My inner rule-follower guides me to the main office instead of homeroom. I’ll feel worse walking into class without a late pass, even on the last day. When I reach the office, I push open the door, square my shoulders—and come face-to-face with Neil McNair.
Rowan Roth versus Neil McNair: A Brief History
SEPTEMBER, FRESHMAN YEAR
The essay contest that started it all. It’s announced the first week of school to welcome us back from summer break. I am used to being the best writer in class. It’s who I’ve been all through middle school, the same way, I imagine, this skinny redhead with too many freckles has been at his school. First place, McNair and his beloved Fitzgerald, second place, Roth. I vow to beat him at whatever comes next.
NOVEMBER, FRESHMAN YEAR
The student council president visits homerooms to ask for volunteers for freshman-class rep. Leadership will look good on my future college apps, and I need scholarships, so I volunteer. So does McNair. I’m not sure if he actually wants it or if he just wants to further ruffle me. Nevertheless, I win by three votes.
FEBRUARY, SOPHOMORE YEAR
We are both forced to take gym for a physical education requirement, despite the hour we spend trying to convince the counselor we need the space in our schedules for our advanced classes instead. Neither of us can touch our toes, but McNair can do three pull-ups, while I can only do one and a half. His arms have no definition whatsoever, so I don’t understand how this is possible.
MAY, SOPHOMORE YEAR
McNair scores a perfect 1600 on the SAT, and I score a 1560. I retake it the next month and score 1520. I do not tell a soul.
JANUARY, JUNIOR YEAR
Our AP Chemistry teacher makes us lab partners. After a handful of arguments, chemical spills, and a (small) fire, which was maybe mostly my fault but I’ll carry that with me to the grave, he separates us.
JUNE, JUNIOR YEAR
In the election for student council president, the vote is sliced perfectly down the middle. Neither of us concedes. Reluctantly, we become copresidents.
APRIL, SENIOR YEAR
Before college acceptances start rolling in, I challenge him to see who can rack up the most yeses. McNair suggests we compare percentages instead. Assuming we’re both casting wide nets, I agree. I get into 7 of 10 schools I apply to. It’s only after all the deadlines have passed that I learn McNair, crafty and overconfident as he is, applied to just one school.
He gets in.
7:21 a.m.
“ROWAN ROTH,” MY worst nightmare says from behind the front desk. “I got you something.”
My heart rate spikes, the way it always does before a sparring match with McNair. I’d forgotten he’s an office assistant (aka Suck-Up 101—please, even I’m better than that) during homeroom. I’d been hoping to keep him confined to my phone until the assembly.
With his hands clasped in front of him, he looks like an evil king sitting on a throne made from the bones of his enemies. His auburn hair is damp from a morning shower, or maybe from the rain, and as predicted, he’s in one of his assembly-day suits: black jacket, white shirt, blue patterned tie with the crispest, tightest knot I’ve ever seen. Still, I manage to spot his flaws right away: his pants a half-inch too short, his sleeves a half-inch too long. A fingerprint smudge on the left lens of his glasses, one stubborn piece of hair behind his ear that won’t lie flat.
His face, though—his face is the worst part, his lips bent in a smirk he perfected after winning that ninth-grade essay contest.
Before I can respond, he reaches inside his jacket pocket and tosses me a travel pack of Kleenex. Thank God I catch it, despite a serious lack of hand-eye coordination.
“You shouldn’t have,” I deadpan.
“Just looking out for my copresident on the last day of our term. What brings you to the office on this stormy morning?”
“You know why I’m here. Just give me a pass. Please.”
He furrows his brow. “What kind of pass, exactly, do you want?”
“You know what kind of pass.” When he shrugs, continuing to feign ignorance, I lower myself into a deep, dramatic bow. “O McNair, lord of the main office,” I say in a voice that oozes melodrama, intent on answering his question as obnoxiously as possible. If he’s going to turn this into a production, I’ll play along. After all, I only have a few more chances to mess with him. Might as well be ridiculous while I still can. “I humbly ask that you grant me one final request: a fucking late pass.”
He swivels his chair to grab a stack of green late slips from the desk drawer, moving at the pace of maple syrup on a thirty-degree day. Until I met McNair, I didn’t know patience could feel like a physical piece of me, something he stretches and twists whenever he has a chance.
“Was that your impression of Princess Leia in the first twenty-five minutes of A New Hope, before she realized she wasn’t actually British?” he asks. When I give him a puzzled look, he clucks his tongue, like my not getting the reference pains him on a molecular level. “I keep forgetting my great vintage Star Wars lines are wasted on you, Artoo.”
Because of my alliterative name, he nicknamed me Artoo, after R2-D2, and while I’ve never seen the movies, I get that R2-D2 is some kind of robot. It’s clearly an insult, and his obsessive interest in the franchise has killed any desire I might have once had to watch it.
“Seems only fair when so many things are wasted on you,” I say. “Like my time. By all means, go as slow as humanly possible.”
Sabotage has been part of our rivalry nearly since the beginning, though it’s never been malicious. There was the time he left his thumb drive plugged into a library computer and I filled it with dubstep music, the time he spilled the cafeteria’s mystery chili on my extra-credit math assignment. And my personal favorite: the time I bribed the janitor with a signed set of my parents’ books for her kids in exchange for McNair’s locker combination. Watching him struggle with it after I changed it was priceless.
“Don’t test me. I can go much slower.” As though to prove it, he takes a full ten seconds to uncap a ballpoint pen. It’s a real performance, and it takes all my willpower not to dive across the desk and snatch it from him. “I guess this means no perfect attendance award,” he says as he writes my name.
Even his hands are dotted with freckles. Once when I was bored during a student council meeting, I tried to count every freckle on his face. The meeting ended when I hit one hundred, and I wasn’t even done counting.
“All I want is valedictorian,” I say, forcing what I hope is a sweet smile. “We both know the lesser awards don’t really mean anything. But it’ll be a nice consolation prize for you. You can put the certificate on your wall next to the dartboard with my face on it.”
“How do you know what my room looks like?”
“Hidden cameras. Everywhere.”
He snorts. I crane my neck to see what he’s writing next to “reason for tardiness.”
Attempted to dye her dress brown. Failed spectacularly.
“Is that really necessary?” I ask, pulling my cardigan tight across my dress and the latte stain that shouts here’s where my boobs are! “I was stuck in traffic. All the lights in my neighborhood were out.” I don’t tell him about the fender bender.