Well, that was decided. This was more than a silly schoolgirl crush. This was deeply disturbing infatuation.
I felt a rapid tapping on my shoulder once I approached midnight at the end of the song. I was reluctant to open my eyes; I wanted to keep fantasizing about Mr. Connelly and the things he did at home while this song played. The tapping persisted, so I cracked open one eye and pulled out one earbud.
“This isn’t playtime, Cadence,” Mrs. Jenner said.
“I finished the assignment.”
“Then you find me to see what else you can work on,” she replied.
“Oh.”
Mrs. Jenner leaned in to look at the computer screen.
“And there’s no such thing as a perfect world,” she said.
“Tell me about it,” I muttered, and she smirked.
She turned to walk away but hesitated. She looked at me once more and leaned over.
“Cadence? I know it hasn’t been easy for you the past month.”
I tensed and let out a dramatic sigh.
“Now, wait a minute,” she said. “Just hear me out.”
I nodded.
“I know students are picking on you,” she said.
“It is what it is,” I replied. It was my attempt to stay uncommitted to the conversation.
“I hope you know you can come and talk to me whenever you need to,” Mrs. Jenner said.
Why would she think I would tell her anything? Just like teachers to want to be in everyone’s business under the guise of helping. I wasn’t telling her a freaking thing.
“Okay.”
“I mean it. I . . . I was there, too,” she said softly. “I know what it’s like.”
Okay. I felt a little guilty for my previous thoughts. Maybe Mrs. Jenner didn’t care about gossip. Maybe she actually cared about what was happening to me. I didn’t like where the conversation was headed. I thought it was getting too intimate, so I tried for a joke.
“Mrs. Jenner!” I exclaimed. “You did a stint in juvie, too?”
She looked at me flatly.
“You know what I mean, Cadence. I was bullied like you,” she said.
“Why?” I asked.
“You wanna discuss this here? In the middle of class?” she asked.
I shook my head. No, I didn’t.
“I’ll tell you sometime,” she said. “When you want to talk. Now get your things together. The bell’s about to ring.”
***
I stood at his door before lunch straining to hear the rhythmic beats pulsing low and steady from his laptop. The song was mellow and monotonous—understated sophistication—and I thought I should be having an intellectual conversation with someone while it played. I wanted it to be with Mr. Connelly, but the 59 percent on my math test suggested the conversation would sound more like this:
“Cadence, there are special classes for students like you.”
“Huh?”
“You need to be in a special class for math.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Exactly.”
I considered walking away. I was extra nervous to be near Mr. Connelly ever since the wet wipe incident. I still couldn’t figure out what he was doing. He had been just as remote and distant after the wet wipe incident as he was during the weeks that followed my lunch from Moe’s. Back and forth. Back and forth. He was giving me a headache.
In any case, I needed help. I could not fail math. I had to graduate, so I pushed through the door before I lost my nerve. He looked up from the stack of papers in front of him, throwing his pencil carelessly on the desk. Like everything he’d been working on was suddenly unimportant.
“What’s up, Cadence?”
“It’s obvious I don’t understand anything,” I said, slapping my test in front of him. “I’m not stupid, though. I mean, just because I don’t understand derivatives doesn’t mean I’m a freaking idiot.”
I shuffled my feet and hung my head low, biting nervously on my bottom lip.
“No one said you were an idiot,” Mr. Connelly replied, turning off the music.
I looked up and saw a slight grin on his face. Glad he found me amusing.
“Well, a 59 percent sure does look stupid,” I said sulkily.
“We’ll make it better,” he said.
“How?”
“I’m starting tutoring sessions next week after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays,” he replied.
I bit my lower lip harder. How could I stay after school? I had no ride home and was not asking my parents to pick me up. They both worked anyway and wouldn’t be able to.
I shook my head and shrugged. “Oh well.” Again with the instant tears. I had a knack for being out-of-control emotional around this guy.
“What does that mean?”
“I can’t stay after school. I have no ride home.” My lower lip quivered.
“Hmm.” He swiveled in his chair and scratched his cheek. “Well, you can’t fail calculus or you won’t graduate. And I suspect you wanna graduate and get the hell out of here.” He looked up at me expectantly.
I nodded, fighting the tears. I thought about Oliver’s intramural soccer game this weekend and how boring it’d be. There. That seemed to work. I felt my eyes drying up.
“Don’t worry, Cadence,” Mr. Connelly said. “I’ll work something out.”
“How?”
“Don’t worry about it. Just leave it to me,” he replied, then took a sip of his Orange Crush.
I smiled. “I’ve never seen anyone over the age of eleven drink Orange Crush.”
“Well, my friends in college gave me hell over it,” he replied. “Apparently in college you drink iced lattés. That’s what you do.”
“Duly noted,” I said.
Mr. Connelly cleared his throat and looked down at the papers on his desk. I took it as a signal to leave. I turned around, then froze at his words.
“I’ve got something for you,” he said.
“You do?” I asked, turning back around to face him. He dug around in his messenger bag.
“Yeah. Just give me a second to find it . . .”
I stood nervously pulling on the buttons of my shirt. My girlish heart and brain thought it might be a flower or a box of chocolates. I was an idiot, okay?
“Here we go,” he said, and pulled out a CD. He handed it to me. “I remember you said you couldn’t get on the Internet. Thought you might wanna listen to ‘Midnight in a Perfect World’ since you were curious about it.”