Carol returned the smile, then pushed through the kitchen door.
Kate took in a deep breath. I would have won that fair. What if I had won?
But you did, remember?
She rubbed her temples with her palms. The tension of this job. It was so much like that day, watching the judges analyzing her project, trying to read their faces, waiting for the results. All the work, all that summer, the hours in the basement. With money and college on the line.
* * *
Twelve Years Ago
Golden Grove High
Katie watched one of the Scholarship Fair judges, Mr. Riley—the history teacher
and a football coach—circle her mobile. Eyes moving up and down, face
expressionless, hand poised over his clipboard.
C'mon, smile. I will you to smile, you jock. It's art! It's not some stupidfootball.
He looked at his clipboard, wrote something, then looked back at the mobile,
pointing out something to another judge. The thread of a smile creased his face.
Yes! If she could win over the football coach, that was a good sign.
Mrs. Wells was circling the project, nodding, smiling, gesturing. She was a
lock, she had to be.
The other two were writing in their notebooks, talking in low voices to each
other. One was Mrs. Wrath, the head librarian at the public library. Guess her fellow judges figured she was smart because she worked around a lot of books.
The final judge was a man in a tweed coat with those patches on the elbows.
He was from the college, but she wasn't sure what he taught. He was smiling, but
then he'd been smiling his way through the whole room. Katie frowned.
Unreadable, that one. Then he laughed at something Mrs. Wrath said.
Laughing? Bad laughing or good laughing? C'mon, people's lives were at
stake here. Didn't they know she wanted to look like Amélie and wear floppy flannel shirts in a grungy coffee shop next year?
Her heart was already clunking along like a nervous engine. Then she saw Peter watching her, and it about pounded out of her chest. Stupid, sympathetic blue eyes that pretty much said, I hope you win, Katie.
That was it. She was going to puke. Something she hadn't done in school since third grade when Greg Harms had eaten his own booger in class.
Then she realized she was holding her breath, and blew it out. The judges had moved on to the last table, Lisa Banks and her misbehaving mice. They spent a few frowns and a couple of pen scribbles there and that was it.
Oh, Lord, please let me win. Just this once, let me win something. I promise I won't call Penny the b-word ever again and I'll stop watching Peter wash his dad's car with his shirt off. Please, oh please.
The judges spent about a minute or an hour conferring on the stage; she wasn't sure which, as time perception was not high on her abilities right now.
Finally, Mrs. Wells stepped to the microphone. Then stepped back to confer with
a judge on something, putting her hand on the mic.
Oh, geez, just do it. Either let me win or shoot me, now. Duffy, the janitor, could clean up the mess. He had a mop.
The room grew silent, save for the buzzing and hissing of a few projects.
Someone's parrot said “pretty boy” and everyone laughed. Except Katie.
Mrs. Wells spoke. “Students and faculty, thank you so much for all your hard
work putting together another successful Nitrovex Scholarship Fair.”
There was polite applause.
“This year's entrants were exceptional, making it very difficult to choose a winner.”
Lisa yelled ouch! as one of her mice bit her.
Say it, say it, say it, Katie willed.
