“Anyone else?” I pointed to a boy wearing a highlighter-yellow sweatshirt.
“I would figure out a way to bring America’s overabundance of food to those who are starving.”
I pointed to a girl with a bun on the top of her head. “I would bring vaccines to countries that don’t have access to them.”
“This is amazing,” I said. “Guys, weren’t you sort of expecting answers like ‘I would become a millionaire’ or ‘I would watch every episode of TV ever made’? But so far all of these are about bettering humankind. That’s so cool! Anyone else?”
A girl in yellow-rimmed glasses: “I would redesign cities to make them more bike-friendly, and thus eco-friendly.”
A boy with a bright-pink shirt: “I would dedicate my life to convincing the nonbelievers that global warming is real.”
And finally, a quiet boy in the second row who had black-rimmed glasses and a beanie: “I would try to find a way to not be immortal.”
A few people laughed at that one. I definitely wasn’t expecting a response like that, and it intrigued me. Who wouldn’t want to be immortal? I posed this question to the class, and for a minute nobody spoke, thinking.
Then the first girl who’d spoken said, “It’s probably a pretty lonely existence.”
Someone near the back called out, “Alvin and Margo were left with nothing.”
Someone else: “I bet the appeal wears off pretty quickly, as soon as everybody you love starts dying.”
The conversation was easy and natural and flowing. The students went around and argued the pros and cons of immortality. I hoped Sam might chime in, but he kept quiet, his eyes trained toward his desk. I tried not to feel self-conscious about that. Maybe that was how he looked when he was in class? Just sort of bored and uninterested, but he was actually paying attention?
Forty-five minutes passed like absolutely nothing. We ended up debating the very existence of time itself, the implications of its existence versus it being a completely man-made concept. We talked about Alvin and Margo, and finally, nearing the end of the class, I decided to let them in on a secret. I thought Aunt Helen would probably be fine with it.
“I want to thank everyone for letting me get up here today. It means a lot to me, and I know it would have meant a lot to Aunt Helen. And speaking of her . . . I’m probably not supposed to tell you this, but there’s going to be a new Alvin book. It’s called Margo Hatter Lives Forever, and it’s really, really good.”
The entire classroom went absolutely crazy, cheering and clapping and yelling. The doors opened up, and a professor stuck her head inside. People motioned for her to come into the room, and she was followed by another professor and then some random students and then more random students and then more and more people until finally the room was crowded and the doorways were blocked. I could see out in the hall, and there were even more people there, straining to hear, and everyone was talking about the new book and about Aunt Helen and about immortality and time and nobody seemed to want to leave until finally Sam slipped toward the front of the room and we both left, unnoticed, as the celebrations continued.
“You were great,” Sam told me outside my car. I had put my bags in the trunk, and I was standing and shaking as he told me how good the lesson had been. But I couldn’t help but remember how completely disinterested he looked as I talked, how he hadn’t contributed a single word to the discussion, how he’d almost purposefully avoided making eye contact with me. He had, right? I wasn’t just making that up?
“People were crying,” Sam continued. “You broke hearts today, Lottie Reaves.”
“Then how come you seem so . . .”
“So what?”
“You just seem kind of weird.”
“Sad, I guess. A lot of things.”
“Okay. But you thought it was okay?”
“More than okay. I’m sorry I’m not being more convincing.”
“I’m just glad it’s over.”
A tiny flutter in my chest. All that energy, all those nerves—they were starting to turn against me.
“Lottie?” he said, touching my hand, holding just the tips of my middle and ring fingers.
“I’m really tired. I think I better go home now.”
“Do you want to get dinner first? I know an Indian place. Do you like Indian? Or Mexican? Or anything?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just . . . I’m so tired. I’m sorry. Maybe we can do something this weekend?”
I wasn’t tired at all, but all the panic I’d pushed away was rushing back. The tips of my fingers were tingling. I’d tried so hard to ignore the warning signs of a panic attack, but I couldn’t hold it off forever, and I definitely didn’t want Sam to see me like that.
“I’d like that,” he said, but his face was concerned, worried.
“Everything is fine,” I said, and then I realized that when you said that, when you said everything is fine, it sounded like exactly the opposite. “I’ll text you later. Honestly, I’m just exhausted.”
I got into my car and drove away before he could say anything else. I could see him in my rearview mirror, not moving, getting smaller and smaller as I drove.
I’m so sorry, I wanted to say to him. I wanted to turn the car around, go back, and try to explain that this wasn’t about him. I was just suddenly having trouble breathing. It felt like I was underwater again, and I couldn’t figure out which way the surface was.
Alvin knew that his sister did not like to cry, that she viewed that particular bodily function as betraying too much weakness. Instead, Margo Hatter got angry. Her face turned as red as a tomato; her arms crossed over her stomach and held themselves there so tightly that her breath caught in her chest.
Alvin himself, like his father, was much more prone to tears. This had bothered him once upon a time, but his father had told him that first of all, he would probably grow out of it, and second of all, who gave a flying rat’s whiskers what other people might think of him if he cried?
“My father never cried a day in his life and look at him!” Mr. Hatter had said. “He’s wrinkled up like a raisin! No, I think a little bit of salt water is good for the skin. Everyone’s face needs a little watering now and then.”
Alvin knew that if his father had been here to see this, he would have cried.
Alvin was crying—big, gushing tears that he couldn’t begin to control.
But there was Margo: a statue, unmoving, her face blank and carved out of stone. He could see the flames reflected in her eyes.
The flames of Grandpa Hatter’s house.
There was no way the old man could have made it out alive. It was an absolute inferno.
“Margo,” Alvin called, his voice choking, catching.
Margo turned to him. Her eyes were very red, but they were also dry. He imagined flames coming out of her own ears, her mouth, swallowing her up. When she spoke, black smoke billowed out of the house behind her, and Alvin imagined that it billowed also out of her nose, her fingertips, the very pores of her skin.
“We’ll make him pay,” she said.