The Repeat Year (8 page)

She narrowed her eyes in a teasing way. “Klutzy? Awkward?”

“I was going to say hesitant and thoughtful.” His eyes strayed from her face, and Olive followed his gaze. He was watching her mom, dazzling in a bronze floor-length gown, talking animatedly with Verona’s mom across the room. “But I think he’ll be good for you.”

“We just met two weeks ago, Dad.” Olive reached across the table and rested her palm on top of his hand.

He flipped his hand over to squeeze hers. “Even so, Olive Oyl.”

Olive agreed with her dad. Phil’s resoluteness was very appealing. He made decisions efficiently and quickly and always followed through. He had few passions and close people in his life, but those he chose were sacred commitments to him. And he had chosen Olive. She didn’t know what she had done to deserve his loyalty and unwavering dedication, but he had given it to her readily. And there was something so comforting in that, that the last barricaded region of Olive’s heart, one she hadn’t realized she’d still been protecting, was finally opened wide to admit him.

They biked together and ran together and took Cashew on such long walks that sometimes they got lost for hours in neighborhoods they’d never seen before. They went on mini vacations together—hiking and camping at Devil’s Lake, seeing Broadway musicals in downtown Chicago, visiting the water parks and miniature golf courses of Wisconsin Dells. They graduated together and entered the workforce together—fretting about résumés, interviews, and first days.

Phil was there for her the gloomy December her dad passed away, and he was everything she needed—someone to cry with, someone to rage against, someone to sit beside in silence. She was there for him when his dad unexpectedly rumbled into town and back into his life in an exhaust-billowing eighteen-wheeler. After particularly grueling days in the wards, Phil rubbed her temples and whispered in her ear, “You’re a great nurse.” When he had a foot-high stack of exams to grade, Olive made a pot of coffee, picked up a purple pen, and joined in. When there were more Ds and Fs than As and Bs, and Phil’s scowl was becoming deeper and deeper, Olive reminded him, “You’re doing a good job. It’s a hard subject for them, but look at all the Cs! These kids are lucky to have you.”

They played in the snow together like children, sculpting snowmen and snowdogs and snow aliens. They went to all the festivals the city had to offer—the book festival and film festival, Kites on Ice, Art Fair on the Square, Taste of Madison. They spent the holidays with each other’s families, kept hygiene essentials and clothing at each other’s apartments, took care of one another when one of them had a particularly miserable cold, woke each other up in the middle of the night to relay and interpret their dreams, and rhapsodized about a honeymoon in Bali, a house with a fireplace, and a yard for Cashew—the life they would one day build together.

This was what she stood to regain.

She tapped her fingers nervously against the steering wheel. So what was she waiting for? She didn’t want to admit it to herself, but an indelible stain clouded her relationship with Phil. However she tried to reason this time travel to herself, she couldn’t forget what had happened between them last February. Even if Phil was blissfully unaware of their history, she was not, and it was her duty, her burden to remember. She felt like Hester Prynne bearing a scarlet letter on her breast. Surely Phil would recognize that she was not the same. Surely he would sense the one-year bridge between them.

She forced herself to move forward. To look straight ahead and ignore all the wreckage in the rearview mirror.

Entering the school always unnerved her. Even though she had never been a student at Wright (neither she nor Phil had gone there; she had attended LaFollette and he had attended Oregon), the scuffed-up checkerboard floors, infinite rows of lockers, and bursts of raucous laughter made her feel anxious and self-conscious. Naked and on display in that way only adolescents can experience.
It must be all the hormones in the air,
she thought. If someone analyzed the air content, they would probably find twenty percent estrogen, thirty percent testosterone, and fifty percent fear. How could Phil face this day in and day out? Then again, he had been popular in high school: varsity cross-country and golf, homecoming and prom court,
and
he’d made it look cool to be on the math team and in the science club. He probably didn’t have the same visceral, gut-wrenching memories of high school that most people did.

She slipped past the gym, where the thuds of basketballs and the stench of sweat were emanating, and climbed the stairs to the second floor, where all the science classrooms and labs were grouped together. A Hispanic boy who looked like he was only eleven or twelve was descending as she was going up. No doubt he was a freshman, the smallest in his class, who was picked on mercilessly and prayed to every saint in the canon nightly for his growth spurt. Olive almost said hi before she realized this would be considered weird, so she smiled instead. The boy glared back at her, stone-faced, with perhaps just a trace of pity for her obvious inferiority. Touché.

The science hallway was crowded with students’ old science projects. Posters highlighting elements from the periodic table papered over the green tiled walls. Colorful pipe-cleaner models of DNA swayed from the ceiling. An ancient display case housed Rube Goldberg machines, rockets, a whole taxidermy collection of birds and large rodents, and ostensibly, a human skull.

Phil’s classroom was at the end of the hallway, but Olive couldn’t help peeking into the classes in session as she hurried past. A chubby man in a sweater vest lectured to a room full of bored-looking students. That would be Mike Coleman, the earth science teacher. Olive had a hard time picking out the teacher in room 212, a tiny, white-haired lady, who was scurrying among the stations as her students spread something on petri dishes. The aptly named and beloved Flora Hughes of biology. One of the chemistry labs was fully occupied by a class, but the other had just a handful of students busy with Bunsen burners and graduated cylinders. A make-up quiz, perhaps, presided over by a pretty red-haired teacher. Jessica Flynn, the only female chemistry teacher, Olive deduced. Her slim figure and porcelain doll-like features seemed familiar, and then it hit Olive. The girl from the coffee shop.

Last April on her way to work, Olive had stopped to pick up cappuccinos for Tina and herself and spotted Phil on what looked like a date. The redhead had been sitting too close to him on the sofa and laughing loudly. Olive had hid behind a display of teapots and mugs and told herself in between deep breaths, “So. He’s moved on. What did you expect him to do?” She had tried to be calm and nonchalant, but the line had been inching forward at a snail’s pace and Phil was tucking a strand of the redhead’s hair behind her ear, so before Olive had reached the counter to order and risk being seen, she had fled.

The chemistry teacher studied Olive with friendly curiosity. Olive hadn’t realized she’d been frozen like an idiot in the doorway. She smiled vaguely, as though she’d been looking for something but now knew where it was, and hurried away before the redhead could ask her if she needed any help. No way was Olive letting Jessica Flynn get her hooks into Phil this year.

She practically ran the rest of the way down the hall. Phil’s classroom door was closed, but the lights were on, and when she pressed her nose against the glass, she could see him seated at his desk in the back of the room, eating what looked like a bowl of soup. She rapped twice and then hurtled into the room.

Phil bolted upright in his seat, eyes wide. “Thank God it’s you. I thought you were Gina.”

Not the welcome she’d expected. “Who’s Gina?”

“You remember Gina. I told you about her last year when she was in my class. She’s a sophomore now, and she’s still stalking me.”

“Oh,
that
Gina. Yes, now I remember.” Honestly, she couldn’t blame the girl for being in love with him. She bet half the girls at Wright High School had little hearts penned into their notebooks with “Mr. Russell” doodled inside. He just looked so gosh-darn cute in his sky blue dress shirt, striped tie, and khakis with that ridiculous crease pressed down the middle of each pant leg. Standing at the whiteboard, drawing diagrams, and cracking lame jokes like:
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because chickens at rest tend to stay at rest, and chickens in motion tend to cross the road.
Honestly, how could you not fall in love with a guy like that?

“I’m so glad to see you. I was worried when you didn’t return my calls yesterday.” Phil slurped a spoonful of his soup.

“I’m really sorry that I didn’t get back to you. I had an unexpected visitor at my apartment.”

“It’s okay. You didn’t miss much. It just didn’t seem like you, so I was a little concerned. An unexpected visitor?” He raised the bowl to his lips and drank the rest of the broth.

“Yeah, one of my mom’s friends. Sherry Witan.” No lies here. She would tell him as much of the truth as possible.

“What did she want?” He sounded mildly interested. A courtesy question, really. He sifted through some papers on his desk.

She shrugged. “It’s not important. Did I come at a bad time?” She was trying not to fret. She tried to reassure herself that his reaction to her arrival had nothing to do with their breakup, because to him, it hadn’t happened yet. It was simply the middle of a busy workday, and judging by the mounds of board work on his desk, he had been hoping to get a lot of grading done during his lunch period. She had caught him off guard. What did she expect? For him to sweep her into his arms and plaster her face and neck with kisses?

“Of course not,” Phil said. “In fact, I’m so happy to see you”—here he scooped up a disheveled pile of spiral notebook paper with snibbles still attached to the edges and shoved it into a folder—“that everyone in my morning classes gets an automatic check on their board work today!” He stood up and wrapped her in a tight hug. The delicious scent of his soap made her a little weak in the knees.

He motioned to his empty bowl. “Are you hungry? I’ve got a whole drawer full of Campbell’s and there’s a microwave in the teacher’s lounge. Or I have granola bars, bananas, oranges, beef jerky, some pretzels that might be a little—or a lot—stale.”

“Thanks, but I’m okay. I really just wanted to see you. To talk.” She searched his eyes for any reservations. There were none. There was only warmth and liquid light.

Phil pulled a student desk closer for her to sit in. It was at least two inches lower than his, and as she sat down she couldn’t shake the feeling of being a teenager again, awkward and exposed.

“So how’s your day going so far?” he asked.

“Not much to speak of. I literally woke up an hour ago. How are you doing?”

“Eh, you can imagine. The holidays are over and the kids are all brain-dead from winter break. Final exams for the semester are rapidly approaching, there’s no end to winter in sight, and spring break is months away. The natives are a little restless.” He grinned at her, and suddenly the tremendous need to apologize overwhelmed her. But she couldn’t tell him about last year. He wouldn’t believe her, and if he did, well, that would be even worse; their new chance at happiness would be ruined.

“How was dinner with Charlie?” she asked.

He set the bowl down, knocking his spoon to the floor in the process. It clattered to the floor, but he didn’t retrieve it. “Sometimes I don’t know why we do this. This pretending.”

Adrenaline flooded her bloodstream.
He knew.
Had the full force of last year’s events and all its unworthy moments abruptly come back to him like an amnesiac remembering his true identity? Or had he known all along and simply been putting on an act of starting over with her? She gripped the metal bar on the edge of the desk. “What do you mean?”

“Pretending we’re a normal father and son. I can see how hard he’s trying, but sometimes it feels irrelevant to me. Last night, I was looking at him across the table, and I couldn’t help thinking, ‘Who
is
this man?’ He’s not the dad I adored as a little boy. But he’s not the guy that wrecked everything, the one I’ve blamed and pinned all my hatred on since then. He’s someone else, you know? This old guy with this sad, droopy mustache, and I have no idea how he spent more than a decade of his life, except that he wasn’t here.”

She relaxed her grip and sank back against the hard plastic seat, but her overwrought brain could hardly make the switch from one crisis to the next. She’d been on the defensive, and now she had to change over to the supportive girlfriend role. “Phil, I . . .” She didn’t know what to say. It was a role she hadn’t filled in a long time, and she had always felt slightly out of her depth when Phil spoke about his dad. Both their dads had left them, but Phil’s had left willingly. And his leaving had been a blessing to his family compared to the holy mess he’d been making of their lives.

Phil bent to pick up his spoon. “It’s okay. I don’t expect you to know what to make of that revelation any more than I do. Sometimes I just surprise myself how detached I feel and how little I care about him. I guess I feel like a bad person.”

“Never. You are the best person I know.” She unfolded herself from the small desk and stood by his side. She wanted to put her arms around him and lay her head on his shoulder, but she was afraid a student might walk in. She squeezed his shoulder instead. “Tell me more about the dinner.”

“I’d rather not,” he said. “You came all this way to see me, and I don’t want to waste precious time talking about him. We’ve only got . . . oh, about fifteen minutes before my students come barging in, demanding to know who the hottie is.”

“Ha.” She reached across him and lifted a silver ball from his Newton’s cradle, letting it fall against the others. Click-clack, click-clack, click-clack.

“The last time you visited, Taylor Roquemore and Dominic Spain caught a glimpse of you and started a rumor that you were a supermodel.”

“It must have been from far away,” Olive mumbled. “And still this Gina is after you?”

She started to drift through the classroom, examining all of his toys. She had once thought that studying his apartment or closet or childhood bedroom would give her the insight she needed into his complicated and sometimes frustratingly opaque mind. But now she knew the key to understanding Phil was his classroom. Everything in the room—the posters on the walls with cheerful, motivational slogans (
Today is a great day to learn something new! Just because something is difficult doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try; it means you should just try harder. Even Einstein asked questions! Physics is Phun
2
!
); the ramp with its matchbox cars; the stopwatches and balls of all kinds (golf balls, softballs, bouncy balls, volleyballs, a bowling ball); the springs, pendulums, magnets, and tuning forks; the calorimeters and voltmeters—told a story about Phil. He trusted in Newton’s three laws of motion, the laws of thermodynamics, the electrostatic laws, gravity, the speed of light, the speed of sound. These principles followed reliable equations with reliable constants. They could be counted on time and time again. They would always do exactly what he expected them to do. The laws of physics would never fail him.