Professor Cox lifts his towel to wipe his forehead. “If you’re asking if it’s possible to change the future, there is no scientific evidence, of course.”
“My point exactly!” Evan says. “It’s a waste of time. It doesn’t actually do anything.”
Sammie clicks off her phone and stuffs it in her bag.
“Wait a minute,” I say. “Why does it bother you so much? If we read our horoscopes or not?”
Evan puts his hands up. “Whoa. I’m sorry. I was just kidding—”
“Seriously, though. If it makes Sammie feel better about her day, why do you care? Why is it such an issue for you?”
“Actually,” Professor Cox says, “she’s right. Horoscopes do serve as a valid cognitive trick, like hindsight bias, and they can help us navigate rough times. We invoke the idea of fate via activities like astrology in order to reflect upon and accept the reality of our situations, the choices we’ve already made.”
“Exactly,” I continue. “Thank you. And therefore I am in full support of Sammie reading her horoscope if it means she’ll feel better about those choices.”
“Okay, okay—” Evan puts up his hands and smiles at me. “It all makes sense now.” And then he puts his hand on my shoulder, squeezes me tight. “That’s a perfect argument.”
Sammie stands up. “I’m out.” She straps her bag over her shoulder. “See you guys tomorrow.”
I was trying to defend her, but now I’ve stepped into the spotlight, and she’s pissed.
“Wait. Where are you going?” I ask. There’s still ten minutes before closing.
She doesn’t answer, though. Instead, she walks out the door without clocking out. She does this sometimes, turns off at a moment’s notice.
Evan looks confused, but I don’t wait to explain. “I’m going to head out, too,” I say.
I clock out quickly for both Sammie and me, and then I grab my bag and try to catch up with her. I run through the courtyard, but she’s out of sight. I struggle to find my key to the back entrance door of our building. By the time I get to the elevator, she’s already disappeared.
* * *
She’s ignoring my texts. I run upstairs and knock on her door, but Mrs. Salazar answers and says that Sammie’s locked herself in her room, that she might be taking a nap. I hate it when she does this. She shuts off, shuts me out. It’s the only thing about having a best friend who’s a drama geek that drives me crazy. She reads into everything.
Admittedly, this time, she’s right. Evan was showing interest only in me. I felt it. She felt it. We both felt it.
And maybe if it weren’t for Sammie, I might be interested, too. The more I’m around him, the more I like him. I’m not sure why exactly. Maybe because he asks questions that make me step outside of myself, away from my wandering, hurting mind.
But I’ve made a promise to her.
I’ve made a promise to myself.
I head back down to my apartment, where Mila is zoned out on the couch, watching her animal show, and my mom is in the dining room, on her computer, like always, studying for her class.
I try to get to my room without her noticing me, but of course that’s impossible in this tiny apartment. “You were late today,” she says. “I thought the pool closed at seven, no?”
“It did. It does. I was just helping them clean up.”
“Do they pay you for that?”
“Yeah, actually,” I say, lying. “Mr. Bautista said I could work overtime.”
“There are laws in Illinois that govern how many hours minors can work each week. He’d better not be breaking them.”
“Oh. I didn’t know that.” Whoops. Just my luck that my mom, with her photographic memory, has probably memorized the entire Illinois legal library.
“I thought this was going to be an easy job. And that you were going to be home on time.” She says this as a statement, not a question. She doesn’t ask how it’s going, if I even like it. She just assumes that I’m doing something wrong.
“It is an easy job,” I say. “I was just having fun. I wanted to stay a little longer, that’s all.”
This somehow appeases her, for now. “You go lie down now.”
I don’t tell her that I don’t want to lie down. Or that I have finals to study for. Or that I’m tired of her telling me what to do instead of asking me how I am.
I head to my room and shut the door.
* * *
The next morning, I wake up to five texts from Sammie. She’s read all my texts, heard my voice mails, accepted my apology. She knows it’s not my fault—it’s just that she thought she liked him so much, and it’s totally fine if I want to go for him—she’ll never be one to get in the way of true love.
I call her up.
“I’m telling you. I’m not into him.”
“But it’s okay if you are.” She’s using her drama voice again, the one that’s too high-pitched to be real.
“I’m not, though.” Despite whatever force I felt draw me toward him, the last thing I need right now is to be dating anyone. “Anyway, he was being kind of a jerk to you, with that whole horoscope thing.”
“I think he was just trying to get your attention. He liked it when you stood up for me.”
“Let’s just drop it. Okay?”
“You’re sure?” she asks. “I can go for him, and you’re one hundred percent totally okay with it.”
“Yes. Absolutely. I’m one hundred and fifty percent totally okay with it,” I say. “Would you please stop asking me? I’ll see you downstairs in ten minutes?”
“Okay, fine. Yes. Sure. See you downstairs.”
We make our way to school. Our teachers are frantic about cramming everything in before finals week, while we’re all feeling exhausted and done. I’m especially ready for the year to be over, for all the silent, judgmental stares and snickers to stop.
Sammie and I arrive at the pool for our afternoon shift, to find Evan sitting behind the front desk in our usual place, the most serious expression on his face. Professor Cox’s there, too, sitting on the counter, next to him. They’re so deep in conversation, they don’t even notice us.
“I don’t know, Professor Cox,” Evan’s saying. “I have to disagree with you. True love is absolutely possible. It happens every day.” It’s as though they’ve been here since yesterday, waxing philosophical about the meaning of life.
“Well, sure, if you want to call infatuation and disappointment ‘love.’ You can give it any name you like,” Professor Cox says. “But it’s an arbitrary word for an artificial experience that’s temporary, at best. As Fromm says, love ‘is not a sentiment which can be easily indulged in by anyone. One cannot fall in love. One has to be in love.’ With oneself. With others. With life. But that kind of love is nearly impossible.”
Evan stands up to give us our seats at the desk and then jumps over the front of the counter, where they continue their conversation without acknowledging our arrival.
“You really believe that, Professor Cox? That it’s arbitrary? That it’s impossible? You don’t believe that there’s some kind of universal feeling or knowing or whatever you want to call it—one that becomes embodied in our individual experiences—and then, when it’s shared by two people, it’s understood by both beings as a remembrance of what is true about this world?”
“Shared by two people. Ha! You are limiting yourself, Mr. Whitlock!” Professor Cox laughs and then continues: “But I admire that you’re a true romantic, Mr. Whitlock. A visionary of the highest Victorian ideals.”
“Why are you so disillusioned, Professor Cox?”
“I’ve lived a very full life, Evan. That’s why.” And then he says, more quietly, “It’s been a very full and very long life.”
Evan disregards this last, depressing comment and finally looks at us to back him up. “What do you guys think?”
“About the possibility of love?” Sammie asks.
“True love,” Evan says. “Not just like love as a real forc
e in the world but the love between two human beings, a love that is both romantic and eternal, something more than just an empty promise.”
If swooning was still a thing that happened, if women really still fainted when overcome with emotion, if it could be heard and seen like a burning candle, Sammie would be a hot puddle of wax on the floor.
Except that then Evan leans back over the counter, so that he’s hovering over me. I’m not sure if Sammie notices this, but I sure do.
“Of course,” Sammie says. “I completely believe it. My mom and dad loved each other—I mean, until he died.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Evan says. “I didn’t know.”
“No, it’s fine.” Her voice cracks a little. “I mean, it’s been a year since he died, but I know my mom still loves him, and I know he still loves her, wherever he is. It’s eternal. No question.” I reach out and wrap my pinkie around hers, squeeze it tight. She squeezes back.
We were at the end of sophomore year when Mr. Salazar died. He first became sick the same time as my mom, when Sammie and I were in the ninth grade. For a while, my mom was worse than Sammie’s dad. My mom had cancer, whereas her dad had some heart problems that were supposed to be easily fixed with a simple procedure and a change in diet. And then, right after my mom went in for her last round of iodine treatment, Mr. Salazar was dead.
Sammie likes to say that her parents shared a love that is as close to true love as will ever be seen on this earth. Her dad was such a good man. I remember how he would play dolls with us and then let us dress him in bows and makeup. I remember him teasing my mom, trying to convince her that her homemade kugel tasted better than Filipino banana sauce. I remember how much he and my dad liked each other; he’d try to talk to my dad about the NFL draft, but when he realized my dad had nothing to offer, he’d easily change the topic to the redevelopment of the West Side industrial neighborhoods and urban congestion, and they’d end up talking for hours. Most of all, I remember how good he was to Sammie’s mom, how he’d always tell Sammie’s mom to lie down instead of do the dishes because she’d been up all night with her patients. I remember how he recited Shakespearean sonnets to Sammie’s mom on her birthday. I remember how he’d massage her shoulders and tell her he loved her.
Sammie doesn’t say it because he’s dead. She’s not just sentimental. They really did love each other.
“My parents have been together for forty-seven years, since they were seventeen,” Evan says. “And they’re still in love with each other.”
“Wow, is that even possible?” I ask. “How old are they?”
“They’re sixty-four. My mom was forty-five when she had me. I was a ‘miracle baby,’ they said.”
“That’s amazing,” Sammie says. “That your parents are so much older, I mean.”
“Well, my dad had a minor stroke last year, though, and he’s been struggling with his health ever since. I was originally going to take a year off after high school to backpack around Europe, and then my plan was to move to San Francisco and go to a music school where I applied and was accepted. They said I would have been able to defer enrollment. But my dad, an accountant, hated the idea. We had this big fight, and then that night, he threw a clot.” This sort of pours out of him, and he says it all without any real emotion, like it was just a thing that happened.
Professor Cox cackles. “So you stayed home because of a guilt trip?”
Evan nods. “Yup. Pretty much.”
“Well, it’s a fact that we’re all waiting for our parents to die so that we can finally live how we want.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say,” Sammie says.
“It may be terrible,” Professor Cox says, “but it’s the truth.”
This breaks Evan’s quiet contemplation, and he laughs. “Professor Cox is known for his hard truths. It’s why he makes the big bucks.” Then he looks at me. “What about you?”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
“What about me?”
“Love. True love. Are you a romantic at heart?”
No, I want to say. Not if the past six months have taught me anything. But I think better about answering, which would draw Evan’s attention to me and piss Sammie off even more. “I don’t really have an opinion on the subject—” I start to say.
“Of course you don’t!” Professor Cox interrupts me with a laugh. “That’s because you haven’t lived yet. Not really. None of you. You don’t know about love or loss or grief or sadness. You think you do because you’ve been through a few hardships here and there, but you don’t.”
Evan comes to my defense. “Now that’s not fair, Professor Cox. We don’t know the first thing about Viviana here—”
“None of you,” Professor Cox repeats. He isn’t laughing anymore. His face has turned sour and grim. “You don’t know what it means to suffer.”
Excuse me?
I don’t know about sadness? Sammie doesn’t know about grief?
I’m overcome with the desire to scream. Or slap him. This stranger. This man who doesn’t know the first thing about me. How dare he comment on my life. On any of our lives.
“You don’t know anything about us,” I say.
“I know everything about you,” Professor Cox says, his twitching eyes hollow and cold. “I know why you’re all hopeless romantics who think that there’s going to be a happily ever after every single time.”
“See, you don’t know me one bit,” I snap back. “Who said I ever believed in happily ever after?”
“Wait,” Evan says. “You don’t believe in love?” He’s sort of unreasonably outraged at my question, or my declaration, or whatever it is that I’m trying to fight against.
I don’t know how to respond.
I stand up. And when I do, I feel it. It all floods back. The fluttering. The dizziness. The pounding drum of my chest. My lungs empty and shallow.
I only just got here, I’ve only just sat down, but I want to leave. If I could, I would walk right out of here, back upstairs, down the street, anywhere. But I don’t want to lose this job, so I walk toward the pool. There’s one old lady doing laps in the deep end and a few preschoolers bouncing in the shallow end with their moms. Vanessa’s on duty. She asks if I’m okay, and I tell her that I just need a minute, and she says okay, and then she lets me sit at the bottom of her ladder without asking me any more questions.
It’s starting to rush back through me, Sammie’s dad, my mom’s cancer, my dad leaving, Dean, the bike incident. All of it.
I stick my feet in the water. It’s cold. It calms me down, but it’s not enough. My heart’s still racing; my breath is caught.
I don’t have a bathing suit on, just my leggings and a tank top that I wore to school, but I jump in anyway. I plunge myself under the water. It fills my eyes and fills my ears. I swim away from Vanessa’s chair to the other side of the pool, where I hold on to the quiet corner ledge.
I am gasping for breath. I float on my back and force myself to take a deep gulp of air, and it fills me, calms me, lets me settle.
I can breathe.
I am calm.
I beat it this time.
I dive back underwater and swim in wide circles around the empty pool. I let everything above the surface turn blurry and distant. I force it all to fade away. I force it all to disappear.
College Admissions Tip #5
Even more than good grades and constant activity, college admissions boards want to see that you demonstrate integrity in your commitments. There’s merit in exhibiting loyalty in whatever it is you choose to do.
I am completely submerged in the deep end of the pool when I hear a faint splash from the shallow end. I swim to the surface, expecting to see Vanessa coming to see if I’m okay, but to my surprise, it’s Evan, and he’s swimming my way. I look out toward the office—Sammie’s gone, as is Professor Cox. Great. Now she’ll really hate me. My attempt to deflect attention from my Episode has not just failed; it’s accomplished the exact opposite of
what I intended.
Evan approaches, with a soft, concerned smile on his face. “You okay?”
I nod, but I don’t want to say anything to complicate this situation any more. The less I say, the better. That being said, I can’t help but smile a little at the fact that Evan’s also fully clothed in his sweatshirt and sweatpants, that he jumped straight in after me and is now completely drenched.
He treads water next to me. “So, is this, like, the opposite of skinny-dipping?”
“Something like that.” I force the words out through heavy breaths. “I guess.” I am considerably calmer but still know that I’m at the edge of an Episode, and the mix of swimming and talking is making it worse. I motion that I want to swim over to the closest ladder.
We each grab a rung and hold on, the water bobbing and lapping around us. There’s a weird kind of quiet here in this corner of the pool, even now that he’s next to me. I know I should get out of the water, dry off, find Sammie, apologize—again—for being so careless. But I also feel like I should stay to offer some explanation to Evan, or to say thank you, or to tell him something—anything—since he offered this grand gesture of drenching himself for me.
“You didn’t have to jump in after me,” I say finally. “I’m not drowning or anything.”
Evan smiles and wipes the dripping water from his eyes. “I know you’re not drowning.”
“Then why are you here?”
Evan bites his lip and then says, “You can’t let Professor Cox get to you. You can’t take him seriously.”
I shake my head. “It’s not just Professor Cox. It’s a lot more than Professor Cox.”
“I’m a good listener,” he says with a smile. Even though we’re both fully clothed, there’s something strangely intimate about being this close to him, the only two people in the pool. I realize that the last time I was alone with him was at Anne Boyd’s party. I wonder if he remembers. It hits me that the other reason I’m having trouble leaving is because of how nice it is to be here together, sort of hiding from everyone under the edge of the pool.
The Best Possible Answer Page 6