“Nooo,” I moan.
In a flash I see what happened. I was so mad at Mom the night I turned in my scholarship application by e-mail. I was half-blinded by rage. And my rant at Daddy, labeled “Whitney Court Scholarship Essay,” would have been right below the actual “Whitney Court Scholarship Application Essay” in my computer files. I must have clicked on the wrong label.
I have to fix this.
“I made a stupid mistake,” I say, and attempt what should be a tinkling laugh, a charming effort to poke fun at myself.
The laugh comes out sounding like maniacal hysteria.
Mr. Court is watching me much too carefully.
“I can explain,” I say. “I attached the wrong file. I’ll send you the correct file right away, and you’ll see by the date stamp, I did it before the deadline. It’s what I meant to turn in. And it’s really good.”
I consider another reassuring laugh, making fun of myself for bragging about my own essay. But I can’t afford to have another laugh turn into another epic fail.
This time it would probably sound more like sobbing.
Mr. Court touches the papers in front of me, which practically seethe with my rage at Daddy when I thought he might have made up the whole Court scholarship as a scam to give me money.
“So if this wasn’t what you meant to turn in,” he begins, “what is it?”
“Oh, I can explain,” I say confidently. “It’s . . .”
I hesitate, trying to find the best lie. An English-class exercise? An acting-class role-play?
What if Mr. Court checked and found out I’m not even taking an acting class? What if he talked to my lit teacher?
I am lost. I can’t make up a good lie fast enough.
“Whitney read this, and she was worried about you,” Mr. Court says. “We all were. Marlene and I—we’ve seen a lot of other mentally ill people besides Whitney over the years. What you wrote seemed so . . . paranoid. We began to fear that you were—”
“What?” I say, and my voice is sharp now, a knife slashing through my own half-planned lies and pretense, through Mr. Court’s careful inching forward.
Nothing can protect me now.
“This essay seems like a classic case of paranoid schizophrenia,” Mr. Court says. “We were worried about your mental health. That’s why we wanted to talk to you.”
His eyes hold such gentle concern. And I learned enough in AP psych to see what he means. I do sound delusional in that essay. I do sound like I believe my enemy—my father—holds almost supernatural powers, pulling the puppet strings of dozens of people in Ohio while he’s imprisoned thousands of miles away.
I do sound crazy.
“No,” I say. “No. You don’t understand. I’m not crazy. It’s my life that’s crazy. I’ll prove it.”
I grab the laptop Mrs. Court and Whitney abandoned. I turn it sideways between Mr. Court and me.
“Let me show you . . . ,” I say, typing frantically. I am a whirling dervish, the only thought in my mind, fix it, fix it, fix it . . . Lies about English assignments or acting class or role-playing aren’t good enough right now.
The only excuse I can save myself with is the truth.
“This is my father,” I say. I’m on the Internet now and I’ve typed in the words “Roger Jones.” And it’s amazing how desperate I am to reveal the secret that my mother and I have spent three years desperately hiding. Everything’s flipped around—suddenly it’s backward day. I know Mr. Court will never believe me—will never look at my actual scholarship essay, will never help me go to college—unless I can convince him who I really am.
I click on one of the nine hundred thousand sites that hold information about my daddy.
My father’s picture stares out at me, his cockiness glowing from eyes that are shaped and tinted just like mine. The words beside the picture shout, “Infamous criminal bilks millions from victims in multiple layers of scams.”
“I know who Roger Jones is,” Mr. Court says quietly from across the table. “During his trial—when was that? Four years ago? Five?—he was all over the news. Nobody could stop talking about him. But . . . you didn’t list Roger Jones as your father on your scholarship application. Jones is a common name. Maybe you just want to believe that you’re related to someone famous? Even if he’s famous for awful things?”
I clench my jaw, grinding my teeth.
“Look,” I say.
I minimize my father’s picture and go to the genealogy website where I searched for proof that Whitney died. I remember all the other records they bragged about having.
“Here’s my birth certificate,” I say.
I type my name and birthdate and “Fulton County, Georgia.” I add my parents’ names.
A split second later the site tells me no such person exists.
“I must have typed something wrong,” I say. I click the back arrow, and all the information’s there, everything that made me me from the very beginning.
Maybe there was just a clerical error, I think. Something miscategorized . . .
I start eliminating information, erasing one fact about myself at a time.
Erase my birthplace?
I still don’t exist.
Erase my middle name?
I still don’t exist.
Erase my mother’s name?
I still don’t exist.
Erase my father?
Mr. Court puts his hand over mine, stopping me from this search.
“It’s okay,” he says. “Don’t torture yourself. Obviously you’re a very troubled person. It’s not your fault. There are things you’re not going to understand until you get some help. And we want to help you.”
I jerk my hand back from Mr. Court’s.
“I know the guidance counselors are still in their offices,” he says. “We’ll just go in and talk to Ms. Stela. . . .”
I stare at him—wide-eyed, startled, terrified. There is nothing left for me to do, nothing I can possibly do to rescue this disastrous interview. There is no way I could ever win the Whitney Court Scholarship now.
I turn around and flee.