Almost

by Anne Eliot

  I push at my plate and fold my arms over my chest, using what I call the ‘therapy voice’. A voice I learned to use from my years with Dr. Brodie. “I need you all to do me a favor,” I start and let out a long, patient—time to communicate—sigh.

  Mom smiles. I know for a fact she loves conversations like this.

  Kika and Dad do not.

  They stop eating and regard me cautiously as though I might be about to have one of my flip-outs. I almost crack a smile because they are so darn funny. Both have forks in the air and whipped cream stuck on their lips.

  “We're listening. Go on,” Mom urges gently.

  I turn all of my attention back to her. She's the one that I need to convince the most. If I do it right, the others will take her lead. “I need you to hear me on this. Don't interrupt, okay?”

  They all nod.

  I flash the iPhone in my hand and begin my performance: “This is just a guy. A friend. Well, maybe a friend, like I said, I don't know. And, okay fine…I think I like him, as a friend, of course.” I hold up my hand in case anyone tries to burst in. “And, he thinks I'm…cool or a possible friend back. Or…something good enough to want to text me, anyhow. Okay?”

  “Sure,” Kika says.

  “Okay,” Dad says.

  Kika and Dad resume eating their shortcake. I turn to Mom and blink, waiting for her response because I know she she's going to pry. She just can't stop herself.

  “Oh, honey, we think that's just great. Of course he's just a guy and it's no big deal. We only want to know—”

  “Mom. Stop. Just stop.” I've raised my voice, and now I hold out my hands like an orchestra conductor.

  Kika and Dad pause again, this time with shortcake-filled forks halfway to their very open mouths.

  This is going so on cue I could swear they'd studied their scripts beforehand.

  I take in a long, tortured sounding breath and then head into my monologue: “Maybe I'm not being clear. I'm asking you guys to back off and let me enter into this friendship—whatever it is with this guy on my own. And to also let me handle this new internship on my own. Meaning—all of you need to please stay off my back. Don't attack me with a ton of questions. I know you love me, but if the purpose of this summer is for me to prove that I'm going to be able to make it in college, you must let me give things a shot without analyzing my every move. Or text. I'm asking for some simple respect. Please, don't ask me any questions, spy on me or invade my privacy in any way.”

  “Well, you aren't going to have a teenage, summer rebellion spree, young lady.” Mom's turned all red. Getting fired up as ususal—but I'm ready for this rebuttal.

  Wait for it…wait for it.

  Mom crosses her arms and goes into full attorney-style argument-mode. “We're going to have to know some things about what you're doing! Asking for names is to be expected.”

  I flip the switch on her and gentle my voice into absolute agreement. “I know that, Mom. And you're right. I'm sorry if I'm being sensitive. I will tell you his name. But…let me tell you his name. Don't just force it out of me. I want this to be…natural. Okay? Give me some time. I'll tell you when it's right. You guys are so used to hovering over me. I feel suffocated, you know?”

  My heart's racing and I think my dinner's about to come up, but I manage to keep a pleading-sincere look intact.

  Mom crumples. “Sure, honey, of course but we worry—”

  I stop her again. This time I pick the practical-reasoning voice. “Mom. I'm going to go to work and come home. If all goes well, and with your permission, I might start hanging out with some new friends. But I haven't even made those friends yet. This isn't about me going to parties or anything like that. I swear. This is just about me being able to—”

  “But—” Mom starts up again.

  “Let her finish,” Dad says gently. I can tell from the soft-sad look in his brown eyes he's totally on my side. That makes me feel like the world's worst daughter.

  Because there are no sides to take. There's only me, lying to everyone I love.

  Lying.

  Lying.

  My eyes sting, but I have to finish my speech: “If this guy turns into something important, I'll tell you. Until then, I need to have something that is mine. All mine. And this summer, this internship, and even this guy's name seem so special right now.”

  I twirl my fork in my fingers. Unable to look at them anymore, I squash the whipped cream flat into the strawberries as I continue, “Maybe because I got the job and made this friend on my own—you know? Minus the weekly advice from Dr. Brodie? It all feels…”

  I pause for effect. Then, I paste on the very very happy smile before I look up and say the last lines: “I don't know…it all feels so normal.”

  Add in a small shrug, and: “Am I making any sense?”

  Look up, tilt head to the side, wrinkle the forehead, play the music and roll the credits. Oh. And remember to breathe.

  “Honey, that's wonderful!” Mom is practically gushing. All feathers have been smoothed.

  Kika smiles and wanders to the counter for seconds on whipped cream without a blink to signal that she's not onto the fact that I'm acting really weird.

  Dad's smile widens as he and Mom share a glance.

  “Yes. Yes, it makes sense, Jess. We'll give you all the space you need. And we're really happy for you,” Dad says.

  I can't reply. I've reached the point where if I get too much air on the back of my throat the crying thing is going to happen. I scoop up a pile of strawberries and whipped cream and stuff it into my mouth. It tastes like rocks and sawdust, but I chew with gusto.

  Because it's pushing away the urge to cry.

  And because they're all still staring at me. “Mffmf. Good. Thanks.” I chew more.

  “You let me know if you need me…or anything. We're here for you,” Dad adds.

  I nod. Mom's expression is flooded with motherly delight, approval, and absolute hope for me. My heart clenches with remorse. I toss a look to the ceiling, waiting for God, or lightning, or something huge to strike me down.

  Unable to take more of this, it's all I can do not to leap out of my chair. Instead I put down my fork and slowly stand. “Okay. Well…cool. And yeah. Last finals are tomorrow. I'm going to study, then I'm going to text my…friend…and go to sleep. I'm wiped.”

  “Well, you go on. We'll handle the clean up,” Mom says, beaming as wide as Kika.

  I have this odd sensation that if I asked them to give me a new car right now or twin pet monkeys—I think they'd do it. As I exit the kitchen, I search for some shred of comfort in the fact that two out of three of my last lines to my parents are true:

  1. Finals are tomorrow, and after 24 hours of being awake, I'm so tired there's no way I'm going to be able to avoid sleep tonight, no matter how hard I fight against it. Eventually, my body will betray me, so 2. Yeah, unfortunately, I'm going to sleep.

  As for number 3. Texting Gray Porter my new friend—or employee or whatever he might be to me?

  That, of course, is not going to happen.

  Chapter Eleven

  Gray

  Corey drops his backpack next to mine and slides into the desk on my right. “I hate the thought that this math final is going to kill our friendship.”

  “Huh?” I ask, only half-listening.

  “I fail, and you go on to college leaving me behind. Will you still hang out with me when my career tops out as the assistant manager of Taco Delights?”

  “Only if you give me free gelato-tacos. Besides, I think you could make manager.” I don't look up. I'm texting Jess. I want this sent before Mr. Madsen, the math teacher, arrives and catches me with my phone out.

  “The managers have to be able to count past their fingers. Come on man, I need you front and center for my pity party. Don't you care that I'm about to go down in flames? You've been texting non-stop. What's up? Who is up?”

  I toss him a look and realize the guy is a little pathetic today. His dishwater
colored hair is rumpled like he just rolled out of bed. There's also not much spark to his trouble-making blue eyes either.

  “Sorry. I've got a new crush, and I'm trying to work it. You'll rock the final, don't worry,” I say as I send the text.

  He nods toward my phone. “That text was long enough to be a novel. And again—who's the girl?”

  Mr. Madsen's still nowhere in sight. The rumor flying around the room is that the main office copy machine broke. There's a chance our final might be rescheduled. During lunch. “What do you think about me having a real girlfriend for the summer? As in long term,” I ask.

  Corey laughs so loud tears come out of his eyes, and half the room turns to look. “Jesus, you almost sounded serious,” he adds when I hold silent.

  “I am serious. What would you say if that text was to Jess Jordan?”

  Corey laughs even louder. “Dude! I'd freak. I'd check if you had a belly button just in case you'd been switched out by an alien race. I'd stage an intervention and get you the help you need. Tell me you're joking. Tell me you, acting like a complete weirdo yesterday and wearing her pink sweatshirt around after she lost it at lunch, was not about you wanting to hook up with that girl.”

  I shrug. “Not hook up. Date. She's hot as hell. You even said so.”

  “Yeah… meaning hot and ice cold. Or should I focus on the fact that you also said the word hell for the rest of this conversation? Dating that chick, even for a second would be absolute hell. Do you have a death wish?”

  “Hot and sweet actually. She's different. Not how everyone thinks at all. I like her. Like, like her. I swear.”

  “Dude. Show me your belly button right now.”

  Mr. Madsen saunters into the room holding a stack of stapled tests. “Sorry. Had to run these on the music department's machine. Pencils and erasers are the only things I want to see on your desks. Once you complete the first two pages, turn them into me and I'll hand you the last part of the test and a calculator. Mr. Porter, when you've completed the entire final, report to Coach Williams. He has a bone to pick about something that might have been done to his personal copier—by you?” The teacher shoots me an accusing look.

  My heart slams up and sticks behind my eye sockets. It's still beating fast, so that means my eyes must be bugging out with a beat everyone can see. “Right. Sure,” I choke out, already planning my escape out the side doors.

  Mr. Madsen nods like he can read my mind. “He told me to tell you he'll be waiting, no matter how long it takes. If you don't show, he's going to call your grandmother.”

  ###

  “If I weren't a teacher who valued my career, I'd drop you with a punch so hard it would put you straight into the emergency room!” Coach Williams shouts when I enter his classroom.

  “Bring it,” I bluff, walking slowly toward him. “I'd love for a chance to help get you fired. Oh, and great to see you too.”

  “Explain this.” Coach shakes the original copy of the contract I copied yesterday in my face.

  I wince. I'd forgotten the original in the machine. Shit.

  I'd have forgotten a screaming baby on that copier with that blue-eyed girl shooting me winks and calling me boyfriend.

  Anyone would have.

  “You know Jess Jordan is off limits. This is a contract that has you dating? Dating! Jesus Christ, Porter. What in the hell are you playing at?”

  I eye the contract, wondering if I can just grab it and run, but I don't. I'm way beyond letting this guy intimidate me. I'm actually thankful it was Coach who found the contract and not anyone else. The guy knows as much as I do about Jess's situation. He was part of her situation, and mine. Part of not prosecuting the asshole senior that created her situation.

  I level him with a stare. “I suppose I could ask you the same question, Coach. Why in the hell is Jess working every afternoon for your music program? You talk. I'll talk. I have a feeling her being in here every afternoon has nothing to do with her craving for college application credits.”

  “She's been working for me since freshman year—at the request of her parents. And she doesn't really work—mostly she—she—” He lets out a long breath and shakes his head. “We aren't discussing my arrangements—or hers. I want to know what you think you are up to even talking to that girl. You must have done at least that because you both signed this idiotic paper. What happened to your promise?”

  “Jess does what in here? What?” I insist. “I'm not coming one-inch clean unless you go first. During the music program, Jess Jordan mostly does what?”

  “She sleeps.” Coach glowers and crosses his arms. “If she's having a good day, she helps out or does homework. If she's having a bad day, I give her free access to nap behind the stage curtain. Mostly, she has bad days.”

  “Holy shit. You aren't kidding.” I let out a long breath and shake my head.

  “Of course I'm not kidding. The girl has serious problems and you know that. You shouldn't be considering even one second of what's written on these pages. Your turn. Start talking.”

  He slaps the contract onto my chest, so hard I swear my heart rhythm goes off beat. I grip the paper and crumple it until it's smashed into a tight ball.

  “This,” I hold the destroyed contract in Coach Williams' face, “was her idea. It's a done deal. We mean to go through with it. I'm going to be her pretend boyfriend for the whole summer, and we're both looking forward to it.”

  Coach Williams lets out a long, low whistle. “Holy shit,” he mutters not once breaking my stare. “You aren't kidding, either. Are you?”

  I shake my head.

  He sighs. “Does she know everything? About me—and what happened? And she remembers you and—shit. Is that why she's absent today?”

  He suddenly looks way older. He's also shorter than I remember. That, or I'm just taller. It's been a long time since I've been anywhere near this guy.

  “I don't know. I don't know what she knows or remembers,” I say. “I'm 99% percent sure she doesn't remember me or anything that happened. She texted me earlier. She's sick. That's all. I can vouch for how terrible she looked yesterday. Said she had a headache and a bad lunch. Maybe she got worse?”

  “Jess is not the type to ditch finals for no reason, so you must be right. But, if you messed with one hair on her head, I'll personally destroy your entire life.”

  “Whatever. That's already been done—thanks to your lameness. Which reminds me, isn't this about the time you suck up and offer me a spot to play on the hockey team next year? Let's just get that conversation over now, so you don't have waste my time and hunt me down before the last day of school.”

  My comment seems to take the fight out of Coach. He uncrosses his arms and runs a hand through the sparse pile of white hairs on his bald head. “The offer still stands. There's a spot for you on my team, anytime.”

  I'm the first to break our stare-down. I guess I'm surprised he still sounds sincere with that offer. The same offer he's made to me since I quit the team. Even after I just egged him on like that. Nobody digs into Coach Williams and survives.

  I look back into his serious, ice-grey eyes and answer, “I won't have a coward for a coach, and I'm pretty sure you're still the same guy as before. Right?”

  Coach Williams turns away from me then. I count it as a win because I think I caught a grimace crossing his face. At least the guy still has some guilt—and he should.

  “I'd thought after all these years you'd be able to understand my position,” he says after a short pause. “I stand by my decisions and the decisions of Jess's parents. Nothing good would have come us exposing everything. Any further involvement would have hurt Jess, and destroyed the future of a young man who made some really bad choices on one night while he was drunk at a party—”

  “Don't you dare defend that asshole to me,” I shout. “He's long gone. Probably graduating from college right now and living life just fine. From what I suspect, Jess is still falling apart on a daily basis because of him, because of yo
u, and, because of her parents' chicken-shit attitudes.” I pace across the room and lower my voice. “At least offering to blow the whistle and stand witness back then allows me some sense of self-respect. How any of you losers manage to sleep at night is beyond me.”

  “You still think the plan you had would have brought a better ending to any of it?” Coach Williams levels me with his steady ‘game-time’ stare. But his quavering voice doesn't match.

  “Yes!” I shout and look down at the contract balled in my hands. My heart aches from too much pounding. I can hardly focus because I'm replaying how it all came down the last time I spoke to this man.

  The room feels like it's sucking away under my feet. When I speak again I'm so drained I can only hold my tone just above a whisper. “Honestly, I don't know if things would have changed for the better. But none of you gave my offer a chance, so I guess we'll never know.”

  I push his chair out of my way as I pace the room again.

  “Sometimes different is not better,” he says, when I stop in front of him again.

  “Does that apply to Jess? She's not looking or acting any better than she did when she first came back to school three years ago. Admit that, at least.”

  “You're right. Jess appears to be the same. I can tell you the kid who did it—he is a better person now. He's sorry. Very sorry. I've kept in contact with his parents.”

  “Why would I care? That fact makes it worse.” I sit on the corner of Coach Williams' desk. “You and Jess's parents sacrificed the two innocent people in all of this so that a jerk could grow up to become a better person. Did he ever look Jess in the eye and apologize? Jesus, can you not see how twisted that is? He should have done some time for what he did.”

  “It was your word against his. And he wouldn't have gone to jail because nothing happened. Nothing—beyond underage drinking. Drinking in which you, my whole hockey team, and Jess Jordan were also participants. I wasn't willing to drag twenty kids' futures, their college plans, and my career through the mud for something that couldn't be proved.”

  “Bullshit. You sacrificed honor and honesty to protect the season and win state. The giant gold trophy down in the front hall is still front and center. Did you get a nice raise that year?”