Best Behavior

by Wendy Francis

  And joy. Her kids have done it. They are graduates, free to go out into the world and make their name or, as their speaker said today, fail until they get it right, whatever “it” might turn out to be.

  She looks to Joel and is surprised to see that his eyes are edged with tears. “You’re such a softy.” She gives his forearm a squeeze. “And here I thought I’d be the one with all the Kleenexes.”

  Joel lifts a hand to swipe at his eyes. “Allergies,” he says jokingly. “I’m just so ridiculously proud of them.” And that’s when Meredith realizes it—Lily or no Lily, frogs or no frogs, blistering temperatures or not—this may well be the best day of her life.

  ELEVEN

  The release of the frogs surpassed even Cody’s wildest expectations. Earlier, he and Brad had worked it out so that, after the commencement speech, Brad’s younger brother, Josh, and his friend would sneak off to the bathroom in the main hall, where two boxes of frogs awaited in a locked stall (Cody and Brad had placed them there right before falling into line for the graduation processional). From there, Josh and his buddy would return to the courtyard, and from the shelter of a clump of azalea bushes, set the frogs free. The plan, which could have gone awry in so many different ways, had gone off without a hitch. Hundreds of tiny frogs hopping around the courtyard and croaking their lungs out! It was the sauce. The ultimate senior prank, and they’d pulled it off.

  But now he has to remind himself to play it cool, as if he knows nothing about its provenance or who might be involved. It’s tough, though, because he’s sweating bullets under his cap and gown in this heat, and he probably looks guilty as hell. A couple of buddies trot over to high-five him.

  “Cody, man, that was ahh-mazing.”

  Cody shrugs, looks around to make sure no one official is within hearing range, and says, “Yeah, well, it was a team effort, as you know.” He’s referring to the fact that about two weeks ago, he and Brad collected money from seniors interested in contributing to the senior prank. It had been surprisingly easy to locate frogs for sale online, which were also relatively inexpensive (apparently, frogs were a popular feeding source for pet snakes). For ten to twenty measly bucks, a senior could purchase their “own” frog. Sixty percent of the senior class had participated, which Cody thought was pretty damn impressive. Of course, Dawn couldn’t be bothered, so he didn’t even ask her. Sometimes it surprised him how out of the loop his sister was. All she cared about anymore was hanging out with Matt and her cross-country friends. And avoiding the Admin Board at all costs.

  “Dude, that was awesome. We hit the ball out of the park!” Brad is so euphoric, you’d think he’d just scored the winning run in the World Series, but even Cody has to agree. His face breaks into a wide grin.

  “I know. It was sick. Totally worth it just to see Halberstam running around trying to catch them all.” He pulls Brad aside. “Hey, make sure your brother and his pal know how much we appreciate it.”

  “Already taken care of.” Brad assures him. “They’ve been duly compensated for their efforts, no worries.”

  “Cool.” As he says it, a frog hops by them, and Brad breaks out laughing. “Man, the Class of 2020 is going to go down in infamy.”

  “And I suppose we have you guys to thank for that?” His sister has snuck up beside them.

  Cody feigns innocence. “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Yeah, right. Anyway, we should really find Mom. She’s probably freaking out, wondering where we are.”

  Cody can’t disagree with that. “Later, dude,” he tells Brad and follows his sister’s cap with the dorky peace sign on top while keeping an eye out for Melissa. At the beginning of the ceremonies, he’d spotted Melissa in line, but she’d pulled her gaze away as soon as she saw him. He doesn’t know what to think. Maybe they really are broken up? He told his sister they were, but his conversation with Melissa yesterday plays through his mind. He’s not quite sure how to reconcile what was said with what’s in his heart. They’d been lounging on the quad, Cody enjoying the tickle of a blade of grass that Melissa was trailing across his face, his eyes closed. Their talk was about the summer, about how lame it was going to be and how much they’d miss each other. She still didn’t know what she wanted to do next year and was calling it her “gap year” (though technically Cody is pretty sure that applies to the year between high school and college). But whatever. Whatever she decided to do was cool with him, he told her. Which was when, somehow, the conversation had gone south.

  “You know, we could make a plan,” she’d suggested, playfully pulling the grass across his cheek and down to his earlobe.

  “Yeah?” The tease in her voice sounded promising.

  “For next year, I mean.”

  “Oh?” He cracked one eye open. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you and me. Maybe we could, you know, be together.”

  “You’re going to come visit me, right?”

  “Of course, silly.” She kissed him softly, and her lips were sticky and sweet with gloss that tasted like watermelon. “But I wouldn’t need to visit you if we were together.” He tried to parse her words for their true meaning. Was she suggesting they move in together? Not that it would be so bad, but they’d never even discussed her coming out to North Dakota. That was big, as in she’d be hooking herself to him without any plans of her own. He wasn’t sure he could handle the pressure. What if things didn’t work out between them?

  “Whoa.” He bolted upright. “Are you saying you want to move to North Dakota with me?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Duh. Yes, Cody Landau, that’s what I’m driving at.”

  “But I thought you were going to hang around LA, see if you could land an internship with a movie producer or something? You know, your gap year.”

  She tossed the blade of grass away and shrugged. “The more I think about it, the dumber it sounds. I think it would be a lot more fun to hang with you on the reservation.”

  “Huh.” He’d lain back down, wondering what had sparked the change of heart. The thing was, Cody was looking forward to striking out on his own for a year, no attachments whatsoever. He’d worked hard to land this job and was already drawing up lesson plans in his head for his students. He was going to change lives, make a difference. If Melissa came out, that would throw a whole wrench into his first year. He’d be worrying about her all the time, making sure she was happy.

  “What? You don’t think it’s a good idea?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m thinking.”

  “Well, maybe you shouldn’t think so hard.”

  “What would you do out there?”

  He could almost hear her shrug. “I don’t know. I’m sure I could find something. Maybe I could be your assistant in the classroom?” She inched closer and rested her head on his shoulder.

  But that struck him as a horrible idea. He didn’t want Melissa in the classroom with him! He’d be totally distracted, as would his students. She was way too cute to hang out in the back of the room and help with passing out papers.

  He sat up again, trying to figure out a generous way to say this, but then she’d pulled herself up so that her face was level with his and the blue of her eyes seemed to have shifted a shade darker. “What? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” He slipped his flip-flops back on. “We never really talked about it before, though. You’re kind of springing it on me.”

  At which point, it was as if pointy knives had sprung from her head. “I thought you’d be excited about it! Happy to know you’d have some company.” She jumped to her feet, hands on her hips, and shot him a familiar look—righteous and wronged.

  “Geez, don’t go all postal on me, okay?” he said.

  “Postal?” Her cheeks flooded with color, which had the effect of making her look even cuter. “We’ve been dating for almost four years, Cody.
Four years.” She held up four fingers as if to underscore the point. “Don’t you think this might be a logical next step? Putting down some roots together?”

  Logical next step? Roots? What the hell were they talking about? “First of all,” he began, trying to keep his voice on an even keel. “I don’t know if they’ll renew my contract beyond one year. And second of all, how is it that we’ve gone from having a perfectly nice afternoon to you yelling at me because I don’t think it’s a great idea for you to pack up and move to North Dakota all of a sudden? You know how messed up that is, right?”

  Melissa spun away from him. “My bad. Never mind. My mistake. I thought we were in love. No, let me correct that. I thought we loved each other as in I’ll-follow-you-to-the-ends-of-the-earth love. Apparently I was wrong.”

  “Hey, I never said we wouldn’t be together some day.”

  She twisted her lips in disgust. “You just did! If you can’t commit now, Cody, when will you?”

  He was dumbfounded into silence. “I thought I was already committed,” he tried, but his voice wavered, sounding unconvincing even to him.

  “Not if you can’t even entertain the idea of spending a whole year with me.”

  “Mel, that’s not what I meant—” But she’d stormed off.

  “Call me in a few years when you’re a grown-up,” she huffed over her shoulder.

  Cody assumed it was a short-lived drama—they’d gotten into some crazy fights before and they always made up, usually with some pretty amazing sex. Pretty soon, he figured, she’d text him a sad emoji, saying she was sorry for freaking out on him. But when she didn’t, he’d grudgingly folded, texting her one word, sorry, followed by a string of hearts. That should have done the trick.

  But then his text had gone unanswered (which really ticked him off), and the next time he saw her was at the Burren, with some other guy’s hands buried in her hair, his tongue halfway down her throat. Melissa knew she’d find him at the Burren last night. It was a revenge make-out session, pure and simple, and Cody refused to take the bait. Instead, he’d allowed his drunken self to be pulled out onto the dance floor with some of the lacrosse girls. You want to play that game? Fine. I can screw around, too, he thought.

  But now that their blowout is twenty-four hours behind him, he’s missing her like his thumb has been lopped off. It literally hurts. How things got messed up so quickly makes his head spin. He’s pondering all of this while he tries to keep up with his sister’s screwball path through the crowd to their parents. The courtyard air is tinged with a ripe smell, the aroma of sweat, cologne, perfume, and excitement all blending together in a kind of funky, primal fragrance. There are so many families milling about that they almost stride right past their mom and Joel.

  “There you are!” His mom exclaims and pulls them both into a fierce hug. “Congratulations! I’m so proud of you two.”

  “Bring it in, kids.” Joel joins the group hug, and while it feels good to be on the receiving end of all this adulation, Cody finds himself pulling away before everyone gets too misty-eyed. “Way to go,” Joel says. “Congratulations. You’re officially adults now. Good luck to you.” He slaps Cody on the shoulder in half jest. “And how about those frogs? They pretty much stole the show.”

  “Yeah, totally nuts,” Cody agrees, playing it cool. He can tell his stepdad is searching for clues, asking in code if he’s somehow behind the frog invasion. But Cody’s not about to fess up to pulling off one of the coolest pranks in Bolton’s history. He’s not that stupid.

  “Does anyone have some water?” Dawn gathers her hair up in a loose ponytail and dramatically fans the back of her neck with her program. “I’m dying in this heat.” In typical mom fashion, Meredith hands over what’s left of her water bottle and then fumbles through her purse for something else. Granola bars. Cody, suddenly realizing how ravenous he is, wolfs one down in about a minute.

  “So, let me see, let me see,” his nana insists. “I want to lay my eyes on the actual diploma.” From the envelope, Dawn slides out the creamy stationery with Bolton College embossed on the top, her name scrawled in calligraphy along the bottom. “Oh, honey, that’s fantastic.” His nana takes the diploma and admires it before handing it back. “Congratulations.”

  “And, Cody, let’s see yours now.” He appreciates that his nana is trying to include him, but honestly it feels like overkill to show off both of their diplomas. Still, no one says no to Nana, so he unfastens the envelope and reaches in for the certificate.

  Except it’s not there. The envelope is empty.

  His heart does a tiny flip. Does this have something to do with the frogs? Has he been found out? Or is it something more sinister, like the photo that Dawn flaunted at him yesterday?

  “Um, there’s nothing in here,” he says.

  His mom shoots Joel a confused look. “Huh, that’s weird.”

  He pulls the envelope open wider just to be certain he’s not missing it when his eye lands on a small, rectangular piece of white paper stuck at the bottom, which he retrieves and reads out loud. “Unfortunately, there appears to be a slight issue with your diploma. Please report to Dean Halberstam’s office promptly after graduation ceremonies to resolve said issue.” When he glances up, his eyes meet Dawn’s. Shit. He’s been caught—for something.

  “How strange!” His mom looks from Joel to him and back to Joel. “We’re all paid up on tuition, right?”

  “Should be,” says Joel.

  “There must be some misunderstanding.” She waves a hand in the air. “Maybe the note was meant for someone else who hasn’t paid? I mean, how many kids do they have graduating today? Over a thousand? It would be easy to confuse things. Your diploma probably got mixed up with someone else’s. Someone who hasn’t paid in full. It’s only a matter of time before they figure it out.”

  Cody is grateful when Joel nods and says, “Yeah, that must be it. The dean announced it and all, so it’s official. Now we just have to find the piece of paper so you can show it off.” He’s kidding around, trying to keep things light, which Cody appreciates. But his stomach isn’t cooperating, and he knows he’s got to find Brad, see if he has the same notice in his envelope. Because then he’ll know. That this has to do with the frogs.

  “Dawn, honey, double-check yours,” their mom instructs. “Maybe Cody’s got slipped into your envelope by accident.”

  They all watch while his sister shakes her envelope as if his might be hiding somewhere inside. “No, it’s not here.” She eyes Cody, and he wishes she would go away because his sister is so transparent and everyone can tell she assumes there’s a very good explanation for why his diploma has gone missing.

  He really needs to find Brad.

  “Uncle Georgie! You made it!” Dawn suddenly races over to throw her arms around their uncle, whom they haven’t seen in forever. And then, next thing he knows, the entire Landau clan has engulfed them—Georgie, his dad and Lily, his grandparents. His dad pumps his hand, says, “I’m proud of you, son,” and Lily leans in to hug him, though Cody tries to keep his body from touching hers.

  His dad won’t stop talking about the frogs, either. “Pretty genius senior prank, if you ask me. Did you kids know anything about it?” Both Dawn and Cody shake their heads.

  “Not really,” lies Cody. “We knew something was up.”

  Dawn kicks his foot, and he shoots arrows back at her with his eyes. Shut up, he attempts to convey telepathically.

  “What? Why do you all look like you’re headed to a funeral instead of a graduation party?” His dad scans their group and his mom smiles thinly, as if she can’t decide whether to say something or not. It’s quite possible his dad will fly off the handle and storm the dean’s office, and yet Cody can’t figure out a way not to tell him about his missing diploma. Roger checks his watch, a gold Rolex with a clock face as big as a walnut. “We only have a couple more hours before we’re
due at Artu. Should we grab a quick drink somewhere in Davis Square before heading into town?”

  His father’s query is met with silence, and all Cody can think is well, this is awkward. Until his mom speaks up. “It seems that Cody’s diploma is, um, missing.” She pauses. “And that he might have to pay a visit to Dean Halberstam’s office first.”

  “What do you mean? Cody?” His dad spins around to him for clarification. “Is that true?”

  He tries to meet his dad’s eyes, but it’s no use. Cody will always cry Uncle! first when confronted with a face-off against the famous Roger Landau, Esquire. “Yeah. My diploma must have gotten mixed up with someone else’s.”

  “Well, that’s outrageous,” his dad huffs. “How much have I paid this school and they can’t even get your diploma right?” He glares at Meredith with a look that’s at once questioning and accusatory. Cody is tempted to point out that it’s not just his dad, but his mom and Joel, too, who have footed the bill for college, but decides now is not the moment.