Home is Where You Are (18 page)

“Cinnamon raisin bagel with crea
m cheese.”

Dean hands me my bagel and leans over the counter to kiss me goodbye. “Have fun at school
, Preppy.” This has become our normal routine for the last week.

“Enough of this lovey-dovey nonsense
, we have other customers.” Marv bumps Dean on his arm.

“Hi Marv,” I say with my best smile.

“You are looking lovely as usual.”

“You always know what to say to make a girl blush.”

“Hey, enough of this lovey-dovey nonsense,” Dean says, staring at Marv.

“I’m the boss which means I can do what I want.
” Marv laughs to himself then walks away shaking his head to help the next person in line.

“I’ll meet you at the library
after school?”

“
Sure. I don’t have to be at the soup kitchen until at least four, so I’ll have time to sneak some studying in.”

“Studying, is
that what you kids call it these days?” Marv says from over Dean’s shoulder. I laugh and almost spit my tea at Dean.

Dean and I try to spend our time studying, but we always find ourselves in the back section by the history books. Nobody ever goes back there which m
akes it the perfect place to make-out.

I get to school a half hour early, just like every other day this week. Five students are here today in addition to Susie.
Tutoring was always for my college apps, but I’m actually enjoying my time here. Vicky raises her hand, and I pull a chair over to her desk. She’s been struggling with Algebra all quarter.

“Can you check over these problems?” she asks, and slouches in her seat.

“Let’s see how you did,” I say and take the worksheet in my hands.

I scan over the ten questions and work out the problems in my head. A huge smile spreads across my face. “Aced it,” I announce.

“Really?” Vicky’s eyes widen in shock and she sits up in her chair.

“You did!” I hold my hand up and we high five. “I told you, you would.”

Her lips move but no words come out. She starts laughing. “I can’t believe I finally figured it out.” She laughs some more than throws her arms around me and hugs me tight.

Just
knowing I helped her, and she appreciates my efforts, means more to me than any check mark on my list. In the forty-five minutes I’ve been here I’ve read another one of Susie’s essays—which of course was flawless—helped a boy named Mark with his Geometry homework, and tried to help a girl, Maria, with her science lab questions. Overall I consider today’s session a success.

“Bye
, Anna. Thanks again for your help,” Vicky says as she makes her way to the door her long brown hair trailing behind her.

“Anytime.
I’m happy to help.”

“Another good
session,” Ms. Kittles says as I gather my stuff together.

“Yes
, it was.”

The
morning moves slowly as my mind shifts from my schoolwork to Dean. It’s so easy to lose myself in my thoughts when all I picture is the way his lip curves up on the left side when I talk about my day, or how his unruly curl falls on his forehead. I wonder if he thinks about me as much as I think about him. 

A hand slaps
a piece of white paper on my desk and I startle. I follow the arm up to Mr. Wilson, hovering above me with a look of dissatisfaction.

My eyes shift from Mr. Wilson and his brown argyle sweater vest down to the paper he
placed on my desk. A bright red C stares back at me.

T
his is a mistake. I stare at Mr. Wilson, waiting for him to say “April Fools.” Only it’s November, not April, and he’s not about to start laughing.

When he steps away,
passing the next test in his pile to Kyle, any hope of it being a joke evaporates.

I studied my ass off. Even when Dean tried to remove the book from my hands by showering kisses up my neck
, I playfully pushed him away.

I expect to find red marks all down the page, but I find nothing. All of my answers are correct. Of course they are. I know the material inside and out. I even finished the test
twenty minutes before anybody else even looked up. I trace my finger over the heart I doodled because I finished early and was completely confident in every single one of my answers.

I flip the test over
too embarrassed to look at that wretched C, and my eyes widen. I skipped over the entire back page. How did I miss an
entire
page?

Mr. Wilson thinks he has it figured out. In the same red pen and his sloppy handwriting he wrote:

Anna,

Maybe you should have spent a little more time looking over your test and a little less time doodling hearts.

Thanks Captain Obvious. I can’t believe this. My entire GPA will be destroyed over one careless mistake. He knows I knew the answers. So there’s no reason why we can’t figure out a solution to this. The bell rings and the crowd thins. Mr. Wilson sits behind his desk, looking less friendly than usual.

With a deep breath
, I approach, but before I can utter a single word he stops me.

“
If this in regards to your test I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do for you.”

“
I didn’t flip the test over though. I didn’t know. Mr. Wilson, you know I know the material better than anybody in this class. There has to be something I can do to make up for my carelessness.”

“I’m sorry
. I really am, but I have to treat all my students equally, and I wouldn’t allow the opportunity for any of the other students to make up for their carelessness.”

Is he mocking me?

“But…”

“I’m sorry.”

“But, there has to be a way to fix this.”

“
Like I said before, there’s nothing I can do. Be a little more attentive next time. A C is not the end of the world.”

“According to who?”

“
One day you’ll realize that while your education is extremely important, one mistake will not be the end. It’s actually good to make mistakes. It gives you a chance to learn from them and grow so you don’t do it again. Now, get going to your next class before the final bell.”

“But
—”

“Anna, go.”

He obviously doesn’t want to hear a single thing I have to say. So much for there being a solution for everything.

Disappointment settles in.
I’ve never in my life gotten anything lower than an A except once when I got an A- in tech class, but after speaking to Mr. Tooney and explaining it wasn’t my fault the tic-tac-toe board I made wasn’t perfectly centered, and it was the outdated equipment we had to use, he adjusted my grade to an A, mumbling something about it was no wonder I was on the debate team.

And
if this newest grade was an A- I suppose I could get passed that, but this is a C. A freaking C! What the hell am I going to do?

“Hey bitch
, I was calling you.” Katie skips in front of me, her long tan sweater floats behind her like a cape. “Whoa, what’s wrong?”

She can read my expressions and mannerisms like she works for the FBI as a body language expert.
My mouth opens but no words come out.

“
What’s going on?” I reach for my test and hand it to her. Her eyes widen. Words aren’t necessary. She knows this is the worst possible thing that could happen to me.

Her eyes go back to normal size and she laughs.

“Why are you laughing? This
…” I rip the test out of her hand and point to the disgraceful red letter. “Is not funny!”

“No,
” she tries to talk around her laugh but can’t manage. “It’s a C Anna. I get them all the time, and I know you don’t, but this proves you’re human.”

“What is
that supposed to mean?”

“
Come on. Nobody can be as perfect as you. It’s completely impossible. So, it’s nice to finally know that you too make mistakes.”

“Don’t you understand this can completely ruin my chances at getting into
a good school?”

“
If that’s the case they don’t deserve you. I don’t know anyone as smart as you, and I definitely don’t know anyone who volunteers their time as much as you do. Any school should be honored to have you. So you got one not so perfect grade, life goes on Anna. You of all people should know that.”

My lip tr
embles. She’s right. It’s the same thing she told me when I finally confided in her about my father and seeing a shrink.

Life does go on, but for so long I’ve tried to stop it
. I’ve never had the strength to change my bedroom after Dad died. After all, he was the one who convinced mom to let me have it the way I wanted. He hung the ballerina slippers on the wall. Changing it would be letting him slip away from me even more than he already has.

He wanted me to have the best and by letting myself get this C
, I feel like I’m letting him down. And yes, life does go on, but allowing myself to accept that, is the hardest part of all.

“I guess you’re right.”

“I know I’m right. Come on. What do you say we go to the cafeteria and get you a brownie?”

“Sounds perfect.”

***

The brownie helps. So does Katie’s spot on impersonation of Mr. Wilson. She has me laughing when I didn’t think anything could take away the disappointment. Now I’m on my way to the library to see Dean.

I wipe the frown off my face and r
eplace it with a smile. How could I go to Dean whining over a grade when he can’t even go to school?

Perched up against the wall of the library
, Dean’s in his usual hoodie and jeans, but on closer inspection the hoodie isn’t his usual. It’s navy blue.

“New hoodie?”
I ask.

“Got paid today.
Figured I’d treat myself.”

“Very nice,
” I say. He takes me in his arms, and presses his lips to my forehead then my lips.

“Hi,” he breathes, resting his head against mine.

“Hi.”

“So what are we studying today?” His hand slides into mine, and we walk towards the door.

“Actually
, I thought we could spend some time on the computer looking for your sister.” My arm pulls back as I realize he’s stopped walking. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s pointless. I’ve exhausted all angles. I
’ve searched every combination possible and always come up empty-handed.”

“I don’t think you have.”

“I don’t want to get my hopes up. Every time I search I feel even more like a failure.”

“Dean,” I place my hands on either side of his face and look in his eyes. “You are not a failure. I promised I would help you find your sister
, and that is exactly what I am going to do.” I kiss his lips then slowly pull away. “Come on, we’re wasting time.”

I settle into a rolling chair as Dean sits in the chair beside me. Once the internet search page pops up
, I type in Facebook.

“How is Facebook going to help find my sister?”

“Other than you, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have a Facebook page. Your sister
’s, what, twelve? So if she has access to a computer, I can’t imagine her not having one. And considering she may no longer have your last name, and she most likely doesn’t look like the girl you remember, it’s going to be hard. Really hard, but it’s worth a shot.”

He moves in closer and rubs his hands together.
“How do we look for her?”

“I’m going to create a page for you
, and after we do that we can go into search, type in Josie and see how many results we get.”

“
Let’s do this.”

I create Dean’s page
, putting the least amount of information in as I can. “And finished.” I click the enter key, and Dean’s profile pops up. “Let’s switch computers. You can change your password if you want. Right now it’s Josie. You also needed an email address, so I used one of mine.