Michael Laser - Cheater

A difficult question remains, though: how to attach the mike to Karl’s scalp? “We’ve got a hot glue gun at home,” Lizette offers.

“I’m thinking this looks like a job for rubber cement,” says Mr. Frenais, and off he goes to the nearest Staples, one town over, leaving his daughter and Karl to… um… er…

The last time we saw them together, Cara had bluntly announced that Lizette cared about Karl so much. Lizette’s electrifying grip on his toe lasted a long time; neither of them could think of what to say next, and Lizette never moved her hand. If the loud guy in blue scrubs hadn’t appeared to collect the garbage, they might still be there, toe in fist; but as soon as he popped his head in and blared, “How’s everybody today?” Lizette dashed out the door.

And now they’re together again, just the two of them, and he knows he has to say something, do something, make his feelings known, or else she’ll think he wants to be just friends .

He summons his courage. He speaks.

“Um, I’ll pay you back for the mike.”

“You definitely will.”

“Thanks for getting it. And for bringing your father.”

“No problem. Glad to help.”

He’s run out of words. She pops a piece of Orbit gum into her mouth and turns her back to him. He’s not sure what that means, but it can’t be good.

Except that it helps: not having to look her in the eye makes it possible to speak again. “I’ve been wanting to say to you-ever since the first day when you showed up at school-I like you so much. But I kind of thought-I think a lot of people thought-that you…”

She keeps her back turned but cocks her ear to make sure she hears the end of the sentence.

“… were gay,” he mumbles, fearfully.

She whirls around. Her face has turned Red Lobster red.

“What?! Why? Because I like sports? Because I don’t wear quarts of makeup, or dress like Cara?”

“No, none of that. I don’t know…“

She stalks over to the door. “I don’t want to act like that, or dress like that. It’s never gonna happen. What’s that got to do with anything, anyway? Does a person have to be like her to be accepted? And you- how could-“

She’s too upset to limit herself to one thought at a time- too upset to speak. It looks to Karl as if she might just run away. Panicking-not because he needs her help with the hidden mike, but because she can’t leave this way, before she even knows how he feels-he blurts out, “I kept wishing you weren’t gay. I’m not even sure anymore why I thought it. I was stupid.”

“That’s an understatement.”

An old man in a wheelchair goes past the doorway, peeking in. When he’s out of sight, Lizette kicks the doorframe with her sneaker and says a quiet, “Ow.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I think.”

She’s far away from him, and still angry. Maybe she’s too angry to ever forgive him; otherwise, wouldn’t she come back to him?

The disappointment silences him, until he remembers what Cara said: That’s because you care about him so much.

Powered by the last grain of hope left inside him, he asks, “Was Cara right? About you liking me?”

“Yeah. Uh-huh.” She’s focusing on the little opening in the doorframe where the latch fits in. “I like being around you. I never know what’s going to come out of your mouth- some comment that I have to think about and figure out a half hour later. When you’re not saying something that sends me into a raging fit, that is.”

“That’s the best thing anybody ever said to me.”

Lizette smiles, a long line with a little hook at the end, but she still avoids looking at him.

It would be reasonable to assume that they’ll finally let go of their doubts and insecurities and lunge at each other now. But it’s not that simple, not for these two. When you’re really shy-really, really shy-even this much reassurance isn’t quite enough. [1]

“Tell you what,” Lizette says. “Can we just pretend we didn’t say any of this stuff, till after the test?”

“Okay, but why?”

“Because we need our heads on straight for the next few days.”

Karl agrees. She’s so wise and mature , he thinks.

While they wait for Mr. Frenais to come back with the rubber cement, Lizette wanders back to the hospital bed. Discreetly, she walks two fingers onto the sheet until they reach his hand. There, on his palm, the two fingers do a little Rockettes-style dance. Neither of them knows what to do next-so they’re both relieved when Mr. Frenais walks in with the Staples bag and says, “That was easy.”

A good dad, he pretends he sees nothing as Lizette rockets backward, away from Karl. Then it’s back to business: brushing the viscous rubber cement onto the bottom of the microphone, parting Karl’s hair to clear a narrow runway of scalp, pressing the mike firmly into place, and artfully arranging Karl’s hair around it. While pressing down on the mike and waiting for the cement to dry, Mr. Frenais says, “I’m curious about one thing, Karl.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m wondering, can you tell me, in fifty words or less, why you don’t want to go through life cheating?”

Mr. Frenais has short gray hair that stands straight up. He looks like a retired astronaut, or a little general, and has a rough, hoarse voice-you can easily imagine him yelling orders at his football team-but he asks this question in a kindly way, almost like a minister. That’s good, because Karl knows this is a test, which will either win him Mr. Frenais’s support or provoke his eternal disapproval. As calmly as he can, he thinks and speaks.

“I guess, more than anything else, it’s about what kind of person you want to be,” he says.

“You’re sure that’s the reason?”

With sinking hopes, Karl replies, “I think so, uh-huh.”

“Pretty good answer,” Mr. Frenais says, and takes a break from holding the mike in place so he can shake Karl’s hand. “I was thinking more along the lines of, if you cheat, you have to always worry about someone catching you, and that’s not the best way to live-but I like what you said, too.”

Mr. Frenais’s hand is rough and calloused, but Karl is so relieved, he’d gladly keep shaking it all day.

Mr. Frenais, however, goes back to pressing on the mike, and adds a P.S.: “’Course, all this sneakin’ around wouldn’t be necessary if you’d done the right thing in the first place. But nobody’s perfect. Except my little girl here.”

After a long fifteen minutes, Karl can nod and even shake his head without dislodging the microphone. Both Lizette and her father swear they can’t see a trace of it through his hair. The two Frenaises say good-bye for now; Lizette waggles two fingers, reminding him of her little dance on his hand.

As soon as he’s alone, Karl’s innards swish like dirty laundry around an agitator. What if he can’t get Klimchock and Upchurch to say what he needs them to say? What if he tries too hard and they get suspicious, or if he sweats so much that his hair gets soaked and flat, exposing the microphone? If they see it, they’ll reach in and tear Karl’s liver out. An infinite number of things could go wrong-but worse than any What if is the one thing that’s certain. No college will accept a convicted cheater.

Maybe he’d better start paying attention to those commercials for technical schools, the ones where, each time you learn how to use a tool, it goes in your toolbox.

Lizette calls Mr. Klimchock at the school and Phillip Upchurch at his house, and delivers the message that Karl is still in the hospital, and he thinks he’s too sick to take the test.