Chapter 9

The car wouldn't start on Monday morning, so Jeanne and I had to race to catch the bus. It seemed like a bad omen to me, but once I got to school, I decided that maybe I had just gotten my bad luck out of the way really early. Because there, on the steps of the school, handing out a piece of paper to every student who walked by him, was Mr. Bob Hastings, who gave me a grin as I approached.

"I hope everything is to your satisfaction, Mr. Sterling," he said as he gave me a copy of his handout. "Your scholarship offers will be back in place today, your tryouts start again next week. We can't actually control the expulsion hearing, but I don't think it'll be a problem. And here's your letter."

"Thank you, sir," I smiled. "I hope you're getting overtime for being here so early."

"Damn right," he smiled back at me.

I don't know what kind of letter I'd expected. The chances of Stephie just saying "I'm sorry, I lied" were probably pretty slim to begin with. But this letter was odd, and I was just going to have to wait to find out whether it did what I wanted it to, namely, restore me to the good graces of the Marshall High student body.

I didn't have to wait long. Mrs. Palmer altered her usual schedule at the beginning of our third period seminar.

"We're going to take a little break today, people," she began in a stern voice, "and temporarily suspend the fascinating discussion we began last week on Mr. Melville. I always believe in calling attention to excellent writing, and I found an example of it this morning in my mailbox."

She handed me the papers for my row. After I'd passed the stack back to Missy, I realized it was a copy of the letter I'd been given this morning.

"You'll note that I have redacted the name of its author as well as another name in the letter," Mrs. Palmer said. "Do you know what 'redacted' means, Mister..."

She looked down at her class list.

"Sterling?"

I looked up to see her smiling at me.

"Crossed out with a big ol' magic marker, ma'am?" I asked.

The class tittered.

"Exactly," she nodded. "Now let's all take a minute to read the letter first."

My fellow students, I was thrilled this weekend to learn that I have been accepted into Richmond Arms, the prestigious private academy from which both my mother and my grandmother graduated, for this final semester. As a result, I will not be returning to school this spring. Before I leave, though, I feel responsible for correcting a mistaken impression that a number of you may have received during the past two weeks. As many of you know, I am a very creative person, and have often regaled you with fantastic tales and scenarios. Of course, my previous boyfriend, █████████ would have played a large part in some of those tales and scenarios. Recently, however, it occurred to me that some of you may have misinterpreted those stories in a way that would lead you to reflect poorly on █████████. Accordingly, I feel compelled to tell you that to the extent that you may have inferred that he ever actually engaged in any of the activities I may have included in my tales, you may wish to apologize to him for those thoughts. I will certainly only ever have the best memories of my time at John Marshall High School, and wish all of you well in the years to come. Sincerely, █████████

"It almost reads like it was written by a lawyer, doesn't it, Mr. Sterling?" Mrs. Palmer asked.

"The guy who was handing these out kinda looked like a lawyer, too, ma'am," I agreed.

"Very good," she said. "Is everyone done? Okay, let's begin. We'll leave aside for the moment this business about Richmond Arms. There are two ways of getting into Richmond Arms — grades and money. The better the grades, the lower the tuition, and vice versa. In this case, I suspect the young lady's parents —Richmond is a girls' school, so we know the author, or let's say the signer, is a young lady — her parents finally decided to fork over enough money to meet the magic figure."

The class giggled at that.

"I also want to note that I personally was unaware of this creativity this young lady claims to possess," she continued. "That surprises me, of course, because I personally edit the school's creative writing journal. But be that as it may, let's turn to the fifth sentence, where it turns out that some of us here at Marshall may have misinterpreted this young lady's fantasies. I'm sure that by now you're all familiar with those apologies that start out, 'I'm sorry if you took offense at what I said.' I'm not sorry I called you a dingbat; I'm sorry that you, for whatever reason —"

The class burst into laughter as she threw out her arms and rolled her eyes.

"—considered that to be offensive. To you personally.

"This letter, people, is even better than that. It's not her fault, it's not the fault of the person whose reputation she's been trashing all over school. No, it's the fault of all of us for inferring the wrong thing. What's the difference between inferring and implying, Miss... Kennedy?"

"You imply something in your own speech," Sheila Kennedy said, "but it's your listener who infers something from it."

"Exactly," Mrs. Palmer said. "And apparently I've been guilty of this as well. So I would like to take advantage of this opportunity to issue a general apology, here in front of all of you, for ever even thinking that this nonsense might be true. And I commend this letter to you if any of you, God forbid, ever want to become lawyers. Now, let's get back to Mr. Bartleby."

I sat next to Cammie in Astronomy the following period, because Aaron was still out, and she gave me a punch in the arm. Which was probably as good as I was going to get from Cammie. I sat next to a very pleased Tanya in Religion and at lunch, surrounded by tables filled with other kids who were no longer convinced that I had typhoid.

Finally, after school had ended, I walked into the principal's office with a half-suppressed grin, joining "Pete," Superintendent Frostman, and Liz Torianni. Pete shuffled a few papers on his desk, and then called the hearing to order.

"Due to some, uh, new information that I have received," he started officiously, "it has been determined that the recommendation that Patrick Sterling be expelled from Marshall High School cannot proceed, and that it should be withdrawn."

He droned on for a bit, but I was too busy grinning at Liz Torianni to pay much attention. Fifteen minutes later, I opened the door to the outer office and saw Rachel Carter looking at me hopefully. The bench that took up the entire length of the wall opposite the counter was filled with my friends, also all looking hopeful: Tanya, Jeanne, Rabbit, and Cammie. And Sammy Houghtaling, who was apparently going to be one of my new friends.

"Well?" Tanya asked after I paraded out in silence

I curved my fingers and blew on my fingernails before rubbing them on my chest.

"It's going to be sponged from my record," I announced proudly.

"Expunged," Liz corrected me as she followed me out and shut the door behind her.

"Ex-sponged," I agreed.

Liz just shook her head and laughed.

"And I owe it all to the support of my friends," I said, smiling at Rachel Carter before I turned back to Tanya. "Looks like you'll have to go to the dance with me after all."

She smiled back.

"How about you guys?" I asked the others. "You all goin' discoin' next weekend?"

Cammie and Rabbit were nodding; Jeanne was looking intently at Sammy, who was staring at his shoes.

"Oh, fer cryin' out loud, Sammy Houghtaling," I said. "What are you waitin' for, an engraved invitation? Come on, buddy, ya snooze, ya lose. The tide waits for no man. Wait not, want not. Help me out here, Ms. Torianni."

"I think you're doing fine," Liz laughed. "Although I think it's 'waste not, want not."

"That, too, Sammy Houghtaling," I said.

By now everyone was looking at Sammy.

He swallowed hard.

"Um, Jeanne," he asked, "would you like to go to the dance with me?"

"I'll think about it," Jeanne threw her head up in the air.

"You'll what?" I stared at her.

"Okay, I'll go," Jeanne said. She turned to me. "What, you want everyone to think I'm easy?"

As everyone laughed, I remembered my manners.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Torianni," I said. "This is my friend Tanya, my sister Jeanne, my friend Rabbit, my friend Cammie, and Jeanne's date, Sammy."

"Tanya, it's nice to meet you," Liz shook hands. "Jeanne I remember from gym last year, Rabbit I know from the team, and who are you again?"

"You're the bitch that coaches the volleyball team, aren't you?" Cammie said with a grin.

"Very funny, Rowe," Liz said. "That's gonna cost you two laps after practice today. Sammy, it's a pleasure. You're a lucky guy. I've got to run. Trick, I have no idea what happened today, but I'm very happy that it worked out for you."

She gave me a hug and left, and then I introduced Rachel to all my friends as well. Finally, Jeanne and I headed out to walk home together. Tanya lived in the other direction, and Sammy kindly offered to drop her off on his way home.

"Thanks for waiting," I said to Jeanne when we reached the sidewalk.

"Thanks for giving Sammy the push," Jeanne answered.

"Oh, he'd've gotten there," I said.

"Yeah, maybe the day before the dance," Jeanne said. "And I'd've had to scramble around to find something to wear."

"So Cammie plays volleyball?" I asked after a short pause.

Jeanne stopped short, forcing me to turn around to look back at her.

"Are you serious?" she asked. "What the fuck is the matter with you?"

"Why?" I asked.

"Do you seriously mean to tell me that you have no memory of that horrible, godawful dance you had to do with Cammie at the sports banquet last year, when you were both Athletes of the Year? Where you could have fit, like, two people in between you while you were dancing?"

We started walking again, in silence.

"I think I've been trying to kinda blank out all the really asshole things I did over the last couple of years," I finally said. "Part of starting over, I guess."

"Well, starting over is good," Jeanne said. "If anybody needed to start over, it's you."

Bobby Bunt joined me on the bus on Tuesday morning, returning the world to its usual orbit. Dad had promised to work on the car that evening — actually, to help Jeanne and I work on the car that evening — but we'd be riding the bus for at least another day.

"So I notice you hangin' out with that Tawny Skurchinko chick," Bobby said.

"Shur-chenk-o," I corrected him coldly. "Tanya Szerchenko."

"Yeah, yeah," he said. "You athletes get all the pussy."

"We're just friends," I said.

"Yeah, Trickster," he said with a knowing look. "Just friends."

I looked down at my book.

"Friends with benefits, though, right?" he asked.

"I'm sorry?" I looked back up at him.

"Hey, no offense, man," he grinned at me. "Those are some pretty nice benefits, if ya know what I mean."

Actually, I had no idea what he meant. The expression "friends with benefits" hadn't been in wide circulation when I was a ninth-grader, back in 2003, at least not in my crowd.

"What exactly are you talking about?" I asked him.

"You know, benefits," Bobby looked at me like I was from Mars. "You know, bennie meaning good, fit meaning fit. You know, a nice tight fit."

He waggled his eyebrows and I was still none the wiser.

"Jeez, man," he looked at the blank expression on my face. "You know. Squeak, squeak, squeak."

He began to crudely thrust the forefinger of his right hand in and out of his left fist through his curled left forefinger.

That's when I realized what he was talking about.

And that's when I took a swing at him.

I missed — the little bastard was faster than I thought — which is why I didn't get suspended. I still found myself sitting in Pete's office with Coach Torianni during my sixth period study hall, though.

"Geez, Trick, thank God you didn't hit him," Pete said, trying to be my buddy again. "You could have been suspended."

"So you just missed him?" Coach asked.

"He's a fast little son of a bitch," I said. "I hit the frame of the window on the bus."

Coach sat up.

"You didn't hurt anything, did you?" he asked. "We got another tryout on Thursday."

"No, it was my right hand," I said as I flexed it. "'We'll' be fine."

Coach examined the hand, flexing it even more than I had. If Coach had been a doctor, he'd have had his license suspended.

"So this was that Bunt kid?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said.

"And he's fast?" Coach asked.

"Faster than me," I shrugged. "Why?"

"He was the last kid I cut last year," he answered. "If he's fast, he could end up battin' leadoff this year. You need to make sure you get along with all your teammates, Trick. You're gonna need all the runs you can get this year."

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