It’s hard, because Courtney keeps talking about how they will celebrate when Sam gets her certificate. She is thinking pizza and a beach party or maybe dinner at Passports. That’s Courtney’s favorite, because they always serve fresh popovers. She doesn’t know Sam is considering even more school, and after that she won’t be certified for anything.
Sam keeps imagining the conversation. She will say, Mom, I applied to transfer, and Courtney will start yelling. Sam, what are you thinking? You’re almost done! You can’t start taking student loans now. And Sam will say, Don’t worry. I’m staying here; I’m not going into debt. I know how much loans cost over time. Believe me, I can calculate the interest.
Then, every once in a while, Sam thinks her mom will react differently. Sam will say, Mom, I have a chance to go to U Mass Amherst, and Courtney will say, WHAT? Are you kidding me? You got in there? You can go and be a scientist? You can’t turn that down. Even if your loans take a hundred years to pay, you have to go!
Of course, her mom won’t say that. Almost definitely not. But if she did, that would be even worse, because then the decision would be on Sam. She would go and mortgage her whole life and she might not even pass her classes, because how is she even qualified? People come to U Mass from all over. It’s a cut above. That’s what her own professors say. “Don’t be intimidated,” Witchy tells Sam. “You’re a smart gal, okay?”
As soon as Sam hears the word intimidated, she feels it. The fear that makes you clumsy. The ice that makes it hard to swallow. Probably the admissions committee made a mistake—but they don’t contact her. Nobody rescinds Sam’s acceptance. All her official messages are about money. Her bill is ready for viewing.
She has six days left to register, and she has to tell her mom. The longer she waits, the worse it gets, and the more offended her mom is going to be that Sam kept this secret from her.
She comes home Thursday night, just as her mom is making dinner.
“Where’s Justin?” Courtney asks.
But Sam didn’t bring him, because she has to do this thing alone.
She sits down with her mom and Noah and they eat spaghetti and meat sauce and sprinkle Parmesan and Sam says, “You guys, I have to tell you something.”
Courtney looks petrified, and Sam knows why. With Beth, it’s Wait, are you engaged? But Sam’s mom goes right to pregnant. “Stop it, Mom! I’m fine. I applied to U Mass Amherst.”
For a second nobody says anything. Noah looks at Sam, and Sam looks at her mom.
Courtney is puzzled, and then hurt. “You never told me that.”
“I didn’t think I would get in.”
“You got in?” Courtney is holding her fork in midair.
“I’m not really going.”
“They accepted you?”
“It was just my professor’s idea.”
“Which professor?”
“Doc Martin.”
“Which one is he?”
Sam looks down at her bowl. “Earth Science.”
“Oh, Sam.”
“Sam, Sam, Sam,” murmurs Noah, which is his way of saying, Now you’re busted for real.
“Don’t worry,” Sam tells both of them.
Slowly, Courtney says, “You’d have to take out so many loans.”
“I’m not going to,” Sam promises. “I’m not enrolling.”
“Why did you apply, then?” Noah asks logically.
“I just—wanted to see.”
Courtney says, “You wanted to see now—after all this?”
“Yeah.”
Courtney says, “You’ve worked so hard for your certificate. You’re so close!”
“I can still do it!”
“But you don’t want to.”
“I mean I do, but—”
Courtney puts down her fork. “I knew this was gonna happen.”
“What?”
“I knew it.”
“How could you know?”
“I was the one who told you about geology.”
“What are you talking about, Mom?”
“When you were little and you couldn’t sleep, I would tell you about geology and all the rocks.”
Sam has no memory of this. “You did not.”
“Oh yeah, I did.”
“That never happened!” Sam says, because where is all this coming from? This whole conversation is so random. Ninety percent of the time, Sam imagined her mom furious. Ten percent overjoyed. What is this?
“I used to talk to you about geology when you were lying awake.”
Sam shakes her head because there’s no point arguing. “Whatever you say, Mom.”
Courtney smiles wistfully. “You are really something.”
“But you still think I should stay here and get a job, right?”
“After working like you did? Hell yeah,” says Courtney.
“Okay, thanks,” says Sam.
Maybe it’s her quiet voice. Maybe it’s the way she sits there looking at her bowl. Maybe it’s just that her mom knows her too well. “That’s what I would do,” says Courtney, “but you’re not me.”
There is every reason to stay. There is Justin. There is Courtney and Noah, who both need her. There is money, which Courtney points out more than once. It’s so much money. There is only one reason to go, which is that Sam wants to learn.
She thinks about that all the time. In class, and at the Atomic Bean, and with Ann at the kitchen table reading the course titles in geology. “Okay, there’s The Earth,” she tells Ann. “And The Earth Honors.”
Ann says, “Of course, you should take Honors Earth.”
“Watershed. Biogeochemistry,” Sam reads slowly. “Petrology. Genesis of igneous and metamorphic rock. Recognition of crystallization history with polarizing microscope.”
“I’d like to try that,” Ann tells her. They sit there trying to imagine a polarizing microscope and the crystals you would recognize in there.
“I can go later,” Sam says. “I can work a year first.”
Ann says, “Yes, that’s true. You could.”
“Or in a few more years,” Sam says. “After I’ve saved money.”
“But there’s no time like the present,” Ann points out, which is one of those phrases that gets weirder and weirder the more you think about it. No past, no future. No time but now.
“You would go, wouldn’t you?” Sam says.
“Absolutely.”
“Even if you couldn’t afford it?”
“How else will you get to use that microscope?”
Ann watches from across the table as Sam opens her admissions portal and sends in her deposit.