Full Ride (19 page)

I've had enough. I raise my hand. Mr. Hattimer looks surprised—he's not used to being interrupted. But he nods at me and says, “Yes, Becca?”

“It's not like we weren't
trying
,” I say. My voice is only a little steadier than Lakshmi's was, but I forge ahead. “It doesn't help to hear ‘You're not going to get do-overs in real life' when all of us are already stressed out about choosing the right college and getting in and picking the right major and . . . and everything else.” No need to mention what's specifically stressing me out. “All of us already feel like every decision we make is do or die, and could maybe ruin the rest of our lives, and . . .”

I realize that everyone in the class is staring at me. This is not like me. I don't talk back to teachers. No one expects me to stand up for myself.

“. . . and . . . Mr. Hattimer, could I maybe go to the guidance office right now?” I ask.

I expect him to say, “Of course not. You're going to sit there until I beat calculus into your brain! Even if it kills us both!” But he just looks at me sadly for a moment and then says, “Yes, Becca, you may.”

I must sound even more on edge than I actually am.

Or maybe I really am dangerously on edge?

I gather up my books and take the pass Mr. Hattimer hands me. I escape out the door and down the hall.

When I get to the guidance office, I'm relieved to see that the door is open now. I rush in past the secretaries. I sweep right into Ms. Stela's private office. She's hunched over her computer
keyboard, surrounded by stacks of papers on either side.

“Ms. Stela, can you tell me, how long ago did the Court scholarship start? How many years has it been going on?” I ask.

Ms. Stela turns and blinks at me.

“Um . . . I don't know, Becca,” she says distractedly. “I think it was before I got here.”

When did Ms. Stela get here?

I remember: She started my sophomore year.

This proves nothing. Daddy could have been a fast worker, even from prison. He could have set up the fake scholarship my freshman year.

I slump against Ms. Stela's doorway. Ms. Stela starts watching me with more interest than usual.

“Why do you want to know?” she asks.

I ignore her question, and counter with one of my own.

“Who would know when the Court scholarship started?” I ask. “I mean, someone here at school.”

“Well, if it's really that important to you, I could ask Mr. Bixby and get back to you,” Ms. Stela says.

Mr. Bixby is one of the other counselors. I can just see Ms. Stela forgetting completely.

“That's okay; I'll ask him,” I say.

Mr. Bixby's office door is shut, but I am full of boldness—or something—today. I open his door, poke my head in, and say, “Ms. Stela says you're the person to ask about how long ago the Whitney Court Scholarship started.”

Mr. Bixby frowns and mutters something under his breath about why Ms. Stela can't handle her own section of the alphabet. But he looks at his computer, types a word or two—or, well, probably three—and then tells me, “Five years ago. This year's will be the sixth one.”

Five years ago.

My knees go weak, and I have to clutch Mr. Bixby's door.

Five years ago I was just starting seventh grade at McCormick Middle School back in Georgia. Five years ago everyone thought Daddy was a wildly successful businessman, and nobody knew his secrets. He would have had no reason to start some strange scholarship in a totally different state just in case he ever got caught and sent to prison. Five years ago he would have had no reason to believe he would ever get caught.

So the Court scholarship has nothing to do with Daddy,
I realize.

This news should send relief coursing through my body. That should be the reason my knees are weak. I should feel like jumping up and down and cheering—maybe even like kissing the top of Mr. Bixby's very bald head. If the Court scholarship has nothing to do with Daddy, I can enter and win and accept the money without a single pang of conscience. I don't have to worry about it being tainted.

But my body doesn't seem to know I should be deliriously happy. It feels more like I have to hold myself up because I'm unbearably sad. Tears spring to my eyes, and I can barely mumble “thanks,” before I have to turn away to keep Mr. Bixby from seeing.

So Daddy didn't make any secret arrangements for me?
I wonder.
Doesn't he love me, after all?

I time my exit from the guidance office badly: I hit DHS's main hallway just as the final bell rings and everyone is dashing out of the classrooms. I walk through the cramped hallway with my head down, giving myself fierce instructions:

Don't let anyone see that you're almost crying. Don't let anyone see that you are crying. Don't cry. Stop it!

I wipe my face across my sleeve at a moment when I hope no one is looking. And then I slam directly into some other person.

“Sorry,” I mumble without looking.

Whoever it is doesn't step aside. I feel big hands cupping my shoulders. I have to look up now: It's my friend Oscar holding on to me. He's the one I ran into.

“Hey,” he says. “Are you all right?”

I shrug because I don't trust my voice right now.

The truth is, Oscar is built a lot like an overgrown teddy bear, and it would actually be quite pleasant to put my face down against his shoulder and sob and sob and sob.

Right,
I think.
And that would be so pleasant for him, too, some psycho girl slobbering all over his shoulder in front of everyone. . . .

I step back to break Oscar's hold on me. I want him to see I'm not just going to fall down.

“Hey,” Oscar says, with a shrug of his own. “
Everyone
got an awful grade on that calc exam. And Mr. Hattimer will have to make it easier next time—you at least are bound to get an A.” He pauses. “Did you know Stuart got a forty-two? Doesn't that make you feel better, to know your worst enemy totally failed?”

“Stuart isn't my worst enemy,” I say. “Competing with him just forces me to work harder.”

“Oh,” Oscar says. “My parents really wish somebody would do that for me.”

He grins. And there's something so incredibly infectious about Oscar's grin that I stop crying. I don't think I'm even in danger of crying anymore.

I discreetly wipe my hand across my face again. It's time to do a little damage control.

“I'm thinking maybe grades don't matter anyhow,” I say. “Maybe I won't even go to college. Maybe I'll just join the Peace Corps.”

“I already looked into that,” Oscar says. “They won't take you unless you've got a bachelor's degree.”

“Oh,” I say. “Well, then . . . maybe I'll just work at Riggoli's the rest of my life. I'll dedicate my life to bringing the finest pizzas and pasta to the people of Deskins.”

“They'll never give you more than twenty hours a week,” Rosa says, stepping up beside me. “And they'll never pay you more than minimum wage.”

I look back and forth between Oscar and Rosa—did Oscar send some secret message to her:
Help! Crying girl here! What am I supposed to do?

It actually wouldn't surprise me if Oscar had an app like that programmed into his phone, that he hit when I wasn't looking.

Rosa puts her arm around my shoulder.

“I know how you feel,” she says. “Every time my grades slip even a little, I think, so if I do actually go to one of those big fancy schools I'm killing myself to get into—what if I can't hack it? What if I'm not smart enough to do the work?”

I refrain from telling Rosa that's not why I was crying.

But, great—thanks for giving me something else to stress about,
I think.

Oscar puts his arm around me from the other side. It's like they want to turn us into a human chain: smart kids against the world!

“Becca, you of all people—you don't have anything to worry about,” he says. “You're so smart, it's like your brain was made for college!”

Rosa rolls her eyes at him and jokes, “Oh, Oscar, I bet you say that to all the girls.”

But I barely hear her, and if Oscar delivers a comeback, I miss it completely.

No . . . it's like Daddy shaped my brain to get me ready for Vanderbilt,
I think.

I remember him reading books with me before I could read myself; I remember him teaching me the multiplication tables in third grade. I remember him showing me computer tricks the other kids didn't know, so even in elementary school my PowerPoint presentations were multimedia extravaganzas. . . .

Tears well in my eyes again.

“Oh, you've got it bad today, don't you?” Rosa asks, patting my back.

“You need . . . ice cream,” Oscar blurts.

“Ice cream?” I ask, and my voice makes it sound like I've never heard of such a thing.

“Okay, if you want to be all prissy and health conscious and
everything, you can get Froyo instead,” Oscar says. “But this is a moment that calls for food.”

I am obviously in a weakened condition: That doesn't sound ludicrous. It doesn't even sound impossible. Rosa and Oscar go into full texting and calling mode: I think they contact everyone from both AP calc classes. Some kids, like Stuart, have marching band or sports or some other commitment. But when we arrive at Graeter's in Oscar's beat-up Toyota, ten kids are already there waiting for us.

“Let's call Jala, too,” I say impulsively. “She doesn't have class on Wednesday afternoon—let's see if she's available.”

That's how I end up at a table with Oscar and Rosa and Jala and a jumbo cup of mint chocolate chip ice cream. After a burst of other kids coming over to tell me, “Good for you, for standing up to Mr. Hattimer!” somehow we stop talking about school. We don't talk about the homework we're ignoring, either, or about our college applications or hopes or fears. I certainly don't say anything about Daddy or the Court scholarship. Instead, Oscar tells how hard it was growing up as the only Chinese-American kid anyone has ever heard of who hates rice. Rosa amuses us with imitations of the best and worst telenovelas from Mexico. Jala and I laugh and laugh and laugh.

Eventually we're the last ones left at Graeter's except for the workers.

“Why didn't we ever do this kind of thing while
I
was still in high school?” Jala asks.

Rosa makes a show of pulling out her empty pockets and repeating a line from one of the telenovelas:
“No dinero, no tiempo.”

No money, no time.

“But we can do it a lot more this year,” Jala says. “Just—maybe not four-dollar ice cream cones. Maybe . . . maybe we could just eat jelly beans at the park or something?”

“Jelly beans?” Oscar asks incredulously.
“Jelly beans?”

“What? It's not rice.” Jala defends herself, which makes the rest of us laugh.

By the time I get home, Mom has already left for work. Somehow going out for ice cream has made it so that I'm able to try calling Tiffany and Rachel Congreves again. My luck has changed: Both of them answer their cell phones. And both of them say, yes, they have time and are willing to talk to me about Whitney the babysitter; Whitney the patient neighbor and pseudo big sister; Whitney, their idealized view of what it was like to be a teenager. They talk about how they watched her from afar during her high school years, and how she made them believe that they would be the star of everything when they got to Deskins High School too.

Both of them get strange tones in their voices when we inch toward any mention of Whitney's life after high school, but now I know what that's about. I let them steer the conversation back into safe territory. I am anything but a persistent interviewer. Everything was safe and charming and perfect for Whitney in high school, and if Tiffany and Rachel want to pretend that that's how things stayed in Whitney's life, who am I to object?

After I'm done talking to them, I manage to bang out a decent rough draft of my scholarship application essay. It's about how much Tiffany and Rachel adored Whitney and how sad it was for them when she grew up and left them behind: two peasants in the Land of the Two Seas, longing for their queen to return.

I know I'm not really writing about Tiffany and Rachel and how disillusioned they were by Whitney.

I'm really writing about me and Daddy.

It's two days before the Whitney Court Scholarship application is due, and I've decided I'll turn it in tonight. Over the last few weeks I've tweaked my essay so it positively overflows with nostalgia for long-ago happiness; I've edited out any hint of blaming anyone for the way things changed.

I am a model of efficiency putting together the cover letter I'm going to send by e-mail, along with the basic grid of information—name, address, phone number, etc.—that's required. But when I open the essay to read it one last time before sending it off, I can't quite let go.

Maybe I should put it aside for an hour or two, then proofread it one last time with fresh eyes,
I tell myself.

I minimize everything and open another application form instead: the Common App. I know I am way behind Stuart and Rosa and even Oscar, who's usually the worst procrastinator in our group. Stuart
loved
getting to explain to me, “No, Becca, you don't have to fill out a different application for every school you apply to. Just about every college takes the Common App—you just fill it in online and then it's done.” Stuart finished the Common App back
in August and is now working his way through the supplemental forms so many colleges require.