Say What You Will Page 13

  “I’m not saying he’s a bad person,” Nicole said after Amy told her about prom. “I like Matthew. I’m saying this is too much responsibility for someone who can be unreliable.”

  “HE’S NOT UNRELIABLE. HE’S THE BEST PEER HELPER I HAVE.”

  “This is different, Aim. You know that. This involves a lot responsibility. He’d have to drive at night. He’d have to get you there and back safely.”

  For two weeks, Nicole suggested alternatives. What if her father drove? What if they went as a part of a group, with Sanjay and Sarah? For the first time in her life, Amy held her ground. “THIS IS MY CHOICE. I WANT MATTHEW TO DRIVE. I WANT HIM TO KNOW I TRUST HIM.” Typing this, Amy thought of the uncompromising stances her mother had taken with teachers in the past. She almost said: I learned this from you, Mom. You should be proud of me. In the end, what choice did her parents have? She’d be leaving home soon, going away to college, making her own decisions every day. How could they not honor this one?

  The night before prom, Nicole came into Amy’s room. “I’m sorry we’ve made this so hard for each other.”

  In the light from the moon, Amy could see that her mother had been crying. She felt bad. “YOU WANTED ME TO MAKE NEW FRIENDS. REMEMBER THE LISTS?”

  “I do.” Nicole laughed. “I suppose I wanted you to make a lot of superficial friends. I didn’t want anyone to matter more than your dad or me.” She started crying again, which made Amy feel bad.

  “MATTHEW DOESN’T MATTER MORE. HE MATTERS IN A DIFFERENT WAY.”

  “I know. It’s just hard when you’ve spent eighteen years protecting your child, who is smart and beautiful and a little more fragile than everyone else’s child. No risk seems worth taking.” She looked out the window, quiet for a while. “I’ve never understood parents of kids who play football. How do you sit in the stands and watch your child get hurt?”

  “THIS ISN’T FOOTBALL, MOM.”

  “No, I know.”

  “THIS ISN’T EVEN RISKY. IT’S JUST LIFE. I’M HAVING A LIFE.”

  “I know.” She blew her nose. “And that feels risky to me. I can’t help it. It just does. I see all the ways Matthew might hurt you, even if he doesn’t mean to. Even if he’s a nice boy with the best intentions.”

  “HE’S NOT GOING TO HURT ME. HE’S THE BEST FRIEND I’VE EVER HAD.”

  “But that’s just it, Aim. You want more than that, don’t you? You don’t want to be just his friend.”

  How did her mother know this when she’d been so careful not to show her feelings? She couldn’t lie now. “MAYBE.”

  “That’s what I’m most scared of, I suppose. I see you changing in all these ways—looking through magazines and trying on dresses. I’m scared that he’ll never love you the way you want to be loved. I want to spare you that, sweetheart. It’s a terrible feeling. That’s all.”

  Except that wasn’t all. The next afternoon, an hour before Matthew was due to pick her up, her mother appeared in her doorway again. She wasn’t crying this time. Her lips were a thin line of determination.

  “There’s one more thing,” she said. “Your dad and I have talked about this. We’re letting you go tonight, but we don’t want you seeing Matthew over the summer. You’ve got your summer classes to concentrate on and college to get ready for. This may not even come up, but in case it does.”

  Amy was beginning to understand her mother’s obsession: “CAN I SEE MY OTHER PEER HELPERS?”

  “Of course, dear. But with Matthew . . . we think he has some issues he needs to sort out.”

  Nicole must have been talking to Ms. Hynes, the guidance counselor who still oversaw the peer-helpers program. This wasn’t only about Matthew’s OCD. Of all her mother’s “concerns,” this was the real one: she knew that Matthew wasn’t going to college.

  “HOW ABOUT IF HE SORTS HIS ISSUES OUT? COULD I SEE HIM THEN?”

  “If he’s better a year from now, of course you can see him. We’d love to have him come over and say hi.”

  “A YEAR FROM NOW? ARE YOU SERIOUS?”

  “He isn’t well, Amy. You’ve had so little experience with boys that you don’t see this yet, but your father and I do—we don’t want you to think the only person who will ever love you is someone who has such serious problems himself. You’re smart about so many things, but not about this. You don’t see what’s obvious to everyone else.”

  “WHAT’S OBVIOUS?”

  She hesitated for a moment, and then said it: “He’s not good enough for you. Of course you think he’s wonderful and should be your best friend, but he’s not and he shouldn’t. He’s not worthy of you, Amy.” Her face was flush with emotion. “He’s not as smart as you are. Wait a year and you’ll see. Meet some boys at Stanford and you’ll understand.”

  Outside the door, she could hear her father talking to Matthew. She lowered her Pathway to a whisper. “WOULD IT BE BETTER IF I WAS GOING TO PROM WITH SANJAY?”

  Two weeks ago Sanjay had gotten off the wait list at Caltech and been accepted into their engineering program. This week he told Amy he’d come up with his first potential patent as an engineer. He was grinning from ear to ear when he told her what it was: a way to stash a quart of booze in her walker so they could sneak it into prom. “Hiding it is one level of brilliance,” he said. “Dispensing it will be a whole other level of genius.” Sarah sat beside him as he laid out his plan, smiling as if this would all be very funny.

  Though their relationship wasn’t clear, Amy feared there was an imbalance of feelings on Sarah’s side. “I can’t explain why I like him, I just do,” she’d told Amy. “I keep thinking he’s got all this potential if only he’d relax and be himself.” For his part, Sanjay seemed happy to have a date that would get him to prom, and thrilled at his plan to win popularity with the booze once they get there.

  “It’s gonna be great,” he kept saying. “People will bring their punch cup over to Amy, stick a straw in the screwhole. It’ll take two seconds. Shazam! Mixed drink! We’ll be the first people to get booze into prom!”

  It was the first time Amy had sat in the cafeteria with two peer helpers at the same time. Technically it was a Sarah day, not Sanjay, so he was there voluntarily making them laugh with his idea. He kept going with his argument: They wouldn’t get in trouble, because what chaperone would take the time to inspect Amy’s walker? If someone did suspect something, Amy would excuse herself to the bathroom and empty it out. “We’ll go down in the history books,” he kept saying until Amy couldn’t say no. It felt too good to be sitting there, scheming with friends. This was what she’d wanted this year to be: after seventeen years of academic achievement, she wanted the chaos and jumble of real people in her life, with their stupid ideas and senior pranks.

  “Of course we’d feel better if you were going to prom with Sanjay,” Nicole said now. “Unfortunately you’re not.”

  “JUST BECAUSE HE GOT INTO COLLEGE?”

  “No, sweetheart. Because he’s got a good head on his shoulders. Because he doesn’t need your help or your pity.”

  Amy wished she could tell her mother what the good head on Sanjay’s shoulders had talked her into doing. You want to know how trustworthy Sanjay is? Pick up my walker and ask yourself why it feels two quarts heavier. She didn’t, because she wanted her night with Matthew more than she wanted to prove her mother was wrong.

  Now she looked over at Matthew, driving in a hunch with his face inches from the wheel. Maybe she shouldn’t have forced him to drive just to make a statement to her parents. At the speed Matthew was going, they’d make it to prom just as it was ending.

  “YOU’RE DOING GREAT. YOU’RE A GOOD DRIVER.”

  “It might be better if we don’t talk. I’ve got a turn coming up.”

  He wasn’t doing great. He was a terrible driver. His foot arbitrarily went up and down on the gas in response to whatever was going through his mind. Being thrown against the seat belt was leaving a mark on Amy’s shoulder. The dream speech had been sweet, but after he deliver
ed it, he looked ashy pale and ill about the implications of what he might have just said.

  After they got to the Sheraton and made their way inside, Amy studied the other girls milling around in the lobby. There was no one she recognized from any of her classes. “I guess we’re meant to get in line and take pictures first,” Matthew said. “They’re sixty dollars for the cheapest package. I didn’t know what you’d say, so I didn’t pay yet.”

  Behind them a group of about ten kids appeared, laughing and calling out to one another. All the girls hugged and touched one another’s hair. No one looked over at them. She leaned toward Matthew. “DO WE KNOW THEM? ARE THERE TWO PROMS HAPPENING HERE?”

  He looked over at the group she was pointing at. “Yeah. They’re with us. I took Spanish with one of those girls.” They watched the group for a while. More joined. To Amy’s eye, it was sad; everyone looked like an overdressed movie extra paid to stand around, pretending to have fun.

  After they got their picture taken, Matthew told her he should go to the bathroom and read her mother’s list of instructions. “I’ll be right back. Do you need anything?”

  No, she shook her head—and wondered how long it would be before she saw him again. Then she looked up and saw Sanjay coming down the hallway with Sarah behind him, trying to keep up. He looked surprisingly good in his tux.

  “You look fantastic, Amy,” he said. “I’ve already heard people talking about you.”

  “WHAT WERE THEY SAYING?”

  “Just that you’re here! They can’t believe it! Did you have any problems at the door?”

  “NO. I TRIED TO TELL THEM MY WALKER WAS FILLED WITH BOOZE BUT THEY DIDN’T BELIEVE ME.”

  Sanjay’s expression froze. “You’re joking. That’s a joke, right?”

  “YES. THAT’S A JOKE.”

  “Okay, look. I want you sitting someplace where the chaperones won’t notice a lot of people coming over to talk to you.” They walked inside the ballroom, which was loud and dark with a spinning, mirrored ball over the dance floor. Sanjay sat her down next to a table with its pink, floral centerpiece and glass-mug mementos that said: WHAT A FEELING! Coral Hills High School Senior Prom, Class of 2014 “I want you hidden for a little bit. Like behind this potted plant.”

  “MATTHEW’S IN THE BATHROOM. YOU HAVE TO TELL HIM WHERE I AM.”

  “I will, don’t worry,” Sanjay said, and explained how this would work: he’d send people over in groups of three or four to sit with her for a few minutes and fill their cups from her walker. “Don’t worry about talking to them. I’ll remind them of everything.”

  Remind them of what? Amy wondered. That I can’t talk?

  She watched as he fastened the contraption he’d engineered—with clear tubing and a spigot he’d taken from a five-gallon thermos dispenser. “This way, there’s an on/off switch. I’m telling people half a cup at a time, tops.”

  He seemed to think the demand would be overwhelming, that no one would think twice about drinking something that had been sitting in a metal walker. (Sanjay had spent an hour after school cleaning it out. Still Amy wondered, “WON’T IT MAKE EVERY DRINK TASTE LIKE METAL?” “Just wait,” Sanjay said. “I guarantee no one will care.”)

  By the time he finally got the spigot and hose attached, Amy noticed that Sarah had walked away, as if she didn’t want any part of this. “Okay,” Sanjay said, pouring his first cup. “Alpha test completed. Plan operational.” He could hardly mask his delight.

  “WHERE’D SARAH GO?”

  “Never mind Sarah. She’s having a little issue about nothing.”

  “WHAT’S HER ISSUE?”

  “I told you. Nothing. She thinks I’m overinvested in this idea. I told her I’m doing this for you so you can have fun and talk to all these people.”

  “COME ON, SANJ. I DON’T REALLY WANT TO TALK TO THESE PEOPLE.”

  He flashed her a look. “Well, don’t tell Sarah that. I’m going to start telling them they can come over.”

  “DON’T FORGET TO TELL MATTHEW WHERE I AM.”

  “I will, I will. Don’t worry.”

  Brian Campbell walked over first, the quarterback of the football team. Amy had taken two classes with him in tenth grade, but had never talked to him. She laughed when he caught her eye and bent down on one knee in front of her walker. She laughed again—stupidly—as he worked to get the spigot open. It took almost a minute for him to get the device to work. A minute that Amy filled with two awkward laughs, a hiccup, and silence. “Thanks, Amy,” he said when he was done.

  Roger Altiers stepped up next. They’d had eighth-grade math and three years of French together. “You’re Amy, right?” he said. She nodded. “So, hey, Amy, what’s up?” After that, everyone who came up greeted her by name as if Sanjay had told them to. For a few minutes, it was so disorienting that she started to get scared. She wanted Matthew to come back so he could explain why everyone who’d never spoken to her before suddenly knew her name, but she didn’t see him anywhere. That’s when she realized how trapped she was. She couldn’t move because her walker wasn’t hers anymore. It was everyone else’s joke of the night: get your picture taken, your coat checked, and stop by Amy’s walker! She watched Sanjay and saw how carefully he picked the people to point in her direction, dragging it out forever, like they were starting meaningful friendships. She overheard him a few times, reminding people of the classes they’d had, of how they’d known each other since third grade.

  It made her even sadder than she felt when she first walked in.

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  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  NONE OF THIS WAS going the way Matthew wanted it to. Picking Amy up and talking to her parents had made him more nervous than he expected it to. So nervous it wasn’t until they were inside the hotel lobby that he really saw how lovely she looked tonight. But why did seeing Amy in her dress awaken such a panic? Was it the neckline shaped like a U so he could see her collarbone and the sprinkling of freckles across her chest? Was it how he felt standing beside her, waiting to get their picture taken? Was it letting himself really look at her body for the first time? He almost couldn’t believe it. She was beautiful.

  Amy’s body had always been a mystery to him. He recognized parts of it, of course. He’d seen her barefoot before and knew the way her toes stuck up and her ankles went rigid. Her feet were her most despised body part, she once told him, because they were the main thing that kept her from walking better. The one time he saw her feet up close, she’d scraped her ankle and he examined it to see if she was all right. Doing that, he surprised himself by discovering that he didn’t mind holding her strange foot in his hand. In fact he started rubbing it, wondering if he could soften the stiffness with a massage. When had he ever done anything like that? Now he thought about tonight and a new fear skated down his spine. How did he expect this evening to end?

  Too late, he realized: they’d thought too much about the logistics of getting here and not enough about what they would do here. She’d already told him she didn’t want to dance. She also told him about Sanjay’s stupid plan to spike other people’s drinks.

  “Do we have to drink?” he asked her nervously.

  “OF COURSE NOT,” she said. “I’M ONLY A CONDUIT. IT’LL BE OVER IN TWENTY MINUTES, HE PROMISES. TOPS.”

  Matthew didn’t care about that. He didn’t care about seeing Sanjay or Sarah or any of these people they were supposedly friends with, but weren’t really. The only thing he really wanted to do was find a quiet spot to sit down with Amy and talk.

  With all the joking around and preparation for prom, they hadn’t been able to do this for a while, which meant he hadn’t gotten to tell Amy what had been happening with him. How the world had begun to feel different with his medication. How he noticed certain changes, especially at work, where he was getting to be friends with the rest of the staff. It’s
like I don’t have to spend so much time in my head. I can actually have conversations. If they found a spot to talk, maybe he could ask what was going on earlier tonight with her parents. Why her father seemed so nervous and her mother so angry. They obviously weren’t as happy about Amy going to prom as he’d thought they’d be. Nicole barely spoke to him and no one took any pictures. Thinking of this reminded him of the note from Nicole that was still in his pocket. “You don’t have to read this now,” Nicole had said when she handed it to him. “You can wait until afterward.”

  He’d slipped it into his pocket before Amy could see what it said on the outside: Instructions for Matthew. Surely even Nicole could see how this might be hurtful. The implication that he was taking Amy to prom as part of his job. Getting paid to be her friend and answering to her mother, who signed the checks and could give him “instructions.” He remembered Nicole saying he could read this afterward, but now he couldn’t wait. He wanted to know what she had to say to him:

  Dear Matthew,

  Please understand this is not about you personally. This is about our responsibility to protect our daughter, who is more inexperienced and fragile than you probably realize. We understand that you have your own issues that you’ve struggled with this year. We were disappointed that you didn’t disclose these problems before you began to work with our daughter. If we’d known about them, we would have made a different choice, and not taken the risk of letting Amy become attached to someone who has difficulty controlling his actions. Please understand that we do not dislike you personally. As her parents we have to protect Amy. It is our duty. In our view, it is dangerous for her to become too attached to you. I’m sure you understand this. After this evening, we’ll ask that you not see Amy again.