Maybe I Will (12 page)

I sat down in the middle of the couch and waited until they stopped arguing with each other and turned their attention back to me. I checked my phone. Ten missed messages. “I'm really sorry,” I said. “I passed my testing and earned my yellow belt. Then I remembered about my paper due Monday, and decided to go to the library. Hector's in my grade at school. Remember, Dad? I told you he was doing the rank advancement camp this week, too. I didn't know it was going to be such a big deal.” I'd lied about Hector in the note, but what I was saying now was all true. I was thinking about going to the library; I just didn't end up there.

Mom and Dad came and sat on either side of me. “Yes, I remember now,” said Dad. “But Sandy, we don't know anything about this kid or where he lives or who his parents are. We didn't even know where to start looking for you.”

“We called Troy and Cassie and Shanika,” Mom added, “But no one knew where you were. Shanika said that she brought you home after taekwondo, but she had no idea you and Hector were going to the library or which library you were going to.”

It really bothered me that my parents had called Shanika. It sounded like she'd covered for me okay, but I'm pretty sure Shanika knew I wasn't at the library with Hector. And Troy. And Cassie. Who knew where they were or what they were doing.

I couldn't bring myself to ask about Cassie, but I really wondered whether maybe Troy at least still cared a little. “Where was Troy?” I asked.

“At his uncle's garage working on a car,” Mom answered. “He said that he'd been working all week and hadn't really even talked to you.”

“Apparently, you haven't been talking to Cassie lately, either,” Dad said.

“I've been at taekwondo camp all week!” The words came out a little more forcefully than I intended.

“We know that, Sandy. You don't have to get all defensive,” said Mom.

‘We're just worried, Sandy,” Dad said with a sigh. “We're trying to figure out what's going on with you, and you're not giving us much to go on.”

“What is it about taekwondo that has you so worried anyway?” I asked. I was starting to feel a little trapped between them and needed to orchestrate a graceful exit.

“It's not the taekwondo,” said Dad. “We're actually very impressed with Mr. Washington and think that having a sport like that will look good on your college application.”

Mom put her hand on my knee. “But Shanika is several years older than you are, and sometimes once the seniors have been admitted to a college, they start to slack off . . . “ Mom let her voice trail off.

Dad completed her thought. “And party more.”

Mom looked at Dad and then back to me. “Sandy, we've been wondering if the Nyquil was the only thing you've taken.”

My face immediately flushed. Anger catapulted me from the couch. “I get it now,” I said, turning to face my parents. “You think I'm out partying with Shanika because she's a senior or doing drugs with Hector because he's Hispanic! I don't believe you guys!”

My parents looked genuinely shocked. Mom recovered first. “Sandy, that's not what we were trying to say.”

“That's what you think, though, isn't it?” I said it an accusatory tone I'd never used with my parents before. “Well, you're wrong. You really don't understand anything, do you?” And with that I stormed out of the living room and back into my room.

If I'd been going for drama and the full effect, I would have slammed my bedroom door, too, but I'd actually surprised myself. My heart was pounding, and I felt so overcome by adrenaline that I really think I could have pulled the door right off its hinges. I sat down on my bed and tried to sort through everything that had just happened. I had vodka in my backpack under my bed and another bottle hidden in my closet, but I didn't dare reach for it. I was pretty sure my parents would be knocking on my door any second.

I was trembling, but not because I wanted a drink. I suddenly felt so powerful—bigger than life. The anger was almost more intoxicating than the alcohol.
And guess what! I seem to have tapped in to an unlimited supply. It's all mine, it's free, and it's LEGAL!

I could hear my parents still arguing with each other. I know I should have felt bad about that, but I was just glad they were leaving me alone. I picked up my notebook and pen and started thinking about how good it felt to be angry.
If jealousy is a green-eyed monster, maybe anger is a red-eyed monster.
But Shakespeare never wrote that.
Maybe I will . . .
So I sat on my bed and wrote this poem:

I flipped back through the notebook and reread all the poems I'd written this past week. By this time, it was after 11:00, so I knew my parents weren't coming in to see me tonight. I thought about taking a drink, but then decided to relish a bit in my rage. I stood up and performed my white-belt form with more energy and precision than I'd ever imagined.

I am strong. I am powerful.
I felt like I could master everything and everyone. So I ignored Mr. Conaway's voice in the back of my head
whispering,
“But do you have character? Do you even know what character is?”

Once I was certain my parents had gone to bed, I went down-stairs and raided the refrigerator. For the first time in forever, I was hungry.

Write till your ink be dry, and with your tears,
Moist it again, and frame some feeling line
That may discover such integrity.

—Two Gentlemen of Verona
, Act III, Scene ii, Lines 75-77

W
HEN
I
CAME
down for breakfast the next morning, we all just kind of pretended that last night never happened. I was sitting at the table, leaning over my cereal bowl and shoveling it in to make sure my mouth was full at all times. It was one of those April days where it rained nonstop, so when Dad offered to drive me to the library, the idea wasn't very appealing.

“I think I'll just work on the paper in my room,” I said without bothering to swallow or sit up straight.

Mom came over and sat next to me drinking a cup of coffee. “So, only two more weeks until the school musical.”

I nodded and kept shoveling. I wasn't going to encourage polite conversation on any topic. I wasn't really trying to be rude, but I could still feel the anger bubbling up under the surface of every word I spoke.

“We were able to get a Wednesday evening appointment with Dr. McMann at 7 p.m. so you won't have to miss rehearsal.” Mom was staring at me expectantly. I just kept shoveling and chewing. Every now and then I made this slurping noise without really meaning to.

My father was sitting back away from the table, half hiding behind the morning paper. Occasionally he would glance at me like he was waiting for an apology or something. Or maybe he was debating whether he and Mom should apologize to me.
Ha! Not likely. But if he does, I think I'll tell him maybe he and Mom should go talk to Dr. McMann and leave me alone.

When there was nothing left in my bowl to slurp or shovel, I mumbled, “May I be excused?” I didn't wait for a response; I just put my breakfast bowl and spoon in the dishwasher and retreated to my room.

I ran all the way through white belt form twice to release all the breakfast scene stress. I studied orange belt form a little bit, but then started thinking about my character assignment again. I was thinking that the poem I wrote on character might be okay to turn in, but after reading through it silently and then out loud I wasn't so sure. It sounded good to me, but was it really any good?
It's not Shakespeare, that's for sure. Shakespeare would write sonnets.

That's when I remembered one of my favorite lines from
A Wrinkle in Time
where Mrs. Whatsit is talking about writing sonnets: “You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.” It seemed like a good way to approach this formless writing assignment . . . first define the form I want to use, give myself some boundaries, and then express myself through the form.
Maybe it will be liberating in the same way the taekwondo forms seem to be.

Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets. I had them all right there together taking up less than 30 pages of my
Complete Works
volume. The form was pretty simple. Each poem had 14 lines, the first 12 divided into three stanzas and then a final couplet. It was all in iambic pentameter, which meant each line sounded like ta-DA ta-DA ta-DA ta-DA ta-DA. The first and third lines of each stanza rhymed and so did the second and fourth lines, then the last two lines in the couplet rhymed, too. The idea was to set out an issue or a problem in the first 12 lines and then summarize or resolve it in the last two. So I sat down and read all of Shakespeare's sonnets just to get the rhyme and rhythm pattern burned into my brain.

A lot of them were about love, like
Sonnet 18
, which starts out:

I mostly ignored all of the gushy love stuff and read it all for meter. Like this:

Shall I comPARE thee TO a SUMmer's DAY? Thou ART more LOVEly AND more TEMperATE. But there were some with great one-liners tucked away in them. Like the final couplet in
Sonnet 28
:

I was thinking a lot about what Mr. Washington had said.
A man's reputation is what other people think of him; his character is what he really is.
And just like that it came to me:
My character is who I really am.
Perfect iambic pentameter! All I needed was a rhyme for “am”
and I had my final couplet.
My reputation's nothing but a sham.
Bingo! It helped to just sit and read one sonnet right after the other because my mind really was stuck in the meter.

I was on a roll when Mom knocked on the door. “Sandy?” she called softly as she knocked.

“Yeah?” I answered coolly.

“Do you mind if I come in?”

“You and Dad own the whole house, don't you?” I was surprised how quickly the monster could surface when I was feeling pretty good just a moment before.

I could hear Mom take a deep breath, weighing her words carefully.
Why is it suddenly so easy to be mean to her?

“I just wanted to let you know that lunch is ready, if you'd like to join us.”

Wow. Lunchtime already? Come to think of it, I am feeling hungry again.

“Okay,” I said. This time I tried to sound a little nicer. “I'll be right down.”

Nobody was saying much during lunch. Any other time I'd have been wondering who died. But I knew. It was my red-eyed monster that was controlling the room. Part of me felt a little bad for my parents because they really didn't deserve to be treated like this, but it just felt so good to be in control for a while. Still, Mom had broiled tuna steaks with ginger dressing and made California rolls, both of which she knew I absolutely loved. I decided to tell them about my progress to make them feel better.

“I've been working really hard on this assignment for World History,” I said. You could almost hear the pressure whoosh out of my parents like when an 18-wheeler releases the engine break.

“What's the assignment?” Dad asked. He mixed some wasabi and soy sauce in a little dish.

“We're supposed to pick a question from a long list and answer it. I picked ‘What is character?'” I motioned for him to pass me the soy sauce.

“That's a pretty big question,” Mom jumped in. “You could write on that for years and still not get it exactly right.”

Dad nodded. “No wonder you've been holed up in your room all morning. How long does it have to be?” He dipped a big piece of the roll in the mix using his chop sticks and stuffed it into his mouth.
So not pretty. That's why I use a fork and cut them in half.

I shook off the urge to take a cheap shot at Dad while his mouth was full. “That's the thing,” I replied. “There's no length requirement. It can be as long or as short as you want it to be. Longer is clearly not better, and anything that sounds ‘canned' to Conaway is a total killer.”

“I bet that set off a couple of your Type A classmates.” Dad laughed.

I nodded. “Amy Taylor went berserk. Conaway suggested she choose the question ‘What is Fair?'”

Mom smiled. “So where does one even begin with such an assignment?”

I allowed myself a devilish grin. “Well, I'm glad you asked. All this taekwondo has me genuinely appreciating forms, so I asked myself what form Shakespeare would use if he were writing on character, and I decided to write a sonnet.” I squeezed my lemon wedge over my tuna steak.

Dad beamed. “That's a great idea! So how's it coming?”

I was almost ready to spout off my final couplet, when I suddenly realized I didn't want my parents to read my sonnet. I didn't want them to know my reputation is a sham.
What was I thinking! Why did I go and tell them I'm writing a sonnet?
My monster turned on
me, and all I could do was shake my head. “Nothing yet. Maybe I'm not a poet after all.” I cut a huge slice of tuna and forced it into my mouth. The monster was squeezing my throat so I really had to struggle to chew and swallow.