How Not to Spend Your Senior Year

by Cameron Dokey

  “I hear you,” she said. “Happens to me all the time.”

  “Not when you’re behind the wheel, I hope,” I said.

  The bus driver laughed. “You have a good day now.”

  “Thanks. You too,” I said. I clomped down the stairs. The doors whooshed closed behind me. With a roar of its engine, the bus drove off.

  I waited until it had gone around the corner before I put my plan into action. That was all the time I gave myself to think it over. Any more and I was afraid I might chicken out and change my mind.

  Before I could go forward I had to go back. Claire Calloway would never be able to live unless Jo O’Connor did something first.

  She had to say good-bye to the guy she loved.

  Ten

  WARNING: The following chapter contains the introduction of IMPORTANT RULES which you will be asked to follow.

  Not rules! you’re no doubt thinking. To which I can only reply, I sympathize and I’m sorry. I wouldn’t even bring the subject of rules up if I didn’t consider it absolutely necessary. It’s for your own good, honestly. I can’t help thinking that I might not have made such an incredible mess of things if I’d just mastered a few basic concepts ahead of time.

  Maybe I shouldn’t even call them rules at all. Maybe I should call them guidelines.

  Except for this first one though, which is pretty hard and fast and you should follow it no matter what.

  How Not to Spend Your Senior Year,

  Rule #1:

  If at all possible, don’t pretend

  to be something you’re not.

  Specifically, don’t play dead.

  Trust me. As this chapter is about to reveal, I did it, so I should know.

  Between the various city bus schedules, it took a lot longer to get across town than I had counted on. Then I deliberately decided on a further delay. For obvious reasons, I wanted to try to see Alex alone. My best chance of doing that would be following Drama, after morning break.

  I’d settled in to wait at the Starbucks not far from campus, the same one where I’d bought Elaine the latte I owed her just a few short weeks ago. It was just as I was finishing the rest of the article about the accident that had claimed the lives of “Chase William O’Connor and his daughter, Josephine, commonly known as Jo,” that the enormous flaw in the plan I’d so suddenly cooked up occurred to me:

  What if Alex wasn’t in school at all?

  Assuming he knew about the accident, it was perfectly reasonable to also assume he might stay home. What if I’d just come all the way across town for nothing?

  No. That isn’t Alex, I thought.

  This was the guy who’d been class president for three years running. The only student in the history of Beacon High to be elected student body president by running unopposed. Alex was totally dedicated to student life. He’d show up at school, no matter what.

  I polished off my latte and headed for the Little Theater, praying my disguise would hold.

  It did, though I didn’t know if it was because my makeover was brilliant, or simply that I timed my trip across campus so well I didn’t meet anyone. I arrived at the Little Theater just before the class let out, then hid out in one of the bathroom stalls. Even if somebody came in, to the bathroom in general, I mean, I’d be safe behind my locked door.

  I listened to the bell ring, counted to one hundred. When the coast seemed clear, I slipped out of the bathroom and into the back of the darkened auditorium, easing my way over toward the righthand aisle. A ring of chairs was arranged on the stage, illuminated by the overhead stage lights.

  They were empty except for the two occupied by Alex and Mr. Barnes.

  At the sight of Alex, my heart gave a painful, lurching stumble. He looked absolutely awful. His face was pale and pinched.

  “I just can’t get it through my head,” he was saying now. “I can’t believe she’s gone. How can she be gone? I just met her. I keep looking for her in the halls. I even went to meet her after first period English. It wasn’t until I was standing outside the door that I realized what I’d done.”

  “That’s all perfectly natural,” Mr. Barnes said.

  “You don’t think it’s unhealthy—that it means I’m in denial or something?”

  Mr. Barnes shook his head. “Absolutely not. Disbelief is natural at first. It’s all a part of the process. You just need to give yourself some time.”

  “It doesn’t seem fair, somehow,” Alex said. “I mean, Jo doesn’t . . . ” Abruptly he broke off. He dropped his head down into his hands. Mr. Barnes laid a hand on his shoulder.

  “Why don’t I just give you a minute, Alex,” he suggested. “There’s some paperwork I need to take care of in my office. Check in with me before you go. Don’t rush things. I’m sure your next teacher will understand. We’re all a little shook up today.”

  “Okay.” I heard Alex’s muffled voice through his fingers. “Thanks, Mr. Barnes.”

  “You’re welcome,” Mr. Barnes said. He stood up and made his way off the stage and up the center aisle of the auditorium. An oblong of light from the exit door shot down the aisle, then vanished.

  Alex and I were all alone. More than anything in the world, I wanted to rush down to the stage and throw my arms around him. Tell him that he didn’t have to grieve. I was all right. I was alive.

  That was the moment I realized the awful truth. I looked like Claire Calloway, not Jo O’Connor.

  I snatched my glasses off and stuffed them in my bag, in a total panic now. My hair. What do I do about my hair? I thought. I didn’t even have a hat I could stuff it up under.

  Onstage, Alex stood up. In another minute he’d be leaving. I’d miss my chance.

  “Alex,” I croaked. My voice was so weird and distorted, not even I recognized it. Not only that, it hadn’t carried at all. I could tell from Alex’s lack of reaction that he hadn’t even heard me.

  In that horrible moment, I flashed on this old film Elaine and I had gone to at one of the art houses so we could see it on the big screen: Doctor Zhivago. The plot is really long and convoluted and I have no intention of telling it to you now.

  The thing that’s relevant is that there’s this one scene where Omar Sharif suddenly sees Julie Christie on the street. Or maybe it’s a train.

  Anyhow.

  The point is, their two characters were once in love. But at this point in the film, she thinks he’s dead. He tries to call out to her, to get her attention, only he gets all choked up. No matter what he does, he can’t make her hear him. Eventually the vehicle pulls away without her seeing him. She never knows he’s still alive.

  The reason I’m telling you this is that, all of a sudden, I was seized with this incredible fear that this is what would happen to me. I’d try to call out to Alex, but he’d never hear me. He’d never know I hadn’t really died.

  I cleared my throat and tried again.

  “Alex.”

  This time my voice came out way too loud. At the sound of it, Alex paused, one foot above the first step that would take him off the stage.

  “Who is it? Who’s there?” he called. He moved back into the center of the stage and lifted one hand to shade his eyes against the bright overhead light.

  Well, you got what you wanted. You got his attention, I thought. Now what?

  “Alex, it’s me,” I said. “It’s Jo.” Slowly, as if pulled by a giant magnet, I began to make my way toward the stage. What did it matter what I looked like? I could explain that. All that mattered was for Alex to know I was safe. I was alive.

  “Alex, it’s all right. I’m all right.”

  “Jo?”

  Alex’s voice must have risen an entire octave on that one syllable, hope and disbelief combined.

  This is the right thing. I did the right thing, I thought.

  At that exact moment, Alex’s eyes rolled back in his head and he crumpled to the stage floor.

  Eleven

  “Well, now you’ve done it,” I heard a voice say from
the back of the auditorium.

  I whirled, heart pounding. Fortunately for me, even through my shock, which was considerable, I recognized Elaine’s voice.

  “Don’t do that. You scared me half to death.”

  “According to the paper, it’s one hundred percent,” Elaine said. She came swiftly down the aisle, her expression furious and fearful all at once. “What’s going on? What have you done to Alex? I warn you, the explanation better be good, and I’d better hear it fast.”

  “Shut up! Just shut up a minute, will you?” I snapped. “Get up here and help me make sure that he’s all right.”

  I hoisted myself up onto the stage, then reached down a hand and pulled Elaine up beside me. Together, we knelt beside Alex. I felt for his pulse with trembling fingers. It was strong, though his skin felt clammy.

  “It’s okay. His heart is beating,” I said. Then I did the thing I’d been trying to avoid ever since my dad first told me what had to happen. I burst into tears.

  “Oh, geez,” Elaine said. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to stay mad at you when you do that?”

  She sat down beside me and put her arms around me. I rested my head on her shoulder. For a minute or two we sat, just like that.

  “I guess the last few hours have been kind of tough,” Elaine eventually said.

  I made a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

  “You could say so. For the record, that was supposed to be Alex’s line. He and I were supposed to be having a touching reconciliation right about now.”

  “Sorry it’s only me,” Elaine said, her tone dry. “Allow me to recommend a less theatrical entrance next time.”

  “Look who’s talking,” I commented.

  Somewhat more under control now, I sat back and began to rummage in my bag for the packet of tissues I always kept there. I had this horrible feeling my face was covered in tears and snot. That’s how seriously I’d lost it.

  “Are you okay?” Elaine asked.

  I found the packet of tissues, extracted the top one, and blew my nose. Loudly. “Do I look okay?” I inquired.

  “Well, no, not exactly,” Elaine admitted. “But I’ll say this much: You don’t look dead.”

  A statement which might have made me start crying all over again, if it hadn’t made me laugh.

  “I am not dead,” I said. “I just have to pretend to be.”

  “What?” Elaine said. “For heaven’s sake, Jo, what’s going on?”

  “I don’t have time to explain things now,” I said as I fished my glasses out of my bag and put them back on. “I’m totally breaking all the rules by even being here. I probably never should have come back. It’s just . . . I couldn’t stop thinking about Alex.”

  “You didn’t call him last night?” Elaine exclaimed, her voice incredulous.

  I shook my head miserably. “I couldn’t,” I said. “It took everything I had to convince my dad to let me call you.”

  “I don’t understand any of this,” Elaine said. “Wait a minute. Why are you wearing glasses?”

  “Meet me after school down at the Market and I’ll explain everything, I promise.”

  The big farmers market near the water-front was one of Seattle’s biggest tourist attractions. You could pretty much count on it to be crowded no matter what. It would be the perfect place to meet unobserved.

  “Where at the Market?” Elaine asked.

  “That park that overlooks the water.”

  “The one where all the drunks hang out?”

  “That’s the one,” I nodded. “Nobody’s going to get close to us there. And if we are overheard, it will just sound like drunken ramblings. We’ll blend right in.”

  “Okay. If you say so.”

  “Will you stay with Alex until he wakes up?”

  “Of course I will,” Elaine promised.

  “What will you tell him?”

  “How should I know?” Elaine shrugged. “It’ll depend on what he says when he comes to. You should go, if you’re going. I don’t think it would be a good idea for him to see you again.”

  “All right, all right, you don’t have to get all pushy about it.”

  I got to my feet, made a circuit around Alex, jumped down from the stage, and began to stomp my way toward the back of the theater. I was not going to start crying again, no matter how much I wanted to.

  “Jo,” Elaine suddenly called out.

  I stopped, but didn’t turn around.

  “What?”

  “I’m really glad you’re not dead.”

  I turned back toward her then. In the glare of the stage lights, I could see tears slipping silently down her cheeks.

  “Thanks. Me too,” I said.

  The last thing I saw before I went back outside was Elaine, bending tenderly over Alex.

  Twelve

  “You did what?” I all but shouted.

  As prearranged, Elaine and I were keeping our rendezvous down at the Market. I’d spent the time in between wandering the downtown area, trying to adjust to my new Claire Calloway persona.

  I’d developed a walk for her, stride slightly wider than my own. The boots I was wearing definitely helped with this. Head down, so that my hair fell forward. I also tried out a variety of ways she might speak, finally settling on the “when in doubt, use a big word to sound more intellectual” approach.

  Somewhat to my surprise, I’d had a good time. By the time Elaine and I hooked up, I was feeling much calmer. Much more focused. It had been a mistake to try and see Alex. I could see that now. I couldn’t take the action back. But I could do my best to move forward. Surely the worst that could happen already had.

  How Not to Spend Your Senior Year,

  Rule #2:

  Always expect the Spanish Inquisition,

  no matter what anyone else does.

  When he came to, Elaine told Alex he’d been visited by Jo O’Connor’s ghost.

  “I just don’t get why you’d do such a thing,” I said now.

  “Well, gee, let me think,” Elaine said, her tone defensive. “How about, because it seemed like the best idea at the time? It was Alex’s idea, as a matter of fact.”

  “You are such a liar,” I said. “It was not.”

  “I am not, and it was too,” Elaine came right back. “Alex’s first words after he woke up were something like, ‘Did you see her?’ so naturally I asked, ‘Did I see who?’ I wasn’t going to admit I’d seen you until he did. Maybe he’d hit his head and had amnesia or something. How was I suppose to know?”

  “Then what did he say?”

  “Nothing,” Elaine answered. “Not for a minute or two, anyhow. Then he looked me right in the eye and said he thought he must be more upset over your death than even he had realized. I asked him why. That was when he told me he thought he’d just seen your ghost.

  “It took me about five minutes to convince him not to go straight to one of the special grief counselors the school brought in. That really would have blown the whole thing sky high.”

  “Thanks,” I said as a huge pang of guilt swept through me. Grief counselors. For me. When I was still among the living.

  “Don’t mention it,” Elaine replied. I could tell from her tone of voice that she was still a little miffed.

  “No, really, I mean it,” I went on. “Trying to go back and see Alex was a big mistake. I admit it. You performed damage control above and beyond the call of duty, particularly considering you didn’t know what was going on. I want you to know I really appreciate it.”

  “I still don’t know what’s going on,” Elaine reminded.

  So I told her what I knew. After I’d finished, she was quiet for a really long time.

  “You really think your dad’s life could be in danger?” she finally asked.

  “I honestly don’t know,” I said. Together, we watched a ferry glide across Puget Sound. The water and the sky above it were a brilliant blue. After the downpour of yesterday, we were being treated to one of those glori
ous spring days that make people decide to move here in the first place.

  “But he seems to think so, and the detective who’s helping us does for sure, so I guess I have to say the answer is yes,” I went on.

  Elaine shook her head, as if moving it around would help create the space necessary for all these weird new ideas to fit inside.

  “So, maybe Alex thinking he saw your ghost will turn out to be a good thing,” she suggested. “I mean, he’s hardly likely to mention it to anyone, right? He’d be laughed right off all his various sports teams, not to mention removed from the student council in the blink of an eye. Big Men on Campus cannot be emotionally unstable. I think it’s a rule.”

  “All very good points.”

  “So I guess you’re sorry now you gave me such a hard time.”

  “Maybe I am,” I said.

  Elaine smiled. “So where are they sending you instead of Beacon?

  “Royer,” I replied.

  “What’s it like?”

  “Ask me next week. By then I may have actually gone inside.”

  “What happens if the school calls your dad about today?”

  I moaned and put my head in my hands. “I keep thinking this can’t get any worse, and then it does. I never even thought of that.”

  Elaine laid a consoling hand on my shoulder. “It’ll be all right,” she said. “Isn’t that what you told me?”

  “I did,” I said. “Guess it’s time I started to believe it myself, huh? It just feels so weird. I’ve had to start over before, but never as someone else.”

  “Hey, I just thought of something,” Elaine said. “What am I supposed to call you? You’re not still Jo O’Connor, are you?”

  “Elaine Golden, meet Claire Calloway,” I said as I extended my hand. Obligingly, Elaine shook it.

  “Calloway, that’s kind of cool,” she said. “Did you choose that because of the house?”

  “Actually, Calloway was my mother’s maiden name,” I confessed.

  Elaine’s eyes widened. “Oh, wow,” she said. “Is that weird or what? What if you’re related to Old Mrs. Calloway?”

  “I’ve wondered that myself.”