It was fair to say I went berserk once she finally hung up with Principal Unger, who seemed more akin to a mad dictator than to a high school principal. “Oh my god, oh my god,” I kept saying, my ears buzzing as I paced the Barbour family’s kitchen, circling their island again and again. “I can’t believe we’re doing this. This is so irresponsible—beyondirresponsible. Oh my god, oh mygod!”
“Hey, it’s going to be okay,” Grace said, though there was a rasp in her throat. She was rattled, too.
But not enough to grab our backpacks and hurry so we caught the last few minutes of homeroom.
“Relax,” she told me instead.
“Relax?” I exclaimed. “Relax?G, Principal Unger just called you! What if she calls my parents next?” I began blinking at the possibility, so rapidly that I came close to seeing spots. It was one of my nervous tics. I never fainted, but from the quick and quiet steps Grace took toward me, she’d be ready to catch me if I did. (We never hesitated during the trust exercise in gym class.) James took a different approach during these moments; he simply pulled me into his arms, my body melting into his when he hugged me tight. “Principal Unger’s going to call them,” I blurted. “She’s going to call them, isn’tshe?”
“No,she isn’t.” Grace shook her head. “Principal Unger isn’t in charge of tracking attendance. It’s a secretarial duty.”
Secretarial duty.
Suddenly, the black spots in the air dissipated.
“It was James who called me, Isa,” Grace emphasized, guiding me back to my barstool. Her voice had returned to its confident cadence. “So I’m sure he mentioned to Unger that I was sick, but because he’s James”—she made a wild but vague gesture with her hands—“she didn’t believe him.” She wrinkled her nose, trying to make me smile. “Rude, right?”
But I didn’t smile—or speak. All I did was nod, my stomach swishing.
You can’t do this,the angel on my right shoulder whispered.This isn’t you, Isabel.
(The angel sounded a lot like my mother.)
Then I felt a prodding on my left shoulder.Do it…,the devil coaxed. These days it sounded like James, but it used to be Grace in her mischievous childhood years—coaxing me to do things like paint James’s nails while he napped on the basement couch.Take a chance, Isa!
Three seconds later, I’d whipped out my phone, fumbled to find the number in my contacts, and before I could inhale for good luck, there was a click. “Hello,” a familiar voice said (too brightly in my opinion). “This is Sophia Flamporis at Council Rock North—”
I kept it neat and tidy.
I kept it clipped.
And somehow, I kept it kind.
I kept it like Mamá.
“Good morning, Sophia,” I said. “This is Pilar Cruz speaking. I’m calling to let you know that my daughter Isabel will not be in school today.” I didn’t give Mrs.Flamporis a breath to respond. “We have a family emergency. I would prefer not to go into specifics.”
“Oh my,” the school secretary said. “I’m so sorry to hear that, Mrs.Cruz. I hope everything is okay. I will be sure to input Isa’s absence in our system….”
Isa’s absence.
It nearly knocked the wind out of me. Gone was my perfect attendance record. Future Isa would have to brainstorm a reason for why I wasn’t receiving an award at the end of the year. My parents would wonder.
And thenask,because even if I insisted it must’ve been a “clerical error,” they would counter-insist on rectifying it.
I got into Brown,I wanted to say.Brown accepted me!
Brown is not Harvard or Princeton,I could imagine Mamá saying.
Because she’d already said it, a few weeks ago. All I’d wanted to do, for once in my life, was skip an extra credit assignment for AP English. I already had an A in the class, and Grace had planned an impromptu spa night at her house. But when I’d asked my parents, they had shut me down.
“You’ll get off a waitlist, hija mía,” Papá said later. “Someone will pick Harvard over Princeton, and Princeton over Harvard.” He nodded, his belief in me shining in his eyes. “You’re atop candidate and will end up at the top school. Valedictorian will only sweeten the pot, too.”
I’d smiled before going up to my room to bail on Grace and her hot stone massage kit so I could start that essay. But as my fingers mindlessly flew over my keyboard, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Harvard wasn’t going to happen.
And that maybe I didn’t want it to.
I refocused on Mrs.Flamporis and my fake family emergency. “Thank you. My husband and I appreciate your well-wishes,” I told the secretary. “Isabel, too.” I paused. Mrs. Flamporis was chatty. “Yes, thanks again. Have a niceday.”
