After another prolonged silence, I said, “Who will they choose, then?”
Ernie shrugged. “I don’t care who, because it won’t matter. Once I turn it down, everyone is going to know what they tried to do. Kids were already talking about it at school, about the fact that you have the highest grades and they didn’t choose you.”
“They were?”
“Of course they were. If you don’t get it, nobody is going to want to do it.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I said. “I mean, you could look at it like you’d be opening the door for other kids of color.”
“Those kids will open that door on their own, in the classroom,” Mr. Cantwell said. “Just as you have done.”
8
Ernie’s declination did cause a stir, but not enough of one, apparently, for anyone to ever apologize or ask me to be the valedictorian. In hindsight, the trustees couldn’t very well have done that, not after passing me over. It would have been a tacit admission that they’d had ulterior motives for not choosing me in the first place and, perhaps, an admission that their motives for choosing Ernie had also not been honorable.
Despite this latest snub, my mother was far from finished pushing me to lead an extraordinary life. If anything, those moments only motivated her to push harder.
Later that month, as I sat at my desk studying for finals, my mother entered my room with a load of folded laundry. I detected, however, that she had an ulterior motive and had timed this delivery for that reason.
“Mrs. Cantwell called,” she said, putting folded T-shirts in the third dresser drawer from the top. “Ernie’s excited about the senior prom this Saturday.”
“Do you think I should start my English essay with a parable?” I asked.
“You do know the prom is this Saturday?”
“It would make Father Peter happy, but it might make me look like a brownnoser.”
“Don’t be disgusting, and stop avoiding the subject. Have you considered going?” my mother asked.
“I think Ernie already has a date.”
“Samuel—”
“People would talk, Mom. It’s already an all-boys school.”
Humor did not pacify my mom when she got upset. “Fine, be that way,” she said, though she didn’t leave, and that was far from the end of the conversation.
I put down my pen and took off my glasses, resting them on my homework. “I’m not avoiding it, Mom. Yes, I’ve considered going. In fact, I’ve asked three girls, and each has turned me down. Ernie also tried to set me up with one of Alicia’s friends, but she chose to stay home rather than go with me.” I had visions of me showing up at my date’s house and having her father greet me at the door with some remark like, “My daughter does not date red-eyed sons of the devil!”
My mother used a rag to wipe at invisible dust motes atop my dresser and rearranged the knickknacks, including my priceless Willie Mays–autographed baseball. “I think Mickie might be available Saturday night,” she said.
Good old Mickie, she was always there for me, but I couldn’t do that to her. I couldn’t ask her to be my senior prom date. She’d know I’d struck out with other girls, and she was the good reliable replacement, like that second pair of glasses stuffed in a drawer to serve as a backup if you lost the first pair. “Maybe I’ll hang out with her in the basement,” I said.
My mother tossed her dust rag at me. “Samuel, you get one senior prom in your life; you are not going to spend it in the basement playing pinball.”
“You’re right. I’ll go to a movie.”