Chapter Twelve
It was the end of the last day of school, and Abby was not feeling at all bittersweet about leaving James Madison Academy behind. Though she still wasn’t sure where she was going, she knew she was ready to move forward. High school wasn’t a miserable experience for her. She had friends, went to homecoming and prom, learned well, and had many firsts thanks to her school. However, she knew better than to think high school would be the best years of her life.
The last item in her locker was a tacky glass dolphin blown to look like it was jumping out of the water. Her mom had given it to her on the first day of high school for good luck. Abby thought it was funny because neither she nor her mother had any particular affinity to dolphins, but Abby was worried about high school, and Sarvata improvised. Since then, the cheap talisman at least reminded her that she was loved even if it didn’t seem particularly great at bringing good luck.
She set it down on a hard binder resting against her hip and shut the locker. Before she could secure those final two items in her backpack, Bryce Tucker walked by and smacked the binder out of her hands. It fell to the floor, and the dolphin shattered against the tile.
“My parting gift to you, Vicari. Have a nice life.”
Abby knelt down, her plaid skirt too short to protect her knees, and a shard sliced into her leg. The pain wasn’t bad, but it was her tipping point. She tried to bite back the emotion, but fat tears were dropping onto her cheeks faster than she could rub them away. Through the sheen, she saw Bryce look back at her, say something to his buddies, and return to where she was sitting.
“Are you crying?” he asked.
“Yes, okay,” she snapped back, her voice shaking. “You’ve tormented me for thirteen years, and you finally broke me. Happy?”
With a sigh, he sat down beside her. “You’re bleeding.”
“Go away.”
“What was it?”
“Nothing. Just a stupid thing my mom gave me.”
“Seriously, stop kneeling in the glass, you’re freaking me out.” He put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her so she was sitting next to him with her back against the lockers. He took a stray piece of paper from the floor and pressed it against the laceration just below the kneecap. She rested her chin against her chest and let her silky, recently cut hair fall across her face.
“You think I’ve been tormenting you for thirteen years?”
“What would you call it?”
“Friendly rivalry, an honest give-and-take,” Bryce said.
“You cut my hair.”
“Yeah, but you shaved mine first. You always forget that part. You also cost me the Student Council election in eighth grade. Do you remember?”
She’d nearly forgotten, but fond memories came to mind of her playing a recording for the whole school where he was bashing the kids on scholarship and claiming that volunteering was for people too poor to write a check. “My dad runs a professional network of spooks and you said that in the same room as me after beating me out for the nomination. That was your own fault.”
“I got what I deserved, but I couldn’t run for office again, much to the embarrassment of my father and my father’s father.”
“And the whole house of Atreus.” Abby was surprised to find the tears had almost stopped. “You sent mail order birth control to my house when I was fourteen. My father nearly put the secret service outside my bedroom door.”
“You retaliated by faxing a fake receipt from Planned Parenthood to the senator’s office,” Bryce said. “To this day, I don’t even know if Planned Parenthood writes abortion receipts.”
“You got me kicked out of honors biology when you stole all the fetal pigs and convinced the school I did it because of my religion.”
“That was awesome, but I did that because you got me kicked out of honors calculus.”
She laughed. Again, it was something she’d almost forgotten, but it was one of her more brilliant strokes. She filled out two Scantron tests, both perfect scores, and put Bryce’s name on one of them. Then she took Bryce’s actual test, which he likely got a C or a D, from the teacher’s stack and turned in her fake for his. Of course, everyone knew the only way for him to get a perfect score on his calculus exam was to cheat, and he was suspended for two weeks and sent to remedial math. Though he wasn’t nearly on Abby’s level when it came to calculus, he did belong in the honors class, he just needed extra tutoring. After that day, he didn’t have to worry about it.
“In my defense, you were probably going to fail that class, anyway.”
“You actually ended up doing me a favor. My mom had to stay home with me for my entire suspension. Dad was campaigning for the election, so we spent every day alone together. It was the best two weeks of my life.”
“I don’t know if that’s sweet or sad.”
“It’s sad, Abby.”
“So why have we been doing these things to each other since we were five?”
“Obviously because you have a crush on me,” Bryce said, wiggling his eyebrows.
“Spare me, Tucker. Allow me to be the one woman in Virginia who is somehow impervious to your charms.”
“In that case, we did it because we’re the two smartest people in our grade, always have been, and we both also know being challenged beats being put in a box and ignored. To be honest, this new Abby who acts like a victim and cries over a dumb figurine even if it holds sentimental value worries me.”
He was right, and she knew it. Her indecision over her future and her fear of introducing Cruz to her family and somehow losing him turned her into a simpering coward. When did she decide to roll over and take what life gave her? “If you’ve been this smart the whole time, what’s with the poor people bashing and the understated racism and generally acting like a close-minded, willfully uninformed asshole?”
“Just trying to fit in with my family.” Abby burst out laughing, so did he, and it took them a few minutes to calm down. “Honestly, when I was younger, I believed it. Then when I learned better, I didn’t want to lose my friends or shake things up in my family, so I kept it up. It’s hard enough knowing my father doesn’t really love me if I’m not the exact reflection on him that he wants. I can’t even imagine what he would think if he knew how liberal I am.”
Her knee continued to bleed, so she layered another piece of paper on top of her leg. “Are you going to Yale now, getting a degree in middle class oppression, and becoming the governor of a state trying to institutionalize hate?”
“Can I tell you something, Abby? If it were up to me, I’d go to a state school, get a teaching certificate, move to a reasonable house in the suburbs, find a wife, and have a few kids. Get a dog, but none of these stupid little D.C. dogs, like a big dog, a German shepherd, or a grizzly bear.”
“Something substantial.”
“Exactly. The world of politics is harsh, and it kills everything that could be great about a family. My parents despise each other. Everyone in my family hates each other on some level. I can see myself, somewhere like North Carolina or Nebraska, teaching the truth about American government, coaching the girls’ volleyball team, and having cookouts during college football season.”
“Are you getting this life out of a J. Crew ad?”
“Better. Levi’s.”
“You could do that, Bryce. If it’s what you really want.”
He shook his head but didn’t elaborate. “What about you? Are you heading to MIT, getting a degree in math, taking over the code breaking unit of your father’s business?”
It sounded absurd when said aloud, but her only response was, “Probably.”
“Don’t do it, Abby. You have no idea how lucky you are that your family isn’t in the public eye. In fact, your family has a vested interest in staying off the radar. Even if you become a burnout, it’s not going to be plastered all over the twenty-four hour news cycle. Follow your bliss.”
“I’m not sure I could do that to my father.” She thought of the eight-year-old boy he once was, contemplating eating a handful of mud to ward off starvation, and the idea of doing anything except what was planned for her since birth seemed frivolous and disrespectful.
“I know I’m a hypocrite saying any of this, but if you dedicate your life to something just to avoid disappointing your parents, you’re going to hate them eventually. I already do. Then your parents will die, and you’ll be all alone, wondering why you wasted your entire life living someone else’s.”
Who would have thought Bryce Tucker would be the one to put her entire existence into perspective? She didn’t want to go to MIT, she didn’t want to be a mathematician, and she didn’t want to waste the next six years of her life sitting in classrooms when she could be making movies. If it didn’t work out, it wasn’t like she was going to forget how to do equations. That path would always be open to her. She wanted to pursue her passion.
And right now, her passion always circled back to Ileana Dalca. She watched Shaye Sylvester’s interview on PTI a hundred times, and she was convinced the Romanian gymnast met her doom through something far more nefarious than a tragic accident. She wanted to help her, and hearing her father’s life story only strengthened that desire. This was a child she could help, a truth she could expose, a movie subject that could move people and inspire them to action. Sports movies were great, real life murder mysteries were great, and bringing justice to the disenfranchised was great; this story could do all three. She could make a difference for this family and leave a tangible mark on the world.
“You know what, Bryce? You’re right.” She slapped him on the leg and got to her feet.
“Of course I am. About what?”
“Everything. See you around.” She grabbed her backpack and jogged to the parking lot. From the car, she called Cruz. “Sorry, but I have to cancel our date tonight.”
“Who is he? I’ll kill him.”
Abby laughed. “I’m going to New York to talk to Shaye Sylvester.”
“Does that mean you’re going for that documentary?”
“I think so, yeah.”
“That’s awesome. I’m really proud of you. Want some company on the road?”
“Normally I would say yes, but I kind of want to do this on my own. Is that weird?”
“No, I get it. When I went to college, I didn’t want anyone to help me pack or move or breathe on me. You want to own something you made. I’m with you.”
“You’re amazing. Do you know that?” She meant it. Every day with him, she felt luckier and luckier.
“Of course I do. I work on it. Have fun.”
It took her almost six hours to get from her school to Shaye Sylvester’s gym in the city. She hit Baltimore at the start of rush hour and Philadelphia at the end of it, and it was nearly nine o’clock when she pulled to a stop on the curb in front of Empire State Gymnastics Club. She thought about calling her parents, but if they wondered where she was, they would have called her already, and after her father’s reaction when she went to D.C. alone, she figured it was better to keep him in the dark about her latest adventure.
After twenty minutes, she was starting to think she might have missed Shaye, but then the door opened, and teenage girls started streaming onto the brightly lit sidewalk. Abby got out of her Mustang and leaned against the passenger door, waiting expectantly.
Two minutes later, no one else was walking out of the gym, and she felt deflated. She waited ten more minutes and was about to give up for the night when the door opened again. Shaye Sylvester began walking briskly toward the bus stop.
“Shaye?” she called out, hoping she would stop.
She turned abruptly, looking ready for a fight. It was after dark in New York City, and though this was a safe neighborhood, Shaye was a public figure. Abby couldn’t blame her for being suspicious of a stranger.
She stopped walking toward her and held her palms slightly up in front of her to show she wasn’t a threat. “Shaye, my name’s Abby Vicari. Congratulations on Nationals. Great meet.”
“Thanks.”
Shaye didn’t elaborate, so Abby continued awkwardly. “I just graduated high school, today actually, and I want to be a filmmaker. I’ve been thinking about doing a documentary, and you’d be a big part of it, so I was wondering what you thought about that.”
“I don’t get it. What’s the documentary about?”
“Gymnastics and the friendships that develop because of it.”
“Sounds boring.” Shaye opened her mouth, and then paused. “You want to do a story about Trixie.”
“Some of it, yes—”
“No, not some of it,” Shaye interrupted, raising her voice. “All of it.”
“Not exactly,” Abby said. “I just think what happened to Ileana—”
“What happened to Ileana is none of your business. I swear to God, you people are vultures. The world doesn’t care what happened to that little girl, so you think you can make a quick buck off this tragedy.”
“Who makes a quick buck off a documentary?”
“Forget it. Leave me alone, and you damn well better leave Trixie alone.”
“Wait. Please, at least take my phone number. Think about it. You might change your mind.” She handed her a scrap of paper with her number scrawled on it and allowed herself to feel some hope.
“I won’t.” She stormed away and hopped on a bus before Abby could follow her. Dejected, she got back into the car and decided she was too disappointed to do anything but start the long drive back home. She tried to look on the bright side. Shaye kept her number, or at least she didn’t throw it away immediately. Maybe that meant, however subconsciously, the movie was something she was willing to consider.