No Such Thing as the Real World

by M. T. Anderson

  I nodded, because I knew too and it stung.

  Mom fingered the tissue in her hand.

  “I just don’t understand why having a boyfriend is so much more important than her entire future,” she said. “More important than her family…”

  Her sister.

  “I don’t know,” I answered honestly.

  Mom reached out and took my hand.

  “I’m glad you’re still here,” she said, and for a moment Kenneth’s theory of graduation flashed through my mind. Would I leave my parents behind when I graduated? Would I leave this town and never look back?

  “I’ll always be here,” I said, and I meant it.

  Kenneth

  “Don’t worry about a thing,” Kenneth said, pulling me forward. “They love you already.”

  I smiled nervously and smoothed out my denim skirt for the hundredth time. I never wore skirts, because they revealed my huge thighs, but today was an exception. Kenneth had invited me to his family reunion, and I wanted to make a good impression.

  Together we walked up the long driveway toward his house. It was summer and everyone was on the front lawn. The sound of light jazz and the smell of grilling burgers wafted toward me. A group of kids played volleyball while the adults sat on plastic lawn chairs in semicircles. When we got closer, one circle of adults called out.

  “There they are!”

  “Oh, he’s brought Rachel….”

  “Grab another chair.”

  Kenneth took my hand and led me toward his parents and grandparents.

  “Isn’t she a sweetheart?” someone whispered.

  Kenneth’s mother put a hand on my shoulder. “Yes, she is,” she said out loud, causing everyone to chuckle. “Such a wonderful girl for our Kenneth. They spend every minute together, you know,” she added, winking at Kenneth’s father.

  I blushed, and beside me Kenneth was blushing too, but he didn’t correct them and say that we were just friends, that our boyfriend-girlfriend act was just for school. Instead he said, “Rachel is on student government. She’s going to run for senior class president this coming year.”

  He beamed, but I glared.

  “I am not,” I said. “We’ve discussed this. No one would vote for me as class president over Christy Collins.”

  Kenneth turned quickly.

  “That’s so not true,” he said, seriously. “I know plenty of people who would vote for you, because you’d be great at the job. You’ve been a class officer for the last two years…”

  “Secretary,” I said, interrupting.

  “…and you’ve got to remember that popularity in high school isn’t about being in the majority. The so-called popular kids are actually the elite minority, while the rest of us make up the base of the pyramid. The popular kids would vote for Christy Collins, but the rest of us would all vote for you.”

  Kenneth’s dad offered me a paper plate with a freshly grilled hamburger on it.

  “Kenneth is right,” he said. “I was class president in high school, and it really is about who will do the best job. The senior class officers need to be responsible and trustworthy, because they’ll be in charge of planning all the reunions after you graduate. Very important.”

  “Do you want our reunions to suck?” Kenneth asked in mock fear.

  “I thought you weren’t going to any of the reunions,” I said, frowning.

  “I’d go if you were planning them.”

  There was a chorus of encouragement, and I could feel myself warming to the idea. Maybe I could be a good class president. I liked being secretary well enough.

  Kenneth’s dad put his arm around me.

  “This little lady can do anything she sets her mind to,” he said, giving me a warm squeeze. “We’re hoping someday she’ll be a part of this—”

  The rest of what he said was drowned out by Kenneth’s mother’s cry of “Daniel, you’re embarrassing her!”

  I looked over to see Kenneth redder than I had ever seen him. My cheeks were flushed too, but mostly it was my heart that was beating as if I’d just run a marathon.

  Later, when things settled down, I pulled him aside.

  “Can I talk to you alone for a minute?”

  “Sure,” he said, setting down his plate of chips and half-eaten burger.

  I took his hand and pulled him under the cherry tree in his front yard, slightly away from everyone else. The sky was a crystal clear blue, and a warm breeze wafted past. I leaned my back against the tree trunk, still holding tight to Kenneth’s hand. It was the perfect moment I’d been waiting for.

  “What’s up?” Kenneth asked.

  I took a deep breath and launched myself forward, allowing the world to come unglued. I leaned in, closed my eyes, and pressed my lips against his.

  Like a flash of light, a memory flickered across my brain before I could stop it. There I was, nine years old, hiding behind the curtains at the edge of the bay window, watching Sarah kiss her first boyfriend in our front yard. I’d so wanted to be her.

  And now it was my turn.

  I waited for Kenneth’s lips to part, for him to wrap his arms around me, his hands snaking across my back. I waited for the warmth of embarrassment to turn into the warmth of passion, but it didn’t. Kenneth pulled away gently. The kiss was a truncated peck, sloppy and quick.

  When I opened my eyes, he was looking at me, his deep-set eyes apologetic.

  “I…”

  My stomach lurched and I looked down, studying my worn leather sandals against the green of the grass.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I wanted to do that…just once.” The words were rushed and slurred.

  Kenneth’s face crumpled.

  “Rach, it’s just…I…there’s something…”

  I shook my head, my cheeks on fire.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “It was a whim. I don’t even know why—”

  The words caught in my throat and Kenneth reached out for my hand, but I didn’t let him take it.

  “Let’s go back,” I said, walking away, heading toward his family, who waited for us with their knowing smiles. I wanted to stop breathing right then, but I pushed forward, determined not to let the situation get worse than it already was.

  But apparently I didn’t have a choice.

  When we reached the semicircle of lawn chairs, there was someone sitting there I hadn’t expected to see.

  Sarah.

  “Hi,” she said, interrupting a conversation she was having to glance up at me. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  She held a plate with a watermelon slice on her lap, and everyone was grinning at her as if she were the guest of honor even though she couldn’t have been present for more than five minutes.

  “What are you doing here?” I stammered, but Sarah just grinned. I could tell that here, in front of this audience, she wanted to play the starring role of my big sister.

  “Mom said you were here. Jordan and I are going to a movie, and I thought it might be fun to double date with my little sister and her man.”

  “We can’t,” I said. “This is a family reunion. Kenneth and I can’t just leave to go to a movie.”

  “What?” Kenneth’s mom said. “You must!”

  “Don’t get stuck here with us old people!”

  The chorus was loud and relentless and my head throbbed. I could feel the world beginning to swirl. I bit my lower lip, wondering if I looked as horrible as I felt.

  “It’s the new movie with Orlando Bloom,” Sarah cajoled. “You know how hot Orlando Bloom is.”

  Kenneth’s hand found the grip it had been seeking before. He squeezed tight.

  “Come on, Rachel,” he said. “It’ll be fun. Please?”

  Finally, I nodded. We said our good-byes, then headed to Jordan’s pimped-out 2000 Camaro. Later, as Sarah and I stood in the concession line to get popcorn, she elbowed me in the ribs.

  “So, you and Kenneth are turning up the heat,” she said with a wink.

  I knew right then that s
he’d seen us under the cherry tree. But what had she seen? How had it looked to her?

  For a split second, I wanted to tell her everything. I wanted to lean on her shoulder the way I had when we were small and she’d read me stories with pictures she had drawn herself. I wanted a sister I could confess to, so I could tell her how I’d been such a fool, how stupid I was to sit close to Kenneth on the couch when we’d stay up late watching movies, hoping he’d move in closer; how lame I was to have pretended to be his girlfriend for so long, hoping the imaginary would somehow become real. How could I have been so blind?

  “He’s cute in a geeky way,” Sarah said. “I bet he’s really into you.”

  We were almost to the concession stand. I opened my mouth, a thousand confessions on the tip of my tongue, but nothing came out.

  “Thanks,” I said, at last. “Jordan’s cute too.”

  Kenneth

  I had exactly thirty-two hours to get my graduation speech written, but from the basement, Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changin’” was blasting up at me and I knew I’d end up writing a big cliché. Wasn’t that what everyone did when they had to give a graduation speech?

  “There’s a time for every season under heaven,” I jotted on my notepad. Then I groaned, crumpled up the paper, and threw it at the trash can. Of course I missed. I could be standing directly over my target and somehow my shot would ricochet in the wrong direction. Today it bounced off the rim and hit Kenneth in the crotch as he walked in to my room.

  “Thanks for the warm welcome,” he said, shutting the door behind him. I couldn’t help it. Even though we’d given up our boyfriend-girlfriend act after the family reunion last summer, my heart still fluttered, and for a second I had to look down at my paper, pretending I’d had an important thought. There were days when I was still convinced that everything might change, and I ached with that thought.

  “Sorry,” I said, pulling myself together. “You know what a horrible shot I am.” I paused. “When did you get here? I never even heard the doorbell.”

  “Not long ago,” Kenneth answered vaguely.

  “I probably didn’t hear you because of this stupid sixties music Sarah keeps blasting. I swear she does it on purpose to drive me crazy. Ever since she moved home, she acts like she owns the place.”

  “I like sixties music,” Kenneth said, sitting down on my beanbag chair. “Those were revolutionary times. Did you know that the nineteen sixties held more—”

  “Not now, Kenneth,” I interrupted. “I’m having a crisis. I don’t have time for historical trivia. Right now the only history I’m interested in is ours.”

  “Speech writing?”

  “What tipped you off?” I glanced at the pages of notes that now lay scattered in front of my computer.

  “Lucky guess.”

  “The thing is I don’t have any words of wisdom to impart. I mean, what the hell have we really learned in the past four years? Algebra? A few words of workable Spanish? How to survive gym class?”

  Kenneth held up one hand in a stop position.

  “That’s it in a nutshell,” he said.

  “Gym?”

  “No. Survival.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Graduation is a ritual marking the fact that we’ve survived high school and can now move on to our real lives. Once we graduate, we’re adults—in control of our own destinies.”

  “That’s deep, Obi-Wan,” I said, but my mind was already beginning to work with his theme. Survival. Is that what high school had been all about? Surviving all the crap so we could get on to bigger and better things?

  I jotted down a note and leaned back in my chair.

  “So, what are you doing here? I thought you had band rehearsal.”

  Kenneth shrugged. “I blew it off.”

  “You did?” I said, narrowing my eyes. “That’s not like you.”

  Kenneth had been doing a lot of things “not like him” in the last month.

  “Maybe it is,” he said, “and I just never knew it. Perhaps this graduation thing is unlocking a whole new grown-up part of me.”

  “Really?” I said, incredulous. “You sound like Sarah.”

  There was a split second when Kenneth’s face hardened, shutting me out, but then it changed again. “What’s wrong with that?” he said.

  “Sounding like Sarah?”

  “No. Saying that graduation is making me grow up.”

  I paused. “I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “I guess I just have my doubts that one event can change things so significantly. It’s not like we cross some line and nothing is ever the same. If that’s true, when exactly does everything change? Now, since classes are done and we’re just waiting to get our diplomas? Once we shake hands onstage with the principal? The next day when we wake up and lounge around the house for summer vacation?”

  “How about college?”

  “Maybe,” I said, as below us Sarah changed the CD from Dylan to John Lennon. “But college doesn’t work for everyone. Maybe some people never grow up.”

  “Geez, Rach.” Kenneth frowned. “This is going to be one hell of a graduation speech. Can’t you just say that graduating is awesome and leave it at that?”

  I couldn’t tell if he was joking or annoyed.

  I turned back to my desk.

  “You’re right,” I said. “I overthink things. Graduation is going to be awesome, no doubt about it.”

  Kenneth took a deep breath.

  “Rach?”

  “Yeah?”

  There was a long pause.

  “I’ll miss your overthinking. No matter what happens after graduation, I hope you never change.”

  “I won’t,” I said, smiling.

  But I was wrong.

  Rachel

  Graduation morning was cloudless, seventy-eight degrees, with a slight breeze blowing in from the northwest. All the seniors had been instructed to gather outside behind the bleachers at seven forty-five in the morning, dressed in our caps and gowns, tassels to the right.

  On the football field, the stage had been set and two hundred white plastic folding chairs dotted the grass. Already most of the spectators were present, milling around the bleachers, looking for the perfect spot to set up their video cameras. Mom and Dad hovered next to me, Mom tugging at my honors sash until it was exactly even.

  “I can’t believe our baby is graduating high school,” Mom said.

  I groaned. “Ma…”

  “I know, I know. But a mother can’t help getting sentimental at times like this. My little girl growing up.”

  Dad rolled his eyes, then gave me a conspiratorial wink.

  “I think we’d better get to the bleachers,” he said, looking around. “Where did Sarah go?”

  Mom sighed. “I’m sure she’s found some of her old friends who are home for the occasion. Let’s go ahead and get seats. She’ll find us when she’s ready.”

  Mom moved to go, but then she turned back and rushed forward to hug me clumsily. She held on tight for a long while.

  “I’m proud of you,” she whispered before she let go. “You’ve turned into a strong young woman.”

  “Thanks, Ma,” I whispered, reaching for her hand, but Dad was already pulling her away toward the bleachers. I stood there following them with my eyes until I couldn’t make out their shapes any longer. Mom’s words rang in my ears.

  A strong young woman. Was I? Simply because I would soon be handed a diploma with my name on it? I didn’t feel any different. Excited, nervous, maybe even proud, but not different. Not yet grown up.

  I took a deep breath.

  Kenneth would say I was dangerously close to overthinking, and he’d made me promise I would not think about graduating from high school. I would simply do it and have fun.

  Kenneth.

  I peered into the crowd, wondering where he could be. I’d called first thing that morning to see if he wanted to drive over together, but he was already gone, probably heading over early
for band setup. I’d looked for him in the halls before I went outside as well, but he was strangely absent.

  I stopped my friend Marie as she was passing by.

  “Have you seen Kenneth?”

  She shook her head, then grinned at me. “Finished your speech?”

  I nodded, distracted. “If you see him, tell him I’m looking for him.”

  “Sure thing.”

  I walked through the throng of seniors, dodging parents and teachers and ignoring Mr. Falhauser, who was madly trying to separate the parents, herding them toward the bleachers with wild gesticulations.

  Marvin Blankerman, first trumpet, walked past, and I grabbed his arm.

  “Did you guys set up already?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you see Kenneth?”

  “He’s here,” Marvin said. “I saw him walking with your sister just a couple minutes ago.”

  I paused. “Oh.”

  A hot sensation crept up my spine.

  Our principal was now herding the seniors into a vague semblance of the two straight lines we’d been instructed to form during practice. I stood in the middle of the crowd, completely out of sequence, staring blankly.

  “Five minutes, people,” Mr. Falhauser called, his voice far away.

  I tried to focus on breathing.

  Sarah. My mind was already fitting together the stray pieces of a puzzle I still didn’t want to admit existed.

  For more than a month now, Kenneth had been giddy and philosophical, busy and annoyingly superior, as if he’d surpassed me in some way. He treated me like an old friend, with a note of pity underlying much of what he said. I’d thought it was a precursor to graduation, distancing himself before the deed was done, but now my heart thumped so hard, I feared I’d need the ambulance the school always parked near the football field for fainters and vomiters.

  I moved my feet forward mechanically, making my way down the length of both lines, straining my neck to see over the crowd, oblivious to Mr. Falhauser’s calls of “Three minutes now!”

  Then, like the moment of revelation in a mystery movie, I knew where I would find them. They’d be at the spot where everyone went to kiss the loves of their lives before a big high school event. It was the spot where the football players kissed the cheerleaders and the kids on the track team made out before a meet. It was supposed to be hidden from view, but if I took three more steps…