Liar, Liar

12. A GOOD LIE DEMANDS SUBSTANTIAL AMENDS

After the longest morning of my life, I printed out all the letters I’d written, signed them and started delivering them face to face, like a man, like a soldier.

Katie took the letter from me in the hall as if she would have preferred I’d handed her a steaming pile of fresh horse manure. But she dropped it into her backpack, not the trash, and I took that as a positive sign. I could only hope she’d read it during her 12.5 minutes a day of downtime, even if she couldn’t resist editing it before returning it to me for corrections and a clean second draft.

Mr. Crosby was at his desk. He looked surprised to see me. He read my note, glanced up and said one word. One letter. “F.”

I nodded and left. For the first time I could think of, more talking wouldn’t help.

I have to admit that I was relieved that Señora Lucia, Mrs. Steck, Coach Gifford and Mr. Meyers weren’t around when I went looking for them.

But at least I tried to find them. I didn’t have time to search all over school; I had to keep plugging along on the Kevin Spencer Apology Tour. And although I wanted to be brave and manly and all those good soldierly things, I was happy to slip their notes into their mailboxes; I didn’t particularly want to face another four failing grades on a Friday. Monday would be soon enough. Only a fool rushes bad news.

I had a plan B. Win back respect and trust. But now was not the time for it. Plan A, A-for-Apologies, this week. Plan B next week.

JonPaul took my letter when I found him near his locker, but as I turned to walk away, he said quietly, “I gave your concert ticket to Greggie.”

I’d expected as much. But inside I screamed: Nooooooooooo!

I stood outside the girls’ restroom and waited for Connie to come out. I handed her my note and said, “As you read this, just remember that I am great at oral presentations.” I walked away fast.

I’d heard once that the best apologies don’t make a bad situation worse by further hurting the person you’re apologizing to, so I hadn’t admitted to Connie that I’d used her to try to get to know Tina; that would be cold. I wrote that I’d been trying to get out of classes and had maybe fudged a little on how genuinely excited I was about student government, but she could totally count on me for the debate, and the left is my good side on camera. Maybe a joke could lighten the mood.

It was difficult to write the apologies. But the hardest part was going to be waiting to see if they’d be accepted. A person can’t hurry forgiveness.

The play director, the wrestling coach and the newspaper editor weren’t even aware that I’d screwed them over, but I’d written to them anyway.

I found the drama teacher, whose name I didn’t know, sitting in the lotus position in the middle of the stage. I set my backpack down in the wings, kicked off my shoes, padded over and sat on the floor next to her. It took me a few minutes to get both my feet on top of the opposite thighs, but I managed.

“I don’t mean to interrupt when you’re … meditating,” I said quietly and, I hoped, peacefully so that I wouldn’t ruin her calm mood, “but I want to volunteer to work on the musical.”

She didn’t answer or open her eyes, but she’d stopped humming, so I knew she was listening.

“I’m going to leave you this letter I wrote.” I set it on one of her open palms as it rested on top of her knee. “I’ll do whatever you need—manage props, work the lights, sweep the stage. My email address is in the letter. Uh, namaste.”

Next I dashed to the assistant gym teacher’s office. He’s also the wrestling coach.

“Speak,” Mini-Coach growled at me from his desk, where he was doing paperwork. He didn’t even turn around.

“Yeah, uh, hi, you don’t know me, but, uh, I’d like to be the student manager of the wrestling team.”

“Uh-huh …”

“So I’m just gonna leave this letter I wrote here on the chair. You can get in touch with me when you’re not so busy.”

“Unh.” He waved a hand.

“Good talk. You take care now.” I backed out of his office. I don’t know how JonPaul does all those sports if this is how coaches communicate.

When I got to the newspaper office, a staff meeting was in progress. I slid to the back of the room and pretended I belonged. Not very well, though.

“You.” I looked up to see the editor pointing at me. “Who are you, what do you want, when did you decide to turn up, where did you come from, and why are you late?”

“I’d like to work for the newspaper. I’ll write copy or deliver the papers to classes or clean the newsroom or change ink cartridges in the printers. I have some writing samples here for you.” I handed him some of my research papers and short stories, which I’d printed out at the library.

By the end of the school day on Friday, I was pretty happy that I hadn’t found the ideal moment to speak to Tina all week. One less person to apologize to. And at the rate I’d been going, I’d have messed things up with her and lost the chance to make her see that I was her perfect guy. When the air had cleared from my disaster, I’d focus on making her know all the wonderful things about me.

While trying to make sure she never heard a single thing about this week, that is.