I call Amber’s cell. It rings and rings, and then it bumps to voice mail. A few minutes later my cell rings.
“Hi,” she says. “What are you doing?”
“Talking to you.”
“No, I mean later.”
“Trying to write my speech.”
Another pause. “I couldn’t deal.”
“If you don’t give a speech, you’ll fail,” I say.
“I’ll talk to Scott.”
All Amber has to do is sit in front of Mr. Scott with her emerald eyes on him, and all his professional objectivity will fly out the window, like with every male in the universe whose brain goes soft when he looks at a gorgeous girl.
She’ll tell him about her mom. He’ll feel sorry for her. He’ll try to separate himself and assume his role as teacher. But he’ll look at how beautiful she is. And wounded. She’ll ask him to understand. End of story, she’ll be off the hook. The funny thing is, the talk she’ll give him to opt out will be the same kind she could have given in front of the class to earn an A.
“Maybe he’ll let you hand in something in writing.”
“I never thought of that,” she says.
“Anyway, he likes you.” I shouldn’t have said that. It sounds like I’m saying, “Your grade average doesn’t matter because you can coast on your looks.”
All she says is, “Yeah, I know … What’s your speech on?”
I should know, but I can’t seem to use the words “speech” and “truth” in the same sentence. It’s forty-eight hours away, and not only haven’t I written it, I haven’t dealt with it.
“I still don’t know.”
“Tell me about it,” Amber says.
“I can’t handle the signpost-on-the-front-lawn approach to what’s in my head.” What I’m thinking and feeling about something, anything, is nobody’s damn business. Definitely not my speech class’s business.
Anyway, I may have to talk about why I can’t talk about truth, because I have no family drama to discuss. “No relatives going off into the service. Normal parents. No one indicted. No one in jail. Disgustingly ordinary doesn’t make for drama.”
“You’ll think of something,” she says. “You’re an A student.”
Only now the A student who’s always on time with her homework, even early, is ducking the assignment.