Say What You Will (8 page)

I
T TOOK LESS THAN
a day for the word to spread. Ms. Malone, Amy’s tenth-grade English teacher, screamed and began to cry at the news. Mr. Hayes, their principal, hugged her. Chloe decorated Amy’s locker with streamers, and the editor of the school newspaper emailed her a note about doing a story on her.

I’m not sure about that,
Amy wrote back.
A lot of people are getting their acceptances. I don’t think mine is such a big deal
.

But it was. That night their local newspaper, the
Franklin County Bulletin
, called to schedule an interview and asked if they might send a photographer over. “Of course,” her mother said.

Later that same night, the local TV station called. “I talked for a long time to a woman named Ashley,” Nicole told Amy while she got ready for bed. “She was so nice and so excited for you, Amy. I said it was fine for their camera crew to come after the newspaper. That way you won’t have to get dressed up twice.”

A camera crew for a TV show?
“YOU SAID YES WITHOUT ASKING ME?”

“Of course I did, sweetheart. You have to understand. This isn’t just about you.”

Amy didn’t understand. “WHO IS IT ABOUT?”

“You’re a role model, darling. For every child with a disability who is struggling right now, wondering if they will ever go to college or have a chance at a normal life.”

Amy wondered if that was really true, or if other kids with disabilities felt the way she did when she went to that camp and was surrounded by other kids with disabilities. Amy liked the idea of inspiring a community she didn’t know very well. She wanted to feel a bond with them. The problem was, she didn’t. She couldn’t stop thinking about Matthew and her other friends. How none of them had sorted out what next year would look like yet. How they were hovering on wait lists and updates from financial-aid offices. Except for Matthew, poor Matthew, who had simply gone silent on the subject altogether.

She wasn’t an inspiration to any of them; she knew that much.

Instead of getting angry at Amy for keeping secrets, Matthew got angry at himself. Angry enough to ask his mother to make an appointment with a doctor.

“For what?” his mother asked.

“You know what for. A psychologist. To do whatever. Talk about my problems. Get medication.” He had a terror of taking pills, but he’d been reading more case studies in his library books where medication was necessary when other therapies didn’t work.

“Oh, Matthew, that’s wonderful!” His mother clapped her hands. “It’s a wonderful idea!”

In the doctor’s office, he surprised himself by staying calm and making more sense about this whole business than he ever had before. The woman’s name was Beth—she had red, curly hair and looked too young to be a doctor, though she assured him she was. He told Beth he’d had OCD off and on for at least four years, maybe longer. He said he’d been doing exposure/response-prevention therapy for about six weeks, and it hadn’t made much of a difference. “I waste more time now than I ever did before, obsessing about whatever I’m not meant to be thinking of. I’m just
tired
of it. I’m so sick of the whole thing.”

He described some of his fixations: the hand washing, the water faucets, counting even-numbered objects in a room. He told her his main fear, of hurting other people. That he might have done it in the past, or done it unintentionally. He told her about the can of Sprite, and the terrible fear that he might have hurt Amy as a baby in the hospital. Fifty minutes later, he walked out of her office with a prescription. That night he took his first pill before he had time to worry about what the voice might say. The next morning he woke up expecting to feel different.

He didn’t.

It was early and his mother hadn’t left for work yet. He walked into the kitchen, where she was reading an article about Amy in the newspaper. “She really is something, isn’t she?” his mother said.

Alongside the article, there was a picture of Amy seated at the kitchen table. She looked beautiful—her hair curly, down around her shoulders, her face relaxed, not into a smile, exactly, but a welcoming look. “I guess so,” he said.

Take the picture up to your room,
the voice said.
You know you want to.

“She got into more schools than just Stanford,” his mother said brightly. “Six all together. Three Ivy League. You probably knew that.”

You didn’t know that,
the voice said.
You never asked.

“Where?”

His mother rattled off the list of schools.

She’s famous,
the voice said.
Or if she’s not famous yet, she’s going to be famous soon. Like Stephen Hawking, only prettier. And a girl.

Here was a surprise: if anything, the pill had made the voice
chattier
.

You’ll be sorry,
it said.

Sorry for what?
his brain answered. He took the article from his mother and carried it into the bathroom.
What will I be sorry for?

Maybe this was a change. He’d never had an argument with his brain before.

It’s so obvious and you don’t even see.

See what? Just tell me.

You love her.

No, I don’t. I can’t believe you said that.

Fine. Whatever.

I don’t love her. That’s a ridiculous thing to say.

Fine. It doesn’t matter. She’s pretty much through with you anyway.

He read the article to the end, and wondered if his brain knew something he didn’t. He thought:
She’s through with me?

S
O I HAVE YOUR NEXT ASSIGNMENT
,” Amy said as he helped her out of her mother’s car. “I KNOW YOU’VE BEEN WAITING, AND IT’S A GOOD ONE, TRUST ME.”

Two weeks had passed since his lunch date with Sarah. There had been no assignments since then because now that Amy was semifamous, she was too busy.

“One article in the newspaper doesn’t mean she’s famous,” his mother said.

“Don’t forget TV,” Matthew reminded her. “She was also on the news.” Thank heavens Amy looked more like her real self and less beautiful on TV. He was trying not to think about what the voice had said. On TV, her mouth fell open and her head wobbled as the interviewer asked her stupid questions like, “Is it exciting to have gotten in to so many great schools?” and “Do you think college will be harder for you than high school or easier?” Matthew liked Amy’s answer to the first question (“SINCE I CAN ONLY GO TO ONE SCHOOL, IT DOESN’T REALLY MATTER HOW MANY I GOT INTO”) and loved her answer to the second one (“HARDER, I HOPE. IT WOULD BE A RIP-OFF IF IT WAS EASIER, RIGHT?”). It was a great moment of television awkwardness as the interviewer took about twenty seconds to decide whether Amy was joking. Finally she decided yes and laughed.

Maybe Amy wasn’t famous compared to movie stars, but in
their
school, for the last two weeks, she was. The old stares she always got walking down the hall had changed to whispers and smiles and even finger waves. Towering jocks from the basketball team touched her shoulder and said, “Congrats, Aim. Nice job!” like they’d been friends for years. One day Matthew kept a count: thirty-two people said hello to Amy before lunch. “I could give your mom a list of the names. She could enter it into her database.”

“HA-HA,” Amy typed. “BUT NO THANKS.”

In the last few weeks, he’d noticed one interesting change. Amy had started eating real food in front of him. Soft, unchokable food like hummus and tabbouleh salad. She still made a mess, though once she’d made the decision to eat in front of him, she didn’t seem to care much what she looked like. When he asked why she was eating real food for lunch suddenly, she told him he should be flattered. That she only ate in front of people she felt comfortable with. He
was
flattered until it occurred to him—maybe she was comfortable because now she thought of him as more disabled than she was.

“Come on—you’ve got a Hi-Bye friend list that’s probably sixty names long now. Maybe more. Your mom will be so happy.”

“THESE PEOPLE AREN’T MY FRIENDS. THEY DON’T KNOW ME AT ALL.”

“Of course they don’t know you. Hi-Bye friends aren’t supposed to know you. They exist solely to promote a feeling of popularity, however superficial that might be.”

“I DON’T LIKE THEM SAYING HI SUDDENLY WHEN THEY’VE SPENT THE LAST ELEVEN YEARS IGNORING ME.”

He could tell by the way her chin jutted out that she was serious. This wasn’t a joke. It really bothered her. “Maybe it’s good to learn this now. It’ll save you the trouble of pledging a sorority later.”

“I’M SERIOUS. I REALLY DON’T LIKE IT. PEOPLE I DON’T KNOW CALL THE HOUSE. MY MOM GETS THEIR EMAIL AND MAKES ME WRITE THEM BACK.”

“Who’s called you?”

“WEIRD PEOPLE. A BOOK AGENT SAID I COULD BE LIKE THE KID WITH MS IN THE WHEELCHAIR WHO WROTE INSPIRATIONAL POETRY. I SAID, ‘DIDN’T HE DIE?’ AND SHE SAID, ‘YEAH, THAT’S WHY EVERYONE LOVED HIM SO MUCH. HE WROTE POETRY IN THE FACE OF DEATH.’”

“How are you supposed to be like him if you’re not dying?”

“I TOLD HER THAT AND SHE WAS SURPRISED. SHE THOUGHT HEMIPLEGIA MEANT DEGENERATIVE. I SAID NO, HEMIPLEGIA MEANS ONE SIDE OF MY BODY IS MORE AFFECTED THAN THE OTHER. HEMIPLEGIA DOESN’T MEAN DEGENERATIVE.
DEGENERATIVE
MEANS DEGENERATIVE.”

Matthew felt bad that he’d been so angry at Amy for the last few weeks. It sounded terrible. “What’s the assignment you have for me?”

“OKAY—I GOT THE IDEA FROM CHLOE. SHE SAID THERE’S AN OPENING AT THE MOVIE THEATER WHERE SHE WORKS. I THINK YOU SHOULD APPLY.”

She took a bite of tabbouleh salad that only made it halfway into her mouth. The rest got sprinkled on her Pathway and the table.

“You want me to apply for a
job
?”

She nodded. It was hard for her to eat and type at the same time.

That’s not an assignment, that’s a job,
his voice said
.
He repeated it out loud.

“IT’LL BE FINE. YOU POUR A FEW SODAS, SELL A LITTLE CANDY, AND THAT’S IT. YOU’RE DONE.”

“You want me to work
concessions
?”

“DON’T SAY NO AUTOMATICALLY. SAY, ‘I’LL THINK ABOUT IT, AMY.’”

“I’ll think about it, Amy. And then I’ll say no.”

“I WAS PRETTY SURE YOU’D SAY THAT, SO I FILLED OUT AN APPLICATION FOR YOU. I REALIZE THAT MIGHT SEEM LIKE AN OVERSTEP, BUT SOMETIMES FRIENDS HAVE TO PUSH EACH OTHER.”

He couldn’t get over it.
She
filled out an application for him?

“YOU DO IT ONLINE. IT’S EASIER THAN YOU THINK.”

It occurred to him: maybe this was really about college and his future. He’d told her the truth—that he hadn’t finished any applications in time—but he told other people he was “taking a year off to work and make money” before going back to school. It was an easy thing to say, especially when he heard others say it. Amy was making sure it was true.

“Why do I have to work at a movie theater?”

“BECAUSE IT’LL MAKE YOU INTERACT WITH STRANGERS. YOU’LL ALSO GET OVER YOUR FEAR OF HANDLING MONEY AND FOOD TOGETHER. YOU MIGHT ALSO MAKE NEW FRIENDS.”

He wasn’t sure what any of this meant. Did she want him to make new friends? Was she sick of being his only one? The possibility made him sad.

“You can call me Mr. Ilson,” the man said at Matthew’s interview. Mr. Ilson had bright red hair and didn’t look much older than Matthew. “The first thing you should know is that I run a tight ship. Some people think a movie theater is a pretty easy job. You scoop a little popcorn, pour a few sodas, bam, you’re done. That couldn’t be further from the truth, okay? Yes, we’ve only got three screens here.” Mysteriously he made air quotation marks around the word
three
. “We’re not a giant multiplex in a mall, but do we get rushes where the concession line stretches to the door? Sure. Is there a stress factor to this job? You bet there is.”

As he spoke, Mr. Ilson tapped the edge of his desk. Right corner, left corner, middle. He detailed the pressures of the job, especially getting the theaters cleaned between every show. “People think our floor is a giant trash can, I guess. That’s what you’ll learn after a few weeks.
Please deposit trash in the receptacles on the way out
means nothing to these folks. Nothing at all. Might as well be speaking Chinese.”

As he spoke, the tapping continued.

“Mostly I’ll be watching what you’re doing
between
rushes. You got time to lean, you got time to clean, okay? You consider yourself a pretty clean person?”

Matthew startled. It was the first question he’d been asked. “Yes,” he said. “I do.”

“Great, then. Chloe said you’re good, and we all love Chloe.” He opened a folder and looked over a calendar filled with pencil markings. “How’s Friday nights and Wednesday afternoons for you? You’ll have to come in early on Friday to get trained.”

“Okay,” Matthew said.

Apparently that was that.

Four days later, he was wearing a poly-blend smock over a button-down white shirt and was learning how to operate the popcorn machine. Though it was four o’clock in the afternoon, he was exhausted. The night before, he had lain awake for hours worrying about how he’d do a job that involved squirting butter and cleaning greasy surfaces. Outside the French fry machine at McDonald’s, did any after-school job involve
more
grease? Why hadn’t he said, “Fine, Amy, I’ll get a job, but let it be at JCPenney. I should
not
be working around messy food”? He didn’t say it because he knew what she would say.
That’s the whole point.
If you want to get better, you don’t make the easy choice; you make the hard one.

Amy could be so unrelentingly
right
. He hated it sometimes. He hated it now.

As he stood there, dead on his feet, a girl named Hannah showed him how to fill the black-with-burned-oil kettle in the popcorn popper. “So it’s pretty easy. One cup of kernels, a quarter cup of oil, and two tablespoons of this yellow powder.”

Matthew stared at the bright yellow powder she was measuring. “What
is
that?”

“Who knows? Popcorn-flavor powder, I guess. It makes it yellow and smell good.”

Matthew’s stomach turned over. “You add
chemical popcorn flavor
to real popcorn?”

“I know, right? I gotta admit, though, it tastes pretty good.” She ate some of last night’s leftovers—stored in a black Hefty trash bag—as a demonstration. “Yeah,” she’d said, pouring the old stuff in. “The machine gets cleaned every night, then the old stuff goes back in. Maybe that’s a little gross. I don’t know.”

A little?
Matthew thought, watching. “People spend money on food that’s been sitting in a trash bag?”

“I know, right?
A lot
of money, too. Did you see our prices? That’s why I put extra butter on the old stuff.”

Halfway through his shift, Matthew got a text from Amy.

In the course of one shift, he learned there was no need to look busy unless Mr. Ilson walked out of his office. In between rushes, the other employees did pretty much nothing except talk and text. Usually there were four people working a shift—one to sell tickets, one to tear, two to sell concessions. Because he was being trained, there were five people the first day. Hannah was shift leader, though it was hard to tell how she got that honor given her lackadaisical attitude toward every aspect of the job. “Bathroom checks mean you’re supposed to check supplies, then initial the paper on the back of the door. Usually I don’t check; I just initial. If there’s no toilet paper, someone will tell us, believe me.”

“Is it bad to check?” Matthew asked, sounding a little strained. He’d made it through three hours just fine. He only had an hour and a half to go.

“It’s not bad. You just don’t have to,” she said. “Mr. Ilson would have us cleaning the bottom of his shoes if he could.”

“I’ll probably check,” Matthew said. “If that’s okay.”

Hannah shrugged. “Whatever.”

When his turn came for the bathroom check, Matthew went into the men’s room. On the back of the door was a grid for initials, and behind it, a laminated list of items to check: toilet paper, soap, paper towels, trash can. On the bottom were three items:

Wipe down sinks and urinals?

Matthew felt his heart begin to race. Now that he’d read the instruction, he had to do it. But how could he without touching a stranger’s pee through paper towels?

He walked back out and found Hannah. “Are there gloves for cleaning the bathroom?” He was almost sure that wasn’t a crazy question. The cleaning ladies at hotels always wore gloves. He’d wanted to steal a box once when he saw one on a housekeeper’s cart.

Hannah sat on the floor below the popcorn machine, texting on her phone. “I don’t think so,” she said, not looking up. “Just skip it. Seriously. Write your initials and take a break.”

He felt his pulse behind his temples. He couldn’t skip it. Bad things would happen if he skipped it. He’d lose this job or worse. Someone in his family would get cancer. Amy would die. She’d either die or get very, very angry at him. So angry she’d stop speaking to him completely. He’d have to quit both jobs, the movie theater and Amy, because otherwise he’d get fired and everyone knew it was better to quit than get fired.
Fired
went on your record, which followed you for life.
Fired
meant no one would hire you later, when you tried to get a real job in an office as an adult.

He could feel his panic mounting, making him sweat through the shirt he was wearing under his smock. “I feel like I should clean the bathroom. I’m just going to clean it for a little while, all right?”

“Fine,” Hannah said. “Do whatever you want.”