s pacing around his office popping aspirin like candy.
“Evans!” I throw my arms out and yell. “Long time no see, buddy!”
“Isis, please, I have a headache –”
“HOW’RE THE WIFE AND KIDS?”
He groans. “You like tormenting me.”
“I like everything that isn’t boring.” I flop in the armchair across from his desk. “So? To what do I owe this illustrious summons?”
He gingerly removes his hands from his ears and reaches into his desk, pulling out an envelope with stately ink words on it, and a logo of a building of some kind.
“Is that what I think it is?” I ask.
“Stanford,” Evans says calmly. “Came for you today.”
“And you practiced enough self-restraint to not open it! You’re amazing, Evans. Really. You’ve grown up from the little boy who pasted my fat pictures everywhere.”
He flinches. “How about you open it?”
“How about I switch your apple juice with piss?”
“Isis –”
“Look, Evans,” I inhale. “My mom’s got a trial coming up. Dunno if you heard. She’s gonna need me. Probably for a long time. And I mean, I can do your catch-up homework thing and graduate or whatever, but the truth is, I’m not the best student. Obviously. Obviously you know that. I’m fine on paper, but I cause trouble and I’m immature and I say stupid stuff. So I didn’t really earn this. I mean, I did, but I don’t belong in college. Especially not a big huge Ivy League or whatever. They’d be better off giving the place to like, someone from China? Someone really dedicated and mature. Someone not-me.”
I push the letter back at him.
“So, you know. You can open that. Or trash it. I don’t care. But I’m not going.”
Evans is quiet. When he finally looks up at me, he somehow seems so much older. The wrinkles under his eyes are deeper, and his forehead creases with dozens of years of being tired.
“You’re doing the same thing Jack did.”
“What?”
“Refusing to go because of the people you love. Refusing to – to become amazing. You have so much potential, Isis. And you’re throwing it away.”
“What do you mean, refuse? Did he?”
“You don’t remember? He wanted to stay here, in Ohio, to take care of that girl, Sophia. He had offers from every Ivy League in the country, practically.”
“But he’s going to Harvard now. People won’t shut up about it.”
“Yes. But he only changed his mind after – I don’t know what changed his mind, actually. But I can’t let you do the same thing. Please. I know I said it would be your decision, but please. Open the letter, read it, and think it over. And if you still don’t want to go, I’ll respect your decision.”
I snort. I stare at the envelope for a few moments before snatching it back.
“Fine. Fine. But don’t expect a happy ending.”
Evans smiles, wanly. “I never do.”
I get up to leave, and he calls out to me.
“Oh, and Isis? Good luck with the trial. I hope he gets the justice he deserves.”
I clench my fists, and slam the door behind me. What does Evans know about justice? He was the scumbag who pasted my pictures everywhere, and then tried to make up for it when he found out I’m decent at grades by shoving me into the gaping, greedy maw of every snooty college in the world.
I push out the doors and into the quad. Chilly February air bites at my ankles, but the sun is out, and warms my face. It’s a calming contrast. I see Kayla sitting on a low brick wall and staring off into the distance.
“You look like you’re thinking,” I say. “Should I take a picture to commemorate the moment?”
She rolls her eyes. “Very funny. Hilarious, even.”
“I try.” I sit next to her. She furrows her eyebrows and goes back to staring at nothing. Before I think up a quip to jolt her out of her gloomy mood, she turns to me and suddenly says;
“Why does Wren act weird when he sees Jack?”
“Good question. I can’t be sure, since half my brain leaked out onto my hall floor a while ago, but I’m pretty sure it’s because he did something bad. At least, that’s what Wren and my foggy memories say.”
“Jack did something bad? Like…like what?”
“I don’t know.” I stare at the grass. “I honestly don’t know and it kills me on a daily basis but I somehow manage to revive and shuffle around in a mockery of living.”
“I remember they were friends,” Kayla says. “I came here in, like, fourth grade. They were friends. Wren and Jack and Avery and that Sophia girl were all friends. Really tight. Like a circle no one could get into. I was jealous of them. I didn’t have good friends – just people who liked the snacks in my house and my makeup kit.”
It sounds lonely. I don’t say that, though.
“Why are you down about Wren? You told me he’s a nerd.”
Kayla flushes. “W-Well, yeah. He’s the nerd king. But – I don’t know! He just gets so…so freaked when he sees Jack. It’s weird.”
“All I know is something happened in middle school. Avery did something to hurt Sophia, and Jack stopped it. And Wren was there, with a camera, because Avery bullied him into filming it.”
Kayla’s eyes go wide. “Do you think there’s a tape of it? If Wren filmed it –”
“I doubt he’d keep it. He’s so guilty, he probably destroyed it. You can ask him about it. But it really stresses him out. And he’s kind of always on the edge already. Never relaxes. It might not be the best thing to talk about.”
“Yeah,” she says softly.
“Why all the sudden concernicus, Copernicus? Do you…do you like him or something?”
Kayla’s face engulfs with a red-hot blush and she stands instantly.
“W-What? No! Don’t be stupid! He’s not my type!”
I laugh and follow her as she strides through the crisp grass.
“You’re a bad liar,” I say.
“You’re a bad…a bad…eyeliner-put-on-er!” She snaps. I smother my laughter and mildly fail.
“Look, I’m curious too. I’ve been curious for a while about this. Wren said something to me in the hospital about Lake Galonagah. Avery has a –”
“- family cabin up there,” Kayla finishes. “Yeah. I’ve been to it every summer for the last four years. It’s beautiful, and huge, and the lake is like, five steps from the door and the hammock is silk and the chandelier used to be Michael Jackson’s I think –”
“MJ’s table lamp aside, we should visit. Maybe not her actual house. Because that would be trespassing. So instead we’re going to lightly trespass around her house. Do you think you can remember the way to her cabin?”
“Did Chanel’s spring/summer 1991 collection redefine post-modern feminism in the fashion world?”
There’s a pause.
“Translation?” I try.
Kayla throws her arms up. “It means yes!”
“Awesome. Saturday, ten am, my place. I’ll drive. You provide the atmosphere. And Gatorade.”
“Saturday? I’m going with my mom to get her haircut. Why not Friday?”
“Trial,” I grunt. Kayla’s eyes widen.
“Oh. Right. I forgot about that.”
“I didn’t.” I singsong.
“Do you…do you want me to come? I could – I don’t know. Provide moral support? And Gatorade?”
I chuckle. “Yeah. I’d like that. A lot.”
Kayla laces her arm in mine, and smiles. There’s a nice quiet as we walk, the quiet that settles between two people who’ve said everything they’d been burning to say, only cool ashes floating to the ground. It’s peaceful, and comforting, and it helps calm my first-day-back nerves like a soothing balm.
And then Kayla promptly starts lecturing me on the fine points of Chanel’s spring/summer 1991 collection, and why I should care about extended shoulder pads and Technicolor peacoats.
And somehow, that’s even more comforting.
The world changes, and I change.
But some things always stay the same.
***
Mom isn’t home after school, so I take my pants off the second I walk in the door and sigh with relief. Hellspawn glares up at me with his big yellow eyes.
“Don’t give me that look. I know where you poop. And sleep. Sometimes both at once.”
He slinks upstairs to vomit in my dirty clothes basket or something equally elegant. I chuck my jeans after him and they land on the railing with a sad thunk, and then I plop down on the sofa and stare at the envelope Evans gave me. The Stanford logo peers up at me in red and white. It reeks of pretentious and I haven’t even opened it yet. I can smell the pretense gunk oozing up from the crack in the envelope.
It’s taunting me. So I get up and throw it in the fireplace.
The cold fireplace. With no actual fire in it. But in all fairness, if I was made of paper the mere presence of old coal ash rubbing up against my white butt would make me poop ink for days.
“Scared yet?” I ask. The envelope remains cheeky. By the time I work up the courage to open it, I’ve spent a half-hour staring at it. Just staring, and watching a bunch of terrifyingly important life choices flash before my eyes. Mom needs me more than Stanford does. But it’s Stanford. Stan-freaking-ford. Stan-is-so-loaded-his-last-name-might-be-Ford-like-the-guy-who-invented-that-one-car-Ford. They’ve got money out the butt and they’ve contacted me early. It’s a rejection. It has to be. A place like Stanford would never want a regular, boring mid-western white girl like me. I get good grades – so what? I don’t do a million charity after school things like Wren, I’m not Mensa-status like Jack, and I’m not loaded like Avery. There is literally nothing to set me apart from everyone else.
But if they accepted me – just if – then Evans is right. I hate the taste of those words on my tongue, but he’s right. Stanford would transform me. I’d go there, and learn so much, and become so much more. Or less. Or maybe I’d flunk. I’d fail, probably. But if I didn’t, places like Europe and things I’ve always wanted to do, like learn Spanish fluently or dive into Women’s Studies or peruse the mysteries of microorganisms – all that would be in my grubby little hands.
The sight of the bills piled on the table hits me like a ton of lead bricks. Who am I kidding? Even if this is an acceptance letter, there’s no way Mom could afford it. I’d be working my ass off 24/7 just to make tuition. I’d probably be miserable. It’d be smarter to just stay home, here, with Mom, and get a job and attend the local community college. It’d save both of us money.
I grab the envelope and make a mad dash for my room. I belly flop onto my bed and pull Mrs. Muffin to my side.
“Okay, you open it.”
I manipulate her little paws, my hands shaking, and she opens the envelope and extracts the letter. It flops open on the bedspread. I choke on my own saliva.
There’s more than just a letter. There’s a form of some kind.
‘Don’t be such a wuss!’ Mrs. Muffin seems to chime. ‘But don’t get hasty! Read the letter first!’
“Dear Ms. Blake. Congratulations! We are pleased to inform you you’ve been accepted to Stanford University for the Fall 2012 semesterOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD.”
‘Breathe!’ Mrs. Muffin wails. ‘Don’t forget to breathe! It is kind of required!’
My mind is blank – all thoughts of Jack, and what he said about ‘which kiss’ flying out the window. I temporarily forget about Lake Galonagah, and Sophia’s anger. I just have a minor coronary and collapse in on myself like a dying star. The peach tree outside my window is summarily impressed.
“I got in! I got into Stanford!” I shout at the ceiling. The letter shakes in my hand as I eagerly devour the rest of it. There’s something about a housing form, and a financial aid form, and at the very bottom is a mention of a grant. Grant? I never applied for a grant. Did Evans…?
And then my eyes widen at the amount on the attached paper. Thirty thousand dollars, for four years or until I get my bachelors, on the terms I keep a 4.0 average. It’s not a lot to Stanford, but it’ll put a huge dent in the tuition costs for me. I could actually keep afloat, if I got some more scholarships and worked. It’s doable. My heart squeezes and unsqueezes rapidly. I can do it. I can do something different, something wild and massive and incredible –
“Isis?” Mom’s voice filters up from downstairs. “Isis, are you home?”
I jump up and rush down the stairs, slipping on the bottom one but catching myself gracefully and launching into her chest.
“I got in!” I scream. “I got into Stanford!”
Mom’s eyes widen. “W-What? Stanford? How –”
I shove the letter in her hands and quiver on the edge of a knife for an entire ten seconds as she reads it. Her face lights up from the inside, like a candle through a frosted pane, glowing in all directions at once. She hugs me, harder than when I woke up in the hospital, harder than when I came home from the hospital, harder than when I arrived at the airport in Ohio from Florida.
“Oh sweetheart. I’m – I’m so proud. This is amazing! When did you apply to Stanford? And without telling me?”
“I just…I just put it in for kicks. I didn’t expect anything to actually happen,” I lie. Mom’s joy is overshadowed by worry lines, but she’s trying hard to hide them for me. It’s then I notice her coat, and the new prescription pills sticking out of her purse.
“Let’s talk about this after dinner, alright? Call your father and tell him!” Mom insists.
Dad’s just as thrilled. He offers to help me with some of the costs, the pride in his voice unmistakable.
“Kelly! Kelly!” I hear him call to my stepmom. “Isis got into Stanford!”
“Stanford!” Kelly’s saccharine voice pierces through the phone. “Quick, give me the phone.”
I suck in a breath and brace myself for the inevitable showdown.
“Isis!” Kelly exclaims.
“Kelly!” I imitate. “It’s so nice to talk to you again. Once every two years isn’t enough.”
“I agree! Stanford…wow. That’s incredible. I hope Charlotte and Marissa can be as smart as you when they get older.”
“They can try,” I say sweetly. She la
ughs, but under that laugh is the obvious – we dislike each other. We’ve just never said it out loud.
“You should really come visit us this summer,” Kelly presses. “Your father and I are taking the kids –” She puts emphasis on kids, rubbing it in my face that I’m not included in that category. “- to Hawaii. We should all go together before you head off.”
“Aw, but I like you so much more when you are a generally enormous distance away from me.”
She laughs, short and biting. “Well, I’ll give the phone back to your father now. Congratulations again!”
Dad comes back on. “So, what’s the plan? Do we fill out the FAFSA? I’m coming to your graduation – I could drive you down there. A road trip, for just you and me! How would you like that?”
I smile at the floor. Yeah. That’d be great. If I was five years old. He’s trying to make up for lost time. It’s so obvious, and so ridiculous. I’m not a kid anymore. He missed out on his chance to raise me. At least Mom tried, even if it was at the very end of my time as a kid.
“I dunno, Dad. I’ll think about it.”
“Okay! Keep up the good grades, and we’ll talk more about it later. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
The words are hollow. But that’s okay. Most things are, these days.
Mom bustles around the kitchen making a celebratory dinner. She’s forcing herself to be happy for me, but I know something’s wrong, and it’s not just the looming trial this time. She’s so wrapped up in her BLT making I can’t get a serious answer out of her, so I go upstairs and turn on my laptop and stare at pictures of Stanford. I do more research; there are amazing overseas programs. England, France, Italy, Belgium. The campus is something straight out of a magazine – perfect green lawns and white-washed buildings and the California sunshine turning everything golden. Their math program is incredible, with really famous professors I’d only read about in scientific journals. Not that I read that nerd shit. I just, uh, look at them while I’m pooping.
But still.
It’s everything I’ve never known I wanted.
I rifle though my email, to thank them for my scholarship, and to tell Evans, and pause at one particular message. It’s new – sent just four hours ago, from a weird address. At first I think it’s spam, but then I read the title;