Agorafabulous! (21 page)

He sat up straighter. “No problem.”

“Thanks,” I said. I stood up and looked at Billy. He rolled his eyes at me.

“Can I at least keep my books over my—”

“Yes!” I said quickly. “Yes, of course. C’mon. Outside, now.”

He stood up, hunched over like an osteoporosis-riddled old man, and shuffled out the door with his books over his crotch. I raised my eyebrow at Pablo, who nodded and stood up.

“Yo, everybody, she wants us to write a page about friendship. You don’t gotta give a fuck about commas and shit. Just write what you think makes a good friend, and what you think makes a bad friend. Like a good friend don’t snitch, and a bad friend sells you out so he don’t have to do no time.”

When I went into the hallway, they were all writing quietly. They kept at it the whole time I remained outside the door.

“Billy,” I said, facing him. “Seriously. What the fuck?”

“I know,” he sighed. “I know.”

“I’m supposed to send you to the school director.”

“I know.”

“And then she’ll call your parents.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah, fuck is right. You can’t take other people’s prescriptions, ever. Ever ever ever. Especially not on a dare. Especially not Viagra.”

“I know that
now
.”

“All right. How long has this—situation been going on?”

“It’s been hard for—”

“Billy! Don’t use words like that. This is like sixteen different kinds of inappropriate. How long has this situation—”

“—I get it, miss. This situation has been going on for three hours.”

“Okay. And, um . . . what are your other symptoms?”

Billy looked confused.

“I’m trying to figure out if your life is in danger or something. You’re young and healthy, so I doubt it, but do you have a fever? Is your pulse racing? Do you feel nauseous? Are you dizzy?”

He shook his head. “No, I feel fine except it hurts. It’s like, never been this way in my whole life. You know how the skin on a drum is stretched really—”

“Aaaaagh! Don’t finish that sentence!” I looked nervously up and down the hallway, then glanced into the classroom again. You could’ve heard a pin drop. Everyone was scribbling away quietly. Pablo walked slowly around the classroom with his hands clasped behind his back, nodding in approval as he looked over different students’ shoulders.

“Look, Billy,” I said. “I think this is an inappropriate and very silly joke you and your friends came up with.”

He looked startled. “What?”

“This joke, about the Viagra. That’s inappropriate and very silly.” I looked at him meaningfully. “It is a very silly story to make up to tell your teacher.”

“Miss, it’s not fake!” he exclaimed, looking wildly befuddled.

“No, Billy, it is fake. And you just admitted to me that it was fake. And I just told you that it was a silly waste of classroom time and that I know you’re a funny guy, but pranks like this are not okay. And you just said you were sorry, and I said just don’t do it again. And then you promised you wouldn’t. And then you asked if you could use the bathroom because you had a stomachache, and I said you could.” I saw the light of comprehension dawn in Billy’s fearful eyes. An expression of relief came over his face.

“Now, Billy,” I said. “I give you permission to go to the bathroom for as long as you need to go.”

“Thank you, miss,” he said almost reverently. “Oh, miss, thank you so much.”

“And Billy?”

“Yes?”

“Do not come back into my classroom until you . . .” I paused, searching for the right words. Then it occurred to me that in this situation, there were no right words.

“Until you
feel better,
” I said, looking at him meaningfully.

“I won’t, miss, I promise,” he said happily.

“One more thing.”

“Yes, miss?”

“If you tell anyone about this, I will get fired. If you tell anyone I told you not to tell anyone about this, I will get fired. I don’t want to get fired, Billy. I need to not get fired, Billy.”

“Miss, I promise,” he said solemnly. “I will never forget you for this.”

“No,” I said. “No, I don’t suppose you will. Now I’m going in there and I’m telling everyone about how this is all just a big silly prank. And later you can tell them that’s how you got out of trouble, and I fell for your cover story because I’m so gullible.”

“What’s ‘gullible,’ miss?”

“It’s on your next vocabulary quiz. I gave you the words last Mon— you know what? It doesn’t matter, Billy. It really doesn’t matter.” He was nearly giddy as he shuffled rapidly off in the direction of the boys’ room.

I looked down at my feet, then up at the ceiling. Then down at my feet again. If I’d had the choice, I wouldn’t have reentered my classroom. There was something about covertly ordering a fourteen-year-old boy to jerk off that really took the idealistic wind out of my professional sails. Besides, Pablo clearly had the class under more control than I ever would.

I looked in through the glass in the door and saw the students sitting up and paying rapt attention to Pablo. He was speaking with authority, gesticulating to make points, and pausing to answer questions. He carried himself with the regal bearing that comes naturally to those who are doers and winners, those who set goals and accomplish them. As he captivated that audience of his fellow ninth-graders, Pablo seemed much older than a fourteen-year-old freshman. Which made sense, because he was a seventeen-year-old freshman.

I shifted my gaze to the board and saw that he had drawn detailed, labeled diagrams of the Glock 29 and the Glock 36 semiautomatic pistols. He had even spelled “sub-compact” correctly. I smiled proudly and stayed in the hallway for another few moments, watching a truly gifted educator at work.

Maybe, Baby

As my year teaching high school in Texas drew to a close, I knew I had to devise a plan. To my deep disappointment, I realized I would never be properly compensated for my favorite pastime: sitting in the local Middle Eastern restaurant/hookah bar/grocery store, scribbling my feelings in a black-and-white mottled notebook and sipping very sweet Moroccan mint tea. I hated most things about teaching, except for the standing-in-front-of-a-crowd part. The only other profit-generating occupation I could think of that would employ an audience was stripping, and I am neither a confident nor a talented dancer. And while I could entertain a crowd of teenagers with relative ease, I had no other discernible skill. Changing children’s lives, it seemed, was my best option. I decided to apply to graduate programs in teaching, figuring I could always write “on the side.” I conveniently ignored the truth I knew so well: teaching high school leaves room for absolutely nothing “on the side” beyond exhausted stabs at dilettantism, and drinking.

I got an A in the course I took in Texas to make up my missing credits, and I knew my diploma from Warren Wilson was forthcoming. Because I couldn’t wait to resume my old life, I applied to Western Carolina University’s master’s program in teaching. I maintained the fantasy that I would move into an adorable rented Victorian house in Asheville with my long-distance carpenter boyfriend Tom, a place he’d fix up in exchange for a discount on the rent. I’d go to WCU, get my degree, and get a nice job teaching nice students at a nice private school, something without too much Christ in the curriculum (a
little
Christ was okay). I’d have an organic garden (even though I couldn’t even keep a spider plant alive) and we’d get a puppy and I’d cook all the time (even though I didn’t know the difference between baking powder and baking soda) and he’d propose to me and give me a gorgeous vintage ring with a non-bloody gem (ooh! Maybe a sapphire!), and then we’d buy a cute gingerbread cupcake house together and start a new garden and the puppy would run around in the yard and I’d get pregnant and deliver painlessly via a C-section from which I’d immediately recover, and I’d lose all the pregnancy weight plus some, because I’d breastfeed, like a proper back-to-nature hippie, and we’d have the sweetest little family in the whole wide world and when the baby was napping I’d write a bestselling novel and we’d be totally rich.

But I also harbored another fantasy of what my future might hold. I’d nurtured the dream since childhood, tucking it into the very tiny corner of my mind where all things were possible. This was also the corner where a sense of adventure and freedom reigned, an itty-bitty infinitesimal space where risk seemed like a reward rather than a death sentence. In this wee little nook, which was too small and insignificant for Fear or Doubt to ever notice, I folded up and tucked away a very big plan that I knew would never come to fruition. If you visited this secret hideaway in my mind (you would have to crawl in, as the ceiling was too low for standing), you would have found a degree from Columbia University in the City of New York. That’s what I wanted. And that’s what I knew I would never get.

Still, it didn’t hurt to dream. I’d been wondering what life was like at that particular overpriced institution of higher learning since I was in the seventh grade. That was the year I took the SATs for the first time (my parents and I agreed it was excellent practice). I got a high score for a thirteen-year-old, and this was significant enough to fill my parents with the hope that in a few years, I’d nab a full ride to . . . to . . . well, it didn’t really matter where.

When I was fourteen, I read an article in
Sassy
magazine, for which the admissions committee at Columbia University inexplicably allowed a reporter to sit in on the meeting in which the powers-that-be decide who gets in and who gets a polite “no thank you” letter. It was fascinating to read how the different officers decided who was worthy and who wasn’t. There were the obvious measures of success—test scores, GPAs, academic awards—but then there were the less tangible aspects of a student’s value. Did he or she write a moving or funny essay? Had he or she overcome a disability or personal tragedy? Was he or she a curious, motivated learner? I read that
Sassy
article over and over, combing it for clues that would help me get into this mythical place where everyone read really impressive books all day and played Frisbee on something called a “quad.”

Then my mother suggested we visit the actual campus, and I became the happiest eighth-grader in the world. Though my usual queasy/nauseous/terror-of-death combo was present during the ride into the city, the actual campus tour was a blissful marvel. All those columns! All that brick! All those cute boys on the quad, which turned out to be a green rectangle of grass in front of the majestic Low Library, where they filmed
Ghostbusters!
Later, I learned that Low was now just an administration building, but it had the famous Alma Mater statue and those beautiful, oft-photographed steps. I felt like I’d stepped into an enchanted world, a world full of people just as fascinated by literature and art as I was, a world where nerds were safe from ridicule and where sophisticated intellectual discourse took place twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Most important, it was a world without parents.

Unfortunately, it became clear within a few years that I was not Columbia material, academically at least. And by the time I was twenty-four and applying to graduate schools, I knew for sure I’d never get into my childhood dream school.

Among the many reasons my attending Columbia was an impossibility, a few stood out. First, my grades weren’t high enough. In high school, I’d gotten mostly As and Bs, but those were hardly the stellar marks expected of an Ivy League student. And college . . . well, that hadn’t gone so smoothly.

Second, there was the whole terrified-of-living-in-a-city thing. Specifically, there was the lifetime-fear-of-Manhattan thing. While I’d managed to adjust enough to be able to enjoy day trips and even the occasional overnight stay at Alexandra’s aunt and uncle’s apartment in the big city, I still didn’t greet the idea of life in New York with excitement. It was too big, and too hot in the summer, and too cold in the winter, and too bright at night, and too busy, and too gray, and too smooshed-together. I wasn’t thin enough or glamorous enough or hip enough to make a splash there. I’d get lost in the crowd, and I’d freak out and choke on my own terror and go crazy all over again.

Besides, what did people in New York City do when they waited for the subway and had to pee? I thought about this frequently. I also wondered what happened if they got stuck on the subway, and what happened if the air-conditioning on the subway broke on one of those face-melting, humid, hundred-degree Manhattan summer days. Terrorist bombings didn’t enter my mind, but the thought of not being able to get to a proper bathroom gave me nightmares.

Besides, a teaching degree from Columbia would take me away from Tom. We’d been together for almost two years, which to me meant that we were destined for the altar. What started in Asheville became a long-distance relationship when I moved to Texas. Early in my desert adventure, he drove all the way out to see me, carrying scrap lumber in the back of his van so that he could build me a bed when he got to my new apartment. This genuinely generous and romantic feat distracted us both from the fact that we made each other miserable. He criticized me constantly out of a misplaced desire to save me from myself; I cried jealously to him over the phone when he did anything remotely fun or interesting without me. I called him each night from the bed he built for me, and our conversations usually ended with one or both of us in a bad mood.

Yet I was sublimely happy to have him in my life, because what frightened me even more than the prospect of being trapped in a bathroom-less, A/C-free subway was the prospect of a life spent alone. A few years earlier, my spectacular breakdown in Boston had left me with the conviction that my mind was too volatile a thing to be left unoccupied. A relationship gave me something to focus on, obsessively, all of the time. And it gave me the chance to take care of someone else’s whims and worries, which I did religiously, whether he wanted me to or not. This in turn provided the alluring option of feigning martyrdom whenever he got angry with me. Truly, dating me must have been a party and a half for the guy. I loved him desperately, and couldn’t wait to get back to Asheville.

Still, there was nothing wrong with dreaming about a school I’d never actually attend. I might as well apply to Columbia, just for the fun of it, just so I could say I’d finally gotten the chance to fill out that powder-blue application and mail it off to New York City. So I printed it out, and while pondering whether to write in black or bubblegum-pink ink, I called Tom.

“Hey,” he said, and my heart bounced in the way it always did when I first heard his voice. I still idolized him, even though I sometimes fantasized about setting his tool belt on fire.

“Guess what I’m doing?” I said, in the worst possible way in which a woman can pronounce those words. “Guesssssss what
I’m
do-inggggggggg?” with a chirpy trill at the end.

“I can’t imagine,” he said.

I paused and grinned at my reflection in the mirror.

“Filling out my application for Columbia!”

Silence.

Oh my God,
I thought.
He’s upset. Oh my God oh my God. He’s upset. Oh, that’s—that’s—that’s awesome! He doesn’t want me to go to Columbia! He wants me to go to WCU so we can live together and do that thing with the garden and the puppy and the baby and the vintage fair-trade non-diamond ring! It’s sort of like I told him I was kind of maybe interested in another guy, and it made him value me more! Awwww.

“Oh honey,” I said. “Don’t be scared. Even if I got in, I wouldn’t go. I just wanted to see if I could get in. It’s this dream I’ve had since I was a little girl. But you’re bigger than that dream. I want to come home to you, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

More silence.

“Are you mad?” I asked, a familiar note of anxiety creeping into my voice. “I hate getting you mad. I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. I feel so bad. I didn’t mean to worry you. I’m really totally one hundred percent committed to us and to our future together, I promise. I really, really, really—”

“How much did you spend on the application?” His voice was stern.

I was taken aback.

“I’m spending . . . I’ll send a check for seventy-five dollars with the application.”

He sighed loudly.

“Baby?” Now I wasn’t sure exactly what I had done wrong, but I knew I could apologize for it repeatedly, until my apologies annoyed him into forgiving me.

“Why would you waste money on an application for a school that’ll never take you?” he said irritably. “You can’t get into Columbia.”

Everything got very quiet then, on both ends of the call. I felt something bumping against my ear and realized with a start that my hand was shaking. At the same time, a feeling I couldn’t identify rose in my stomach. I immediately wondered if I were having some kind of stroke, or if I’d suffered irreparable nerve damage while printing my name on the application.

Then I looked at my other hand. It was clenched. And I realized, to my shock, that I was angry.

Angry.
I didn’t get angry, or at least I tried not to. Whenever I started to get mad, I took deep breaths and stuffed the feeling down into some box deep inside me. Anger was something men displayed, and women were the ones who soothed them. Only cunts got angry and showed it, and I wasn’t a cunt. I was a nice person. I was a very, very, very, very,
very
nice person.

And he was just looking out for me. Tom was being protective, really. He knew sometimes I spent too much money on silly things, and he was trying to instill good habits in me for our financial future together. And besides, he was right, wasn’t he? Sure I’d done well in the class I’d taken in Texas, and those credits would enable me to finally graduate from Warren Wilson. But I still had those two Fs on my transcript, and my graduating GPA was barely a B. Plus, I’d taken six years to finish college. I didn’t go to any good schools, either. I didn’t win any impressive awards or do anything spectacular other than drop out that one time and go to the hospital that other time, and you didn’t get bonus points with Ivy League admissions officers for being a recovering mental case with a history of “episodes.”

I opened my mouth, and what I meant to say was, “You’re right, Tom.” But to my surprise what came out was, “I’m gonna get in.”

“Sara,” Tom said in the tone he used when I was being childish. “You’re basically throwing seventy-five bucks away.”

I looked at the black pen and the bubblegum-pink pen and realized I had a third option resting on the floor near my foot. Purple. The favored color of royalty, like Queen Elizabeth I, and Prince. Yes. I was going to use my purple pen. And maybe draw a picture of myself in pink, in the margin, to be funny. Admissions officers had to slog through a kabillion of those applications, right? Must get boring after a while. I could probably make somebody laugh if I drew something really goofy. And I could probably make them laugh even harder if I wrote a really funny essay. How many times a day did admissions officers get to laugh? Probably not many. They had to read transcripts all day, and everyone knew transcripts were just lists of numbers and letters that totally didn’t represent the actual worth and awesomeness of the prospective students who had earned said numbers and letters.

“You’re being irrational,” he added.

I thought,
You stupid fucking fuck, I’m going to make you eat your words, shit them out, smear them on your face and walk naked through the center of Asheville. I will fucking destroy you. I hate you so goddamned much! I hope you fucking die!

“I love you,” I said. “Gotta go.” And I hung up the phone.

The next morning, bleary-eyed and queasy, I walked into my first-period class and collapsed into a chair.