The Cannibals

by Grant, Cynthia D.

  It was ridiculous of me to feel bad because Wally had dumped me! Was I that petty, that insecure? Did the whole world have to be in love with me? I didn’t even want to be with Wally anymore!

  I had to laugh at myself. And I’d thought I was so mature!

  The problem was my pride, my silly, childish pride, preventing me from seeing that everything had worked out beautifully. I had everything (almost) that I wanted in the world. The least I could do was be happy for Wally, glad that he had come home safely and had found somebody to love him.

  But Mimi Durning?!

  Gosh darn it, I thought, you’re doing it again! What difference does it make if Mimi’s bald? My dad’s almost bald and my mother still loves him! It’s the cake underneath that counts, not the frosting! Campbell doesn’t love me just because I’m beautiful. He loves me because I’m me! And I don’t love him just because he’s so good-looking. I love who he is inside, his spirit.

  Sitting there, alone in the Senior Quad, I came to a deeper understanding of Life than I ever had before.

  I felt like laughing and crying at the same time, like running through the streets, hugging everyone I saw. It was like an Academy Awards of the soul, but I knew I couldn’t have done it alone; I owed it all to the Director upstairs.

  “Thank you for loving me, God,” I whispered, “even though I’m just a knucklehead.”

  We took Campbell’s car and drove high into the hills, parking on a bluff overlooking the town, spread below us like a tiny toy village. All around us, springtime trailed her flowing green skirts, and I was reminded once again of what a blessing nature is, putting the puny world of man into perspective.

  I wanted to share my spiritual breakthrough in the Quad with Campbell, but I sensed that words would be inadequate. So we sat in silence and listened to the wind and the birds.

  “This is nice,” Campbell commented, the breeze ruffling his hair like invisible, loving fingers.

  “Campbell, there’s something I have to tell you,” I finally said.

  “What is it, Tiff?” he asked.

  “It’s about the Peace Corps,” I said. “I wasn’t really serious about joining it, at first. I think I just said that to impress you.”

  “Why?”

  “You know,” I said. “Because you’ve always thought I’m so superficial.”

  Campbell’s handsome face looked stricken. “Tiff, I’m sorry,” he said. “I had no right to say that. You were just going through some changes, that’s all.”

  “No, you were right,” I admitted. “All I cared about was myself and my hair, and being a famous movie star.”

  “And cheerleading,” Campbell added.

  “But this year has been like a total learning experience for me,” I said. “I’ve really changed and grown. Now I really do want to join the Peace Corps, and help others less fortunate than myself.”

  “That’s wonderful, Tiff,” Campbell said, smiling.

  “Yes,” I said. “I have so much to be grateful for.”

  “That’s true,” he agreed. “You must be so relieved that Wally’s come home.”

  There was a slight pause while I assembled my thoughts.

  “Well, sort of,” I answered. “Wally and I aren’t together anymore. He’s going with somebody else now.”

  Campbell looked shocked. He said, “You’re kidding. Who?”

  “Mimi Durning.”

  “The girl with the head?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Tiffany,” Campbell said, “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s just one of those things,” I said. “Wally and I have grown apart. There’s too much blood under the bridge.”

  Campbell took my hand. “This must be so hard for you,” he said. “I know how much you love him.”

  How can boys be so thick? Surely, Campbell must know by now that I love him as much as he loves me!

  “We all have to grow up sometime,” I said.

  “Exactly,” Campbell said. Then he looked so serious, as he gazed into the distance, that I wondered if he was thinking about the future. Our future.

  “There’s something I have to tell you, too, Tiff,” he said. “In fact, I should’ve told you a long time ago, but I wasn’t being honest. With myself or you.”

  Suddenly I knew what he was going to say and I got this sickening feeling in my stomach. The whole time Campbell and I had been together, he must’ve had a secret girlfriend in LA! So we weren’t getting married! We weren’t even going steady! I felt like I was going to throw up!

  “I’m gay,” Campbell said.

  Who can explain the mysteries of the human brain or how the mind works when it’s slammed to the mat? When I was a child, my father taught me Pig Latin.

  “Ime-gay?” I said. “You mean ‘Gime’? What’s that?”

  “Listen to me, Tiff. I’m gay.”

  “You’re WHAT?”

  Frozen in a timeless moment, we stared into each other’s eyes.

  I finally broke the spell that held us.

  “But that’s not fair!” I cried.

  Campbell looked a little irked. “I know this will be hard to believe, Tiff,” he said, “but I’m not doing it on purpose to bug you.”

  “Are you sure, Campbell?” I asked. “Maybe it’s just a phase you’re going through.”

  He shook his head. “I haven’t been involved with anybody yet,” he said. “It’s just something I’ve always known, deep inside.”

  My mind struggled to make sense of the words it was hearing. How could someone as perfect and wonderful as Campbell turn out to be gay? Why was this happening to me? Had I done something awful in another life to deserve it? Like wiped out an entire civilization?

  And if Campbell was gay, and seemed completely normal, that must mean there were other gay people at Hiram Johnson, who looked and acted like everybody else!

  My mind was spinning. I was so confused.

  “… which was why I never got heavy with you, Tiff,” he was saying. “I didn’t want to lead you on, or have you think that we could ever be more than friends.”

  “Oh, no,” I said. “That never crossed my mind.”

  People at school would laugh right in my face when they found out I’d been going steady with a gay guy! Imagine what Shelby was going to say! How would I ever live this down?

  “Your friendship has been an inspiration to me, Tiff,” Campbell said. “You’re not afraid to be yourself. You always stand up for what you believe in, even when it’s something kind of dumb—”

  “Dumb?” I said. “Like what?”

  “Well, like the movie.”

  “The movie wasn’t dumb,” I said.

  He smiled and squeezed my hand. “What I’m trying to say, Tiff,” he explained, “is that you give life everything you’ve got. You’ve helped me to be braver, too. Not that I’m ashamed of who I am. I just know that being gay makes life more complicated, because of the way some people react. But what difference does it make what other people think, if you know in your heart you’re a good person, trying to do the very best you can?”

  “Uh-huh,” I said.

  “Not that I need to shout it from the rooftops. My sexual orientation is my own business, not anybody else’s.”

  “Exactly. I couldn’t agree with you more,” I said.

  “I’m really sorry that I didn’t tell you sooner, Tiff,” he said. “I guess I couldn’t even tell myself. And I was afraid that it would—I don’t know, change the way you feel about me, or mean that we couldn’t be friends. Now I know you’re not that kind of person.”

  I wanted to scream: That’s what YOU think, bub! But the oddest thing happened then. I heard God’s voice in my mind, plain as day, saying: “Tiffany, the epiphany in the Senior Quad was only the beginning. Now it’s up to you. Remember, it’s the cake that counts, not the frosting.”

  How could I let God, or Campbell, down?

  And in that moment my spirit broke free from all the fears that have ever shackled me
. What difference does it make what other people think, as long as I always act with love and try to do what’s right?

  Everything was different then, and nothing had changed. Campbell was still Campbell. I was still me.

  I said, “I love you even more, Campbell, now that I know who you truly are. And I really want to thank you for trusting and believing in me.”

  We held hands, smiling at each other through our tears.

  “Friends forever,” he said.

  “Friends forever,” I agreed. “But there’s something I have to ask you, Campbell.”

  “Anything,” he said gently.

  “Will you still be my date for Grad Night?”

  “Yes.”

  We laughed then and kissed each other, on the lips.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The most incredible, awful, unbelievable thing has happened.

  Yesterday morning, Dean Schmitz called me into his office and told me that I won’t be graduating in June.

  “You don’t have the necessary credits,” he said.

  At first, I thought he was joking, but the look on his face confirmed the terrible truth.

  “There must be some kind of mix-up,” I stammered, fighting the surging panic inside me.

  “No, unfortunately there isn’t,” he said, adding that the good news—the good news! He actually said that!—was that I could make up the incompletes in summer school.

  “But that means I won’t graduate with my class!” I gasped. “Or walk across the stage and get my diploma!”

  “Yes, I’m afraid that’s true,” he said sadly.

  I couldn’t believe it! You’d think they would have warned me! Or reminded me, at least!

  “Well, can’t you just let me get my diploma, then come back for summer school?” I asked.

  “No, I’m very sorry, Tiffany. Those are the rules,” he said. “We can’t make an exception just for you.”

  “But I’ve already bought my dress for Grad Night!”

  The room began to spin. Dean Schmitz kept talking, telling me that this was one of those painful but necessary learning experiences in the school of hard knocks, et cetera, et cetera, his words droning on like a swarm of bees.

  I put my head between my knees, hyperventilating.

  They say God never gives you more trouble than you can endure. But frankly, I think He’s overestimating me.

  I went back to class—what else could I do? Dropping out now would only make things worse, although how they could be worse, I could not imagine.

  The news spread across the campus like wildfire. Campbell and The Girls rushed to my side, offering sympathy and support. Shelby suggested that I hire a lawyer. Even kids who’ve never liked me told me that they thought it wasn’t fair, that I should at least get to walk across the stage and get my diploma.

  “No,” I said, “that wouldn’t be right. They can’t change the rules just for me.”

  But inside I was desperately screaming: “WHY NOT??????????????”

  My parents were wonderful. They didn’t get mad; they just looked really sad, which made me feel guilty. For years, they’ve dreamed of the moment when their little girl, all grown up now and ready to take on the world, would walk across the stage and collect her diploma. How happy and proud they would have been!

  And I have robbed them of that joy.

  That night, lying sleepless on my bed, I came to a deeper understanding of myself than I ever had before. I realized that I’ve been so wrapped up in my dreams of fame and fortune that I forgot to pay attention to real life—to all the little everyday details that make up the big picture.

  There’s more, much more to life than fame and glory. We all have to take out the trash sometimes, as a wise man once said.

  But as I lay there in the dark, brimming with these newfound revelations, one question returned to haunt me, again and again:

  Now what?

  It’s odd, being at school, knowing that I’m not going to graduate with my friends. It’s like I’m not a player anymore, but just a part of the audience.

  People are being so nice to me. Too nice. You’d think I was in a wheelchair or something! I know they’re thinking, Poor Tiffany! She doesn’t get to walk across the stage and collect her diploma or attend the Grad Night party.

  Graduation is only two weeks away. That’s all people are talking about now. That, and what they plan to do this summer, and where they’ll be going to college …

  I know I brought this on myself, and that it’s all my fault, so I shouldn’t complain. But right now it feels like I’m standing all alone on the dock, watching my “friend-ships” sail away.

  Miss Jones says I shouldn’t let it get me down. “It’s not the end of the world, Tiff,” she said.

  I know she means well, but she doesn’t understand that it is the end of the world. My world. My high school years. The so-called happiest time of my life!

  “Look at it this way, Tiff,” she said. “This whole thing has been a valuable learning experience.”

  I think I’ll start screaming if one more person says that!

  “I know that,” I said, “but it’s just so disappointing! Besides, nobody’s going to want to read my stupid book now, since I didn’t turn out to be famous after all.”

  She started giving me that same old school-of-hard-knocks baloney, but I just put my head down on my desk and groaned.

  “Miss Jones, you don’t understand!” I moaned. “I wanted to be an inspiration!”

  “Tiffany, dear,” she said, gently patting my back. “Maybe you can still be an inspiration. Maybe you could—”

  A lightbulb exploded in my brain. “Turn it into a self-help book?” I asked. “This happened to me; don’t let it happen to you?”

  “Well, perhaps,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking about a book. Something more along the lines of—”

  “She who fails to prepare prepares to fail!” I exclaimed. “Exactly! Thank you, Miss Jones! Thank you! Thank you! I might even put your name in the dedication.”

  So even though I’m not famous—yet!—I can still help other young people like myself learn about stuff like life and love and rolling with the punches.

  Which is all I ever really wanted anyway.

  The Girls have been wonderful. They’re so supportive! But I don’t know what I’d do without Campbell. I can tell him how I’m really feeling. Because believe me, it’s not easy to put on a happy face and act like everything’s just peachy while everybody’s talking about graduation and the fun they’ll have at the all-night party.

  I feel so left out.

  Campbell and I eat lunch together every day and most afternoons we drive up into the hills and just park the car and talk. I’ve never had a friend like Campbell before.

  The other day he said, “I think you should appeal to the school board, Tiff. I don’t see why they can’t give you your diploma and let you complete your credits this summer.”

  “That’s not the way it works,” I explained, not mentioning that I’d tried that already. “I guess I’ll just have to live with the consequences of my actions.”

  “But that doesn’t seem fair,” he said. He told me that he would get all of the kids to wear black armbands on their graduation gowns, in protest.

  I gently but firmly told him no, that I didn’t want to disrupt the ceremony. The armbands wouldn’t show up against the black gowns, anyway.

  Still, it was a sweet gesture.

  Everywhere I go, I see Mimi and Wally together. They make such a cute couple, with their matching tribal face scars, although Mimi’s are just stenciled on, not permanent. Some of the kids started copying Wally, drawing on the spirals with marking pens. So now the school has passed a rule that nobody else can do it.

  How could anybody fall for a dumb fad like that?

  I ran into Mimi and Wally in the Senior Quad today. They were wrapped around each other like Siamese twins. Which I don’t think is appropriate in public, but still, it’s amazing how r
ight they are for each other.

  They told me that Mimi had been awarded a full scholarship to Stanford University, but that she’s decided to turn it down. Instead, she and Wally are moving to Florida, where they’ll attend Barnum & Bailey Clown College.

  “It’s just so obvious,” Mimi explained, holding Wally’s hand and smiling. “The world doesn’t need another scientist.”

  “We feel that it needs more laughter,” Wally finished.

  I told them how happy I was for them, and by the time I was done, I realized that I actually meant it.

  I’m so happy! Dean Schmitz just called and said I can go to the Grad Night party with Campbell, even though I’m not going to graduate!

  Apparently, Campbell called all the school board members and bugged them until they said okay! This year’s theme is “The S.S. Hiram Johnson,” and the parents are making the gym look like a cruise ship. There’ll be games and prizes and dancing—all night!—and at six o’clock in the morning they’ll even serve us breakfast!

  I can’t wait!

  My parents were thrilled when I told them I could go. But they looked worried when I said that I also plan to attend the ceremony so I can see my friends graduate.

  “That will be too hard on you, Tiff,” my father warned.

  “Stay home with us until it’s time for the party,” my mother begged.

  I told them that I’ve given the matter a lot of thought and have decided that I really want to be there in the audience for all of my friends, to honor and celebrate their moment of triumph.

  “Don’t worry,” I assured my parents. “I’ll be fine.”

  How could anything be worse than what I’ve been through already?

  There was a big stinkola on campus today because the administration said that Mimi could not be the valedictorian after all, because it wouldn’t look right, since her head is shaved.

  The kids got so mad they practically went insane! We started a petition and got everyone to sign it, demanding that Mimi be allowed to give her speech or we wouldn’t show up for the graduation ceremony. I mean, the people who are in the graduation ceremony.