CHAPTER 36

Mr. Evans did not take care of things. Instead, he asked me if we could “make do” with our current budget when I saw him the next day. I told him we could not. He offered to pitch in a couple hundred dollars of his own. He looked so pathetic that I said we’d do what we could, but that he’d have to scale back on some of his “vision.”

“No silk scarves draping the fairy bower?” Mr. Evans looked pained.

I shook my head.

“What about the colored lights?” His eyes were closed now, like he was braced for the worst.

“We can’t afford new gels, so we’ll have to stick to the basic lights.”

Mr. Evans gave a terse nod without opening his eyes. “Do what you need to do.”

I left Mr. Evans’s classroom feeling a bit like I’d snatched a lollipop from a little kid. The guilt was uncomfortable, but I told myself absolute honesty was best at this point. The show must go on, but that didn’t mean it needed to go on with silk scarves and expensive lights. Mr. Evans’s requests had always been unrealistic. Without any outside revenue, his vision was absolutely unfeasible. Still, it was hard seeing the perky Mr. Evans brought low. The play might have squashed my spirits, but that didn’t mean I wanted to see a fellow optimist give up hope. Without Mr. Evans’s blind faith, I wasn’t sure how we would keep going. At times his blissful ignorance seemed to be the only thing holding this production together. (His ignorance and my stubborn desire to please. And Becca’s pragmatism.)

Things did not get better when I got to math class. That quiz I hadn’t really studied for? I’d failed it. Spectacularly. The unit test was a week away, and I needed to set aside time to catch up, but I wasn’t exactly sure when that would happen. I looked for Jack, who wasn’t exactly a math superstar. I was hoping to find someone to commiserate with, but he smiled at me and waved his test, then came over to me.

“How’d you do?” he asked.

“Oh, fine,” I lied. I could tell he wanted me to ask how he’d done on the test and though I didn’t want to, I obliged. “How about you?”

“I got an eighty-nine!” His smile had been big before, but it somehow managed to get bigger. I wanted to be happy for him. I really did. But the best I could do was a forced smile. “You mind giving these notes back to Becca for me?” he asked.

I took the sheaf of notes he passed to me, too absorbed in self-pity to really hear what he’d just said. By the time I thought to ask which Becca, he was gone. I looked down at the notes and recognized my best friend’s loopy handwriting. How? What? I tucked the notes inside my agenda and made a mental note to ask Becca about this later.

I shuffled my way to last period English, hoping for a respite. No luck. At the end of class, Ms. Merriam asked Ben and me to stay back. We remained at our desks as our classmates filed out. I snuck a look at Ben. His hair was still un-gelled, which suggested things with Zach weren’t any better. I pitied him, which felt wrong, like I’d unintentionally swallowed gum.

Ms. Merriam turned a student desk around and sat facing us. She toyed with her dangly earrings. “I’m handing back the papers tomorrow, but I wanted to talk to the two of you today. I know you’ve both been under a lot of stress with the play, which is why I’m going to give you a chance to resubmit your papers.”

Ben and I avoided eye contact, but I could feel shame radiating off both of us. Our papers were so bad Ms. Merriam wanted us to rewrite them. I traced the graffiti on my desk with my index finger. Jennifer hearts Noah. Oh, to be Jennifer, unconcerned about anything but her teen romance. I hated Jennifer a little. Her life must be so much simpler than mine. For one, a wannabe valedictorian couldn’t chance getting caught vandalizing school property.

Ben broke the silence. “Thanks for giving us a chance to rewrite the assignment.”

I piggybacked. “Thanks.” My voice was flat. I was just observing the niceties.

Ms. Merriam nodded and seemed to think about what she wanted to say next. She spoke carefully, looking us each in the eye. “I think you both know your names have come up in discussions of who will be valedictorian this year.” I nodded, but only barely. I didn’t want to seem cocky. I avoided looking at Ben, though I could see out of the corner of my eye that he also nodded. Ms. Merriam continued, “You should know there’s also been talk of your…erratic behavior lately. If you want to remain contenders, you’ll both need to do some hard work catching up on your academics.”

Ben stood up. As he walked to the door, he said, “Thanks, Ms. Merriam. I’ll get that paper to you by Monday.”

Ms. Merriam smiled. “Good luck, Ben.”

And then there were two. I wished I had left with Ben, but I felt too heavy to get up from the desk just yet. I knew Becca was waiting to give me a lift home. I knew Ms. Merriam probably wanted to pack up and go home herself. But I couldn’t get up. I didn’t have the strength. I ran my finger over Jennifer’s graffiti, hoping it might imbue me with some of her innocent enthusiasm.

Ms. Merriam got up and turned the desk back around, its metal legs scraping on the linoleum floor. I flinched at the sound, though I’d heard it almost every day of my school life. Ms. Merriam came over and sat at the desk next to mine. She leaned over, and I could smell her vanilla perfume. “Alison, are you okay?”

It was too much. The vanilla perfume, the ridge between her eyes getting deeper as she worried about me, the love message Jennifer had carefully engraved into the desk. I was either going to break down or I was going to toughen up. I clenched my fist on the table. “I’m fine. Just tired. I’ll have the paper to you by Monday.”

Ms. Merriam looked unconvinced. I forced myself to relax my hand and to smile. It felt more like a grimace, but it was the best I could manage. “We lost our Bottom,” I tried to explain.

“You lost your what?” Ms. Merriam seemed genuinely confused by my non sequitur.

I tried to explain. “Not our butt. I mean, he was the ass, but I don’t mean we lost our bum.”

Ms. Merriam raised both eyebrows. I was making this worse.

“I mean, the actor playing Bottom left the play. So, Mr. Evans is going to play the part.” If I’d thought Ms. Merriam’s eyebrows were raised before, I’d grossly underestimated just how high eyebrows could go when a person was properly surprised. “It’s a bit of a shit show,” I admitted. Shocked that I’d just sworn in front of a teacher, I covered my mouth with both hands.

Ms. Merriam laughed outright, a hearty guffaw that made me smile. After she finished laughing, she said, “You’ve got your hands full, don’t you?”

“You could say that,” I responded, perhaps just a touch sarcastically.

“Alison, I know you’re a perfectionist, but there are some things that are beyond your control.” It was my turn to snort. It seemed like nothing was in my control these days. Ms. Merriam pressed on. “Sometimes the hardest thing to learn is how to be okay with things as they are.”

I nodded and stood up. Having someone else acknowledge just how crazy things had gotten had lightened my load enough that standing was now possible. “Thanks, Ms. Merriam.”

Ms. Merriam stayed at the student desk as I walked across the room. Just before I left, she said, “I think I’ll buy an opening night ticket this year. It will be worth it to see Mr. Evans in a donkey costume.”

At least we would have one person in the audience.