“We’re just about finished with dinner,” Mom says. “I’m so glad you finished up your project in time to eat with us.”
I leave my things in the front room and follow Mom into the kitchen. Todd is tossing together one of those premade salads Trader Joe’s sells in bags, and I think of the time that Dad shoved a fresh sprig of dill at me and insisted I taste it. Whole ingredients, James, he’d said. That’s what makes flavor.
“Hey, James,” Todd greets me.
I admit I might have held out some hope that for a woman to leave her home, husband, and only child, the man involved must be thoroughly amazing. There had to be a chance that once I met Todd, everything would come into sharp focus. But Todd is just a middle-aged guy with glasses, some kind of boring office job, and the inability to cook from whole ingredients. Mom burned down her life for nobody.
“What kind of project was it?” Todd asks, and I stare at my phone until I realize he’s talking to me.
“Just for humanities,” I say. “It’s boring.”
“You guys have such interesting classes nowadays,” he says. “Back in my day, it was really just the basics. Math, science, English, history. I took French because I thought it would make me more interesting, if you can believe it.”
No, I can believe that, Todd.
“I should finish the rest of my homework,” I say. “I have calculus and statistics to get through tonight.”
“We’ll let you know when dinner’s ready,” Mom says.
I walk down the hallway to the room here that’s been designated as mine. It’s decorated like a hip hotel we stayed at the other year when we traveled to Dallas for Dad’s cousin’s wedding. I sit down at the desk and get out my textbooks, and I figure, between homework and dinner, before I know it I’ll be tired and then before I know it it’ll be morning. And I can go to school and forget all about this pretend home.
Mom calls me down for dinner before long, and I stay as silent as possible while Mom and Todd discuss local businesses they patronized two days after Thanksgiving to support Small Business Saturday. They talk like it must be new information for me, so I let them know that Kat and a bunch of her friends—though I say our friends just to keep Mom from frowning—organized a whole shopping trip that they documented on Instagram. I also manage to not mention that I didn’t actually join them.
Mom might be right about me needing to do more with my life, though, which is the actual worst part. If Mom’s world being small is why she’s given up her whole life for someone as boring as Todd, then maybe she’s not wrong about me. Or, at least, I can’t risk that she’s not.
So I make an appointment first thing the next morning with Ms. Malkasian, my guidance counselor, and slip out of my first period class to meet with her.
“James,” she says when I walk in. “Ready to talk colleges? It’s a little later than I’d recommend, but with your grades and test scores, you’ve still—”
“I’m actually pretty good there, I think,” I say. “But I had the idea that for my senior year, I’d like to take on some kind of big project, some way to broaden my world.”
“Sure, that’ll look great on your applications,” she says.
“It’s really not about that.” Why does it seem that right now everything’s supposed to be? It’s as if once you enter senior year, your life’s in limbo until college? What’s this year supposed to be, then? “I turned in most of my applications already anyway.”
“Which schools?” she asks.
“Berkeley and Michigan,” I say.
“Great choices. I thought I had UCLA down as your top choice, though.”
I almost submitted my UCLA application once, twice, so many times, when my cursor hovered over that Submit button. It felt so big, though; UCLA had been the goal for so long—but in another lifetime. How could I just walk past Logan on campus like he was any other student?
“Oh, sure, UCLA too,” I say, even though what actually happened was that I enacted my nearly nightly ritual of nearly applying and finding that I couldn’t. It was December, the November 30 deadline was behind me, and I’d let time slip away. It was always a huge possibility that I wouldn’t get into UCLA, but at least then I could tell people how hard I’d tried for what I wanted. Even if I didn’t want it anymore. Even if I didn’t have any idea what I actually wanted now. Instead I’d gotten too freaked out to even try.
“We can definitely look at some volunteer options,” Ms. Malkasian says. “In the meantime, why don’t I sign you up for the tutoring lab? You might enjoy helping other students, and I know you’re more than capable.”
It’s not even close to what I had in mind, but I agree and stay after school the next afternoon for my first scheduled shift. It’s pretty quiet, so I work on my own homework while I wait to see if someone’s going to need my help. I’m not even sure how qualified I am to do this. Plus, nothing could feel less experience-broadening than sitting in the library of my own school.
“Miss McCall?”
I look up to see the tutoring lab advisor, Mr. Charles, and—really?—Quinn Morgan standing in front of me.
“Miss Morgan has a few questions about her calculus assignment tonight,” Mr. Charles says. “Miss McCall will be happy to help you.”
Quinn takes a seat at my table and sighs heavily as she takes out her textbook from her backpack. “This is so weird and formal. I seriously don’t remember the last time anyone referred to me as Miss Morgan.”
“I can ask if someone else can help you,” I say. “If this is awkward.”
“Of course this is awkward,” Quinn says. “But I really need to understand this assignment so I can do well on next week’s test, and you have the best grades in our class. And my sister has cello lessons tonight, so she can’t help me.”
I flip to today’s assignment and walk her through it, and it’s impossible not to notice how tense her posture is. Her shoulders seem about six inches higher than where they should be.
“This isn’t life and death,” I tell her. “It’s just calculus.”
“It is life and death,” she says. “I need to make sure my math and science grades are all as high as possible for my college apps.”
“Well, sure,” I say. “So, do you want to try the first problem?”
She sighs but looks down at her book. Her shoulders get even higher and I can tell that it’s impossible for her to accomplish anything right now.
“Did you ever play sports?” I ask her.
“Why?”
“Because I played softball in middle school, and one thing I learned is how you’ll never connect with the ball if you’re carrying that much tension in you.”
“I wish I’d played softball,” Quinn says. “I’m really uncoordinated. But I love watching baseball, so I get your metaphor.”
“It’s not a metaphor,” I say. “You should literally try to loosen up.”
She gives me an even weirder look.
“You’re not stupid, and you know what you’re doing,” I say. “You’re choking because you’re scared.”