Forever Changes (12 page)

After calc class ended, Brianna approached Eccles’ desk, and she saw him digging out a Tupperware full of salad.

He looked up and got kind of red faced.  “Ms. Pelletier.  I must apologize for …”

“No you mustn’t.  I’m pretty sure teachers get to be human beings once a year or so.”

Eccles smiled, but he was obviously off-balance and embarrassed, and he didn’t seem to know what to say.  She decided to bail him out.

“No fluffernutter today?” she asked.

“No, sadly, I am on a rather Spartan diet that no longer includes that fantastic confection. It appears that I prefer a low-fat, intoxicant-free life in which I subsist on steamed vegetables and brown rice to dancing with the primes, at least for the moment.  I may buy myself some time this way, and if that time is perhaps less rich than it otherwise might have been, I find I prefer having the time to not having the time.  So you can add cowardice to the list of my flaws, because what I believed to be a rock-solid conviction melted away like so much—”

“Marshmallow fluff?”

Eccles actually gave a laugh.  “Yes.  Like that.”

“Well, enjoy your lunch.”

Eccles brandished the Tupperware.  “Sadly, food and enjoyment are now divorced in my life.”

“Sorry about that,” Brianna said.  “Hey, listen, can I ask you something?”

“Certainly.”

“Since you’re a good wizard and everything I’ve been so focused on getting my application done—thank you for the recommendation, by the way.”

“My pleasure.”

“Anyway, now that it’s done, I’ve got nothing else to focus on till graduation.  And so I’m like pondering infinity again and wondering what might make my infinitesimal significant.  You know?  Like what if I don’t make it to MIT? How will I know that my infinitesimal collection of atoms was significant at all?”  Brianna blushed.  It definitely still felt weird that she would say something like this to a teacher.  She guessed with Molly gone, Eccles was her new illness mentor, whether he liked it or not.

“I’m not sure I have a good answer for that one,” Eccles said.  “I suppose I’m supposed to look back on my years of teaching and all the students who’ve gotten excited about math, who’ve gotten into MIT, who’ve done interesting things because of me and feel like my life was worthwhile, but somehow that  falls short.”

Imagine how I feel, Brianna thought.  You’ve at least had decades of teaching.  People will remember you.  I’ve got nothing.

“But I do have an encouraging thought,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“Do you know why I love mathematics?”

“Because it blew your mind for free when you couldn’t get drugs?”

Eccles snorted in surprise.  “Well, yes, but there’s another reason.  At the beginning of the course, I spoke about the power of math, and how it allows us to lift planes off the ground and so forth.  Do you remember?”

Brianna nodded.

“I only say that stuff to try to hook in the kids who need for everything to have  a practical application to feel like it’s worthwhile.  But here is why I really love mathematics:  it’s beautiful.  When you can solve a complex equation, when you see the amazing concepts that people have come up with to solve problems, to explain things, to create a system that hangs together … well, to me, it’s just incredibly beautiful.  It’s like a cathedral is, I suppose, to some people.  It’s a marvel.”

“Okay …” Brianna said, not sure exactly how this related to her question.

“Well, so, you see, it’s not what it can do that makes math beautiful.  It’s existence isn’t justified by the 747s or any of the big mechanical things that it makes possible.  Its existence is something to be celebrated because it is a beautiful, wonderful, incredibly complicated marvel.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.  And so, Ms. Pelletier, are you.”

Brianna blushed.  “Thanks,” was all she could get out.  She suddenly felt the need to get down to the cafeteria.

“Anytime, Ms. Pelletier,” Eccles said.  Smiling, he opened his Tupperware and started eating his salad.

After dinner, Dad asked her for help with the computer.

“Yeah, sure,” Brianna said.  She followed Dad to the computer.  Next to the computer was his notebook and a battered manila folder bulging with receipts.  “Oh, you haven’t been using the spreadsheets at all, have you?”

“Well, I’ve just been so busy putting the bikes together …”

Brianna looked at the notebook and the stack of receipts.  The man was hopeless.  “Okay, Dad, I’ll show you how to do this again.  But I’m gonna need a bigass dish of ice cream.”

“Coming right up,” Dad promised.

A half an hour later, they were caught up to two weeks before.  Then Melissa called.  “Hey,” Brianna said, holding the phone with her shoulder and entering receipt amounts into the spreadsheet.

“Hey, Bri?  Got a minute?  I think  I finally understand my math homework, but I really want to double check.”

Brianna looked at the stack of receipts.  She knew she’d be forever on the phone, and Dad would be hovering, and then she’d never want to get back to this heinous task.

“Yeah—can I call you in like an hour?  Or … I mean, do you want Adam’s number?”

There was a pause as Melissa considered that.  “Okay, cool.”

Brianna gave her the number and said, “I’ll call you later.”

“You’d better,” Melissa said, and Brianna could hear the smile in her voice.

An hour and a half later, Brianna was confident that Dad could do this himself if he ever bothered to do it, and she was  about to call Melissa back when Ashley called her.  Her parents were fighting again, and Brianna spent twenty minutes talking her through it.

Then she called Melissa, and they talked until Brianna was too tired to continue.  She crawled into bed exhausted but happy.

The following week, Brianna found Ashley by her locker.   “Mel and Steph and I are going to a party on Friday night.  Do you want to come along and spend the night at my house?” she asked.

Ashley looked thrilled.  “Oh, definitely.  There’s no place in the house where I can not hear the fighting, and I think I’m damaging my hearing turning my iPod up so loud.”

On Wednesday at lunch, Melissa called out to Adam as he walked by, brown paper bag in hand.  “Do you want to  join us?”

Adam was definitely improving.  He managed to wipe the “Oh yeah, right, you’re messing with me” look off his face almost immediately and came walking over to their table like it was something he always did.

“Well, you know the cheerleading squad is expecting me over on the other side of the caf, but I guess I can make ’em a little jealous,” he said.

Melissa just looked at him.  “Stephanie and I are
on
the cheerleading squad, moron.”

Adam paused, but only for a second.  “Hmm.  Well, in that case, I have to go over there and make
you
jealous.”

Everybody laughed. And by the end of lunch, Melissa had invited Adam to come to the party on Friday night, and a bunch of jocks had walked by their table with their mouths hanging open, like they couldn’t believe Adam was really sitting there.

Friday arrived, and Brianna asked Ashley if her mom could drop her off at six o’clock.

“So you remember Ashley’s coming over tonight, right?” she said to Dad when he got home from work.

“Yeah.  Is she going to need me to do percussion in the morning?”

“Nah, she has a vest.”  Brianna said this casually, hoping she’d managed to keep the envy out of her voice, since she didn’t want Dad to get depressed about how he couldn’t provide her with the latest CF technology. Still, Brianna lusted after this stuff the way most kids lusted after new cell phones and iPods, and she wasn’t sure she’d managed to stay cool.

If she had revealed her envy of Ashley’s CF toys, Dad didn’t seem to have noticed.  “Okay, Sweetie.  And you guys are going to whose house?”

“I can’t remember, some kid Stephanie knows.  Oh, and I don’t know if Cindy’s on board with this, so if you could maybe keep that part of tonight’s activities secret, that would be a big help.”

“Bri, I’m not gonna lie to her.”

This was bad for the party plan. “Well, okay, but that doesn’t mean you have to actually volunteer anything, right?”

Dad laughed and said.  “You sure you don’t want to go to law school?”  Brianna smiled, knowing that wasn’t a question Dad really expected her to answer.  “All right, all right.  I won’t volunteer anything.”

Dad headed back to his room to change out of his Bargain Zone outfit.  And while he was there, Brianna realized he hadn’t given her his customary pre-party warnings about booze and sex.  Those were always annoying, but it felt strange not to hear them. When he got back, dressed in his work jeans and sleeveless T-shirt, she said, “Hey, you don’t need to worry about booze and sex and stuff, by the way.”

“Yeah, Bri, I know.” Dad said this like she was the annoying one telling him obvious things.  What was that about?

“How do you know?  I could be planning to get hammered and sleep with the first guy I see!”

Dad just rolled his eyes.  “I know you’re not going to do anything with Ashley there except look out for her.” Brianna was syunned.  Dad continued, “Okay, then, I’m going to go out and work on this bike.  Orders starting to stack up.”

After dinner, Ashley and Brianna drove to a strip mall parking lot in East Blackpool to pick up  Melissa, Stephanie, and Adam.

“So where exactly is this place?” Brianna asked Stephanie.

“Front Street somewhere,” Stephanie said.  “I can’t remember exactly, but I figure we’ll know it when we see it.”

“Front Street?”  Brianna said.  “Do they let West Blackpool trash into their parties over there?”  She glanced at Ashley and saw her looking uncomfortable and immediately felt guilty.  The whole East/West Blackpool thing was such a part of her conversations with Melissa and Stephanie that she hadn’t even thought about the fact that Ashley lived in East Blackpool.

Fortunately, Melissa bailed her out.  “Yeah, this party’s only for West Blackpool Trash.  So, Ashley, you’re going to need to look a little sluttier.  You can copy Steph’s look if you want.” Stephanie punched Melissa’s arm, but Melissa pretended not to notice.

Ashley laughed and said, “I, um, I thought I
had
dressed slutty.”

“Oh, kid you have lots to learn.  You can’t  hang out with Brianna if you want to be trashy.  Now my friend Steph here …” Melissa said, ducking the punch that came her way.

“You’re friend Steph is about to give you an old-fashioned West Blackpool beatdown,” Stephanie said, “like my old man taught me before he got locked up.”

Melissa laughed and gave Stephanie a shove.  “Bring it, bitch!”

Just then, Adam came running across the parking lot.  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, ladies,” he said, stepping between them and holding out his palms. “I can’t
believe
you were gonna have a girlfight before I got here.” He said to Melissa, “I mean, I thought we were friends, Melissa.”

“Ew, we were before you started being pervy,” Melissa replied.

“Before I started being pervy?  But you didn’t know me when I was eleven,” Adam protested.

Brianna had to jump in.  “Adam, will you  shut up and get in the car?  And do you know Ashley?”

Adam turned, saw Ashley for the first time, and turned almost purple with embarrassment.  “Oh, hi!  I, um,  I hope you know I’m just joking. I’m not usually, I mean, when I’m with friends I tend to …”

Ashley said, “Nice to meet you,” and stuck out her hand, which worked as well as anything would have to get Adam to shut up.

They drove up and down Front Street three times before Stephanie felt like she knew where the party was.  Both Adam and Ashley, going to their first BHS party, must have been nervous, but Brianna noticed they dealt with it in very different ways.  She preferred Ashley’s way—she just looked wide-eyed and terrified.  Adam, on the other hand, was motor-mouthing from the back seat, chattering non-stop about basically nothing.

“So I mean of course I have to wonder if the guys who torment me in the locker room are going to be there. The boys’ locker room is really a
Lord of the Flies
experience. I mean, I have no idea what the girls’ locker room is like. Of course I saw
Carrie
and
Porky’s
, but I have to doubt that those are really accurate representations. I mean, it’s not like they’re blowing on the conch shell and chanting ‘kill the pig’,  in the boys’ locker room but they might as well be. I mean, all the veneer of civilization seems to disappear as soon as the Abercrombie and Fitch t-shirts are off, and …”

“Jesus, will you shut up?” Brianna said as she parked the Sunfire behind a line of much newer, much nicer cars.  Apparently Melissa had lied about this party being just for West Blackpool trash.

Of course, despite the fact that it was a much nicer house than the ones they were usually in, it was just a BHS party.  Kegs and shots out back, music too loud, and people milling around.  Once they were inside, Melissa and Stephanie went off to mingle, while Adam and Ashley clung to Brianna like remoras on a shark.  They essentially stuck to the pattern they had begun in the car, and Brianna thought she might actually have to kill Adam, who would not stop yammering.

“This is kind of interesting from a sociological perspective. My only experience with the larger BHS society is really in the caf, and I certainly see borders being crossed here that aren’t crossed at school.  Is that just the presence of the alcohol, or would those two over there normally be hanging out outside of school?“

“Adam, will you please go get a drink?”  Brianna hesitated to recommend booze, but if Adam had a drink, he would at least be unable to talk while he had a mouth full of liquid, and a plastic cup full of Milwaukee’s Best might actually mellow him out a little.

“Yeah, okay, sure,” Adam said.  “Something for the ladies?”

Ashley looked at Brianna for her cue.

“I’m all set,” Brianna said.

“Yeah, me too,” Ashley said.

Adam waded through the crowd of partygoers just as Melissa came up with their friends Brian and Cathy.   “Who invited Pennington?” Brian asked.  “Is this like a chess club meeting or something?”

Cathy laughed, and Brianna was getting ready to say something when Melissa beat her to it. “Aren’t we getting a little old for that cliquey stuff?  Jocks and nerds; it’s like so ninth grade. No offense, Ashley, you’re obviously more mature than most seniors.  I mean, we’re adults now.  Do we have to keep acting like we’re picking kickball teams on the playground?”

Brian looked puzzled, and Cathy said, “We’re gonna go get some drinks.”

They melted into the crowd, and Melissa said, “Am I wrong?  The whole thing just seems so childish.”

“Mel, don’t you think we would have said the same thing like two months ago if we’d seen him at a party?”

“Yeah. We probably would have.  But, I mean, I just think it’s time to grow up.  Ugh, I’m sick of this party already.  Do you guys wanna go get a movie or something?”

Ashley looked disappointed, and Brianna felt guilty.  Maybe this whole thing had been a terrible idea.  Just then, Adam returned, looking considerably less steady than the last time they’d seen him.  He had a plastic cup full of beer in his hand.

“You know, I think the whole thing was a setup to embarrass her or me, but it turns out I just did a body shot off Jenny Santangelo.”

Brianna, Melissa, and Ashley looked at Adam, slack-jawed.  He kept talking. “Sure, her friends were all laughing, but I figure the joke’s on them.  I mean, I
licked
Jenny Santangelo!  Her clavicle is—”

“All right, Adam, enough,” Brianna said.  “How exactly much have you had to drink in the last five minutes?”

“One shot of tequila, accompanied by salt which I—”

“Licked off Jenny Santangelo. We know, we know.”

Just then, Kevin, Stephanie’s ex who had been replaced by Tom, staggered up to them.   “Hey,” he said to Melissa, “Where’s the whore?”

Melissa would have surely come up with a fantastic reply, but, unfortunately for everybody, Adam beat her to it.

“Aw, Geez, we left your mom on the corner!” he said.  “Were we supposed to pick her up?”

Brianna would have thought that three and a half years on the bottom rung of the BHS social ladder would have taught Adam not to mouth off to drunken football players, but apparently it hadn’t, or else the tequila had overcome whatever common sense Adam possessed.  Kevin flattened Adam with one punch to the face.  Adam lay on the floor, stunned, with blood pouring out of his nose, and Kevin spat on him. “Pretty funny, faggot,” Kevin said, and staggered away.

Melissa was right.  This was a disaster.  And Melissa was right about something else too—trying to introduce Adam into this stupidity was dumb not because he wouldn’t fit in but because he was actually better than this.  They all were.

They all helped Adam to his feet and pretended not to see the snot that was mixing with the blood running from his nose as he wiped himself off with tissues from Brianna and Ashley.

Melissa, after making sure Adam was okay, went off to find Stephanie and promised to meet them back at her house.  As they were walking out of the door, Adam seemed to recover his sense of humor.

“Well, if this were a movie, the whole school would be chanting my name right now, or some hot girl would thank me for standing up to him, or something.”

Brianna felt too awful to say anything.  It was nice of him to stand up for Stephanie, and she wasn’t even there to appreciate it.  She was probably off making out with some other troglodyte even while they took her bloodied defender home.

“If this was a movie,” Ashley said, “I don’t think there would be this much blood.”

They didn’t say anything else until they got into the car.  “That guy’s hated me since I refused to eat his jockstrap in the ninth grade,” Adam said.

They went back to Melissa’s.  Her mom was up and fussed over Adam, putting ice on his nose and cleaning him up and telling him what a wonderful young man he was to stand up for his friend.

Melissa got back with Stephanie, who immediately ran to Adam’s side.  “She was breaking up with Tom out back,” Melissa whispered.

After thanking Adam profusely, Stephanie drew Brianna aside.  “Why did he do that?  Was he drunk or something?”

“No, Steph.  Well, yes, he was, but that’s not why he did it.  He did it because he’s your friend and he doesn’t want idiots calling you names.”

Stephanie looked over at Adam, who had wads of tissue up his nostrils.  “That was nice.  Dumb, but nice.”

“Yeah.”

Mrs. D’Amico made popcorn, and they all went  down to Melissa’s basement and watched
Not Another Teen Movie
  and had a much better time than they’d had at the party.

Finally Brianna took Adam to his house(“my Dad winked at me and told me he wouldn’t wait up,” Adam said, looking at his watch.  “I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint him coming home at midnight.”) and drove home with Ashley.

After they checked in with Dad,  they lay in the dark for a long time, talking.  Ashley had a crush on some kid who was in the play with her, a sophomore.  She was doing really well on her treatments and had gotten nice pats on the head from Dr. Patel the last time she went in.

Brianna was due to see Dr. Patel, and she could tell that whatever she told Dad, it was just about time for another ineffective nebulizer treatment.  Things were getting worse, and she was heading for another hospitalization.  She wanted to tell Ashley this, but she was supposed to help the kid, not bum her out.

Eventually Ashley fell asleep, but Brianna lay awake with her unspoken worries echoing in her head.

Molly, Molly, she thought, Why can’t you help me?  Where are you?

Nobody answered, and eventually Brianna fell asleep.