Chapter 19

It is simply a fact of life that nothing is going to get accomplished on the first Monday after spring break. Everyone has to tell all their friends where they were and who they saw and who said what to whom and why all of this was just sooo important. The teachers usually just give up. Mr. Kennedy spent the first half of Government, in fact, quizzing Jesse and Hal Stonerider and me about the results of our baseball tournament.

When I wrote that the teachers usually just give up, of course, you knew that I didn't mean to include Mrs. Palmer. Mrs. Palmer collected all of our essays at the beginning of class, and then started a discussion of Captain Ahab. It quickly became clear from the sighs throughout the room that a number of my classmates weren't in complete accord with Mrs. Palmer's views of the captain, and were now wishing that they had written their papers on some other subject. Apparently, they hadn't yet figured out that Mrs. Palmer only cared if it was well-written.

In Religion, Mrs. Jenkins announced that there would be another test on Friday, when we would end our study of the "historical" books of the Old Testament. On the following Monday, we would begin the "prophetic' books, beginning with Isaiah. As I was writing myself a note to remind myself to let Tanya know about the test and the new assignment, I became conscious of a sort of buzzing in the classroom. I looked up and saw people trading excited whispers as Mrs. Jenkins finished writing the assignment on the blackboard. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why.

We had a baseball game that afternoon against Garden City, one of our toughest opponents. At least that's what Coach claimed. On the bus trip there, he tried to motivate us by telling us that the Gardeners were still stinging from the beating we gave them in last year's league playoffs, and that they were loaded for bear this year. We really didn't hear anything after "Gardeners," though. The final outcome demonstrated, better than anything else, that we weren't quite prepared to take the "Garden City Gardeners" seriously. Particularly once Matt asked them if they had a lot of hoes at their school. It was hard to imagine that they hadn't heard it all before, but it still riled them up. After they scored four in the bottom of the first and two more in the bottom of the second, Cary Roberts sat down next to Matt and told him in no uncertain words to shut the fuck up. It was too late. We scored a few runs ourselves, but Matt and Eddie combined for three more errors and we ended up losing 12-4.

The bus ride back home was a sort of surreal experience. The second tournament game was the only sporting event in my life that I had any memory at all of losing, and I had reacted by ripping Matt's television cord out of the wall of his motel room. But we'd all gone back to our rooms after the brief trip to the motel, so this was really the first time that I had seen how the whole team reacted to adversity. They reacted pretty much the same way that they had to success. The bus trip back from Bishop Connor two weeks ago had been full of guys laughing, rough-housing, and bragging about girls they had never gone out with, The bus trip back from Garden City was full of the same guys, who appeared to have forgotten the game as soon as it was over. There were a few exceptions, of course. Cary sat up front with Jesse, going over the pitches that they'd been successful with and the ones that hadn't worked out quite as well. Coach sat in front with his assistant, Coach Craig, as if they were resigned to a season of games like this. Tommy and Rabbit were off in their own little calculus world, quietly trying to figure out something their teacher had stumped them with earlier in the day.

Maybe this was how it always worked. Forget the loss, concentrate on the next game. So I just sat next to Bobby Bunt as he dozed off. I still took pride in the fact that after thirteen innings I had an earned run average of zero. And hell, we were still 4-2, although that came out to 2-1 in league play.

I called Tanya that evening, and we traded stories on what had happened while she was out of town. It was a very one-sided conversation. After she told me about visiting her grandmother, we were quickly into re-runs on her network. I told her about my SAT score, and she shrieked with delight, particularly since my highest score had come on the writing portion for which she had been my ostensible tutor. I told her about Jill, which also pleased her. And I told her about our ball game, which she quickly dismissed as an aberration. Then I told her about Religion, about the test and the assignment, and I asked her if she had any idea why the book of Isaiah would cause such a stir in Religion class. She just sighed.

"Tanya?"

"It's just I wish we'd started with another book. The Christian gospels are all written to treat Isaiah as a sort of prediction of the coming of the Messiah. Have you ever listened to the Messiah?"

It sounded like opera, and the answer, in any event, was definitely no.

"Well," she said, "it's loaded with passages from Isaiah, to give the idea that Jesus' arrival as the Messiah was all pre-ordained. So I just have the feeling that next week I'm going to be a very lonely voice in a very loud crowd."

"Don't worry," I assured her. "I'll be there for you."

"I know it," she sighed.

To be honest, it didn't sound as if she knew it. At the moment, though, I had more to worry about than whether Tanya thought I was going to take the Christian side in Religion class next week. For example, I still had a Religion test this week, and the A, rather than the A-plus, I had received on the first test we had taken, was still on Mrs. Jenkins's book. I knew that I had to buckle down and study for this test, so that's exactly what I did, pretty much to the exclusion of anything else.

Excluding Tanya didn't turn out to be that hard. I had sort of forgotten that her other set of friends — the ones we'd had lunch with oh so many months ago when she'd first rescued me from Coventry in the cafeteria — were all yearbook types. It turned out that Tanya was actually the editor of the faculty section. And as the editor of the faculty section, she was going to be busy every afternoon that week with final preparations for getting the yearbook to the publishers. From my standpoint, though, she couldn't have picked a better week. She was happy in her world; I was cramming like hell in mine. The thought of what another A on a Religion test would do to my quest for UVA was enough to overcome, temporarily at least, my other obsession. We did make plans to go to the hastily scheduled choir concert on Saturday evening. Mr. Collins was apparently so taken with the success of the tour that he decided an immediate performance was needed. Ann O'Hara was fully recovered, of course, and would perform her duet. But Jill was going to be in the Three Little Maids.

Excluding the non-Tanya aspects of my life was not that hard, either, although in retrospect, I would have been better off with, say, a slightly wider focus. For example, I really didn't pay sufficient attention to the third round of tryouts for "The Sound of Music." I had no intention of trying out myself, of course. My knowledge of "The Sound of Music" was limited to the movie, and Julie Andrews' freakishly high singing voice. From what I knew of the characters in the movie, the only one I was qualified to play was the goat. And he was a puppet.

Originally, of course, there weren't supposed to be any more tryouts. Jeanne had tried out at the first set, three weeks ago now. Then there was a second set, on the following Tuesday. Mr. Collins was supposed to announce the cast after we came back from spring break. Instead, while Jeanne and Jill and I were doing dishes together on Monday evening, Jeanne had glumly informed us that there was a new sign posted outside the music room, indicating that yet another round of tryouts was to be held the following afternoon.

"Why?" I asked.

"I don't know," Jeanne answered. "Do you think he's unhappy with who tried out? Like, what's the point of more tryouts?"

Jill grabbed Jeanne's arm, nearly quivering with excitement.

"You mean I can try out?" she asked, her eyes alight. "Oh, god, I could be, like one of your daughters."

"What daughters?" I asked.

"You know," she dismissed the question. "When that nun chick —"

"— Maria," Jeanne interjected.

"— marries the old guy —"

"— Captain von Trapp."

"— she gets like ten kids."

Jeanne was smiling now, too.

"That would be cool," Jeanne said. "You could be Liesl, the oldest one. She and Maria have a duet together. Or the Mother Abbess. She and Maria have a duet together, too."

"Wait a minute," I asked. "This is another mother?"

Jeanne sighed at my ignorance.

"The head of the convent," she told me.

When that didn't make any obvious impression, she tried another idea.

"The chief nun."

"Aaah," I nodded.

"Of course, that is supposed to be Ann's role," Jeanne mused.

"Yeah, and I think she'd make a better nun," Jill laughed.

"Wait a minute," I said. "This is Ann O'Hara?"

"Yeah," Jeanne agreed.

Jill was right. Ann would make a better nun. She was just a little chunky. Putting a body like Jill's in a nun's outfit would be a crime against humanity. Well, a crime against men, at any rate.

"Okay," I said. "Help me out here. This is Ann O'Hara who's in my class, right? So if she can sing duets in French and all, how come she's not going to be this Maria?"

Jeanne smiled.

"It's tradition," she explained. "You get your big role in eleventh grade and then in twelfth grade you sort of mentor the next girl coming along. So last year Ann was Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, and this year she's supposed to be the mother abbess. She has some really great songs. She sings 'My Favorite Things' with Maria and then she sings 'Climb Ev'ry Mountain.'"

Jeanne launched into the last two lines "Climb Ev'ry Mountain," — "Follow ev'ry rainbow, 'tiiiiiiiil yoooouuuu fiiiiiiind yooooour dreeeeeam" — and then burst into laughter.

"Those are the only lines I know. I've sort of been practicing Maria's songs," she said shyly before she turned to Jill. "Anyway, it's tomorrow after school. I'll come with you. You just sing that French song."

So we had a plan.

In addition to the musical, I didn't pay enough attention to Astronomy. During Wednesday's lab, Cammie asked me what time I wanted to get together on Friday night.

I looked over at her. Why would I want to get together with Cammie Rowe on Friday night? I mean, other than the obvious. More important, why would Cammie Rowe want to get together, or even be willing to get together, with me on Friday night? I hadn't skipped any more time, had I?

She sat there, waiting for an answer, and I finally blurted out, "seven-thirty?"

"Seems kind of early, don't you think? I don't think the sun sets until almost eight."

"Eight-thirty?" I asked.

"Okay," she said as the bell rang to signal the end of class. "Don't make me call you this time. This is your project, remember?"

Oh, shit.

Needless to say, that killed any spare time I had for the rest of the week. As much as I was motivated by getting an A-plus in Astronomy, I suspect that there was also a part of me that didn't want Cammie to think of me as any more of a fuck-up than she already did. So I ended up dividing my time on Wednesday and Thursday nights, as well as Thursday study halls, between studying for the Religion test and setting up a schedule for my observations on Friday evening. There was a chance of rain on Friday night, which would make visiting the observatory a little pointless, but I wasn't going to count on that. I stayed up until one o'clock on Wednesday night, but I could only make it to midnight the next night.

I was very happy with my performance on the Religion test. As far as I could tell, I nailed every question. Astronomy didn't go quite as well. Cammie had to correct a few things I had done. But she was okay with that. We were lab partners. That was what lab partners did for each other. And she was impressed with my preparation, particularly the little grid that I had copied from her. Finally, at eleven-thirty, we were done.

"God, I'm exhausted," I slumped back in my chair as Cammie handed over the observations that she had recorded.

"Fortunately, it's the weekend," she said.

"For you," I laughed. "I got a game tomorrow."

"Oh, that's right," she smiled. "A big one, right?"

"They're all big, kid," I said, standing up and stretching.

"Asshole. Rabbit says that Montgomery's supposed to have a good team this year."

"Yeah, but I'll be pitching," I winked at her.

"Asshole. You know today's Friday the thirteenth, don't you?"

"Are you serious?"

"Why?" she laughed. "Don't tell me you're superstitious. Oh wait, you are. Jeanne told me she had to park in the same space when you took your SAT last time."

She was having a good old giggle at my expense.

"Very funny. So you coming to the game?

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Marsh Alien

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