THE SCHOOL BELL rang, and the students scurried into their respective classrooms like crawfish into their burrows. Laura kept her eyes on the gray tile floor as she followed Mrs. Walker, the school’s guidance counselor, through the dim hallway to her new homeroom. It felt so strange being back at school—everything from the lockers to the students seemed smaller to her.
“So, what’s Brian gonna be doing while you’re here?” Mrs. Walker’s shoes squeaked with each step. “I’ve never known y’all not attached at the hip.” She smiled innocently.
“Oh, uh, he’s got plenty to keep him busy.” Laura ran her fingers through her hair nervously. “But I’m excited to be back.” Actually, now that she thought about it, excited might not be the right word—more like anxious, or terrified.
“You are?” Mrs. Walker looked up with a confused expression. “Golly, I woulda thought you would’ve been so done with this place after movin’ to the big city.” She laughed. “I probably woulda never come back.”
Laura’s stomach twisted with misgiving. She could see the outside door about thirty feet from where they were, daylight peeking through the cracks, and wondered if she should just sprint toward it. If she could make her way out the door, she’d keep running down the street, along the main road, past Benji’s Bait and Tackle, and end up in the Landrys’ living room, where she’d hide her face in one of Janet’s floral couch pillows.
“Here we are,” Mrs. Walker said with a wink. They were in front of Mr. Leblanc’s door. A poster was taped to the outside that read, COME TO THE NERD SIDE, WE HAVE π. She glanced back at the outside door—only five feet away now. It’s now or never, she thought to herself. Then, Mrs. Walker swung open the classroom door. Too late.
Her eyes darted around the room. There were even more posters: GEOMETRY KEEPS YOU IN SHAPE, KEEP CALM AND DO MATH, and MISTAKES ARE PROOF THAT YOU ARE TRYING.
“Look who’s back,” Mrs. Walker announced proudly as she presented Laura to the class. Eighteen faces turned in unison to stare. One second felt like an eternity as her face became as red as her top. “Hey y’all,” she said, sheepishly raising her right hand a little and waving to her former—now current—classmates.
“Oh. My. God.” A girl’s voice squealed from the back row, breaking the awkward silence. Even though a stocky football player’s head blocked her face, Laura instantly recognized cheer captain Riley Cavanaugh from her high-pitched voice and signature satin ribbon tied around her bouncy ponytail.
“Welcome back, Laura,” Mr. Leblanc said, his pencil disappearing into his thick gray hair as he tucked it behind his ear. “There’s an open seat right there.” He pointed to the second-to-last desk on the front row, sandwiched between Ridge Maclin, the biggest stoner in town, and a guy she’d never seen before.
Laura shuffled over to the desk. Feeling the eyes of everyone watching her and hearing a couple of snickers in the back of the room, she could barely remember how to walk. Her arms swung at an odd pace. Her legs stumbled as if she were about to trip. What was only a few feet from the front of the class to the desk felt like a mile.
Finally she got to her seat and slunk down in her chair.
Mr. Leblanc placed a textbook on her desk with a loud thud. “Vince, could you share your most recent notes with Laura so she can catch up before our pop quiz tomorrow?”
Moans filled the room.
“Hey, be thankful. I wouldn’t have even said anything had it not been for our new student. All right, let’s break off into pairs and work on the equations on page one hundred thirty.” Mr. Leblanc leaned down and whispered in Laura’s ear, “Vince can help you out if you need it.”
She turned to the stranger sitting next to her and smiled politely.
“Nice to meet you,” he said, grasping her hand with a firm grip. He had warm brown skin, close-cut hair, and hazel eyes.
“You, too.” She smiled nervously.
“So, you used to go here?” he asked as he flipped through the pages in his textbook.
“Yeah.” She nodded. “You’re new, I take it?” She unzipped her army green messenger bag and pulled out a pencil, noticing it was indented with Brian’s teeth marks from when he borrowed it last year.
“Yep.” Vince began twirling his pencil around his fingers. “My family moved here over the summer from Atlanta. My dad’s a contractor, and he’s helping rebuild some of the places destroyed by Hurricane Sebastian.”
“Cool . . . I’ve never been to Atlanta. How does it compare to Toulouse?” she asked.
He flashed a smile, showing off his straight white teeth; he probably wouldn’t put those babies anywhere near a wooden pencil. “I still haven’t found a place that doesn’t sell crap coffee, but other than that, it’s not too bad here. The people are cool at least.”
“Ooh, they have fancy coffee in Atlanta?” she joked. “Well, la dee dah . . .”
He playfully hit her arm. “Oh, shut up. What’s your story? Why’d you leave and come back?”
“I was in Baton Rouge for a few months.” She put her elbow on the desk and starting twisting her hair. He wasn’t the only one from a big city, Laura reminded herself.
His eyes got bigger. “Oh. Why?”
She sighed and gave him a sly grin. “Shouldn’t we be working on this assignment?” She scratched her pencil on the wide-ruled paper in front of her. It felt weird holding it in her hand; she hadn’t written with one in months. Even at the coffee shop, she’d memorized her customers’ orders.
Vince leaned in closer. “Does someone have a secret?” He smirked.
“Not really.” She shook her head and could feel her face turning red. Why didn’t she want to tell him the truth? “My husband and I moved so he could play football for LSU, but he got hurt so we’re back for now”—she paused—“until he can have surgery.”
Vince whistled. “Well, I’ll be darned. Landry, huh? So, your husband is Brian Landry?”
She looked up. “You know him?”
“I’ve heard about him. I’m on the team here.” He put on his own stuffy accent. “Everyone talks about the ‘legendary Brian Landry.’ ” Vince puffed out his chest.
“Oh. You play?” She glanced at his body. She should have known he was on the team.
“Yeah. I reckon not as good as Brian, but yeah.” An awkward pause fell over them. “Anyway, I guess we better do these problems.” He pointed to the book and started scribbling some numbers down on his notebook. “So, we need to find the factors of this equation.”
Laura looked down at the numbers, fractions, exponents, and parentheses jumbling together in her vision. But she focused in and began separating everything out on her paper.
“We have a common factor of three right here,” Vince said, pointing the tip of his pencil to the two numbers listed. “So, you—”
“You could make it . . .” Laura said, interrupting him and pointing at her scribble: 3(y2+4y).
He looked up at her, surprised. She could feel her face turning red again. She hadn’t meant to blurt it out, and she certainly wasn’t a know-it-all, but it had felt so good, just for a moment, to figure something out on her own. It had been a while since she’d done that.
“I’m impressed,” Vince said. “You could even take it further, you know?” He began making some notes of his own on the paper in front of him.
Laura leaned in closer to his desk. Her head was so close to his, she could smell spearmint and feel the warmth of his breath.
His pencil began flying across the paper. “Since they both share the variable of y, you could do something like this, too.” He showed her: 3y2+12y = 3y(y+4). He looked at her, his hazel eyes looking into hers to make sure she understood.
“I don’t think I would have caught that,” she said, suddenly feeling defeated after her silly moment of triumph. Had she made a huge mistake, coming back here and trying to catch up with everyone?
“Nah. You got this. What you did was right. Mr. Leblanc just wants to see you thinking about every option. It just takes some practice. Here,” he said as he clicked open his three-ring binder and took out a few sheets of loose-leaf paper. “Take my notes for the quiz tomorrow.” He scribbled across the top page. “There’s my number. Call me if you need anything. But I’m sure you won’t have any problems.”
“I really appreciate it,” she replied, tucking the papers into her bag. Her mom had always told her to use the word appreciate around guys: You can get them to do anything you want with that word, she’d say. Laura didn’t know what she wanted to get Vince to do but figured it couldn’t hurt to say it.
The hour went by quickly as she and Vince raced each other on every problem. “You can’t tell anyone we did this,” he said, after they agreed it’d be funny to time it. “This is about the nerdiest thing I’ve ever done.”
She burst out laughing. “Well, I have a reputation to uphold myself. Secret’s safe with me, I promise.” Laura playfully locked her lips with her fingers and pretended to throw away the key. The bell rang, and the sound of eighteen metal chairs scraping the linoleum floor filled the room. Before Laura could say thank you to Vince, Riley and a couple of the other girls from the cheer squad, Rory and Emma, ran up to her.
“What the hell are you doing back here?” Riley exclaimed, a bubbly smile on her face.
“Miss Cavanaugh . . . language,” Mr. Leblanc called out from his desk.
Riley giggled. “Sorry, Mr. L!” She turned back to Laura. “But seriously, we all thought you were gone for good—at least that’s the way you made it sound.” The other two girls nodded their heads, though Laura caught an almost-unkind glint in Riley’s eye. “Does it have something to do with Brian’s knee?”
Laura swallowed, embarrassed that she’d made such a big deal out of leaving in the first place. “Yeah, we’re back while Brian waits for surgery. It’s temporary, of course.” Laura immediately wished she could take the words back—she sounded so snobby.
Emma crossed her arms. “Of course,” she said, her tone icy.
Riley ignored her and grabbed Laura into a bear hug. “Well, we just can’t believe you came back—I’m so happy!”
“Me, too, actually.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “But I should really get to my next class.”
They followed her out the door. “What lunch period do you have?” Riley asked as they began to part ways in the hall. “I have second. We should talk about you rejoining the team.” She flashed a thumbs-up sign.
Laura twisted her mouth as she pondered what to say. Jumping, tumbling, and cheering for the Toulouse Gators had been a huge part of her high school experience for the past three years. But did she really have time, between catching up at school and working to save money for Brian’s surgery?
“We’ll talk!” she yelled as she turned in the opposite direction.
The next three periods were just as overwhelming as Laura expected. Besides all the history she had missed, the literary classics she hadn’t read, and the French that she didn’t quite know (la catastrophe!), she was also being bombarded with questions.
“When do we get to see Brian?”
“How’s he doing since the injury?”
“You mean to tell me y’all have to stay with his folks right now? Bless your heart.”
Laura tried her best to answer them without sounding super pathetic.
“I’m sure you’ll see him around. You know he’ll be at the games and parties.”
“He’s doing just fine. You know him—he’s strong. Doctor says he’ll be back to normal in no time.”
“It’s just temporary. We didn’t want to go to the trouble of finding a new place, since we’re only here for a little bit.”
When the second lunch bell rang, Laura headed to the bathroom before going to the cafeteria. Just as she was about to exit the stall, three familiar voices came in.
“So, do you really think she’s going to join the team again?” Rory asked over the sound of a makeup bag unzipping. “Can we even have her? I mean, all of our routines are planned out—it’d be kinda hard to add another person.”
“I really don’t think it’s fair to let her back on,” Emma added. “We’ve already done tryouts—what message does that send to the girls who didn’t make the squad?”
Laura listened quietly, her heart pounding so hard she was almost afraid they’d hear it.
“Listen, I know it’s so weird that she came back, but she was one of the best we had.” Riley smacked her lips together, as if she’d just glossed them. “Plus she’s our friend.”
Some of the tension left Laura’s body.
Riley’s voice lowered in a whisper. “Besides, don’t you guys kind of feel sorry for her? How embarrassing to have to come back here after all that ‘I’m going to be a trophy wife’ crap.” She let out a laugh that echoed in the tiled bathroom.
Laura suddenly felt ill.
“Wait—did she really say that?” Emma asked, spritzing on a pungent Victoria’s Secret body mist.
“Well, she might as well have, with how she acted when she left.” Riley switched her voice to imitate Laura’s: “ ‘Oh, I’m getting married; Oh, I’m leaving this small-ass town. My life is perfect.’ ” She switched back to her normal voice. “It’s actually pretty funny when you think about it. Now that she’s come crawling back.”
The girls burst out laughing and closed up their makeup bags before heading out the door.
Laura stood there, frozen as her mind processed everything that was just said. Sure, maybe she’d been excited to leave, but it wasn’t like she rubbed it in anyone’s face. And why would they think it was funny that her life didn’t go according to plan? These people were supposed to be her friends.
She grabbed her bag and headed out the door. The girls’ comments replayed over and over in her head, making her angrier with each second that passed.
“Hey, you,” Vince said as she ran into him turning the corner. “The cafeteria’s this way. I thought you’d know that?” He shot her a teasing grin.
“Oh sorry, yeah.” She looked up at him with a forced smile, trying to hold back her anger. “I’m actually gonna do some stuff in the library instead. I didn’t realize how much I would need to catch up on.” Or how much my former teammates hated me.
“I hear ya. I feel like every teacher is giving a quiz or test this week. Do you mind if I join you, actually?” He tucked his thumbs between his chest and backpack straps, waiting for her answer.
“In the library?” she asked, flustered.
Vince looked confused. “Yeah.”
“Sure, yeah. Okay.” Even though she would have preferred to be alone, she tucked some stray pieces of hair behind her ears and led him to the room.
The library felt like a time capsule from the seventies. A green shag rug sat beneath four dark wooden tables in the center of the room. A mural, painted by the class of 1975, hung above the tall cases filled with musty old books. Laura and Vince were the only two people inside. Even Mrs. Eleanor, the sassy old librarian who had worked there for thirty years, was at lunch.
“Did you spend your lunch breaks in here before?” Vince asked, unpacking his books from his bag.
“No actually. I never came in here.” It was true. Brian didn’t even know where the library was, and Laura was usually right next to him. “I just figured it’d give me some peace and quiet to study.”
“I see. What are you studying?” He looked over at her books as she unpacked them from her bag.
“Umm . . . everything?” Laura spread her notebooks across the table and sighed at the sight of all her notes from just that day.
“You’re in AP chemistry?” Vince asked, eyeing her textbook.
“Yeah, why?” She clicked her pen.
“It’s just . . .” Vince trailed off.
“It’s just what?” She tightened her grip on her pen.
He ran his hand across his short brown hair and looked at her as if weighing her.
“You’re obviously smart. Why’d you drop out?”
Her eyes widened. “Um, I told you. Brian was heading to LSU, so I went with him.” She could hear herself sounding defensive.
“Yeah, but why? You could have waited.”
Laura felt like she’d been slapped. Vince wasn’t the first one to make this argument with her, and she was sick of hearing it. She felt embarrassed and, quite frankly, a little angry. He had just met her. Who was he to judge? “I did what I needed—make that, wanted—to do,” she said sternly. “We had our future all planned out, and there was no need for me to have a high school diploma.”
“So what made you come back then?” He leaned back in his chair. “Not to Toulouse, I mean. To school.”
“I don’t owe you any explanation, do I?” she huffed.
“Not at all,” he said with a genuine look. “I was just curious.”
“No offense, but I just want to study in quiet, okay?” She opened her notebook to a clean page and shifted in her chair slightly so she was facing away from him. Staring down at the paper, she prayed that she could just get through the rest of the day without appearing as weak as she felt.
Vince raised his hands in a peace-making gesture. “I’m honestly sorry if I offended you in any way,” he said, standing and packing up his books. “I didn’t mean to, I swear.”
“It’s okay,” Laura said guiltily. She hadn’t meant to take her stress out on him. “I’m just really on edge right now.”
“Good luck,” he said, slinging his backpack over his shoulder and walking out.
The door slammed shut behind him, the humming of the exhaust fan the only sound audible. Laura sighed as she silently replayed their conversation in her head. You’re obviously smart, he had said. Sure, she did well in school, but Brian was the one going places. It was never even a question of whose career they would pursue.
There was a hollowness in her stomach that she chalked up to hunger; she had refused Janet’s offer to make her scrambled eggs for breakfast and had opted instead for a chocolate chip granola bar. But even after she ate the sandwich she’d brought with her for lunch, the feeling remained. She couldn’t stop thinking about what Riley and Emma had said. Were they right? Should she not have come back to school? And what Vince said . . . had she needed to drop out of school after they were married? Was Brian’s dream really hers? She’d asked herself these questions before, of course. So why did hearing them from Vince, someone she barely knew, make the questions ring in her head? She blinked and stared down at her French homework.
“Translate the following phrases and match them to the common English saying.”
D’autres fois d’autres manières.
Laura pulled out her pocket French dictionary and began translating, trying to lose herself in work. “Other times, other manners,” she wrote, scanning the right-hand column for the English phrase that matched it. She drew a diagonal line to the words “Times change.”
She looked up at the clock in the library and let out a deep breath, chasing away an image of Vince’s slow smile. They sure do.