Fall from Grace (8 page)

ZOË SLAMMED HER
locker shut.

“What do you mean you can't drive me home?”

He knew this question was coming. Knew it the moment Grace said she could help him pass his precalculus exam. He had all night and most of the day to be ready with an answer, but when it finally came, five minutes after the last bell, he was still unprepared.

She knew his work schedule, so that was out, and the soup kitchen was only open at ungodly hours around dawn. If he said he was staying after school for something, she'd say she'd hang out there, and if he said he had to go somewhere—the mall to pick up whatever—she'd want to go. He was this close to saying
Oh wait, I
can drive you home after all
, when he said, “You know the old guy I work with at Mike's? Francis McGillicutty? Yeah, well he used to be a math professor. He's going to help me with precalc.”

She wasn't buying it.

“What does he know? He can't make change for a twenty without a calculator.”

“He's cautious, that's all.”

“Where'd he teach?”

“Notre Dame.”
Notre Dame?

“And now he scoops ice cream for a living?”

“He's retired. It gives him something to do.”

“Why don't you just ask Mr. Young? He's your teacher, that's his job.”

“I'm not getting it with him.”

“Oh, so you're going to get it with an old guy. That sounds sick.”

He rubbed the back of his neck where the headache was starting. “You want me to fail?”

“You might as well. You're already accepted at Wembly. It's not like they're going to change their minds.”

“I'm not going to risk it,” he said, and then he knew what to say. “That's where you're going to be, and I have
to make sure I'm there too. And that means passing this stupid test and
that
means spending a few hours at an old guy's house on the west side.”

Perfect.

She made a face, softened it, then made another. “Fine. But how am I supposed to get home?”

“Come with me. I'm sure he won't mind if you wait. You can talk to his wife. I'll drive you home after. Shouldn't be more than two or three hours.”

“Yeah, right.” She had her phone out, her thumb a blur on the keypad. “I'll catch a ride with Renée.” She gave him a lightning-quick kiss—her standard public display of affection—said “Love ya,” turned around, and headed to the parking lot.

Sawyer watched her go, enjoying the view.

 

“I brought my textbook, some notes, this review guide—never opened—calculator, the last quiz we took. Fifty-two percent, thank you. A Mountain Dew for me and a diet cream soda for you.”

Sawyer unloaded his backpack—a new one with zippers that worked—on the kitchenette table, careful not to drop anything on Grace's laptop. She ignored
all but the soda, popped open the can, and said, “How good's your hearing?”

“My
hearing
?”

“Don't tell me you didn't hear that, or we're in trouble.”

“I heard you. But what does that have to do with anything?”

“That's how you're going to pass this test.” She took a sip of her diet cream soda—
who drinks that crap?
—leaning against the fridge as he sat down. “Do you wear glasses?”

“Have you ever seen me with glasses?”

She shrugged. “I don't know, you could have contacts.”

“No. No glasses, no contacts.”

“Good. It's time you start. Put that stuff away,” she said, waving a hand over the notebooks and papers.

“Aren't we going to need them?”

“I don't see why.”

“You said you'd help me pass the test.”

“I know what I said.” She picked up a shoebox off the counter and brought it to the table, sitting in the only other chair.

“You were going to teach me calculus.”

“Silly rabbit. I can't teach you that.”

“I thought you were good at it.”

“I'm
great
at it. I just can't teach it. Not in one day, anyway.”

Sawyer thought of Zoë, stuck riding home with Renée and how—
somehow
—she'd hold it against him later. Not good. “Then why'd you have me come over? To watch another stupid movie?”

“I'd be careful what I say if I were you. You need me to pass that test.”

“You just said you can't teach me calculus.”

“Passing the test has nothing to do with you learning precalc.” She took the lid off the shoebox, shuffled some things around he couldn't see, and pulled out a pair of old-man glasses. Thick black frames and a fat wad of black duct tape wrapped around the bridge, another wad holding one of the arms on the frame. “Here. Put these on.”

He laughed as she handed them to him. “Ooooh. Are they
magic
glasses?”

“Yeah, smartass, they are.”

He went to put them on and stopped. “There's a wire or something sticking out of the frame. Here, by the ear part.”

“Don't pull on it. Geez. It took me forever to get that
taped down. And it's not a wire, it's a tube.”

Sawyer held the glasses up to the light. A thin strip of black electrical tape ran along the inside of the frame from the wad on the hinge to the tip. The clear plastic tube was under the tape, except for the end that dangled down an extra inch.

“Check out the front. That's the best part.”

“The tape job?”

“Look closer.”

He did, and he wouldn't have seen it if he hadn't. A round, flat piece of glass, smaller than a match head and as black as the frame. “Is this a lens?”

“It's a five-point-eight gigahertz pinhole webcam.”

Compact and smooth, it looked expensive. “Where'd you get it?”

“Do you
really
want to know?”

“I guess not.”

“You guessed right. And see this part here? It's a sound tube from a hearing aid. On a full charge it'll last four hours. It's supposed to be good for up to five hundred feet, more than that if you're outside. That ought to be plenty.”

She didn't have to tell him the rest.

“No way.” He set the glasses on the table.

“What do you mean?”

“I'm not wearing them to school.”

“Why not? They're brilliant. Okay, maybe a bit nerdy, but that's sorta in now. And you don't have to wear them all day, just for the test.”

“There's no way I'm going to wear these.”

“You're not going to get caught. No one would ever suspect it. That's why it's brilliant.”

“It's cheating.”

“Oh, please.”

“I mean it. It's cheating.”

“Who cares?”

“I do. It's wrong.”

“Wrong is clubbing baby seals. This?” She slapped the side of his textbook. “This is a game. A hoop you've gotta jump through.”

“And so the glasses are what, Air Jordans?”

“Yeah, sure. You need an edge to win this game.”

“It's not a game.”

“At least try them on.”

“No. I'm not going to wear them.”

“I worked all night on those,” she said, and for the first time since he knew her, she looked sad. He should've put them on, let her show off, let her explain how she figured
it all out and where she got the parts, but he knew he couldn't. Because if he did—if he tried them on and they really did work, if they really were brilliant—he knew he'd be wearing them when he took the test.

“I gotta go,” he said, standing up, loading his backpack.

“Hold on a second. Look, okay, maybe I was pushing a little hard, but I know how much you want to pass and I figured I could help and it would be fun—”

“Right, fun. That's what it's all about.”

She looked at him and smiled, sort of. “Part of it.”

“Sometimes you have to do things that aren't fun at all, and taking this test is one of them.”

“Now you sound like your parents.”

“You've never met them.”

“Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me that's not them talking.”

He slung his backpack over his shoulder. “I gotta go.”

“If you change your mind…”

“I'm not going to.”

She walked him through the apartment, then stood on the landing as he went down the stairs and out the front entrance. He heard her shout “Good luck.”

THE DOOR WAS
shut, so when his father knocked, Sawyer leaned over from his desk and let him in.

“Saw the light under the door. It's after midnight, you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” Sawyer said. “I'm almost finished.”

“A little late for homework, isn't it? You're supposed to get this done right after school.”

“It's not homework. I've got a test tomorrow,” he said, and then without thinking he added, “precalc.”

The dramatic sigh, the disgusted head shake.

“Didn't I tell you to drop that class?”

“You said something about it, yeah.”

“Are they giving you grief in the guidance office? I'll
call them tomorrow morning, get it taken care of, get you out of it. They can't—”

“I haven't gone there yet.”

A surprised pause.

“Haven't gone where?”

“The guidance office.”

A longer pause.

“Okay. Why not?”

Sawyer tossed his pencil on the desk. “I think I can pass the class.”

His father shifted his weight, a shoulder against the doorframe, his hand still on the knob, his thumb tapping out a steady, calming beat. “I thought we made it clear why you should drop it.”

“Well, I thought it was better if I stayed,” Sawyer said, then surprised himself by looking up at his father, meeting his stare.

A tense silence, not long but deep.

“I suppose you think you have a good reason.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I can pass.”

His father nodded, but Sawyer knew he didn't agree. Then his father said, “It's not worth busting your ass over.”

“I don't mind the work.”

“It's not that. Look at yourself. You're staying up late to cram for a test you don't have to take. You
do
understand that, don't you?”

“Yeah, I get it.”

“All that effort you're putting into one class. Put that to work in your other classes and you can raise those grades up, improve your GPA.”

“What difference does it make? I'm already accepted.”

“It's not about the grades, son, it's about effort. You should always give it your best.”

Sawyer held up the evidence, a paper covered with numbers and half-finished equations.

“This is different and you know it,” his father said, that parental tone creeping into his voice.

For a second Sawyer thought about arguing the point, telling him why it
wasn't
different, why it was the kind of thing they'd always said he
should
do, quoting a few of his father's favorite lines about commitment and hard work. But that wasn't the fight to take on at midnight, ten hours before the test. So instead he said, “I'm gonna pass.”

His father didn't laugh, but he came close.

“Seriously. I feel really, I don't know, confident.”
Sawyer
did
feel something, and maybe it was confidence. But he doubted it.

“That's nice, son. But do you really think squeaking by on one test is going to make a difference?”

“I was planning to do better than squeaking by.”

“What, a C? That's not going to change your overall grade enough to matter.”

“No, better than a C.”

“So a C-plus? B-minus, maybe? That's still not enough.”

His father was right and Sawyer knew it. The extra points would barely budge his average. As for getting a B-minus, he'd be lucky to get a D.

Sawyer knew all this, and he still said, “I'm gonna ace the test.”

His father took in a slow, deep breath. “Look, son, the best grade you got so far this year was a C, and the rest of the time you've been bouncing around, what, a fifty-percent average? It's not that I don't want you to do well, you know that. I just don't want to see you spending time in your senior year worrying about a class you don't need to take. Now, do I want to see you get an A? Yes. I'd love it. But is it realistic? You might do okay, but come on,
we both know you're not going to get an A on that test.”

Sawyer smiled. Go big or go home. “Wanna bet?”

“Geez, son, I
just
got finished explaining—”

“If I get an A on the test, you leave me alone about the class for the rest of the year,” Sawyer said, his voice different now too, relaxed and confident.

“Now you're being childish.”

“If I don't get an A, I'll drop the class.”

His father smiled at that. “Is that it? Is that the bet?”

“Yeah,” Sawyer said. “And just so you know, if I ace the test, I'm going to apply to other schools.”

“What's wrong with Wembly?”

“Nothing's wrong with it. I want to try other schools, that's all. See what happens.”

“You're setting yourself up to be embarrassed, you realize that, right?”

“Maybe.”

“Okay,” his father said, chuckling as he said it. “If that's the way you want to play it. I'll take your bet. Just so we're clear, anything less than an A, and we're done discussing precalculus. And if, by chance, you get an A, I'll support your decision to at least
apply
to other schools.”

“What about the application fees?”

“Fine, fine,” his father said, and now he was laughing. “Fees, too. But I don't want to hear any whining about it later if things don't go your way.”

“No. It's cool.”

“All right, then.” His father reached out his hand and Sawyer shook it, firm but not too strong, the way his father had taught him to shake, a sucker bet still a bet.

“Enough cramming for one night. If you don't know it by now, you'll never get it.” His father left, pulling the door shut behind him.

Ten minutes later, as he lay in bed, Sawyer sent a text message.