Chapter Twenty

twenty

The right amount of time to spend on a community college campus is exactly the duration that a class requires. Not a second more, but often, a minute or two less. In two and a half years, I’ve never once stepped foot onto the Weymouth campus for anything that wasn’t required—not for a speaker series, not for a sporting event, and certainly not for tutoring (although maybe it would’ve helped). But on this fully frozen Monday morning, when my calendar app buzzed thirty minutes before an optional study session, I rolled out of bed and started defrosting my car.

Desperate times, as they say, call for desperate last-minute cram sessions.

“Are we ready for the next slide?” Professor Meyers scans the half-filled classroom of C-and-below students and, receiving zero response, clacks her space bar. The projected image shifts to a new page of study guide answers, a fresh crop of buzzwords that I understand even less than the first set.

Maybe desperate is too generous to describe my situation. Doomed might be a little more accurate.

The class marks their wrong answers in silence, and I drum my pen against the gray laminate table, gradually picking up speed until someone has the audacity to shush me. It’s me versus this study guide in a battle for a 98 on this final. A losing battle, sure, but with the “schmooze your way to an A” plan off the table, it’s my only hope. At least it’s better than the 124 I needed last semester. I check off the last wrong answer on my study guide and calculate my score: a triumphant 68. That leaves me four days left to get 30 points better before Friday’s final, or else I’ll be left with two miserable options: take this class a third time or give up on college altogether. I’m not sure which would be worse.

“Are there any specific questions anyone would like to review?” Professor Meyers’s gaze flickers toward me with hopeful skepticism. “Anyone?”

I blink into the fluorescent lights, comparing the correct answers on the screen to the chicken scratch on my packet. Before I can decide if I’m too proud to actively participate in a study session, my seat partner raises his hand.

“Samuel?”

The frail-looking boy next to me offers up a question that I left blank. Much like I would’ve done with the question “What is your seat partner’s name?” had it been asked ten seconds ago.

Professor Meyers uncaps her dry-erase marker and draws a big, red diagram that takes up most of the white board. If she had a feedback box, I’d suggest any color marker but red. I already see enough of it all over my tests. “So there’s Company A and Company B.” She barely glances at the study guide, reciting the question by heart. “If Company A signs a contract to provide services to Company B for one hundred thousand dollars, and payment is complete before any work has been started, what journal entry does Company A record on this date?”

I flip through my notebook in search of anything about journal entries. Would you believe that I’ve taken the same notes two semesters in a row and still can’t retain this garbage? Maybe accounting is just something I’m not meant to know.

“Murphy?”

Fuck.

I look up from my notes and directly into the expectant eyes of Kara Meyers. Fuck it, here’s my best shot. “Um, debit cash credit revenue?”

Her smile wavers. “Close. It’s debit cash credit deferred revenue. Let’s look at the timeline.”

I sink into my seat, the base of my head knocking against the back of my chair. I don’t want to look at the timeline. I want to look at the inside of my eyelids or the WCC parking lot as I’m pulling away. But I guess if I wanted to avoid stuff I already learned, maybe I should’ve passed the class on the first go-round.

My left leg bounces in time with the low tick of the wall clock, each passing second introducing a new reason why I should get up and give up.

Tick . My chair has no lumbar support.

Tick . My pen is dying.

Tick . Professor Kara Meyers can’t go more than a few minutes without staring me down.

The next time she looks in my direction, I force a smile, and she studies me with the same concentration I should be putting into this review session. Is she waiting for me to speak up? To leave? Last we interacted, I was fleeing her house like it was on fire, muttering some unconvincing excuse as to why her daughter—my alleged girlfriend—might have skipped town without telling me. If the two of them talk as infrequently as Ellie let on, Professor Meyers probably has some questions beyond the ones on the study guide.

An hour of review questions slips away like a good summer, and with five minutes left of class, Professor Meyers opens the floor for one last question. Half a dozen hands shoot into the air, but mine isn’t one of them. If my seat were closer to the front, I might just slip out the door and pretend none of this ever happened, that I never fooled myself into thinking a ninety-minute study session or an elaborate lie to a professor would save my grade. Sadly, I’m stuck in the second to last row, and if I tried to sneak out early, it’d be a whole thing. Instead, I endure the last question of the day: what are all of the elements in a basic financial statement? I actually know this one, which should make me feel marginally better. It doesn’t.

The session ends with the usual shuffling of papers and zipping of backpacks, but my low-scoring study guide has long since been packed away. I sling my backpack over my shoulder and, although I’m in the back of the classroom, make a serious go at being one of the first out.

“As a reminder, the study guide is also available on the Weymouth Student Portal, in case you’ve finished yours and want a fresh copy,” Professor Meyers shouts over the horrible, squeaky rumble of chairs scooting along tile flooring. Oh, to be the kind of person who does the optional study guide not only once, but multiple times. “Number-two pencils only to the final and one note card with equations written on it…Oh, Murphy, would you mind hanging back for a minute?”

My feet freeze to the tile beneath them. I would mind, actually. I need to be anywhere but here. I try to invent a convincing excuse to leave—a doctor’s appointment, a barista shift, a life-saving medical procedure. What comes out instead is, “Yeah, sure.” I guess my lying abilities have officially run dry.

While the rest of the class files out, Professor Meyers steadies herself against the edge of her desk, waiting until it’s just the two of us. Something in the silence feels like the earliest stages of a future recurring nightmare. When the last student leaves, she looks me square in the eye, and I’m shocked that I don’t instantly turn to stone, ice, or an anxious mess.

“How are you doing, Murphy?”

How am I doing? With regards to what? Her hopelessly vague question garners a hopelessly vague response. “I’m all right, I guess.”

“You guess?” she prods. “How are you feeling about the exam?”

My nerves settle a little. We’re talking about school. Good.

“I feel…all right.” I’m repeating myself, but I don’t have a better word. “Not bad, not good.”

“How’d the study guide go?”

“Better than last semester.”

The pitying look on her face says what we both know. It’s not hard to do better than last semester.

“I, uh. I did the math on my grade, and I think I might pass if I can somehow manage to pull off a ninety-eight on the exam,” I say.

Kara lifts one brow, reaching behind her for her laptop. “I think that’s backward. It should be eighty-nine.” She clicks her trackpad a few times, all of her frown lines making an appearance as she scrolls, then puts the laptop back in its place and punches a few numbers into her phone calculator. It’s reassuring to know that even an accounting professor doesn’t trust her mental math. After a few more audibly heavy-handed taps, she rotates her phone toward me, showing off the giant white number on the screen: 0.891. I may suck at math, but even I know that’s eighty-nine percent. “That’s what you need.”

My gaze bounces from the calculator up to her face, checking for any tells. The flat line of her mouth doesn’t budge an inch. Why did she know the score I needed already? Did she bump my grade up out of mercy since I last checked it, or did I really do the math wrong? The second seems more likely, but neither are impossible. Either way, the difference between an A and a B+ may not be much, but it’s the jump between “almost perfect score” and “normal grade that normal people get.” I could be normal people, if I study really hard. Maybe.

“You’ve taken this final before,” Professor Meyers says, as if I need the reminder. “I haven’t changed it. Really focus on the study guide and the back half of the textbook.”

“Got it. I will. I mean I have been.” I straighten a little, collecting myself. “Thanks, Professor Meyers.”

“Just Kara is fine.”

“Thanks, Kara.” Her name feels as clunky on my tongue as it did last week.

“That wasn’t the reason I asked you to hang back though.” She shuffles behind her desk, her eyes darting around in search of…what? A letter from Ellie? A secret advance copy of the final exam with the answers all filled in? She reaches under her desk and pulls out a big pink bowl with a matching pink lid. Ah, right. My Tupperware. Of course.

“I hope it’s all right that we finished the puppy chow.” When she hands the container off, something jostles inside. If not puppy chow, then what?

“Is there something in here?”

Kara shrugs, but her lips hint at a smile. “Something from Ellie.”

I slip a thumb beneath the lid, preparing to pop it open, then stop myself at the last second. Given the events of the last few days, I think keeping Kara in the dark is for the best. “Great,” I say. “Well, I’ll see you on Friday.” I don’t even bother putting on my coat; I grab it with one hand and hold the Tupperware clamped to my torso with the other. Not that it’s heavy, but that if anything happened that might cause me not to find out what’s in here, I’d lose sleep.

“One last question,” Professor Meyers says, catching me just before I slip out the door. “I know Ellie is busy with final projects, but we keep missing each other. Have you heard from her lately?”

“Um, not very much.” I guess I had one last lie in me after all.

“All right,” she says. “Thanks, dear.”

“No problem, Professor Kara,” I say, losing my brain entirely.

Outside, the wind is wicked, but the sun is shining, giving me that “frozen turkey under a heat lamp” feeling that Illinois winters always seem to deliver on. I grip my Tupperware tight to keep it from blowing out of my arms. When I reach my car, I toss my backpack in the back seat next to my stash bag and a half dozen empty coffee cups, a small shrine to my vices and a reminder I should clean my car. The Tupperware, however, comes with me to the front seat, and my hands shake just the tiniest bit as I pop the lid off. Inside, the rough edge of a sheet of watercolor paper curls up the side of the bowl, warping a painting of a small brick building with a pine-green awning and a big, white baseball on the front. With a felt tip pen, Ellie has written the name of the bar in crisp black lines: Murphy’s Bleachers. Beneath the awning, there are two tiny figures: a blonde in Yankee navy and a brunette in Cubby blue.

It’s not until I’m home and remove it from the bowl that I realize the painting isn’t all—taped to the back is a page ripped out of a notebook with four short sentences scribbled in black ink.

Kara is thankful for company.

Otto is thankful for the guy who let him borrow the smoker.

Carol is thankful for leftover mashed potatoes.

Ellie is thankful for Murphy.