Laura Lippman - To The Power Of Three

Yet Eve had abandoned that girl at the first opportunity, finally seeing her as everyone else did-out of it, stupid, queer, a social liability. It was bad enough dropping an old friend for such reasons, but you could take the friend back or make it up to her in other ways. Once you dropped yourself, you could never go back.

Josie was lyingon the sofa in the family room, clicking idly through the channels. This mundane afternoon activity was almost exotic to her, given how many extracurriculars she had pursued over the years. She had started with soccer as a six-year-old, then gymnastics, which had led to both theater and cheerleading. The last had meant not only practices and games but also endless fund-raising activities.

Josie had never much cared for the “spirit” part of cheerleading-the car washes, the bake sales, the pep rallies. In fact, Josie didn’t really care if the Glendale Panthers won or lost. She liked leaping into the air, pooling her hoarse voice with the others, the crowd roaring back at their command, completely in their control. She loved her purple-and-white uniform, the way the pleats brushed her thighs as she walked through the halls, but she barely noticed if the boys in purple and white heeded the exhortations to fight, fight, fight. At dinner Josie sometimes had to think for a moment when her father asked her the score. The only way she could remember was by recalling what she had done, in the final moments. Had she jumped up and down squealing or stood in pretend dejection, hands on hips? Some of the girls cried over games, shed actual tears, but Josie never did.

She studied her bandaged foot, propped up on a pillow. Although she was not quite five-two, her right foot looked very, very faraway and alien, as if it were not truly attached to the rest of her body. The prognosis was uncertain, the doctor had said when she left the hospital. So many bones and nerves in feet, so many possible outcomes. She would definitely walk again, probably do everything again. Yet she was cautioned to be patient and let the foot heal before she started pressing it, testing its flexibility and strength.

“When you come off the crutches,” the doctor said, “it may even take time for your leg to believe it can come all the way down to the floor. It’s almost as if your foot needs to learn to trust itself again, to remember that it really does have the capacity to make contact with the ground, to support you.”

Her mother’s car pulled into the garage. Josie could tell it was her mother because the muffler on the Honda Accord was beginning to go. She could hear her mother coming from a block away sometimes. Her parents kept saying the Honda would be Josie’s car when she went to college, a car being pretty much a necessity at the University of Maryland. Josie hoped they would get the muffler fixed first.

“You’re home early,” Josie said as her mother came through the door from the garage, burdened with purse, tote, and two bags of groceries.

“My boss is cutting me some slack right now. No one likes the idea of you here alone, hobbling around by yourself.”

“Matt and Tim are here somewhere,” Josie said, even as part of her mind focused on that one word, “alone.” “Although maybe Marta took them out.”

Josie had never been expected to care for her younger brothers. When she did baby-sit, her parents paid her the going rate-not as much as Marta, of course, but what other teenagers made to baby-sit.

“Besides, I have some good news. Enormous news.”

“Hmmmmm?” Josie was still flicking through the channels, looking for something decent. TRL was on, but Josie hadn’t watched that since she was fourteen or fifteen. She was in the mood for something quasi-real yet not truly real, and not too mean-spirited. The show where they redid a dowdy woman’s wardrobe would be good, or something competitive, as long as it didn’t involve eating gross stuff.

“Mr. Hartigan called me today-”

Josie’s stomach clutched a little.

“Remember the scholarship his family endowed for the school? Well, it’s going to be the Kat Hartigan Memorial Scholarship now.”

“Hmmmm.” Josie had landed on the show about people who had too much stuff and their makeover included a garage sale where they were forced to divest themselves of their clutter. A very large woman was swearing she couldn’t give up a single Aladdin toy. She had seventeen Princess Jasmines alone.

“And you’re going to be the first recipient.”

Josie muted the television. “Why?”

“Well, he didn’t say. But you were her best friend. You tried to take the gun from Perri. And you stayed with her. Mr. Hartigan said that meant a lot to him, that you wouldn’t leave her.”

“Is that going to be the requirement every year? Hanging out with a dead body? Because there are plenty of kids at Glendale who would kill someone if that’s the case. Kill someone and just sit there waiting for the paramedics.”

Her mother’s face puckered, the way it did whenever someone didn’t share her excitement or enthusiasm. “I thought you’d be happier. We’ve all been so worried about your scholarship, the implications of the injury. If you can’t …well, then you can’t. College Park said they’d hold the spot for you, at least for the first year, but they can’t offer any financial aid if you can’t participate in the program. This solves everything. You should be happy.”

“I am happy,” Josie said, bursting into tears.

“Oh, Josie baby.” Her mother started to sit on the sofa, but she didn’t want to crowd Josie’s foot, so she knelt on the carpet, looking for a way to put her arms around her, only Josie wouldn’t quite yield. Instead she allowed her mother to pat her all over, smoothing her hair away from her face, rubbing her shoulders.

“I wasn’t thinking. Of course it’s bittersweet. Maybe just bitter. I shouldn’t expect you to be jumping for joy.”

“I can’t jump for anything,” Josie muttered, knowing that the halfhearted joke would calm her mother.

“It is a relief. I can tell you now, honey, your father and I weren’t sure what we were going to do. I mean, we would have found a way-a second mortgage maybe, although we already have a second mortgage-something. But this is truly a godsend.”

“You don’t think I’m going to get better, do you? If it was just this year, it wouldn’t be a big deal. But you think I’m never going to be able to join the cheerleading squad at College Park.”

“No. No . I’m sure you’ll be fine. But this way you don’t have to even consider deferring your acceptance. Assuming,” she added, “it’s even that bad. I didn’t think you’d enjoy delaying a year, with all your friends gone.”

They’re already gone, Josie wanted to say, but her tears were slowing. She would get to go to college, no matter what. Even if her foot were permanently damaged, she would still get to leave. Her mother was right: She wouldn’t want to stay in Glendale one more day than necessary. She had to get out, go somewhere, anywhere.

“Now, remember, it’s a secret,” her mother said, rising from the floor, her hose generating a little electric shock that raised the hairs on Josie’s arm. “We mustn’t tell anyone until it’s announced at graduation.”

Josie knew that her mother was not much good at keeping secrets, not happy ones. She would probably call Grammy and Grampa in Janesville tonight, and the news would be all over Janesville, Wisconsin, before it was announced at graduation.

Then again, only family members could appreciate the story, for only the family knew that Josie’s college education had been saved for the second time. Her mother, gregarious and talkative as she was, had told very few people just how bleak Josie’s college prospects were. For it was her mother who had squandered Josie’s college savings in a desperate game of catch-up, trying to save in three years what she should have been saving since Josie was born, only to end up with a paltry few thousand.