To Be Honest

by Maggie Ann Martin

  “This is not about you,” Grace said, tracing circles on my back.

  “I said those things, Grace,” I managed. “They edited it, but I said them.”

  “Because you meant them!” she said. “Screw them for making you talk about something that you don’t agree with. Screw them for twisting the words that actually came out of your mouth.”

  “I just wanted to be supportive,” I said. Because I did. I wanted to be the calm, collected sister Ashley told me I could be. I wanted to be the strong peacemaker while she was out of the house. I wanted to have a normal relationship with my mom again without her obsession with weight getting in the way of everything.

  “I think you’ve been pretty damned supportive,” Grace said. “I know your sister will never say this because she would never say anything bad about your mom, but she’s being incredibly unfair to you. Making those backhanded comments to you about everything you eat? That is the definition of uncool parenting behavior.”

  “Because we both know so much about parenting,” I said.

  “I know that parents shouldn’t be allowed to make their kids feel like shit unless they buy into their culty dogma,” she said.

  I shrugged. “I don’t think she does any of it on purpose.”

  “Does that matter?” Grace asked. “She’s not looking out for you when she makes those comments. She’s looking out for her own self-interest.”

  “She’s the mom. I’m the kid,” I said, repeating Mom’s rant. “I just have to deal for now until I can leave this place.”

  “What about living with your dad for a while?” Grace asked.

  I snorted. “With Sheri? Two months of living with them was almost enough to drive me over the edge.”

  “I’m just saying, you have other options. You don’t have to stay here,” Grace said.

  “I appreciate it, but we’re fine. It’s fine here. I can make it until college,” I said.

  She held out her arms so that I could fall into a hug. “I’ve always got your back, babe. It’s us against the world.”

  Grace offered to stay with me until Mom got back, but it was reaching dangerously close to her curfew, and I convinced her that I would be okay if she left. Every part of me wanted to ask her to stay, to ask her if I could hang out at her house for the foreseeable future, but I couldn’t bring myself to be that kind of burden.

  I lay down in my bed, my legs curled into my chest. I’d read online that creating pressure around your torso was supposed to be comforting when you were having a panic attack, but it just made me feel like I was suffocating. I changed my position so that I was starfished across the bed and felt the tremors shake out to the tips of my fingers and toes. My breathing slowly changed from ragged and quick to a more even rhythm as the panic left my body.

  Why hadn’t Ashley called me yet? If she’d seen the show, she had to know that I would be freaking out right now. One part of my brain tried to remind me that she was probably studying or hanging out with friends and hadn’t had the chance to watch the show yet. The other part of my brain tried to convince me that she was mad at me, too. That she’s warned me about keeping the peace while she was gone, and she was angry that I’d so publicly disrupted it.

  My fingers started dialing a number that I’d known by heart since I was a little girl without me even realizing it.

  “Savannah?” my dad asked as he answered the other end of the line. I held my breath for a few moments, realizing just what a mistake I might have made in calling him. Maybe if he couldn’t hear my breathing, he’d hang up.

  “Savannah, I know you’re there,” he said.

  “Hi,” I squeaked out.

  “It’s late. What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Did you watch the show?” I asked.

  “We have a strict no–Shake the Weight–viewing policy now,” he said.

  I twisted my blanket in my fingers idly and tried to remember the last time we talked on the phone. It had to be months ago.

  “It was really bad, Dad. They came and interviewed me for a follow-up, and I looked like such a brat. Mom is so mad at me,” I said.

  He sighed. “She knew how you felt about that show. She knew how we all felt about it. She should have known going into this interview that it wouldn’t be full of glowing praise.”

  “I tried so hard to make her happy, Dad. I—I don’t know if she’ll ever forgive me for this,” I said.

  “She’ll forgive you. Just give it time,” he said.

  “Could I wait it out with you for a while?” I asked. He was silent for a few beats.

  “You’re in the middle of school. You can’t just drive an hour to school and back each day,” he said.

  “Could I come for a week then? Just to give her some time to cool off?” I asked. The last sentence came out with a crack of tears. I’d never asked him something like this. I’d always been so firmly on Team Mom through their entire divorce that I’d never even considered moving to Walcott with him of my own free will. This was his chance to do something nice for me.

  “Now’s not the best time, Savannah,” he said. “Sheri is remodeling our house, and I just don’t think this is a good time to have guests.”

  “I’m not a guest. I’m your kid,” I said. My sadness was turning quickly to anger. The little piece of hope that I’d built around this idea of getting a relationship back with my dad was slowly crumbling inside a little place in my heart I’d ignored for a while now.

  “I’m sorry, you just can’t come—” he said.

  I hung up the phone before he could finish his sentence.

  * * *

  The next day at school I got a few weird looks in the hallway from the handful of kids who would tune in to Shake the Weight on Wednesday nights. Where the kids who recognized me or my mom used to smile at me as they passed, they quickly dropped eye contact and walked away today. They realized that they didn’t want to mess with the new “Reality TV Brat,” as I was dubbed by a particularly snarky blog. Trust me, I’d seen it all in the recaps this morning. It was a good thing that I’d already set all my accounts to private the moment that Mom went on the show, otherwise I was sure there would be a flood of hate mail for me all over social media.

  The warning bell rang, letting me know that first-period calc was ten minutes away. I started to head toward Mr. Kavach’s room, looking everywhere for Grace. If there was one day I needed her as my wingwoman, it was today. So, of course, she was nowhere in sight.

  “Savannah?” I heard from behind me.

  I turned around to take in George, having to completely tip my head back to make eye contact with him. For some reason, I hadn’t noticed how ridiculous our height difference was until that moment. We had to have a good foot in between our heights. The ends of his strawberry blond curls were still a little damp, like he’d just woken up late and had to take a supersonic shower before driving to school.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  “Oh,” I said, turning away from him and continuing my walk toward Kavach’s room. “Did you watch the show? It’s okay if you don’t want to associate yourself with me anymore. The rest of the Internet has already written me off.”

  “What?” he asked. “Wait, what show? Are you holding out on your fame on me over here?”

  I turned back to him. “Grace didn’t tell you? You really don’t know?”

  “I truly don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

  “My mom, she was on that show Shake the Weight last season. They came back a few weeks ago for a follow-up interview with the families, and it aired last night. My interview did not put me in the best light, to say the least,” I said.

  “Then my question still stands,” he said. “How are you?”

  The sincerity of it sent a shiver up my spine. His sincerity floored me. There was nothing sarcastic in that moment, no more banter left in him.

  “I’m doing okay, thank you,” I said, deepening our eye contact.

  “Good,” he sa
id, before turning that full-body shade of red and turning his eyes from my gaze. “Uh, I do have a question for you.”

  “Ask away,” I said, starting up my walk to class again.

  “So we have a precalc test on Friday that I need some help with. I can pay you in a milkshake and endless fries if you’re game?” he asked.

  “Call it pizza and you have a deal,” I said. “Want to meet at the Pizza Kitchen tonight? Five o’clock?”

  “That’s the other thing,” he said. “My mom needs the car tonight. Do you mind picking me up?”

  “I can’t promise that we’ll get there in one piece, but I can give you a ride,” I said. “Driving is one of my least favorite pastimes.”

  The one-minute warning bell struck and he froze, probably not realizing just how little time he had to make it to his first class.

  “I have to get going,” he said.

  “Wait!” I called after him, “I don’t have your address!”

  “I’ll slip a note in your locker!” he yelled back, as he ran down the hallway.

  “How do you know which one is mine?” I asked.

  “I just do!” he yelled back over his shoulder, sending me a lopsided smile before he rounded the corner.

  chapter EIGHT

  Sure enough, when I went to my locker before leaving for the day, a piece of notebook paper folded into a triangle fluttered to the floor. When I opened it up, it had his address underlined at the top with monument-centric directions (my favorite kind of directions) listed below.

  111 S. Berlin St.

  Take a right off your street

  Head toward the Circle K with 80 oz. slushies

  Turn left at the corner of CK and that yellow house with antique ducks in the front lawn

  Turn left at the fire hydrant that Grace hit with her car last year

  If you reach the woman telling fortunes at the end of Berlin, you’ve gone too far.

  * * *

  I completed the typical routine of letting Fiyero out and playing with him in the backyard for a half hour after getting home for the day. I set an alarm on my phone to remind me to get presentable by four thirty. Properly de-sweating before my studying with George involved a variety of deodorants, spritzers, and baby powder for my hair. I turned on two small fans in my bathroom to get the ball rolling, airing out all the sweat that had accumulated after my playtime with Fiyero. Fiyero hated fans, so he sat in the hallway, completely avoiding my flurry of preparation.

  I left a note for Mom on the counter to tell her where I was. Not that I thought that she particularly cared at the moment. We still hadn’t spoken since the episode aired last night, and no matter how hard Ashley tried to get us to reconcile from afar, she wouldn’t budge. I think last night possibly invoked one of the largest Mom Grudges to have ever taken hold in our house. It would probably take weeks for me to thaw out the frozen wall she’d built between us.

  I put a very distraught Fiyero back in his kennel and promised that Mom would come home to let him out soon. Norma the Nissan and I made our way down my street and turned right, just like George’s creative directions had said. Even though I’d figured out which house was probably his in my head, I still made sure to hit all the landmarks that he talked about in his note, laughing especially hard as I came across that fateful fire hydrant that Grace broke her car’s grill on.

  George was sitting on his front porch when I pulled up, and he stood when he saw my car come into view. I was extra careful to keep Norma as far away as possible from his mailbox and any of his neighbors’ cars. He’d made a complete outfit transformation, ditching his band T-shirt and jeans for a button-down and khakis. The sleeves on his button-down were just the tiniest bit short, like he’d hit a growth spurt overnight. He tugged at them before he opened the passenger-side door.

  “If I knew we were being classy Pizza Kitchen patrons, I would have dressed up more,” I said as he sat down.

  His face turned its embarrassed shade of red, but he laughed it off like a champ. “I dress to impress. You never know who you might see at the Pizza Kitchen.”

  “Expecting anyone in particular?” I asked.

  “No,” he said quickly. “But you can never be overdressed. There’s an official clichéd saying about it and everything.”

  “I think there might be a line of being overdressed for the Pizza Kitchen that you are on the border of crossing,” I said.

  He looked down at his phone for a second before looking back at me. “Do you think I should change then?”

  “What? No,” I said. “You look nice. I’m giving you a hard time, Smith.”

  He nodded, wiping his hands on his pants. I knew that I wasn’t the most reliable driver in the world, but I didn’t know what was making him so antsy. He kept bouncing his legs up and down and fidgeted with the radio the entire way to the Pizza Kitchen.

  When we pulled up, the parking spots were very limited. I managed to squeeze in next to a giant SUV that boxed me in to my side. George got out fine on his end and closed the door. I opened my door about an inch and realized that there was no level of sucking in my stomach that could help me get out that way. With no other choice, I climbed over the middle console of the car, banging my knee on the way across. When I went to open the handle, the door opened on its own and George held out a hand.

  “You could have reparked,” George said as I took his hand.

  “We would have been sitting here for another ten minutes if I tried to adjust. Trust me, I just saved you a lot of frustration,” I said.

  He kept my hand in his for a few extra moments and I swear he could feel how hard my heart was beating in the palm of my hands. Somehow, it didn’t seem to faze him. He continued on into the Pizza Kitchen while I rubbed my hand where we’d just been touching.

  We were seated at a table in the back of the restaurant, the perfect vantage point to spy on the town of Springdale as they fled into one of the only pizza places in town for a Thursday-night meal. Some of my neighbors walked in and waved at me before sending a confused look about the mystery boy sitting across from me at the table. I felt like I needed a neon sign that said “I’m tutoring him. He doesn’t like me like that.”

  He pulled out his textbook and flipped to chapter four, spinning it so I could take a look. He’d underlined the word Rational in the chapter title and written a small ha next to it. I was taking it that rational functions were not seeming as rational to him as the name might suggest. I peeked at one of the practice problems in the book and solved it on some scratch paper, checking my answer in the back of the book.

  “How did you do that so quick?” he asked.

  “My brain just likes solving problems,” I said. “I don’t know why.”

  “I’m very jealous,” he said.

  “Well, I’m jealous that your brain helps you read music. I tried to play the violin in fourth grade and could never get the hang of the whole ‘looking at sheet music and having to play an instrument without looking at the same time’ thing,” I said.

  “That’s different—you could have learned how to read music quicker if you stuck with it for longer,” he said.

  “And you can learn to solve math problems quickly if you practice at it,” I said.

  “What kind of pizza are you feeling tonight?” he asked. “My treat, especially if you’re trying to rewire my brain to be a math brain. We might be here all night.”

  “I’m always down for a classic flavor. Pepperoni? Sausage? All good with me,” I said.

  “I’ve heard rumors that they have a delicious Hawaiian pizza,” George said.

  I groaned. Of course, he’s related to Grace. Their entire family is addicted to pineapple on pizza.

  “Pineapple and pizza are two p’s that should never mix. I’m a pizza purist,” I said.

  “We can’t be friends now,” he said, crossing his arms, even with a smirk on his face.

  The waiter walked up right in that moment, looking between George and me. “What can I get yo
u?” he asked.

  “Half pepperoni, half pineapple,” I said.

  George raised his eyebrows. “You sure?”

  “Don’t make me second-guess myself,” I said. What can I say? He made me want to compromise. We both ordered a round of Diet Cokes before I pointed back down at his homework.

  “As boring as it sounds, I learn the most from taking a practice quiz, seeing where I still need to practice, and then taking another practice quiz at the end of my study session to see if I improved. Do you want to try that? Maybe we’ll be a little more productive this way,” I said.

  He groaned. “I’ll try it. But I’m a pretty awful test taker.”

  “This is seriously no pressure. I’m an official judgment-free zone, and this practice quiz will in no way affect your grade,” I said. I watched as his previously tensed shoulders started to relax a bit. “You know, Mr. Kavach is pretty judgment-free, too. If that helps when you’re taking tests.”

  “I wish you could just sit in there with me while I’m taking a quiz and be my math Yoda. It’s the atmosphere of it all—it’s so quiet, all you can hear are pencils scraping against paper, and every part of me wants to look over at the people’s tests around me to see where they are. But then, when I get a glimpse and see that I’m behind, it sends me into this new anxious spiral that I can’t pull myself out of. It’s—it’s kind of debilitating sometimes,” he said.

  He was wringing his hands the entire time he explained his test anxiety and I wanted to reach out and grab them. I wanted to reassure him that he would be okay, and that he wasn’t the only person in the world who felt this way.

  “Have you ever asked Kavach if you could come in early in the mornings before school and take your quizzes and tests? I bet he would be pretty accommodating,” I said.

  “I don’t need special treatment. I’ll just deal with it,” he said, retreating within himself.

  “Wouldn’t it be worth it if it helped you show your true ability?” I asked.

  He considered it for a moment. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Good,” I said. I pulled out the practice quiz that I’d scrounged up from my precalc workbook from last year and set it on the table in between us. “Do you feel like you want to take this now? If not, we can totally work on something else.”