Four Truths and a Lie

by Lauren Barnholdt

  “Can I talk to you for a second?” I ask, tapping my foot. I cross my arms against my chest.

  She holds up her finger, like one minute. “Yes,” she says into the phone. “I called Saddlecrest about the riding lessons, and they said Saturday mornings at eight are the only available time. But I think if I rearrange a few things, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “It’s kind of important,” I say, louder. I don’t care that she’s talking to her stupid mom about her stupid riding lessons or about her stupid math grade. I don’t care that I’m being completely rude.

  “I have to go, Mom,” Crissa says, sighing. “Scarlett’s here and she’s going on and on about something.” She pushes the end button on her phone and throws it down on the bed. “What is it?”

  “Why did you make James do that?” I demand. No more Miss Nice Guy. Who cares if no one likes me when they find out about my dad? It’s not like anyone does anyway.

  “What do you mean?” She puts an innocent look on her face, but I see the panic that passes across it for a second, and I can tell it’s not a real innocent look, but a fake one, carefully constructed to make sure she looks innocent when she really isn’t.

  “I mean why did you start making me do all those things!” I throw my hands up in the air. “I know you did it. I know you told James to do it, he told me. All about it. How you tricked him into thinking it would be a cool game for him to play, and then how you started making him do it. I’ve known all along! And I played along with it because I was afraid about the stuff about my dad coming out, BUT I AM NOT AFRAID ANYMORE.” I’m pacing around the room now, throwing my hands in the air like some kind of crazy person.

  “Look, Scarlett,” she says, jumping off the bed and smoothing her hair down with her hand. She checks her reflection in the mirror over her dresser. “What you decided to do with those letters was your own business. It had nothing to do with me.”

  “Why would you do that? There’s no reason for it! You hardly even know me!”

  “You know what?” she says, whirling around. “Have you ever stopped to think that maybe you deserved it, marching in here with your expensive clothes and your stupid makeovers?”

  I gasp. “I don’t wear expensive clothes anymore, and MY MAKEOVERS ARE NOT STUPID!”

  “And thinking you were so mysterious, making everyone think you came here because you were so smart, when really, it was just because of some stupid thing with your dad stealing!”

  “So you’re admitting it!” I say.

  “You know, Scarlett, a lot of people here work hard to be here. They don’t just get a free ride.”

  “I have been working hard,” I say.

  “Whatever,” she says. She gets up off the bed and heads to the closet, where she pulls a sweater off a hanger and pulls it over her head. She shoves her feet into her sneakers.

  “Oh, no,” I say. “You’re not leaving. We’re going to talk about this, whether you like it or not.”

  “Oh, Scarlett,” she says. “You don’t get it, do you? You’re lazy and rude and I’m sorry I have to even look at you.”

  And then she walks out of the room, and leaves me standing there with my mouth open.

  I’m so upset that I don’t sleep at all that night. Or for most of the weekend. I spend most of my time in the library, avoiding Crissa and studying. And studying. And studying. Math, science, English reading. I keep my brain moving so that I won’t have to think about what happened on Friday, and about how pathetic it was to give up everything I’ve worked for.

  On Tuesday morning in English, I get the following letter:

  Dear Scarlett,

  I’m so sorry for what happened on Friday. In fact, I’m sorry about this whole thing. I never should have even started it up. It was stupid. I can’t believe a lot of the things I’m doing lately.

  I hope you can forgive me. Can you? Please circle one. Yes. No. Maybe.

  James

  I send him back a blank piece of paper.

  On Thursday afternoon, I head slowly to the headmistress’s office for the meeting with my mom. When I get there, I can hear them laughing through the door. I take this as a good sign, until I walk into the room and the laughing stops. Well, okay then.

  I take a seat and decide that my new plan is to be completely and totally responsible, and to keep my cool. One of our vocab words in English this year was “equanimity,” and that’s what I’m going to be: equaniminous. It means very centered and stable.

  “Hello, Scarlett,” Headmistress O’Neal says, pointing to the chair in front of her desk. “Take a seat.”

  “Hello,” I say. I’m wearing a long gray skirt and a white blouse, both of which were borrowed from Amber, and look quite conservative if I do say so myself. Of course, I borrowed them before we had our fight, and I have a feeling if she knew I was wearing them, she would not be pleased. Over the past few days, I’ve tried to talk to her about a bazillion times and she just ignores me. The worst was yesterday, when I approached her while she was coming out of the newspaper office. She pushed right by me without saying anything except “I want my bracelet back.”

  “Hi, Mom,” I say.

  “Hello,” she says shortly. Not a good sign.

  “Now, I was talking with your mother before you got here, and I’ve filled her in on all the details.” She clears her throat. “My decision as far as disciplinary action is to suspend you for three days, keep you on probation, and let you know that if you break one more school rule, even if it’s something very small, you will be asked to leave Brookline. No questions asked. This means any school rule.”

  I swallow. “Okay.”

  “You will be allowed to play basketball for the rest of the year, provided your grades stay high.” She looks down at her papers. “From what I can tell, you’re doing fine here academically, so that doesn’t seem like it should be a problem.”

  “Yes,” I say. Well, until I possibly screwed up my math grade because of this whole thing, but I don’t bring that up.

  Headmistress O’Neal rises from behind her desk and smoothes down her suit. “Well,” she says. “Now that that’s taken care of, I’ll give you a moment alone with your mother.”

  She nods to us both, and then exits the room.

  The momentary relief I felt at being let off without too much of a punishment dissolves when I realize now I’m going to have to deal with my mom, who’s been silent up until this point. Seriously, she hasn’t said one word.

  There’s a moment of silence, and we don’t say anything for a second.

  “Scarlett—” my mom starts at the same time I say, “Mom—”

  Then we both stop.

  “Mom, look,” I say. “I’m so sorry that I did this. And it won’t happen again.”

  “You said that last time, Scarlett,” she says, pursing her lips. “I thought that bringing you to Brookline would allow you to have more fun, to focus more on your studies and on friendships, things that you should be focusing on at your age.”

  “I know,” I say. “I have been focusing on those things. I—”

  “But maybe I was wrong.” I look down at her lap, and see that she’s wringing her hands. Oh my God. I’ve upset my mom so much that she’s wringing her hands. She never does that, unless she’s super, super upset.

  “You weren’t wrong,” I try again. “I just—”

  “No, Scarlett, I was. I thought that allowing you to go here would allow you to get away from all the stuff with your dad, but now I think you’re just using it as an excuse to not deal with what’s going on.”

  I gasp. “Mom, no! I know I’ve had some tough times, but that doesn’t mean—”

  She holds her hand up. “Scarlett,” she says. “Please. Sneaking off campus to meet boys, literally ignoring your father. You’re acting out and not dealing with your life.” And then I realize she’s right. I think about the letter my dad sent me, still at the bottom of my bag, unopened.

  “You’re right,” I say, and n
ow the tears are coming strong. “Mom, I’m so sorry, I never wanted to disappoint you.”

  “Scarlett, honey, you’re not disappointing me. I love you and I just want you to be happy. But part of being happy means dealing with the things that are going on, not just ignoring them.”

  “Mom, I won’t—”

  “Scarlett, please.” She sighs. “I need some time to think about all of this.”

  And then she gets up and leaves.

  At basketball practice, no one will even look at me. It’s my first day back since I missed the game, since we were waiting to hear if I could still play. Coach Crazy has a big meeting with everyone at the beginning, and all she says about my little, uh, situation is that it’s been decided that I’ll be allowed to play on the team. I have a feeling that if it were up to her, she would not have let me back on the team, and for a second, I feel like everyone is going to start booing. You’d think they’d be relieved and excited, since without me, they only have four people. But Andrea is going to be getting her cast off next week, and before that, we only have one more game. The team is so mad at me, it seems like they’d rather forfeit that game than let me play.

  “I’m really sorry, you guys,” I say after the meeting. “I’m going to work really hard to make it up to all of you, and it won’t happen again. I won’t let you down.”

  But they don’t even respond.

  Coach Crazy works me hard in practice. She keeps yelling at me, “Northon, pick it up! Pick it up, Northon!” and “Northon, look alive!”

  ***

  Over the next five days, James sends me two more letters, apologizing for his part in the whole Crissa debacle. In the last one, he tells me it will be the last note he writes me but that if I ever decide I want to talk, I can write to him. I send back blank pieces of paper both times.

  I get a total of five hours of sleep. Honestly. Okay, maybe not exactly five hours, but that’s what it feels like. It’s probably more like twenty-five or thirty. But still. Five or six hours a night is definitely not good for me. I almost fell asleep the other day in science, and I came this close to burning my hair on a Bunsen burner, which would not have been a good look.

  I’m spending most of my time studying for the math test, going over problem after problem. Everything we’ve done in this unit, along with everything we’re about to do in the next three or four units. I’m also working myself hard in practice, running my butt off, even before Coach Crazy is yelling at me. And I’m staying after practice too, taking practice shots and working on free throws.

  On Tuesday, Andrea grudgingly says “Nice job” to me as she passes me on the way out of the gym. My face flushes.

  On Friday, we have a big unit test in math, and our second basketball game of the season. It’s also the day of the Brookline social, but as I’m not allowed to go to that, and wouldn’t have a date even if I was, I’m pretty unconcerned. I don’t sleep the night before, because I’m up trying to memorize equations, and also because I’m too nervous. At breakfast, I fill my plate with pancakes, sausage, bacon, and two pieces of toast with jelly.

  In math, I wait expectantly as Mrs. Walker starts passing out the tests. One row over, Crissa is inspecting her nails like she’s not nervous at all.

  The first three questions are easy—they’re from our review sheets, and I’ve gone over them five million times. The next two are new, but still pretty easy, since they use the same formula as the first two. The last five are a little more complicated, but I’m pretty sure I get those right, although there is a tricky situation with a decimal that almost makes me get the last one wrong.

  Then it’s time for the extra credit questions. There are ten extra credit questions, but definitely not enough time in the period to do all of them. We’re supposed to pick out the ones we think we have the best chance of getting right, and do them first.

  There are two that are pretty easy, and I do those first. The other ones are from units we haven’t gone over yet, so I do those as best I can. I’m working on my sixth problem when the bell rings. Crap. I finish it as quickly as I can, figuring a rushed answer that might be right is better than no answer at all.

  “How did you do?” Crissa asks me on the way out.

  And I look her right in the eye. “Fabulous.”

  I get called down to the headmistress’s office later that afternoon, which is quite upsetting. Why do they keep calling me down there?! There’s no way I can be in trouble, is there? Unless Crissa has decided to step up her “I hate Scarlett” campaign and frame me for some sort of crime that I haven’t committed.

  “Hi, Scarlett,” the office secretary says when she sees me walk through the door. Hmm. I doubt it’s a good sign when the secretary knows you by name. There’s no way that can be a good thing. It’s like she knows you as one of the bad kids or something. “You can go right in.”

  I walk into the office, checking the clock nervously. There are only two hours until my game, and I want to get there at least an hour early, so that I can make sure I’m all suited up, and that I don’t have a repeat of last time.

  When I knock on the door to the headmistress’s office, a voice on the other side calls “Come in!”

  My mom is sitting in front of the desk. Headmistress O’Neal is nowhere to be found.

  “Mom!” I exclaim. I am so happy to see her that I run up and throw my arms around her. I inhale her scent, a combination of perfume and peppermint gum. But then I have a horrible thought. Maybe my mom is here because she wants to take me out of Brookline.

  “Hi,” she says, giving me a squeeze.

  “Where’s the headmistress?” I ask.

  “She’s not here.” She sits down in one of the big leather chairs in front of the desk. She smoothes her skirt and gestures toward the other chair. I sit. “She said we could have the office to ourselves.”

  I swallow around the lump in my throat. The headmistress probably wanted us to have the room to ourselves, so that when my mom tells me she’s taking me out of Brookline, she doesn’t have to witness it. She probably thinks I’m going to make a scene or something, with a big tantrum and lots of yelling.

  “That was nice of her,” I say.

  “It was.” My mom nods and clears her throat. “Scarlett, I’m sorry for yelling at you the other day.”

  “It’s okay,” I say. “I deserved it. I shouldn’t have snuck off campus like that.”

  “I realized that I was putting my own stuff on you,” she says. “It’s just that I met your father when I was so young, and I just … I don’t want the same thing happening to you.”

  “I understand.” I say, looking down at my hands. I wonder if I’ll have to leave school immediately, like on TV when someone gets fired and they have to pack up their stuff in a box. And then security has to escort them out. Is Jasper going to be asked to walk me to my mom’s car? I probably won’t even be able to play in the basketball game tonight. All those suicides and shooting drills for nothing. Maybe I’ll be able to play on the team at my old school.

  “But I should have just let you find your own way,” my mom says. “I shouldn’t have tried so hard to keep you from things that I thought would hurt you. Maybe by keeping you from that stuff, it just made you want to avoid those things more, I just don’t—”

  “Mom!” I say, holding my hands up. “No. You did the right thing. I’m the one who messed up. I’m the one who was breaking the school rules. I shouldn’t have done that. I let you down, I let my friends down, I let my basketball team down. I let myself down.” A tear slips out my eye and down my cheek, and I wipe it away with the back of my hand.

  “You made a mistake, that’s all,” my mom says. She reaches over and squeezes my hand. “And I’m really proud of the grades you’ve gotten here. Headmistress O’Neal was telling me about how well you’re doing, especially in English, which she says is one of their most challenging programs.”

  “Thanks.” I’m really crying now, the tears slipping down my cheeks. “It’s ju
st really hard, you know, Mom?”

  “I know,” she says, putting her arms around me.

  “I really miss him,” I say into her shirt.

  “I miss him too,” she says. And we sit there, like that, both of us crying, for a long time.

  On my way over to Gym A for the game, I stop by Amber’s room and knock on the door. She opens it, takes one look at me, and starts to shut it.

  “Wait,” I say. “I wanted to give you back your bracelet.” I hold it out, along with the romance novel she let me borrow the first night we hung out.

  “Thanks,” she says, taking it back. “Is that all?”

  “No,” I say. “I … Look, I’m sorry, and I’m sure you’ve heard, but I’m not allowed to go to the dance.”

  “So?” she says.

  “So, I was thinking that if you were still going, you could wear my dress.” I hold out the emerald green dress that I bought when I went shopping with my mom. “And I could probably do your hair and makeup if you want. You know, before my game.”

  She stares at the dress for a really long time, and then opens the door. “Come in.”

  Twenty minutes later, Amber looks like a gorgeous princess.

  “You look gorgeous,” I tell her.

  “Thanks,” she says, twirling around.

  “Amber, I’m so sorry that I looked in your journal.” I look down at my hands. “Look, the thing about my dad … My dad is Steve Haverhill.”

  “Steve Haverhill?” She frowns. “Why does that name sound familiar?”

  “Because he stole money from his company, and it’s this big scandal.”

  “Oh!” she says. “Right, from WebWorkz. He’s your dad?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “And the reason I came here was because it was a total scandal at my other school, everyone knew, and there was this girl, Brianna, and a situation with a lip gloss and … anyway. I didn’t want anyone here to know. But now everything’s all screwed up, so it doesn’t even matter.” I’m crying now. “And you’re the best friend I have here, and to think that I messed it up over something so stupid is just …”