Not Anything (2 page)

when i’m nervous, i laugh. that’s a fact. the first time it
happened was when I was nine. I was peering into my mother’s coffin when, just like that, I laughed.

Not that my mother’s death has anything to do with this.

Yeah, I feel nervous. Yeah, I want to laugh. But that’s where the similarities end. Like I said, my mother’s death is in no way equal to this stupid meeting. It just reminds me of her funeral, that’s all. That happens sometimes. My brain makes weird connections like that.

See, it’s like even though it hasn’t happened yet, I know how bad this meeting—this tutoring situation—with Danny Diaz is going to turn out. I know because I know. That’s all. I know because I know how boys are with me. I know how boys are with me because…well, where do I start?

Marc Sanchez.

Marc Sanchez is my neighbor, and I hate everything about him. I hate when his stupid friends pick him up in the morning. I hate when he hangs out under the palm trees in front of his house with his stupid girlfriend. I hate when I see him sneaking out to the side of his house to smoke pot.

But you want to know what I really hate about Marc Sanchez? I hate that I know everything about him. I know that he’s got a birthmark shaped like the state of Texas on the back of his thigh. I know that the scar underneath his eyebrow is from when we were seven and he fell off his dad’s truck. (Okay, I pushed him, but we were playing.) I know that the freckles on his face—yes, those twenty thousand freckles—don’t just stop there. They go everywhere.

But you want to know what I really, really hate about Marc Sanchez? That one day Marc woke up and had a thought that went something like this: “Today I’m going to ignore Susie and act like she doesn’t exist.” And that’s pretty much what he did. It was the end of our fourth-grade year and, like that, I disappeared.

“Well…” Mr. Murphy clears his throat. “Danny, may I present to you Miss Susie Shannon. Susie,” Mr. Murphy turns to me, “may I present to you Mr. Danny Diaz.”

Before we get started, you should know four things:

1. I like Mr. Murphy. He’s the only teacher I have at OG who doesn’t see me for me.
   
2. Mr. Murphy lives for introductions.
   
3. The guy from the yearbook line, the one who might have been Danny, has, in fact, turned out to be Danny.
   
4. If my life were turned into a Shakespearean play, it would be performed as a tragedy.
   

“Danny,” Mr. Murphy continues informatively, “transferred here from Austin, Texas, last year and seems to have fallen behind. That’s where you come in.” Mr. Murphy gently touches my shoulder. “We need to get Danny back on track, so I’d like for you to visit with him for an hour each week until the end of the grading period. How does that sound?”

“Fine,” I mutter, because what else can I say or do? I mean, I want to point my finger at Danny and screech, “You smiled at me! I know you did!” But I’m pretty sure that if I did that, both Mr. Murphy and Danny would think that I’m crazy (which I might just be), so I tuck my hands into my pockets instead.

“Good.” Mr. Murphy rocks back and forth on his heels, and I can tell he’s pondering his next words. “Danny…” He turns to Danny with a nod of his head and says seriously, “I trust you will approach your time with Susie with the same care that you approach the soccer season.”

“I promise,” Danny says solemnly, nodding back at Mr. Murphy.

“Good. Why don’t you two take the first fifteen minutes to get to know each other?” He adjusts his pink tie so that it lies neatly against his charcoal-gray shirt. “Friendship is an essential part of the tutoring process. I’ll be next door if you need me.” He clicks his tongue. “Carry on.”

Without Mr. Murphy, there isn’t much for us to do except talk to each other, which is the last thing that I want to do. So, I stare down at the puke-brown carpet instead. I count the pieces of flattened gum. I become one with the carpet fiber. Basically, I try to disappear.

It isn’t working. Which is ironic. When you think about it.

“So…” Danny says after a while; his hands are also buried deep in his pockets. “You’re the girl from the yearbook line. You’re”—he pauses to look me directly in the eyes—“the girl who can’t smile.”

It takes time for the words to even register. Then, it takes even more time for me to understand that he can be so mean. Then, it takes another full minute to get over the sting before I lamely respond, “I
can
smile.” Which
is
actually true. I can smile. Sometimes. When I’m alone with Marisol. I can…

“I’m not saying you
can’t
smile.” He shrugs his shoulders, so that his Abercrombie shirt rides up, and I glimpse a sliver of his milk-chocolate abdomen. “I’m just saying that today in the yearbook line you were the girl who, you know,
couldn’t”
—he points at his mouth and his smooth pink lips—“smile.”

“
But,
” I say with a lot more force, because I’m not sure what he expects to get out of this conversation, “I
can
smile.”

“
Okay…
” His face changes a bit, and I can tell that he’s getting my point. “So…” He bites his lower lip. “What grade are you in?”

I don’t answer him. What’s the point? We’re never going to be friends. Isn’t it obvious?

“Well?” he says, but I stare at him blankly. “Well?”

“Tenth,” I mutter.

“So you’re like one of those smart people. You’re, like, in honors, right?”

“AP. But I’m not that smart,” which is a bold-faced lie. Pretty much anyone in advanced-placement classes is really smart, but that’s not my fault.

“Well, you must be sort of smart, or why else would Mr. Murphy ask you to tutor me?” Danny raises his eyebrows, and a half smile flutters across his lips. It’s like seeing half of the smile he gave me in the yearbook line, and I get a flashback of me standing there, staring at him with my arms hanging limply at my sides. My face turns red, so when Danny asks what period I have Mr. Murphy, I can’t help but bark, “Isn’t that enough of us trying to be friends?”

The question makes Danny jump back. And instead of feeling just terribly awkward, like I did two minutes ago, I now feel incredibly awkward and stupid.

“Um…” Danny taps the palm of his hand against his thigh and gives me a quizzical look. “I mean, I guess so. Yeah.”

It takes a few seconds for both of us to recover, but eventually we sit opposite each other at the nearest desks. I do my best to calm myself while I ruffle through my book bag. When I feel slightly okay, I pull out a notebook and write his name across the top of a clean page.

“Why don’t you tell me what books you’re reading in class and what papers you have due in the next couple of weeks, and then we can go from there.” I try to imitate my dad’s professor-voice because my own voice seems to be scaring Danny right now.

“You’re really organized. Aren’t you?” Danny taps his pencil against my notebook. I nod my head. “Do you want to see my syllabus?” he asks, playing with a hangnail on his ring finger.

Again, I nod and he hands me a stained sheet of paper. Then we sit until the silence becomes so thick and gooey that I force myself to say, “You have a paper due in two weeks, right?”

“Yep.” He taps his fingers on the desk. “It’s on
The Scarlet Letter.
”

“Have you finished reading it?”

“Nope.” He circles his foot repeatedly.

“Have you even started reading it?”

“Not so much,” he mumbles, and his foot jumps to warp speed.

“Look”—my own voice comes back and it’s slippery—“I can’t help you if you aren’t willing to do the work. I have things that I could be doing, too.” I lean back and give him the stare.

“Yeah? Like what?” He stares back.

“Stuff.”

“What stuff?” he asks.

“Stuff,” I repeat firmly.

“Like…?”

“Can we just focus on you?” I ask.

He leans forward and rests his head on his forearms. For a second, I think he’s about to go to sleep. Then, real lazylike, he asks, “So, what lunch wave do you have?”

“What difference does it make?”

“Just curious.” He sits back in his chair, chews on his lower lip.

“Just read the book, okay?” I’m not going to reveal that Marisol and I practically take lunch in another country. That’s none of his business.

“You don’t want to tell me about it before I start reading?” Danny asks, which is when I realize that he’s looking at me like I’m his own personal set of CliffsNotes.

“
What?
” Does he seriously think that just because I AM a nerd, a geek—whatever he wants to think about me—that I’m going to sit here and summarize the book for him like he’s in first grade? “I—I—I…” I’m so mad, I’m stuttering. “You—you promised Mr. Murphy. I can’t believe you haven’t even begun to read the book!”

I start to gather my things.

Danny looks at the clock on the wall and then back to me. “Hey, it’s only been twenty minutes!”

“And?” I stuff my notebook into my book bag and give the zipper a harsh tug.

“Hey—” Danny says again, but I’m already at the door. “I didn’t say I haven’t read it. I’ve read the first three chapters,” he mutters, flipping through the pages.

I turn back to the door. I pull it open.

“Hey,” this time his voice is pleading, and even though I know I shouldn’t, I can’t help myself, I look back. “You’ll be back next week, right?” he asks. I shrug my shoulders because I don’t know what I’d say if I actually opened my mouth to speak.

“Are you always this tough?” he asks with a crooked smile.

“Maybe,” I say. But the truth is I’m not.

the short list:

1. I don’t have a boyfriend.
   
2. I don’t have any friends beside Marisol.
   
3. When I grow up, I want to be a songwriter.
   
4. Marisol thinks that I’m obsessed with my mental health.
   
5. To date, I’ve had sixteen panic attacks.
   
6. My father says that I’ve had none.
   
7. My grandmother is so completely senile, she pins wads of toilet paper to the crotch of her underwear.
   
8. My mother died in a car accident when I was nine.
   
9. Whenever I smell Caress body wash, I think about her.
   

The long list:

1. I love learning. I hate school. I live for summer breaks. It’s about sixty days, during which time I do the following:
   
   • a. Days 1–10: Delete the noise in my head
     (Move, bitch; God, you are weird; I’m saving this seat, and that one. Yeah, that one, too.)
     
   • b. Days 11–40: Exist in a nontoxic, semicomatose state.
     
   • c. Days 41–60: Let Marisol ply her usual tactics of manipulation and lies to persuade me to return to school.
     (Nice people do live in this world, and once we graduate we will actually meet these people;
     Geek
     is a word to describe people so intellectually and emotionally advanced that civilization often misunderstands them, therefore, the term is a compliment;
     and my personal favorite:
     people who are assholes are only assholes because they secretly hate themselves so they want to make you hate yourself, too—and because of this reasoning, you should just ignore them anyway.)
     
2. I love Marisol. Is it gay to say that? Well, if it is, I’m going to go out on a limb and be heterosexually gay because I really do love her. Marisol makes me feel safe. She never gets frazzled. She’s totally solid. I cry…well, let’s just say that still waters run deep—like oceanic deep.
   
3. I am not being “self-conscious”: People have been saying that I was odd-looking since I was a little girl. Everyone still says it. Some are nice enough to say it behind my back. Others say it by my back, by my locker, on my locker with a red permanent marker that says
   OWL-GIRL
   and
   WHOOOOO
   . Sometimes…they say it to my face.
   

on friday, i browbeat myself into talking to mr. murphy after
English class. It takes eight students cutting in front of me, plus seven
um
s and sighs, before I’m able to form one complete sentence.

“Um…Mr. Murphy?” I say.

“Yes, Susie?” Mr. Murphy beams at me for no other reason than that’s how he is. “What can I do for you? I know this assignment hasn’t confused you, too.”

“No…um, the assignment’s fine. I mean, it’s great. You know I love Jane Austen. Um…” I clear my throat. “Really, I don’t have a problem with the assignment.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear that. Is there another reason you waited to speak with me?”

“Um…yeah. I wanted to…talk to you…about, about…Um. I wanted to talk to you about—”

“Danny Diaz?” Mr. Murphy interjects. He leans forward and gives me a concerned look.

“Yeah. Um…did Danny say something to you?”

It took days of internal warfare to psych myself up enough to speak to Mr. Murphy about this whole Danny situation. I never thought Danny would beat me to the punch.

“Well, Danny did mention that he was quite unprepared for your first session and that you were understandably upset. He assured me that he would not let you down a second time.”

So what? Danny was trying to play Mr. Murphy, too?

“The thing is, Mr. Murphy”—I pause to take a breath—“I don’t think I’m the right person to…help Danny.”

“Oh,” Mr. Murphy seems surprised, which surprises me because you would think he saw this coming. “Why is that?”

“Well…” The thing is when I practiced my speech—my “I’m quitting tutoring Danny Diaz” speech—I never considered that Mr. Murphy might turn it into a conversation. I thought I’d just quit and be done with it.

“Um…” The first step is to stall for time. “Um…” The second step is to repeat the first step. And the third step? Lie. “Well, I…think that Danny…might be more comfortable with someone…in his own grade.”

“Is that what he told you?” Mr. Murphy asks. He takes his glasses off and wipes them clean with his handkerchief.

“No…not in so many words. But he hinted at it.” Didn’t he?

“Well, Susie”—Mr. Murphy slides his glasses back into place—“I’ll definitely speak to Danny about his prejudice toward younger tutors, but I still believe that you are the best person for the job.”

“But Mr. Murphy,” I protest, “I don’t want Danny to feel uncomfortable. Can’t he get another tutor? How about Tamara Cruz? She’s a tutor, isn’t she?”

“Susie,” Mr. Murphy says patiently, “Tamara’s a sophomore, too. And if she were a junior, I would still say no because I believe that you are the right tutor for Danny. Is there something you’re not telling me? Some legitimate reason why you can’t tutor him?”

“Um…” And here’s where I start to consider the unthinkable. I start to think that my only way out of this terrible situation is to tattle on Danny. So I take a deep breath to prepare myself because if that’s what I have to do, that’s what I’ll do.

“Look, Mr. Murphy, the truth is…The truth”—I clear my throat—“The truth is…I’m nervous that I’m going to do a bad job and he’ll fail.”

I guess I am a lot of things, just not a tattletale.

“Susie,” Mr. Murphy says, “you’re just going to have to trust me on this. I know you’re the right tutor for Danny. I believe this. And I believe in you. Will you trust me?” He smiles, that wonderfully open smile of his.

“Yes, Mr. Murphy.” My shoulders slump in defeat.

“Good.” He rises from his desk and pulls out a piece of paper with a tiny doodle in the corner. “Now, I’m glad you stayed after. I wanted to talk to you about your Jane Austen paper. Absolutely brilliant. How do you do it?” he asks, with a wink.

“I don’t know, Mr. Murphy.” I let out a sigh. “I just do.”