Full Ride (22 page)

“Oh, that's easy,” Oscar says. “Spider-Man. Duh. Biggest supernerd of them all.”

“But isn't Superman's alter ego pretty nerdy, too?” I ask. “What's his name—Clark Kent?”

And then we're off on a ridiculous comparison between various superheroes and their alter egos. We decide there should be some scholarship based on making up the perfect superhero talent, and I start laughing so hard at the examples Oscar comes up with—mowing a yard with a single glance? Winking to turn school cafeteria slop into something delicious?—that I almost forget that the whole rest of my life will be determined in the next fifteen or twenty minutes.

Then the door of Room 106 opens again.

“Thank you for meeting with me,” I hear Rosa say.

“It's been a pleasure,” I hear Mr. Court say.

“Don't forget, superhero Underoos,” Oscar whispers.

I barely have time to smirk at him and mouth
Thanks a lot,
before Rosa and Mr. Court are coming out of the room and she's moving away from him and I have to step up and shake his hand.

“Hi. I'm Becca Jones,” I say.

And already something is off. Mr. Court is a tall, barrel-chested man in an expensive suit; even his thick silver hair seems to gleam with the not-so-hidden message,
I'm prosperous! I'm a success! I'm wealthy enough to give away thousands of dollars to people I don't even know!
But he hesitates a moment too long before he puts out his hand and shakes mine. When he finally says, “Nice to meet you,” his voice carries . . . what? Doubt? Worry? Fear?

Because of me?
I wonder.
He didn't sound like that when he was talking to Rosa or Ashley. But why would he be afraid of me?

I push those thoughts aside and concentrate on smiling in a way that I hope looks confident and friendly and relaxed, not terrified and desperate and already in despair.

“Right this way,” Mr. Court says, holding the door for me and gesturing toward the room.

I glance over my shoulder for one last jolt of reassuring encouragement from Rosa and Oscar, but they look a little puzzled too. Oscar fumbles to give me a thumbs-up, and Rosa smiles and nods, but I can't tell if she means that her interview went well or if she's wishing me luck with mine.

I step through the door and turn toward a table that's replaced the desks in the center of the room. Two women are sitting on the other side, with a laptop open between them. One of the women looks to be in her fifties or sixties, her hair a tasteful shade of ash blond, her salmon-pink sweater twinset a perfect match to her nail polish. Her appearance is so prissily perfect that she reminds me of certain grandmothers I knew in
Georgia—not mine, but ones belonging to other kids, women who'd tell their grandchildren, “You can bring a friend to swim with you at the club, as long as they're well-behaved.” I was often the well-behaved friend of choice. I remember one of those grandmothers oohing and aahing over me, proclaiming, “Well, aren't you just about the cutest thing I've ever seen.” But then I sneezed and she was horrified that I wasn't carrying my own handkerchief to deal with the dripping snot.

I couldn't have been more than five or six at the time.

You don't have any snot dripping down your face right now,
I tell myself.
You're fine.

I turn my attention to the other woman, who's just as blond but younger and skinnier—almost painfully thin. She's looking down at her hands, which are strangely rough and chapped. Then she lifts her head and I figure out who she is, and I am not fine anymore.

I am now face-to-face with Whitney Court.

Why didn't anybody warn me Whitney would be here?
I wonder.
Why didn't I think of it ahead of time so I could brace myself?

I know I'm staring, but I can't stop. Whitney is still pretty, with her delicate features and long blond hair. But that's not the first thing anyone would notice about her anymore. It's her eyes that get to me, that won't let me look away. They seem haunted and haunting—almost washed out, as though their rightful greenish-blue color has leached away.

It's the drugs,
I tell myself.
Can drugs do that?

There are other, smaller details that just seem wrong. In contrast to her parents—for surely the woman in the pink twinset is her mother?—Whitney isn't dressed up. She's got on jeans and a jarringly orange T-shirt. The T-shirt is sliding off one slim shoulder, revealing a maroon bra strap, and the normal thing for anybody to do would be to hitch her shoulder up and shift the T-shirt slightly to the right, hiding the bra strap. It'd be the normal thing in a high school classroom, I mean—maybe Whitney is so wasted right now that she thinks she's at some sort of club, someplace where everyone else is too spaced out to notice.

There is also a line of drool starting in the corner of Whitney's mouth, slipping slowly down her chin.

Oscar's jokes about superhero Underoos seem pathetically innocent and sad right now. So what if Whitney wore Wonder Woman or Supergirl underwear when she was little? So what if everyone expected her to be wonderful and super and incredible her whole life? She threw all that away.

She ruined her life after high school,
I think.
Even with what Daddy did, even with everything Mom's afraid of—I am not going to let anyone ruin mine.

I realize Mr. Court is introducing me to Mrs. Court and Whitney. Belatedly, I shake hands with both of them and say, “Nice to meet you.” I make my handshake firm, even though Whitney's isn't. Her hand feels like a fish out of water, trying to flop away. It's also clammy, which annoys me, because now my hand is moist, and what if Mrs. Court thinks I have sweaty palms?

While I'm shaking hands with Mrs. Court, I notice out of the corner of my eye that Mr. Court is straightening Whitney's shirt and wiping the drool from her chin. Now she looks normal again. Relatively.

Sad,
I think, pitying her and feeling superior, all at once.
So, so sad.

Everyone sits down, the Courts on one side of the table and me facing them with my back to the door. They're all watching me, and it's a struggle not to squirm in my seat, a struggle not to let panic overwhelm me.

Why isn't anyone saying anything?
I wonder.
Aren't they supposed to ask questions?

The silence grows, and I can't stand it anymore.

“Um,” I begin, just as Mr. Court says, “Would you mind telling us—”

We both hesitate, and then I say, “I'm sorry. Go ahead—what did you want to know?”

Mr. Court looks over toward his wife and daughter. It's Whitney who speaks up now.

“What have you liked best about your high school years?” she asks in an unnaturally high voice.

Oh, no! Don't ask questions about me!
I think.

But would it be any better to talk about the glories of Whitney's high school years when ruined-Whitney is sitting right in front of me?

“Well,” I say, even though my mind is blank. I have a quick flash of remembering laughing in the hallway with Oscar, and in contrast to this horrible moment, that seems like the happiest ten minutes of my entire high school career. Maybe my entire life. “I would say the best thing about high school has been the friends I've made. I moved to Deskins right before freshman year, and I wasn't sure what it would be like meeting new people.”

When I couldn't be myself,
I think.
When I couldn't let anybody get too close.

I don't say that.

“I got involved in extracurricular activities, just like everybody tells you to—I ran cross-country freshman year, I've done service club and math club and other activities like that,” I say. Then I shrug. “Well, you already know that, because it was on my application. But I think the most fun moments have been just ordinary things like going out for ice cream with my friends, or joking around at lunch, or making up silly rhymes with them so we could all remember chemistry or biology formulas . . .”

“That's how I felt too,” Whitney says softly.

She's looking right at me, and I feel a jolt of connection. She was the queen of Deskins High School, and I am nobody here; she was drooling a moment ago, and I will never, ever, ever let
myself fall that far. But we have something in common.

I remember that I have gone out with my high school friends for ice cream exactly once, and I haven't eaten lunch with my friends in more than a week.

That still doesn't mean my answer was a lie.

Whitney tilts her head, still watching me intently.

“Sometimes your eyes bleed,” she says. “You probably think it's just tears, but it's really blood.”

Did I hear that right?

I look to Mr. and Mrs. Court as if I expect them to translate.

They're both looking at Whitney, and then past her, toward each other.

“Whitney,” Mr. Court says, easing an arm around his daughter's shoulders. “Did you take your medicine this morning?”

Code,
I think.
Because he doesn't want me to know it's not really medicine she took.

Whitney grins and then puts her hand over her mouth, hiding it. Her eyes still glow. She looks like a little kid who's been caught doing something bad but doesn't regret it in the least.

“I wanted to be
alert,
” she says emphatically. “I wanted to talk to this one. To tell her—”

“That her eyes are bleeding?” Mrs. Court asks, with heavy skepticism. She and Mr. Court seem to have a good cop/bad cop routine going. She's the bad cop.

Whitney giggles.

“Of course not,” she says. “How would I know her eyes were bleeding until I saw her?”

What is she on?
I wonder. I think back to freshman-year health class, when we filled in grids about drug side effects. The only drug I can remember causing hallucinations is LSD.

Didn't people pretty much stop taking LSD after the 1960s?
I think.

I want to run out of the room and down the hall and find some kid who's hanging around after school to get high and ask, “This isn't how people on drugs usually act, is it? Isn't this really bizarre?”

How could this be happening during
my
interview?

Oh, wait, what if she's just acting?
I wonder.
What if this is some kind of test, to see how I'll react to people who are . . .

I can't even classify Whitney's behavior. But I sit up straight and try to hold a patient, understanding expression on my face.

Even though I completely do not understand.

“Whitney,” Mr. Court says as he maneuvers his hand around her arm and begins pulling her up. “I think it would be best if you and your mother take a little walk while I talk to Becca.”

“But I want to tell her—”

“I know everything you want to say,” Mr. Court assures her. “I'll pass it along.”

Whitney crosses her arms and shakes her head no. She's got to be—what? Thirty-two? Thirty-three?—but she's acting like a petulant little kid.

“No, me,” she says.

“Whitney,” Mrs. Court says. “Think. If this girl's eyes are bleeding, shouldn't we go find bandages for her? Wouldn't that be the kind thing to do?”

I can almost see this idea burrowing into Whitney's fogged mind. She stops shaking her head and her eyes go wide with concern. And then she jumps up and heads for the door.

“Right!” she calls. “We'll be back as soon as we can! Try not to let the blood drip everywhere!”

Mrs. Court trails after her.

I turn and watch them leave. And then they're gone, and the door's shut and I know I need to face Mr. Court again. But what am I supposed to say?

As I'm trying to pull myself together to act normal—though, what is normal in a situation like this?—I hear Mr. Court clearing his throat behind me.

“It's not what you think,” he says in such a heavy voice that each word seems weighted down. “She's not a drug addict.”

I whirl around.

“I didn't say anything about drugs,” I tell him, trying to sound both innocent and sympathetic and still as though I'm reacting “normally,” whatever that means. I remind myself I've had plenty of experience trying to hold myself together in bizarre circumstances.

Mr. Court frowns as if he doesn't believe me.

“What you wrote . . . ,” he begins. He stops and waves this away, as if he wants to start over. “I know you saw newspaper articles about Whitney. From when she was at Kenyon.”

How does he know that?
I wonder.

I squint, thinking about my scholarship essay. Of course I didn't write anything about Whitney being arrested. But did I slip up and accidentally hint that I'd seen those articles?

No, I couldn't have. . . .

I want to deny everything, to pretend I don't know anything Whitney did between her high school graduation and today. But Mr. Court is already wading deeper into his story.

“Whitney began acting strange toward the end of her junior year in college,” Mr. Court says. He lets out a heavy sigh. “At first the police and the college thought she was on drugs. Marlene and I—her own parents!—we thought she was on drugs too. But she wasn't.”

Is he still in denial?
I wonder.
Maybe it's like Mom and me, how after Daddy was arrested we were so convinced he was innocent, so certain the prosecutors made a mistake. . . . Nobody wants to believe somebody they love could do such awful things.

Except Whitney's strange behavior dates back twelve years.
If Mr. Court is still in denial, that would be like Mom and me still believing in Daddy's innocence even after he'd been arrested and convicted and sentenced, and had already served his full term in prison.