Among Friends (18 page)

It was the most awkward dinner of my entire life. Paul hates me because I follow him around. Ansley likes Paul more than I want her to. My father knows everything
about Paul and won’t tell me any of it. And Mother, she never notices anything amiss, she just tells all these incredibly boring stories about contractors who didn’t show up to work on the addition, or how sweet the man at the dry cleaner’s was to her.

Paul liked my mother, which made me think that I needed binoculars to see Paul better.

When I drove Ansley home, she said, “Well, that was weird.”

I said, “I have the impression my father is adopting another son.”

Ansley said, “Or maybe your mother is. They were really interested in Paul.”

“I didn’t pick up any clues, though, did you?”

Ansley hadn’t learned anything more about P.C. either, but she told me about his middle name—Paul Revere and all that stuff. I was furious! She knew all these weeks and didn’t tell me? “It was private,” she said, as if she was surprised that it mattered to me.

All the world has something private going on with Paul Classified.

I went straight home, and Dad had taken Paul back to wherever Paul lives, and I demanded explanations.

Zip.

My father shrugged.

I yelled, “Dad! You can’t shrug! I’m your son! Tell me what’s going on!”

“Can’t.”

My mother said, “Jared, darling, one of these days Paul will open up and talk about it, but until then, play along, all right?”

Now I was really outraged. “You know all about Paul too?” I demanded. “The two of you are taking Paul on as a cause or something?”

My mother put her hands on my cheeks and said, “Sweetie, this is a test. I’ll be proud of you for taking Paul on yourself, and asking no questions until he’s ready to talk.”

Now what do you say when your mother comes on like that? Naturally you have to say, “Yes, Mother, I’ll ace the test, you’ll be proud of me.”

When she left the room I said, “Come on, Dad, satisfy my curiosity,” and he said, “No.”

That’s the trouble with having a lawyer in the family: all these one-syllable dead ends.

The whole school is against Jennie.

You can feel it, like the excitement before a big game: it’s the excitement of seeing Jennie lose.

It’s sick.

Reminds me of that day when the guys attacked Paul Classified in the cafeteria.

I try to figure out what Jennie’s crime is. Not that she was born brilliant and beautiful and rich—Ansley’s all of that and nobody hates Ansley. It’s that Jennie
works so hard
. We don’t mind brains if you just let the brains sit around. But when you fling yourself into it, when you have ten times the energy of everybody around you, we get mad at you. You’re showing us up.

If Jennie wins Star Student, she’s lost all of us.

If Jennie loses Star Student, she’s still lost all of us.

She’s going to be the greatest winner this school ever saw … and the biggest loser.

It’s dark now, and quiet, and very, very late, although I can’t see my clock because I’m huddling under the covers. I’m trying to decide something. If I fail, will I get Emily and Hillary back? If I say, “You’re right, I’m not that good”—will they like me again? Or have I blown it forever? Suppose I become ordinary, like Em and Hill? Suppose I stopped composing
Ye Season, It Was Winter
? Suppose I skipped assignments, and didn’t pass in term papers, and got C’s and D’s, and maybe dropped my music classes, and stayed out of drama club? Would they take me back?

I don’t think so.

I think they would say, “You’re doing it on purpose, Jennie, and so it doesn’t count.”

I think they would say, “You’re doing it just to get more attention, Jennie, and so we don’t care.”

I think there’s no way I can ever have a friend again.

My success killed them.

My success will kill me, too.

Why aren’t you proud of me? I’m doing my best! Why isn’t that good? Why is that bad?

I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to be good. I’m not this way in order to ruin your chances. I was born this way, you guys!

I wonder what the other winners of Star Student have been like. Did they have friends? Were they able to pull off success without people hating them?

But what if I’ve spent all this year blaming this on being too good for my own good … and what if it really is me? What if I really am a bad person?

I couldn’t go to school.

I went to the hospital to see her.

She was asleep.

I didn’t know what to do, so I just sat in the lobby. I sat there for a long time, holding an old
Time
magazine in my lap and staring at the window of the gift shop. If I had money I could buy my mother a pretty gown. Or a paperback book.

A long time passed, and I didn’t move. There was no place to move to.

Jared Lowe’s father sat down next to me. He said hello. I didn’t say anything. He said, “Paul, I have a good life, a soft life. You have a bad life, a hard life, a life of rocks and sharp edges. But one way to have an easier life is to let other people help you. Nobody can go it alone. When your father abandoned you, because the going got too rough for him, you and your stepmother tried to go it alone. And it didn’t work. You both completely fell apart.”

“I did not fall apart,” I said.

“Yes, you did. It just doesn’t show as much on you as
it does on your mother.” He put his arm around my shoulder. For a minute it was just there, and then he tightened it around me in a little hug.

This is it, I thought, the moment I’ve been afraid of for a year now: I’m going to collapse, the dam is breaking.

Mr. Lowe said, “You don’t have to talk. All you have to do is let me buy you a hamburger.”

I kind of laughed. I said, “I am pretty hungry.”

Mr. Lowe said, “Maybe two hamburgers.”

And I said, “The thing is, I don’t even like Jared.”

“You grew up years ahead of him, Paul. He’ll get there eventually. I kind of enjoy him myself.”

I said, “You’re his father. You ought to.”

Mr. Lowe said, “I’d like to be your temporary father, if you’d allow that.”

Temporary father.

But that’s suitable, I suppose.

All my parents have been temporary.

I cannot believe I am living with the Lowes. But what choice was there? And I admit to a diary only, I was too tired to argue.

Nobody wished me luck.

Nobody asked me if I felt okay, or was nervous, or had studied for it. They all just looked at me, with mocking cruel looks, hoping I would fail. Well, I won’t fail! I don’t care what anybody thinks, I don’t care how lonely I am, I will succeed, just as I always succeed, and Mother and Daddy will be proud.

They hired a bus to take the seniors and me to the state capital. Not your usual uncomfortable yellow school
bus, but a plush travel bus with a bathroom. “It’s because we’re special,” said one of the seniors happily. “It’s because Jennie’s along,” said Amanda cynically.

I was not surprised to be sitting alone, but nothing is so lonely as sitting by yourself in a double seat. Having me along had a curious effect on the seniors. They lost their nervousness. After all, they had already lost to me, so there was no test anxiety. They would actually do
better
on the examination, because they weren’t frightened.

“Maybe she won’t win,” said somebody.

“Jennie not win?” cried Amanda. “Unthinkable! Of course Jennie will win. Has Westerly ever had a star to compare with Jennie Quint?”

The bus turned off the exit and entered Hartford. It stopped at the edge of a small grubby park near an abandoned building. A stray cat stood in high brown winter weeds, frozen as if it had died standing up. I gasped in horror, and then realized the cat was perfectly alive, it was stalking some little creature I hadn’t seen. The cat pounced, and swung a tiny rodent in the air.

I was inside that little mouse. I was being swung around, cruel teeth caught in my skin.

We drove on to the Sheraton. I had no roommate. There was an uneven number going, and nobody wanted to room with me. I had plenty of money, in case I wanted to go shopping, but nobody to shop with. We checked in our bags but we didn’t get to see our rooms because we had to head straight for the government building where we’d take the exam. Dozens of teenagers were arriving at the same time. They didn’t look like a particularly successful crowd. They just looked like kids.