Say What You Will (7 page)

O
H, THE WHOLE EPISODE
was excruciating. His heart thudded audibly; a bead of perspiration trickled down one side of his face. “Hey, Sarah, what’re you doing for lunch?” Matthew said, coming up behind her at a water fountain.

“Today?”
she said, standing, dripping water from her chin. “Right now?”

“Not
right
now. It’s only ten fifteen. But we have the same lunch block, right? At least I think we do. Never mind. Maybe we don’t.”

“I’ve got
C
.”

“Me too.”

“Well, I guess that’s the same, then, right?”

“I guess it is.”

“If you’d like to go out for lunch, we could. I don’t have a car or anything so I couldn’t drive us. We’d have to go to Taco Bell, which some people think is gross, I know.”

“That’s okay. I like Taco Bell.” She looked around the hallway. “Sure, why not? Does anyone else want to come, or just us?”

He panicked. He wasn’t prepared for this question, even though it was probably a normal one. How many times had he heard someone say, “We’re headed to the Bell. Anyone want to come?” Never to him, of course. But people said it.

He couldn’t think how to respond. They weren’t part of any larger group. They shared no friends, unless she meant Amy. But Amy couldn’t come if they were going to talk about her. And Amy couldn’t swallow anything at Taco Bell, except maybe refried beans and a little rice. Instead of answering Sarah’s question, he let an awkward amount of time pass without speaking. Finally he said, “So . . . what? Should I meet you out front at eleven twenty?”

Seniors were allowed to leave school for lunch on Fridays only. So far, Matthew hadn’t left for lunch once, but he knew most kids piled into cars and drove. Taco Bell was the only place in walking distance. It required taking a route past the field house and down an alley filled with trash Dumpsters. Matthew wondered if his brain would let him touch food after walking past so much trash. He wondered if Taco Bell sold any food he could eat with a fork. Would it be worse to eat his food holding it with a paper wrapper, or to wash his hands a few times before they sat down? What had Amy said the rules were? He couldn’t remember.

One thing he knew for sure: this wouldn’t be like her other tasks, which all involved confronting private fears on his own. He knew this the minute they stepped into the restaurant. Crowded with seniors, the line to order food stretched about seven people long.

“Maybe we should leave,” he said, his mouth dry.

“No, I’ve been here before. The line goes pretty fast.” Even as Sarah spoke, the line moved forward. “See?”

Sarah was, if anything, even prettier now than she was in ninth grade. Her hair was shorter and cut in a chin-length bob. She looked older than other girls, but not in the same way other girls looked older, with heavy makeup and revealing clothes. She just looked more comfortable with herself and happier.

Ryan Starling, an idiot who rode on Matthew’s bus, turned around and looked at them. “What are you two doing here?” he said. Ryan was also a star wrestler, which meant his legs and arms bowed a little with all of his muscles.

Sarah laughed easily, like what he said was funny, not insulting. “We live here, actually, Ryan. We eat every single meal here. It’s strange, I know, but we can’t get enough of it.”

“This
crap
?” Ryan said.

“I know. Weird, right? Do this: order every item off the dollar menu and eat it all in one sitting. Afterward you’ll think,
God, I really love Taco Bell
.”

Ryan leaned toward Sarah and lifted his eyebrows. “How ’bout you help me eat it?”

“Oh no. Not today. I only let myself do that treat once a week.”

Matthew watched them and wondered: What happened to the shy girl who cried at the attention reciting a French dialogue focused on her? When had Sarah Heffernan gotten to be joking buddies with the jocks?

“I’ll tell you what. If I order all that food, why don’t you sit with me anyway—”

“Not today, Ryan. Let’s get dysentery together another time, ’kay?”

After Matthew and Sarah got their food, they sat down at the only empty table left, in front of the drink dispenser. “How do you know that guy?” Matthew whispered.

“Who, Ryan?” Sarah shrugged. “I think we had Life Drawing together last year. He’s not as bad as he seems, but maybe that’s not saying too much.”

Matthew wanted to ask how she’d grown more relaxed over the last three years while the opposite had been true for him. He wondered if she even remembered the conversation they once had where she cried and he comforted her. Instead of asking about this, he asked why she signed up to work with Amy. Right away she grew quiet, as if it was an awkward question.

“It’s kind of a long story,” Sarah said. “Not that interesting, probably.”

“Does it have to do with your dad?”

She started eating one of her tacos one-handed. He’d ordered a burrito, but couldn’t bring himself to unwrap it. “Sort of,” she said softly. “He asked me to do it. And I didn’t have much community service for my college apps.”

He wondered if he should tell her what Amy had once pointed out to him—that technically you shouldn’t get
paid
for community service. “Why did your dad want you to do it?”

“He always felt bad about something that happened when Amy was in his class.”

She told him the story about the science fair that he already knew. “He didn’t let her participate because he always assumed that Nicole pushed Amy to be some kind of disabled superachiever. Like her mother had this agenda to prove the doctors were wrong. He thought it was dangerous for Amy’s sake, and none of the school administrators would say no when she signed Amy up for an all-honors schedule. He was convinced Nicole wrote the science fair proposal.” She shrugged. “I guess he wanted to know if he was right.”

“He wanted you to figure out if Amy was really smart?”

“Something like that.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him I thought he was probably right. I know that sounds terrible—I know Amy’s smart enough that she
could
have written the proposal; I just don’t think she
did
. I don’t think she’s
that
into science.” She shrugged as if this wasn’t a particularly shocking thing to say. “I don’t know. It’s just my hunch.”

Matthew felt his face go red. He’d never be able to eat a bite now. “How can you
say
that? Of course she wrote it herself! You’ve seen her writing. You know how good it is.”

“Right—it’s just the feeling I get. I mean, look at Nicole. She’s way too invested in Amy’s accomplishments. Has Amy told you how many colleges she’s applying to?”

His heart started to race again. No, she hadn’t. “How many?” he said softly.

“Twenty. I’m not kidding. I know we’re all being a little ridiculous with our thirteen applications and our parents breathing down our necks, but
twenty
? Five Ivy Leagues? You don’t think that’s a bit much? I’m surprised Amy hasn’t mentioned this to you. It’s almost all we talk about. We’re applying to two of the same schools, and they have these crazy essays.
Describe what your life would be like if you lived on the moon. Write an essay from the point of view of one of your hands.
You wouldn’t believe what we’ve had to write about.”

“Where is she applying?”

Sarah rattled off a list: Yale, Brown, Stanford, Columbia. He stopped listening. His breath went shallow. How did he not know any of this? The applications were due months ago. Amy had never mentioned them once. “Do you think she’ll get in?”

“Oh sure. She’s got the grades and the board scores. I think that’s what worried my dad. He was talking to the high-school guidance counselor, who said Amy was probably our best shot at Harvard or Yale this year, and it made him feel bad about what happened when she was in seventh grade.”

Harvard
or
Yale?
Was she serious?

“Aren’t you going to eat, Matthew?”

“No.” He was really sweating now. And having a hard time breathing. “I have—I’m sorry . . . I have to go to the bathroom.”

In the bathroom, he plunged his hand into the hottest water he could get from the tap. His skin went from pink to red. He washed his hands, then his wrists, then up to his elbows. He sterilized everything front and back. He rinsed and shut off the faucet with his elbow.

Who did Amy think she was, getting inside his head, telling him what to do when she’d never told him the first real thing that was going on in her life?
Harvard or Yale?
He’d never met anyone who applied to either of those places, let alone had a reasonable chance of getting in. A new, terrible thought occurred to him:

Amy felt sorry for him. She knew he didn’t have the grades or the scores to get in to a competitive college. Actually, his grades were okay; his test scores were the embarrassment. He’d taken them twice, the second untimed. Even then, his anxiety was so bad he actually sweated onto the paper he was bubbling answers onto. His second score only went up by fifteen points—such an incremental gain, his guidance counselor suggested that he should rethink where he wanted to apply. Or even
if
he wanted to apply. “College can be stressful for some kids. Taking a year off might not be a bad idea. I even encourage it in some cases.”

They never talked about it again because secretly, he was relieved. Everything about college applications had filled him with dread, especially the essays that encouraged you to “describe your thought process in coming to this conclusion/opinion/decision, etc.” How could he do this? How could he write,
After thirty-two checks of the faucet, I determined that Pitzer is my number-one school choice, mostly because it has an even number of vowels in its name, which for some reason my brain cares about right now
?

He wasn’t sure how long he stayed in the bathroom. Long enough to wash his hands four more times without doing it twice in front of the same person. Long enough to calm down from all the information Sarah had told him. Long enough that, by the time he walked out of the bathroom, Sarah had switched tables and was sitting with Ryan.

“TELL ME ABOUT YOUR LUNCH WITH SARAH,” Amy asked him the next day. “I’LL NEED A FULL REPORT TO GIVE YOU CREDIT.”

“Why didn’t you tell me where you’re applying to college?”

“IT NEVER CAME UP. WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?”

“A lot. You should have told me.”

“WHY?”

“Because I had to hear about it from Sarah. It was terrible.”

“WHERE DID YOU THINK I WAS APPLYING?”

He hesitated. What
had
he thought? If he was honest, he assumed she wasn’t going to college. That the practical logistics would be too complicated even for a smart girl like Amy.

“I assumed you weren’t applying.”

“BUT MY MOM TALKS ABOUT ME GOING TO COLLEGE ALL THE TIME.”

It was true; Nicole did talk about it a lot. “I guess I didn’t picture you going right away. Or applying to places so far away. Are you really going to live in a dorm?”

“THAT’S THE IDEA.”

“And you think that’s a good idea?”

“WHAT’S WRONG WITH IT?”

Did she need him to spell out the ways it could be a disaster? Should he remind her of everything other people did for her? “I just think it’s naive. College isn’t like high school.”

“WHAT’S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?”

“People will be busy doing their own thing. They’ll have cars and be joining fraternities and sororities. I think in college, people tend to be more self-absorbed.”

“WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?”

“You’ve never been away from home. You tried summer camp and you hated it. You spent the whole time in your cabin sleeping.” She’d told him the story over lunch once. It was her only experience getting to know a group of kids as disabled as she was. The big surprise was discovering how little she had in common with any of them.

“THAT WAS DIFFERENT. I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’RE EVEN BRINGING IT UP.”

“I don’t understand why you’re applying to all these Ivy League schools. Is it just so you can walk around telling people you got into Yale?”

“NO. I APPLIED SO I CAN GO TO YALE.”

“But why there? Why not someplace closer—where you can live at home?”

“BECAUSE THIS IS MY CHANCE TO LIVE AWAY FROM HOME.”

“But what if you can’t do it? What if it’s a disaster?”

She typed for a minute. “IF I CAN GET IN, THAT’S A PRETTY GOOD SIGN THEY THINK I CAN DO IT, RIGHT?”

He felt like a tennis ball was bouncing around in his stomach.
NO!
he wanted to say.
It’s a sign that they want to look good for accepting an intelligent, nonverbal girl
. “Have you made it clear everything you can’t do? That you need help in the bathroom and eating and getting dressed?” He knew it was mean to point these things out, but he couldn’t stop himself.

“JUST BECAUSE YOU’RE TOO SCARED TO TAKE ANY RISKS DOESN’T MEAN THE REST OF US SHOULD BE.”

“This isn’t about me, Amy. It’s about you.”

“I THINK THIS IS ABOUT YOU, MATTHEW. I’M SORRY, BUT I DO.”

A
MY NEVER EXPECTED
S
ARAH
to tell Matthew about her college applications, and now she wondered if she’d made a terrible mistake. Helping him get over his fear of going out with a girl was only one of the reasons she suggested the lunch with Sarah. The other reason had to do with a secret she’d been keeping for almost two weeks: she’d been accepted at Stanford and offered a scholarship.

“I DON’T WANT TO TELL ANYONE AT SCHOOL YET,” Amy told her mother after she got the news. “THERE ARE TOO MANY PEOPLE WHO HAVEN’T HEARD YET.”

“They’re going to find out sooner or later, Aim. You don’t have to protect people.”

“I KNOW THAT, MOM. BUT LET ME DECIDE WHEN THAT IS.
PLEASE
.”

“Okay.”

“I
MEAN
IT.”

Her mother waved her hands. “Fine, fine. I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

To Amy’s surprise, she did.

These college acceptances had left everyone feeling unmoored. She heard more bad news than good about the letters other people were getting from college. Sarah had been wait-listed at Berkeley, but rejected everywhere else. Sanjay had one acceptance, but no offers of even a smidgen of scholarship. Amy waited for a rejection so she could share that first. “I GUESS BROWN’S TAKING NO ONE,” she planned to say. And then she got into Brown.

“Can we tell people now?” her mother asked.

“No,” she said.

The next week University of Pennsylvania and Vassar welcomed her into their freshman classes. Sarah had gotten two more rejections and one wait list. Sanjay had gotten no money from MIT. Chloe, with her 1.9 average, seemed as if she was faring better than anyone else. She planned to start at community college, where she would turn around her study habits and eventually apply to law school.

The only person who never—even once—talked about next year was Matthew.

Amy knew why. If a can of Sprite left unattended made him anxious, how could he face the prospect of filling out a college application? She wished she could tell him the truth:
Of course I haven’t talked to you about college. You’re working on something harder and more important right now.
She wished she could express how it felt to watch him overcome some of his most stubborn fears:
What you’re doing right now is harder than me getting into colleges. Be proud of this. Don’t worry about the rest.

Instead of saying this, she typed, “YOU DIDN’T TELL ME HOW LUNCH WITH SARAH WAS,” to change the subject.

“Fine.”

“REALLY FINE OR FAKE FINE?” They had ten minutes before the first bell would ring. She didn’t want to start walking. She wanted to have this conversation.

“I don’t know. I’m not sure I like her all that much anymore.”

“WHY NOT?”

“She’s changed a lot.”

“WAS SARAH MEAN TO YOU? I’LL BE REALLY MAD IF SHE WAS.” It was a surprising impulse. Amy definitely didn’t want him to fall in love with Sarah again, but she also didn’t want Sarah to have given him any reason to distrust girls.

“I don’t want to talk about it. She said some things I didn’t like; that’s all.”

“LIKE WHAT?”

“Like she thinks her dad was right, leaving you out of the science fair.”

For a long time Amy didn’t say anything.

“WE SHOULD PROBABLY GO,” she finally typed.

For the rest of the afternoon, they didn’t mention Sarah again.

That night after dinner, Matthew sent her an email:

Ten minutes later, he got this back:
There’s something I have to tell you.

He wrote right back:
You’re there! Hurray! You’re speaking to me!

In return, he got this:

Though she waited for half an hour, she got no response.