Tiffany thought so, too, even though she had her own place and could cook him a meal in her own kitchen, not that she knew how. Dad was outnumbered, even without my vote.
For the hundredth time today, I ran through all the things I planned to do as soon as the bell rang.
Go for a long run to calm my nerves.
Help Mom make the best food Manning would ever put in his mouth.
Make myself beautiful. Truly beautiful.
All of that would keep me busy until Manning got to the house. I needed to be doing, not sitting here thinking. I hadn’t done anything good for Manning in too long. I’d only gotten him into trouble, damaged his life, his future. I wanted to serve him something wonderful, like the time I’d made him the Lake Special, my monster sandwich.
I had to show Manning I wasn’t a kid anymore. That I wouldn’t make any more mistakes. I was older, wiser, and my boobs were bigger. He couldn’t miss that.
Mr. Caws checked the clock. “We still have five minutes.”
God. What, was time going backward?
“Let’s do some quiet reading,” he said.
Time in 1995 was weird. It’d been killing me in all kinds of different ways ever since Tiffany had finally spilled the beans—Manning was coming home today, January twenty-third. Just like that, a year and five months into his sentence, Manning would be out. Time had come to a screeching halt right then and there and had been creeping along ever since.
December had passed like normal, but January was almost over, and we still hadn’t heard from USC. My dad’s panic made me panic. It wasn’t standard for packets to come before March, but Dad didn’t see any reason I shouldn’t get accepted early. Lots of my friends had heard from schools all over the country. Mona’s mom had shown up in the middle of English and dropped a fat envelope on her daughter’s desk. Vinny Horton was a scrawny, bespectacled nerd, but he’d put his fist right through a wall when he’d found out the quarterback had been accepted to Stanford on a football scholarship while Vinny had been rejected. College was everyone’s world. It was my world. Every day that passed without a packet in the mailbox, I was letting my dad down.
And now, today, time was failing me again. I wasn’t sure I could stand to sit here two more minutes, much less wait a full four hours to see Manning. Knowing he was coming was the best kind of torture. I packed up my Jansport and stared at the clock.
Vickie tapped the eraser of her pencil against her desk. “Don’t most schools have a Sadie Hawkins dance for Valentine’s? Why aren’t we?”
Mr. Caws looked up. “Girls. Don’t make me tell you again.”
Vickie opened her spiral-bound notepad and scribbled with the concentration of a doctor performing surgery. She tore the page out fast, the only way to do it in a quiet classroom, but Mr. Caws still looked up. Vickie put her hands in her lap, expertly folding the note into squares until Mr. Caws returned to grading papers. She passed it to me.
I bet Corbin sends you flowers for V-day. I need a Valentine so I’m not a total loser. Maybe we can go—
I balled up the note. What was she even talking about? Her note, this classroom, this desk, the Battle of Saratoga, seemed so unimportant. Vickie looked horrified. The bell rang, and I bolted up from my chair.
“What’s your deal?” Vickie asked. “You’d think it was Corbin coming over for dinner, not some criminal.”
“You don’t understand,” I said, slinging my bag over my shoulder. “You just don’t. You’re completely dense.”
In the hallway, Vickie tucked her binder under her arm. “You’re right, I don’t. But I do understand I’m not driving you home. Find your own ride,” she said, walking off.
“No, Vickie, wait.” The hallway filled with students. I held my history book to my chest and did my best to push through. “I’m sorry,” I said as I caught up, matching her long strides. “I didn’t mean to—”
I nearly ran headlong into Val coming out of Physics. “Hey,” she said.
I grabbed Vickie’s elbow at the last second, and she whirled around. “Seriously, Lake. You’ve been such a bitch lately.”
“Whoa,” Val said. “Totally uncalled for.”
Stopped in the middle of the hall, our classmates were forced to scatter around us. “You’re right, I have,” I said. “I’ve been under so much pressure.”
“So have I,” Vickie said. “You think just because you’re going to a top college that nobody else’s life matters.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
She took her arm back. “You haven’t even asked how this has been for the rest of us.”
“That’s not true. You want to go UNLV and major in communications. What else is there to know?”