He suffered through English with Ms. Imbrie, then dragged himself down to the cafeteria. Because there were so few students in summer session, the kitchen was closed and everyone was expected to bring their own lunches. He plopped down at the table where he and Becky usually sat, hoping against reason that she would materialize out of thin air and entertain him the way she did during the regular school year. He even missed her jabs at the Armenian food his parents inevitably packed for him, such as today’s dolma, with baklava for dessert and a yogurt drink to wash it all down. Although he was sure that Nik would’ve shown it off proudly, Alek would’ve killed for a PB&J, some Lay’s potato chips, and a flavorless waxy red apple.
Alek could see the entire cafeteria from the table he’d chosen in the corner. To his dismay, he saw the entire pack of Dropouts enter and claim their usual table in the middle of the room. Of course they’re all here, he thought. He turned, sitting with his back to the rest of the room, staring into a corner. The only way to make it through the hell of summer school, Alek decided, was to turn himself off to everything, not saying or doing anything, until the entire experience was over. It would be his Zombie Summer.
When the truncated summer school lunch period ended, the students in the cafeteria made their way to their afternoon session. Alek walked to his Algebra classroom in the annex and sat all the way in the back, just like he had done earlier that day, wishing he could camouflage into the wall. A poster of Charlie Brown staring at a stack of books with the words THE MORE I KNOW THE MORE I KNOW HOW MUCH I STILL DON’T KNOW hung next to the chalkboard. Alek took his algebra book out, opened his notebook, and slumped back in the chair. The bell rang, and the teacher stood up from his desk and closed the door behind him.
Alek had only heard of Mr. Weedin and his reputation for unfailing, by-the-book strictness. A tall, thin man who looked like a bald eagle and wore spectacles on the very bottom of his nose, Mr. Weedin had a haughty way of looking down at everyone. And his British accent only made it worse.
“Welcome to Algebra I and II. Because there were so few algebra summer school students, the school administrators, in their infinite wisdom, have decided to combine the classes. I will spend the first half of the period teaching Algebra I, while the Algebra II students can review their homework from the night before. Then the Algebra I students can get a head start on their homework while I teach the Algebra II lesson for the day. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to—”
The classroom door swung open, interrupting Mr. Weedin’s well-rehearsed lecture.
“How’s it going, teach?”
Alek looked up and saw Ethan strut into the classroom. Immediately, Alek sat up straight in his chair.
“Ethan Novick, am I correct?” Mr. Weedin asked, consulting his class roster.
“You got it. Sorry I’m late. I got permission to go off campus for lunch today and I busted a wheel on my board getting back.”
“Mr. Novick, your modes of transportation are of no interest to me. If you don’t pass this class, you will have to repeat your junior year, and I’m sure you don’t want that any more than the teachers here do.” Mr. Weedin addressed the entire class. “Because each summer school class is the equivalent of a week of work, anyone who cuts without a proper excuse will fail the term. Period. And three tardies count as one absence.” He refocused on Ethan. “So, Mr. Novick, for your sake as well as my own, please be more responsible in the future, because if you’re late two more times, you will fail.”
“No prob, teach,” Ethan replied. He made his way to the back of the classroom. Ethan’s lower lip was swollen, Alek noticed, and he wondered if it was a memento from his tussle with Jack on the last day of school. Ethan threw his book bag on the empty seat next to Alek and sat down. Alek looked away quickly. He wanted to thank Ethan for intervening and saving him, but he didn’t even know if Ethan remembered him.
“Algebra I students, let’s begin with integers. Please turn to the first chapter in your book. Class, please note the seats in which you’re sitting—they will be your assigned seats for the rest of the summer,” Mr. Weedin said from the front of the classroom.
Alek thought that he’d be able to just tune out and let summer school wash over him. But with Ethan sitting so close, it was hard to concentrate on anything. Alek opened his algebra textbook to the first chapter. He figured out that if he angled his body just so, and tilted his book just the right way, he could make it look like he was reading about integers while enjoying a perfect view of Ethan.
5
“It’s here! It’s here!” Becky squealed with joy as she attacked the nondescript cardboard package that had arrived at her house earlier that day.
The first week of summer school had finally ended, and Alek was treating himself to an evening at Becky’s with movies.
“What is?”
“The Dinner Party Movie Cookbook! It’s a collection of recipes of food made in famous movies—Gosford Park, Big Night, Babette’s Feast, and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner! I didn’t think it was going to show up until next week.” The packaging lay tattered around Becky, who was thumbing through the book affectionately.
“Do you think you spend too much time obsessing over movies?”
“Well, what else am I going to do? Live my life? I’d rather watch attractive, well-dressed people do it for me.” Becky ran down the stairs to the basement, where the entertainment system was set up. Alek followed. Becky’s parents had only gotten partway through finishing the basement, so half of it still looked like an industrial work space.
“Where are your folks?” Alek asked her.
“Conference. Somewhere in Switzerland, I think?”
“And they left you alone?”
“Sure. I told them that if I’m old enough to babysit, I’m old enough to not need a babysitter. Besides, what’m I going to do? Throw a kegger and invite the woodwind section?”
“Good point.”
Most of Becky’s other friends, like Mandy and Suzie, were fellow marching band geeks. But when they all decided to go to band camp that summer, Becky had refused to even entertain the notion, because she said it was clichéd. Alek really admired Becky, who, unlike most girls her age, was happy to do her own thing, even if that meant sitting at home watching movies or spending the day skating by herself.
Becky and Alek plopped down on the sectional in the middle of the room, facing the flat screen. “What are we going to watch tonight?” Alek asked.
“Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. It has Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. And, of course, Sidney Poitier.”
“So what’s this movie about?”
Becky gasped in shock. “Are you being serious?”
“Not all of us are obsessed with old movies, you know.”
“I worry about what you would do without me,” Becky said. She leaned forward and began to explain the plot as if Alek’s life depended on it. “Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn play these really liberal upper-class parents, and their daughter arrives from a vacation with this dashing black doctor played by the super-dreamy Sidney Poitier, and she’s like, ‘We just met, but we’re going to get married.’ Now, her parents have raised her to be open-minded and everything, but when they’re faced with her actually marrying a man of color, they freak. The movie’s about the difference between your beliefs and reality. And, mostly, the importance of a good dinner party.”
“So you’ve seen it before?”
“Of course I have. What do I look like, a loser?”
“Of course not. You know you’re the coolest girl at South Windsor High.”
Becky flipped her hair back mock-provocatively. “I know, like, all the guys on the football team totally want to ask me out,” she upward inflected. “But I’m, like, too busy dating the soccer team to make time for them. Do you think I’m a slut?”
“Um, I don’t, but you should read what they write about you in the guys’ bathroom. They say you’re easy.”
“Oh my
God! Shut up! No way! This is so humiliating! Every guy I slept with promised he wasn’t going to say anything! I mean, this is totally gonna destroy my reputation. And then Daddy isn’t going to buy me that two-door BMW convertible with tan leather interior!” Becky squeezed her eyes together and pretended to cry. She dropped the act and turned to Alek. “Can we watch the movie now?”
Two hours later, the end credits rolled on the TV, and Becky plopped her head down on Alek’s lap. She had started crying toward the end of the movie, and her trails of tears had transformed into gushers in the last scene, when Spencer Tracy’s character gave his speech about the hurdles that an interracial couple would face, but that being in love demanded that they marry anyway.
“It’s so beautiful. I just can’t get over how beautiful it is,” Becky wailed.
“It’s okay, it’s okay. It’s just a movie,” Alek said soothingly, running his fingers through her brown hair, noticing it was less frizzy than usual. Becky was the first close friend Alek had who was a girl, and he was surprised at how physically comfortable they had grown with each other in the last year. Becky adjusted her head on Alek’s lap, and he continued stroking her hair.
Slowly, Becky stopped crying. She went to the bathroom, blew her nose a few times, washed her face, and returned, her nose and eyes still puffy.
“So how’s summer school going? You haven’t told me anything.”
Alek felt his face flush red. Becky knew how upset he’d been about having to go to summer school, but what she didn’t know was now he found himself looking forward to it. Especially Algebra.
“Summer school is stupid and the people there are stupid,” Alek covered.
“Alek, why didn’t you just take Standard next year? That way, you wouldn’t need to spend your summer stuck in that den of despair.”
“That’s not how it works in my house. There are a bunch of things that come with being Armenian. Like, you only go to the Armenian Orthodox Church, even if it means driving one and a half hours each way. And chess and classical music, you have to like both of those things, and you never, ever eat in a Turkish restaurant or buy clothes made in Turkey.”
“What’s up with the anti-Turkish stuff?” Becky asked. “That sounds pretty racist.”
“Do you think it would’ve been racist for the American Indians to be pissed at European settlers for ravaging their people and stealing their lands?” Alek asked heatedly. “Or for the Jews to have issues with the Nazis who committed the Holocaust?”
“No, but—” Becky retreated.
“Well, that’s exactly what the Turks did to the Armenians before and during World War I. And it’s not like the Turkish government even admits it. It’d be one thing if they were, like, setting displaced Armenians up in casinos or building memorials or giving our land back. But they pretend that it never happened. ‘Casualties of war’ is what they claim. But casualties of war are supposed to be from the other side, not the government of the country you live in forcing your people in death marches across the desert.”
“Okay, Alek, jeez. I was just asking a question.”
Alek slowly released the fists he hadn’t realized he’d been clenching. “You know how your parents read you stories when you were a kid?”
“Sure,” Becky said.
“Well, this was a bedtime favorite in the Khederian house.” He closed his eyes and recited:
“Should it happen we do not endure
this uneven fight and drained
of strength and agonized
we fall on death’s ground, not to rise
and the great crime ends
with the last Armenian eyes
closing without seeing a victorious day,
let us swear that when we find
God in his paradise offering comfort
to make amends for our pain,
let us swear that we will refuse
saying No, send us to hell again.
We choose hell. You made us know it well.
Keep your paradise for the Turk.”
“What is that?” Becky asked.
“‘We Shall Say to God.’ It was written by Vahan Tekeyan, this really famous Armenian poet. It’s the last lines that really hit me. ‘We choose hell. You made us know it well. / Keep your paradise for the Turk.’ That’s what my parents were reading to me when you were getting Snow White or the Little freakin’ Mermaid.”
“Well, dude, that’s messed up,” Becky said.
“Tell me about it. But they couldn’t help it. And neither can I. We are all the thing we were raised to be.” Until now, Alek thought this Armenian stuff was important to his parents, or to Nik, but not to himself. “How’d we even end up talking about this?”
“You were defending Armenians’ blatantly racist policies,” Becky reminded him.
“That’s right. Well, after the Turkish thing, the next most important thing is doing well at school.”
“It all sounds too intense for me. I mean, I got C’s in Standard History and Phys Ed last year, and my parents just told me to try harder next time. And that time I cut class to go skating in the park, they were just like, ‘Tell us next time so we can write you a note.’”
“That is absolutely and utterly incomprehensible to me. If I cut class, my parents would freak out.”
“At least they didn’t make you get a summer job.”
Alek put his feet up. “Oh, that’s right—how’re things at DQ?”
“Thought it would be fun. Was totally wrong. My manager, Laurie, is this rhinoceros of a woman. She gets angry when any of the employees’ friends visit, but I want to be like, ‘At least they’re attracting some customers to this pathetic business—what do you care if they hang out and want to talk for a few minutes?’ And the rest of the customers—don’t even get me started. You know that saying ‘When hell freezes over’? That’s Dairy Queen.”
“Why don’t you quit?”
“I told you—I have to make enough to go to skating camp. And I’ve decided I need a new pair of blades, too—my Activas just aren’t going to cut it anymore. Besides, do you know how hard it is for a fourteen-year-old to get any kind of gainful employment? Especially after summer’s started and every place has already hired people?”
“Becky, let me ask you a question.”
“Shoot.”
“Has there ever been something that you’ve wanted to do but were scared to?”
“I don’t know,” Becky said, looking confused. “What are you talking about?”
Alek had spent the last week trying to thank Ethan for intervening at the parking lot, but he hadn’t figured out how to do it.
“Well, I keep on trying to get my courage up to do something, but every time I bail out at the last minute.”
Becky tilted her head and looked at Alek for a few moments. “If you want to do something, then you have to trust your instincts and do it,” she said decisively, squinting at him like he was out of focus. She scootched her way next to Alek on the sofa. “Because you never know how something’s going to end up.”
Alek waited for her to say or do something else, but when that didn’t happen, he cleared his throat loudly. But she still just sat there and closed her eyes.
“Becky, it’s getting late and I need to start on some homework. I’ll see you soon, okay?”
Becky opened her eyes quickly, like she had just woken up. “Soon, okay. No problem. We’ll find some time when I’m not serving up Double Fudge Cookie Dough Blizzards.”
* * *
Alek never woke up early on Saturday mornings. But the next day, he made an exception, because he wanted to show off his first test to his parents. Mr. Weedin had walked up and down the aisles of the classroom the day before, returning the exams to the students. Each time he gave back a test, he’d follow it with a pointed remark, spoken just loud enough so that the entire class could infer how you’d done. For example, when he handed Emily Fink her test back, he said disappointedly, “Emily, I would recommend studyi
ng next time. It does wonders.” To Ethan, Mr. Weedin said, “Mediocre at best, Mr. Novick.” But when he got to Alek, his face almost eased up. “Well done, Mr. Khederian. Well done, indeed.”
Alek held the test with a big fat red circled ninety-three on top, waiting for his parents to wake up. He had wanted to show it to them when he got back from Becky’s the night before, but they were already asleep. Two hours of Saturday morning cartoons later, he heard them stirring above. He scampered up the stairs to their bedroom and put his ear to the door to make sure they were actually awake. He hoped that they’d be so impressed with his test that he’d be invited to go into New York with Nik and Nanar, and maybe they’d even drop him off somewhere while they researched their heritage projects.
“Boghos, I just feel like I’m at my wit’s end with him.”
“It’s not like he failed, Kadarine.”
“I’m not talking about summer school. I’m talking about all of it. Where is that sweet little boy we brought up? The last year, his behavior’s been, well, relentless.”
“This has been a hard time for all of us, Kada. With you having to go back to work full-time, and me, well—”
“Honey, I know you’ll find another job soon.”
“All I mean is that this has been a tough time for everyone, and we’ll all come through it. Alek’s no exception. Besides, he’s a teenager. This is how they behave.”
“Nik didn’t—”
“Nik hasn’t yet. But who knows what he’ll be like next year, or when he goes to college?”
“Don’t look at me like that, Boghos. We did a good job bringing our sons up. Why did I take years out of my life to raise and spend time with my children if they’re going to behave like these American kids who were brought up by nannies and babysitters and day care centers?”
Alek couldn’t listen anymore. He tiptoed away from the door and to his room, quietly closing his door behind him. He dropped the test into the trash can underneath his desk. He played his mother’s words over and over in his head, and each time they stung more.
One Man Guy Page 4