Nineteen Minutes

by Jodie Picoult

  Well-being was greatest among women, married people, the highly educated, and those whose parents didn’t divorce.

  Women’s happiness was declining over time, possibly because they’d reached greater equality with men in the labor market.

  Blacks in the U.S. were much less happy than whites, but their life satisfaction was on the upswing.

  Calculations indicated that “reparation” for being unemployed would take $60,000 per year. “Reparation” for being black would take $30,000 per year. “Reparation” for being widowed or separated would take $100,000 per year.

  There was a game Lewis used to play with himself, after the kids were born, when he was feeling so ridiculously lucky that surely tragedy was bound to strike. He’d lie in bed and force himself to choose what he was first willing to lose: his marriage, his job, a child. He would wonder how much a man could take before he reduced himself to nothing.

  He closed the data window and stared at the screen saver on his computer. It was a picture taken when the kids were eight and ten, at a petting zoo in Connecticut. Joey had hoisted his brother up, piggyback, and they were grinning, with a striated pink sunset in the background. Moments later, a deer (deer on steroids, Lacy had said) had knocked Joey’s feet out from beneath him and both boys had fallen and dissolved into tears…but that was not the way Lewis liked to recall it.

  Happiness wasn’t just what you reported; it was also how you chose to remember.

  There was one other finding he’d catalogued: happiness was U-shaped. People were happiest when they were very young and very old. The trough came, roughly, when you hit your forties.

  Or in other words, Lewis thought with relief, this is as bad as it gets.

  Although Josie got A’s in math and liked the subject, it was the one grade she had to fight for. Numbers did not come easily to her, although she could reason with logic and write an essay without breaking a sweat. In this, she supposed, she was like her mother.

  Or possibly her father.

  Mr. McCabe, their math teacher, was walking through the rows of desks, tossing a tennis ball against the ceiling and singing a bastardized Don McLean song:

  “Bye, bye, what’s the value of pi

  Gotta fidget with the digits

  Till this class has gone by…

  Them ninth graders were workin’ hard with a sigh

  Sayin’, Mr. McCabe, come on, why?

  Oh Mr. McCabe, come on, why-y-y…”

  Josie erased a coordinate from the graph paper in front of her. “We’re not even using pi,” one kid said.

  The teacher whirled around and tossed the tennis ball so that it bounced on the boy’s desk. “Andrew, I’m so glad to see you woke up in time to notice that.”

  “Does this count as a pop quiz?”

  “No. Maybe I should go on TV,” Mr. McCabe mused. “Is there a Math Idol?”

  “God, I hope not,” Matt muttered from the desk behind Josie. He poked her shoulder and she pushed her paper to the upper left corner of her desk, because she knew he could see the homework answers better there.

  This week they were working on graphing. In addition to a bazillion assignments that made you take data and force it into bar graphs and charts, each student had had to create and present a graph of something near and dear to them. Mr. McCabe left ten minutes at the end of each class period for the presentation. Yesterday, Matt had shown off a graph of relative age of hockey players in the NHL. Josie, who was presenting hers tomorrow, had polled her friends to see if there was a ratio between the number of hours you spent doing your homework and your grade point average.

  Today was Peter Houghton’s turn. She had seen him carrying his graph into school, a rolled-up piece of poster board. “Well, look at that,” Mr. McCabe said. “Turns out we are talking about pie. The other one, that is.”

  Peter’s graph was a pie chart. It had been clearly shaded with colors, and computer labels identified each section. The title at the top of the chart said POPULARITY.

  “Whenever you’re ready, Peter,” Mr. McCabe said.

  Peter looked a little bit like he was going to pass out, but then, Peter always looked like that. Since Josie had started working at the copy shop, they’d been talking again, but-by unwritten rule-only outside of school. Inside was different: a fishbowl where anything you said and did was being watched by everyone else.

  When they were kids, Peter had never seemed to notice when he was drawing attention just by being himself. Like when he’d decide to speak Martian during recess, for example. Josie supposed that the flip side of this, the optimistic angle, was that Peter never tried to be like anyone else. She couldn’t lay claim to that herself.

  Peter cleared his throat. “My graph is about status in this school. My statistical sample came from the twenty-four students in this class. You can see here”-he pointed at one wedge of the pie-“that a little less than a third of the class are popular.”

  Shaded violet-the color of popularity-were seven wedges, each sporting a different classmate’s name. There was Matt, and Drew. A few girls who hung out at lunchtime with Josie. But the class clown was also lumped in that group, Josie noticed, and the new kid who’d transferred from Washington, D.C.

  “Over here are the geeks,” Peter said, and Josie could see the names of the class brain and the girl who played tuba in the marching band. “The largest group is what I call normal. And roughly five percent are outcasts.”

  Everyone had grown quiet. This was one of those moments, Josie realized, when the guidance counselors would get called in to give everyone a booster shot of tolerance for differences. She could see Mr. McCabe’s brow furrow like origami as he tried to figure out how to turn Peter’s presentation into an After School Special moment; she saw Drew and Matt grinning at each other; and most of all, she noticed Peter, who was blissfully unaware that all hell was about to break loose.

  Mr. McCabe cleared his throat. “You know, Peter, maybe you and I should-”

  Matt’s hand shot up. “Mr. McCabe, I have a question.”

  “Matt-”

  “No, seriously. I can’t read that skinny piece of the pie chart. The orange one.”

  “Oh,” Peter said. “That’s a bridge. You know. A person who can fit into more than one category, or who hangs out with different kinds of people. Like Josie.”

  He turned to her, beaming, and Josie felt everyone’s eyes on her-a hail of arrows. She curled over her desk like a midnight rose, letting her hair fall over her face. To be honest, she was used to being stared at-walk anywhere with Courtney and it was bound to happen-but there was a difference between people looking at you because they wanted to be like you, and people looking at you because your misfortune brought them one rung higher.

  At the very least, kids would remember that once, Josie had been an outcast who used to hang out with Peter. Or they’d assume that Peter had some weird crush on her, which was just sick, and she’d never hear the end of it. A murmur ran through the classroom like an electric shock. Freak, someone whispered, and Josie prayed prayed prayed that they were not talking about her.

  Because there was a God, the bell rang.

  “So, Josie,” Drew said. “Are you the Tobin or the Golden Gate?”

  Josie tried to stuff her books into her backpack, but they scattered to the ground, pages splayed. “London,” John Eberhard snickered. “Look, she’s falling down.”

  By now, someone in her math class had surely told someone else down the hall what had happened. Josie would hear laughter following her like a kite’s tail for that whole day-maybe even longer.

  She realized that someone was trying to help her pick up her books, and then-one beat later-that this someone was Peter. “Don’t,” Josie said, holding up a hand, a force field that stopped Peter in his tracks. “Don’t ever talk to me again, all right?”

  In the hallway, she turned corners blindly until she found the little alley that led to the wood shop. Josie had been so naïve, thinking that once she bel
onged, she was firmly entrenched. But In only existed because someone had drawn a line in the sand, so that everyone else was Out; and that line changed constantly. You might find yourself, through no fault of your own, suddenly standing on the wrong side.

  What Peter hadn’t graphed was how fragile popularity was. Here was the irony: she wasn’t a bridge at all; she’d completely crossed over to become part of her group. She’d excluded other people to get to where she so badly wanted to be. Why would those kids ever welcome her back?

  “Hey.”

  At the sound of Matt’s voice, Josie drew in a sharp breath. “Just so you know, I’m not friends with him.”

  “Well, actually, he’s right about you.”

  Josie blinked at him. She’d witnessed, firsthand, Matt’s cruelty-how he’d shoot rubber bands at ESL students who didn’t know the words to report him to the faculty; how he called one overweight girl the Walking Earthquake; how he’d hide a shy kid’s math textbook in order to watch him freak out, thinking it was lost. It was funny then, because it hadn’t been about Josie. But being the object of his humiliation felt like a slap. She’d thought, mistakenly, that hanging with the right crowd granted her immunity, but that turned out to be a joke. They’d cut you down anyway, as long as it made them seem funnier, cooler, different from you.

  Seeing Matt with that grin on his face, as if he’d thought she was a total joke all along, hurt even more, because she’d considered him a friend. Well, to be honest, sometimes she wished for even more than that: when a fringe of hair fell over his eyes and his smile lit as slowly as a fuse, she went totally monosyllabic. But Matt had that effect on everyone-even Courtney, who’d gone out with him in sixth grade for two weeks.

  “I never thought anything the homo said would be worth listening to, but bridges take you from one place to another,” Matt said. “And that’s what you do to me.” He took Josie’s hand, pressed it up against his chest.

  His heart was beating so hard she could feel it, as if possibility were something you might cup in your palm. She looked up at him, keeping her eyes wide open as he leaned in to kiss her, so that she would not miss a single, startling moment. Josie could taste the heat of him like cinnamon candy, the kind that burned.

  Finally, when Josie remembered that she had to breathe, she tore away from Matt. She had never been so aware of every inch of her skin; even the bits hidden under layers of T-shirt and sweater had come alive.

  “Jesus,” Matt said, backing away.

  She panicked. Maybe he had just remembered he was kissing a girl who five minutes ago had been a social pariah. Or maybe she’d done something wrong during the kiss. It’s not like there was a manual you could read so you’d know how to do it right.

  “I’m guess I’m not very good at that,” Josie stammered.

  Matt raised his brows. “If you get much better…you might kill me.”

  Josie felt a smile start inside her like a candle flame. “Really?”

  He nodded.

  “That was my first kiss,” she admitted.

  When Matt touched her lower lip with his thumb, Josie could feel it everywhere-from her fingertips to her throat to the heat between her legs. “Well,” he said. “It’s not going to be your last.”

  Alex was getting ready in her bathroom when Josie wandered in, looking for a new razor. “What’s that?” Josie had asked, scrutinizing Alex’s face in the mirror as if it belonged to a stranger.

  “Mascara?”

  “Well, I know what it is,” Josie said. “I meant, what’s it doing on you?”

  “Maybe I felt like wearing makeup.”

  Josie sank down onto the lip of the bathtub, grinning. “And maybe I’m the Queen of England. What is it…a new photo for some law review?” Suddenly, her eyebrows shot up. “You’re not going on, like, a date, are you?”

  “Not ‘like’ a date,” Alex said, brushing on blush. “It’s an honest-to-goodness one.”

  “Oh, my gosh. Tell me about him.”

  “I don’t know anything. Liz set me up.”

  “Liz the custodian?”

  “She’s a groundskeeper,” Alex said.

  “Whatever. She must have told you something about this guy.” Josie hesitated. “It is a guy, right?”

  “Josie!”

  “Well, it’s been a really long time. The last date you went out on that I can remember was the man who wouldn’t eat anything green.”

  “That wasn’t the issue,” Alex said. “It was that he wouldn’t let me eat anything green.”

  Josie stood up and reached for a tube of lipstick. “This is a good color for you,” she said, and she swept the tube over Alex’s mouth.

  Alex and Josie were exactly the same height; looking into her daughter’s eyes, Alex could see a tiny reflection of herself. She wondered why she’d never done this with Josie: sat her down in the bathroom and played with eye shadow, painted her toenails, curled her hair. They were memories that every other mother of a daughter seemed to have; only now was Alex realizing that it had been up to her to create them.

  “There,” Josie said, turning Alex to look in the mirror. “What do you think?”

  Alex was staring, but not at herself. Over her shoulder was Josie-and for the first time, Alex could really see a piece of herself in her daughter. It wasn’t so much the shape of the face but the shine of it; not the color of the eyes but the dream caught like smoke in them. There was no amount of expensive makeup that would make her look the way her Josie did; that was simply what falling in love did to a person.

  Could you be jealous of your own child?

  “Well,” Josie said, patting Alex’s shoulders. “I’d ask you out for a second date.”

  The doorbell rang. “I’m not even dressed,” Alex said, panicked.

  “I’ll stall him.” Josie hurried down the stairs; as Alex shimmied into a black dress and heels, she could hear conversation stir, rise up the stairs.

  Joe Urquhardt was a Canadian banker who’d been roommates with Liz’s cousin in Toronto. He was, she had promised, a nice guy. Alex asked why, then, if he was so nice, he was still single.

  How would you answer that question? Liz had asked, and Alex had to think for a moment.

  I’m not that nice, she’d said.

  She was pleasantly surprised to see that Joe was not troll-statured, that he had a head of wavy brown hair that did not seem to be attached by double-sided tape, and that he had teeth. He whistled when he saw Alex. “All rise,” he said. “And by all, I do mean Mr. Happy.”

  The smile froze on Alex’s face. “Would you excuse me for a moment?” she asked, and she dragged Josie into the kitchen. “Shoot me now.”

  “Okay, that was pretty awful. But at least he eats green food. I asked.”

  “What if you go out there and say I’m violently ill?” Alex said. “You and I can get take-out. Rent a movie or something.”

  Josie’s smile faded. “But, Mom, I’ve already got plans.” She peered out the doorway to where Joe was waiting. “I could tell Matt that-”

  “No, no,” Alex said, forcing a smile. “One of us ought to be having a good time.”

  She walked out of the kitchen and found Joe holding up a candlestick, scrutinizing the bottom. “I’m very sorry, but something’s come up.”

  “Tell me about it, babe,” Joe said, leering.

  “No, I mean that I can’t go out tonight. There’s a case,” she lied. “I have to go back into court.”

  Maybe being from Canada was what kept Joe from understanding how incredibly unlikely it would be for court to be in session on a Saturday night. “Oh,” he said. “Well, far be it from me to keep those wheels of justice from grinding. Some other time?”

  Alex nodded, ushering him outside. She took off her heels and padded upstairs to change into her rattiest sweats. She would eat chocolate for dinner; she would watch chick flicks until she was completely sobbed out. As she passed the bathroom, she could hear the shower running-Josie getting ready for her own
date.

  For a moment Alex stood with her hand on the door, wondering whether Josie would welcome her if she went in and guided her in putting on her makeup, offered to style her hair-just as Josie had done for her. But for Josie, that was natural-she’d spent a lifetime grabbing moments of Alex’s time, when Alex was busy preparing for something else. Somehow, Alex had assumed that time was infinite, that Josie would always be there waiting. She never guessed that she herself would one day be left behind.

  In the end, Alex drew away from the bathroom door without knocking, too afraid she might hear Josie say she did not need her mother’s help to even risk making that initial offer.

  The one thing that had saved Josie from total social ruin in the wake of Peter’s math presentation was her simultaneous anointing as Matt Royston’s girlfriend. Unlike most of the other sophomores who were occasional couples-random hookups at parties, best-friend-with-benefits situations-she and Matt were an item. Matt walked her to her classes and often left her at the door with a kiss that everyone watched. Anyone stupid enough to mention Peter Houghton’s name in conjunction with Josie’s had to answer to him.

  Everyone, that is, except for Peter himself. At work, he didn’t seem to be able to pick up on the clues that Josie gave him-turning her back when he came into the room, ignoring him when he asked her a question. He finally cornered her in the supply room one afternoon. How come you’re acting like this? he said.

  Because when I was nice to you, you thought we were friends.

  But we are friends, he replied.

  Josie had faced him. You don’t get to decide that, she said.

  One afternoon at work, when Josie went out to the Dumpster with a load of trash, Peter was already there. It was his fifteen-minute break; usually he walked across the street and bought himself an apple juice, but today he was leaning over the metal lip of the Dumpster. “Move,” she said, and she hefted the bags of garbage up and over.

  As soon as they struck bottom, a shower of sparks rose.