I feel someone behind me, so I turn around. Brendan’s standing between our cluster of desks and the cluster of desks next to us. Unfortunately, that’s what happens when there’s an odd number of people: Someone gets left out.
“Here, join this group,” Evelyn says to Brendan, and they both walk over to us.
We move our desks around to make room for him, and Evelyn points at me. “Take it away, Cham. What’s the ethos of the time?”
“Um.” I preach to the high heavens about running socks on Twitter, but ask me to tell someone something in real life and I have laryngitis of the soul. “Compost?”
She laughs. “Okay, I’ll take it. Now, let’s go smaller. What’s the ethos of the senior class?”
“Work hard, play hard,” Marquis pipes up. He shakes his head, and his braids fall over his face.
Evelyn nods, then looks back at me. “How about you personally? What’s your ethos? What makes your life really good?”
I picture Gene’s lips. Making out.
“Cham likes running,” Abigail prods.
“All right, I’ll stop torturing Cham. What’s your ethos, Abigail?”
Abigail chugs her arms, and her fabulous boobs move around in her blouse. “Dance like a mother-effing—”
“I hope Mr. Garcia doesn’t walk by,” Evelyn interrupts. “Anyone else? We’re running out of time.” She eyes the clock and mutters something about the fallacy of linear time. “Has everyone had a chance to say something?”
“Brendan hasn’t gone yet,” Jared says, gesturing toward Brendan in a friendly way, as if he didn’t just throw him under the bus. “Did you want to say something, dude?”
Brendan undoes his elastic and fixes his man bun, which he grew over the summer. When senior year started, hardly anyone recognized him. I think it kinda suits him.
“My ethos is to get weird and stay silly.” He rubs his hands on his tutu, and the fabric crunches together. “I wanna heal the world with laughter.”
I look up from my desk and we accidentally make eye contact. His brown eyes are all parts confidence, no parts self-doubt. None of us say anything. The silence in our group is heightened by the noise of the groups around us packing up their bags before the bell rings.
“That’s beautiful, Brendan,” Evelyn says, clapping her hands and addressing the whole class before she lets us out.
“Good work today, ” she says. “We’ll keep going next class. Oh, and for the few of you still writing your college essay for rolling admission, I need a draft in two weeks.” She makes ominous eye contact with me. “I know rolling admission doesn’t have a specific deadline, but I do need a finished assignment from you. Can the people who signed up to tutor please raise their hands?”
Brendan puts his hand up and so does Abigail. “God help you,” I whisper to her.
“No, God help you.”
“Great, thanks,” Evelyn says, brushing some chalk off her hands. “Reach out if you need essay help. Everyone else, be working on your independent book projects. And, oh okay, fine. Have a great weekend,” she says, surrendering to the sound of the bell and the whole room hopping up. I’ve almost tasted sweet freedom when she waves me over. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
“Sure.” I zip my bag and join her at her desk.
“I just wanted to give you some more feedback on your essay. Did you get a chance to work on it since we last talked?”
I look down at my combat boots, which are my “single item of chosen sartorial individuality” that Gill School allows on Fridays. “Um…”
“Never mind, don’t answer that.” She takes a folder from her desk drawer, then hands me the printed copy of my essay. It’s floppy in my hand, and each sentence is so covered in red ink she might as well have slaughtered the alphabet. God, it’s mortifying to reread myself, but I can’t not read it.
Dear College Admissions Person,
It was just a minor setback, getting kicked out of public school at the end of eighth grade, but I’ve definitely come out on the other side of it.
“It’s a good start,” Evelyn says, leaning toward me. Her amorphous squiggly metal earrings jangle against her second set of amorphous squiggly metal earrings. “But I don’t know that you really want to open with a misdemeanor. Also, the essay can’t end a few paragraphs later with And everything’s good now.
She points to a particularly ink-gory paragraph, and I nudge my essay away from her. I pretend to examine it, but I know exactly what it says. It includes the phrase overcame my anger amidst a pit of stress balloons.
“It’s great how you learned to be in control of your emotions,” she says gently, “but your essay doesn’t really go anywhere. There’s no lesson here.” She leans back in her rolling chair as if we’re two friends shooting the shit. In reality we’re one teacher and one student who can’t seem to give a shit. “The college essay can be about tapioca pudding as long as it shows you, the real you. What makes you different? What are you passionate about? What have you learned in the past seventeen years?”
She peers into my soul. I peer at the clock. “Ummmm, I guess I don’t really know.”
“Would you be opposed to choosing a new topic?” she asks hesitantly. “Maybe getting some tutoring?”
“Yeah, good idea,” I say, unzipping my backpack and carefully placing this little number in the one binder I put all my schoolwork in.
She purses her lips. “I’ll send you some of the Common App questions,” she says. “Maybe you can work on it this weekend and send me the first paragraph?”
I stand up with a sigh. “Honestly, Evelyn, I just can’t bring myself to do homework on the weekend. It crushes my soul,” I say with a hand over my heart. “And given the fragility of my soul in the first place—”
“Cham,” Evelyn says in a warning tone. “You know you have to pass this class to graduate, and go on Senior Volunteer Trip and move on with your life, right?”
I bow my head and knit my eyebrows together with the hopes of seeming studious. “Okay, I’ll try to get it done.”
Evelyn stands and walks me to the door. “Cham, you’re a teacher’s nightmare,” she says with a smile. “So smart and so unwilling to apply yourself.”
“I do apply myself, Evelyn,” I say as I grin and step into the hallway. “Just not to anything tangible.”
4
Days ’til prom: Still 100
TEXT EXCHANGE WHILE I’M TWEEZING MY ARMPIT HAIRS IN preparation for tonight:
A heyyyy
A Me and Hil are gonna get chasers and stuff but we’ll pick you up in a couple hours Cham!
I thought you guys couldn’t hang out after school? C
H Abigail’s just helping me with history!
A We didn’t think you’d want to come
H It’s sooooo boring
A lol asshole I’m a great tutor
H See you soon!
C
“Tell me the plan again,” my mom says when I come downstairs in jeans and a black tank top. My hair is still a little wet down my back. “I want to make sure you’ll be safe,” she adds, pausing with a book in one hand, the mop in the other. She’s going at the kitchen floor mercilessly, no stain left behind.