Carpe Diem

by Autumn Cornwell

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Have you ever floated down the Mekong on a rice boat, lulled to sleep by the rustling bamboo?”

  The three of us exchanged long-suffering looks.

  “Have you ever climbed the ruins of Phnom Bakheng in Angkor to experience the most mind-blowing, Technicolor sunset of your entire life?”

  I mentally squared my shoulders. Grandma Gerd can be a bit unnerving.

  “Valedictorian and a 5.3 GPA are very big deals. In case you weren’t aware, they mean entry into Vassar and Ivy League grad schools like—”

  “Would civilization end as we know it if you went to a state school?”

  A collective intake of three breaths. A state school!?!

  “Come on, kiddo, don’t you want to live, feel, explore, experience—”

  “Gertrude, even you know this is impossible on such short notice,” Dad interrupted. He never called Grandma Gerd “mother.” Ever.

  “Balls. She’ll have two weeks to plan. That’s more than enough time.”

  “Technically, it’s one week and six days,” he replied.

  Mom gave Dad a nudging look. She often has to do this because he’s a “conflict avoider.” If someone cuts in front of him in line at the DMV—he’ll pretend he didn’t notice. If a waitress accidentally adds an extra crème brûlée to his bill—he’ll pay it. Anything to sidestep confrontation. Reluctantly, Dad cleared his throat and said, “Although it’s a very kind offer, Gertrude, it’s … it’s absolutely out of the question.”

  “Kopi dua—thanks.” We could hear the clinking of glasses and some static, then: “Well, Leonardo, you’re forcing me to bring it up. In mixed company, no less …”

  It?

  Mom clutched my arm, her clear-polished nails digging into my skin. “Vassar, would you fill up the car.” It was a command, not a request. Her dimples had completely disappeared.

  “Don’t go to Gus’s Gas—his tanks aren’t calibrated correctly,” said Dad automatically. “And take Franklin Avenue. It’s two minutes faster than Main.”

  Usually there’s nothing I like better than to drive the Volvo anywhere, now that I’ve got my driver’s license. But I wanted to witness Grandma Gerd’s failed attempts to coerce my parents.

  Grandma Gerd’s voice again broke the silence. “Hello? Anybody there? Leonardo, it’s time she knew the truth about—”

  But Mom and Dad simultaneously grabbed for the phone before she could finish.

  Truth about what? Well, I’d know soon enough. Mom and Dad never kept secrets from me.

  As I carefully navigated the Volvo wagon out of our cul-de-sac toward the nearby gas station–convenience store–coffee shop (not Gus’s), I took offense at what Grandma Gerd seemed to be hinting about my life: that just because I hadn’t left the continent or backpacked through Europe, I wasn’t well-rounded. Could I help the fact that Dad is deathly afraid of flying? Or that Mom’s abhorrence of the outdoors (“too many variables”) prevented camping from ever being on the agenda? So I hadn’t traveled. Who cared? How could that omission remotely affect my life? Or, more important: my academic record? After all, just how many museums, galleries, symphonies, and plays had I gone to? Just how many books had I read? If I wasn’t cultured, who on earth was?

  And her insinuation that I was somehow abnormal because I hadn’t yet been kissed infuriated me. None of my friends had boyfriends yet. The only girl at the Seattle Academy of Academic Excellence with any dating experience was Wendy Stupacker, who’d discovered boys in sixth grade—which certainly hadn’t helped her procrastination any. Photographic memory and photogenic looks—tough life.

  I returned as swiftly as the speed limit allowed. After parking with precision, I took care to slip through the front door noiselessly. Good. They were still on the phone, so wrapped up in their debate they didn’t hear the car. I tried to eavesdrop, but could only make out a random word here and there: “Bubble … birth … too young … rubber ball … dying … egg …”

  Then Mom hissed: “Gertrude! It’s blackmail, and you know it!”

  The words “dying” and “blackmail” especially intrigued me—that is, until Mom said, “Is she back yet?”

  “I’ll check,” said Dad—anything to get out of a Grandma Gerd–Althea Confab.

  I darted back into the kitchen and yanked open the refrigerator just as Dad appeared in the doorway. Beads of sweat dotted his freckled forehead, and inkblots of perspiration stained his gray polo shirt. “Vassar? Come in here, please.”

  “Sure,” I said with faux nonchalance as I popped open a can of apple juice.

  I followed Dad back through the kitchen into the living room. Mom wouldn’t meet my gaze. She concentrated on doodling in her Journal of Excellence. I’d never seen her doodle before. This was a rough drawing of a pear. When she noticed I noticed, she quickly turned the page. Dad blotted his face with a paper napkin, leaving a tiny shred of blue stuck just above his eyebrow.

  I bent over the speakerphone.

  “Hello, Grandma Gerd. I’m back—”

  “She hung up,” said Mom, her voice shaking. “Leon, why don’t you tell Vassar what we’ve decided.”

  They made room between them on the couch, so I squeezed in. With a quivering hand, Mom tucked an errant strand of hair back into my ponytail. Dad patted my knee, then ran his hand through his red hair, patted my knee, smoothed his hair, patted, smoothed, patted, smoothed. I’d never seen them so agitated, so awkward, so un-Spore-like. Not even last year, when Wendy Stupacker beat me in the regional spelling bee with “ektexine” and went on to place fourth at the nationals in D.C.

  “Yes, well, Vassar, we’ve decided that a trip with Grandma Gerd through Southeast Asia … that such a trip would be invaluable … perhaps help you formulate … would heighten …” Dad stumbled on and on in a highly inefficient manner. What he said was of no consequence. What was important was that they wanted me to abandon my scholastic endeavors for a mere vacation! As soon as Dad brought his babble to a halt, I said as much.

  They carefully replied that they thought it would be good for me to go, that I should go, that I must go.

  What? Were these the same parents who’d previously said the words “Grandma Gerd” with the same note of horror they said “unsystematic” or “waste of time” or “unplanned”? Who were now authorizing her to take me—their only child—into the intrepid jungles of Southeast Asia? When they’d just dissuaded me from attending a public school dance a mere six blocks away?

  “But what made you change your minds? You never change your mind.”

  Dad dug in his breast pocket—empty. He moaned.

  Still not quite meeting my eyes, Mom said, “Think how much it would mean to Grandma Gerd to spend some quality time with her only … grandchild.” I could tell it pained her to say it.

  It just didn’t make sense. Having a daughter named Vassar not get into Vassar would be sacrilege. Not to mention embarrassing. And it would disprove Mom’s theory: If an applicant to Vassar, the elite women’s college, was named Vassar in addition to having a stellar academic record, how could they possibly refuse her? All her advanced planning would be for nothing—and I’d be known as “that loser Vassar Spore who goes to State.”

  One of Mom’s biggest regrets was not getting accepted to Vassar College. She felt life would have been just that much better if her dream had been fulfilled. She vowed if she had a daughter, she’d guarantee she got in. “And whether she chose to attend or not would be entirely up to her. But she’d have the option I never had.”

  But now suddenly that wasn’t a priority?

  What on earth could Grandma Gerd possibly blackmail my parents about? It was time to be direct:

  “Is she blackmailing you? Is ‘egg’ a code word?”

  Mom froze, teacup halfway to her mouth. “Eavesdropping is an odious habit, Vassar! I’m ashamed, ashamed of you.”

  “Odious,” echoed Dad weakly. His face was so white, his freckles looked like chocolate sprinkles floating on
a latté.

  “So,” I processed as I went along. “What you’re saying is that I have to go on this trip at the sacrifice of my academic record.”

  Mom’s face crumpled. She let out a little wheeze. The next thing I knew, she was racing upstairs to their bedroom and slamming the door.

  “Excuse me, Vassar.” Dad unsteadily got to his feet, then slowly climbed the stairs, keeping a tight grip on the banister.

  The American Heritage Dictionary defines a nervous breakdown as A severe or incapacitating emotional disorder, especially when occurring suddenly and marked by depression. Mom had never broken down before, as far as I could remember. She’d been firmly in one piece with never so much as a chip missing.

  Dad closed and locked the door to their bedroom, but I could still hear uncontrollable sobbing—this from a woman who’d never shed a tear in my presence. (Not even the faintest appearance of moisture when Dad had read The Yearling aloud.) I could barely make out Dad’s low, consoling murmuring.

  Then Mom’s voice escalated: “She’ll find out—you know she’ll find out! Gertrude will tell—”

  Dad’s gentle but firm voice interrupted: “No, she won’t. Even Gertrude wouldn’t stoop …” Then it became muffled and indistinguishable.

  After half an hour, Dad abruptly hurried out of the bedroom (carefully closing the door behind him) and drove off in the Volvo. He squealed into the driveway twenty minutes later and dashed into the house clutching a white paper bag in one hand and a traffic ticket in the other. Back into the bedroom, locking the door behind him. Fourteen minutes, thirty-six seconds later—the crying stopped.

  I was tempted to call or text-message Amber, Denise, and Laurel. But I dreaded imparting the information that the Spore household was not what it seemed. My friends had always looked up to my parents, wished they were their parents.

  “With parents like yours, who needs willpower?” they’d say.

  (Wendy Stupacker hadn’t been as complimentary. She said my parents were “weirdos” and that Mom was “overcompensating for hidden inadequacies” and that Dad was “uxorious.” But I knew she was just jealous because both her parents were major players in the finance industry and never had time for her.)

  I sat motionless on the couch. What on earth could transform my normally cucumber-esque mother into a character from a Tennessee Williams play? And my normally law-abiding father into a lawbreaker?

  The Big Secret. That’s what.

  I felt as if I’d returned from school and accidentally walked into the wrong house.

  I felt out of context.

  I felt numb.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Advanced Latin Study Group Gals—Minus One

  Amber leaned forward, her husky voice an octave lower than normal: “Listen to this: Sam Westman from study hall said that Tony Keeler who lives next door to John Pepper said that John plans to restore a boat this summer and sail it to Crescent Island for camp-outs. AND that there’s a certain girl he’d like to have along—who just happens to be in the Advanced Latin Study Group.”

  She flipped her fire-engine-red pageboy expectantly and ate a thick steak fry off the tray that Laurel was balancing in her right hand—an effort for pint-sized Laurel since she barely reached Amber’s shoulders and had wrists like twigs.

  “Hearsay,” said Denise, not looking up from her Latin textbook as she leaned against the rain-splattered window.

  We were riding the 7:04 a.m. ferry crossing the Puget Sound to the Seattle Academy of Academic Excellence. The sky was overcast with streaks of gray, tufts of white, and shards of sun. Drizzling. All our fellow students who lived in Port Ann made the hour ferry ride to and from Seattle every day. We didn’t mind—it gave us two hours a day to do our advanced placement homework, practice our Latin, and eat fries. Once aboard, we’d rush to secure a booth in the concession area—the most desirable section on the boat. Or we’d hover until one became available.

  That’s what we were doing now: hovering.

  Impatient at my lack of response, Amber said with her mouth full of fry:

  “Stop being obtuse. Who else could he mean but you, Vassar? The girl he stares at during Latin when he’s supposed to be conjugating verbs.”

  I felt my cheeks get warm.

  “Perhaps his laser surgery left him with faulty depth perception,” said Denise, flipping a page.

  Amber and Laurel ignored her.

  There’s a chance John Pepper knows I exist? My plan had turned into reality—far faster than I’d expected. I allowed myself to daydream: wind tousling his sun-bleached hair (tousle, tousle, tousle), sunlight glinting off his gleaming teeth, sharing a laugh as together we tug on various ropes to hoist the mainsail. His minor acne disguised by a tan. Wearing his white rolled-up jeans and deck shoes. I grab his muscular arm to steady myself. He puts an arm around my waist and draws me close to his rock-solid—why, oh why, must I be banished to the Malaria Zone now!?!

  “Vassar? Earth to Vassar, come in, Vassar.”

  I was back on Earth. Back to reality.

  “Soooo … what do you think?”

  Before I could reply:

  “Booth!” Amber shouted, and raced ahead of a fortyish businessman who was also making a beeline for the just vacated booth. She’d learned something about competition, growing up with those three older brothers. We snatched our backpacks and elbowed past him. He stood there stunned, clutching a croissant and Wall Street Journal to his chest as we swiftly slipped past him into the booth one by one: big-hipped, Doc Martens–wearing Amber; delicate Laurel in Laura Ashley and lavender-framed glasses; and sturdy Denise with her round, flat face, blond Dutch-boy bob, and penchant for surf shirts. And me.

  Laurel deposited the tray of fries in the center of the table and rubbed her wrists.

  “Join us, sir,” Amber said sweetly, fluttering her fake eyelashes and coyly tossing her hair. “There’s more than enough room.”

  Miffed, he strode down the aisle.

  “Too bad. He was cute,” Amber said, shoving another fry in her mouth.

  “For a balding, middle-aged, boring person,” said Denise.

  Amber sighed. No one would ever take her for the Seattle Academy of Academic Excellence’s reigning chess champion. She looked like an extra from Pretty in Pink. And she was forever having crushes—sometimes three going at once. Or four, if she’d just been to the gym. “He could have taught me the mysteries of the stock market … the romance of capital gains—”

  “Vassar, what’s wrong?” asked Laurel abruptly in her wispy voice, peering at me through her glasses.

  “Yeah. You don’t look happy that John Pepper may like you,” said Amber.

  Denise looked up from her Latin book.

  I took a deep breath. “I have some bad news.”

  After I finished telling them, there was complete silence. Not even so much as the chewing of a fry. Then:

  “An all-expense-paid trip to Southeast Asia! I wish my grandparents gave presents like that. But no, I get a Dr. Scholl’s Foot Bath,” said Amber.

  “You know, it seems so out of the blue. She’s never even visited you before,” said Laurel. She delicately dipped her fry in ranch dressing.

  Denise’s face was mauve. “Don’t you guys get it? Cannot you comprehend what this means? Now that Medusa-Cyclops-Hydra from Hades-Slag of Slurry will take valedictorian! Once again I maintain: There is no God!”

  “Ssshhh, Denise,” I said, gesturing toward the senior citizens in the booth next to us craning their necks.

  “Oh, right—Wendy Stupacker.” The normally refined Laurel practically spit the name.

  “It’s not enough she’s rich, drives a convertible with alloy rims, and runway-models part-time in the summer—now she gets val!” Amber’s howl was almost as loud as Denise’s.

  They were taking it harder than I expected. They’d always been indignant on my behalf at the way Wendy had treated me: Wendy and I had been best friends in elementary school and junior high.
The Future Val and Sal, we used to write in our yearbooks, not caring who got what. But once we hit high school, suddenly I wasn’t best friend material anymore. One day Wendy simply stopped returning my calls, replying to my emails, acknowledging me in the hallways, or sitting next to me at lunch. So what used to be good-natured competition turned into a full-blown academic rivalry.

  “You were our only hope. And there’s no way Denise can surpass her,” said Laurel.

  Denise had contracted mono (Irony: the kissing disease with no fun to show for it) her freshman year, which put her slightly behind in AP classes. So although she was a certified genius with a 150 IQ, she was in second place behind Wendy and me.

  “I can’t believe your grandma is doing this to us,” said Laurel, shaking her head.

  “Why are your parents even letting you go? Have they joined a cult? Been experimenting with mind-altering substances?” asked Amber half-seriously.

  Denise fixed me with her protuberant blue eyes—known to disarm many an opponent during forensics tournaments or mathalete competitions. “Why don’t I talk to them, reason with them. Stress the detrimental effect this will have not only on your academic career but on the entire Seattle Academy of Academic Excellence. The reverberations will be deadly. Not to mention what it’ll do to Wendy’s monumental ego. All of Seattle won’t be able to contain it.”

  “Actually, they had no choice—”

  Denise cut me off. “Come on, Vassar, it’s worth a try. Anything to prevent us having to watch that smug piece of tripe give the valedictorian speech. Anything. Including selling myself as a specimen for science experiments or joining the cheerleading squad—no sacrifice would be too great.”

  The vision of no-nonsense Denise in a swirly skirt and hoisting pom-poms, performing a routine with mathematical precision momentarily distracted us.

  “It’s not that funny,” said Denise.

  When we finally stopped laughing, I scanned the booths around me, then lowered my voice. “Actually, my parents were forced into it. Under extreme duress.”