“Still,” Vi said, serious as ever.

Once they’d finished a couple of worksheets, Vi explained to Marianne that States would be much harder than Regionals.

“We’d better do some team-building then,” Marianne said.

“We’d better study ten times harder,” Vi retorted. “I want you to master science history. Got it? To master it in the next two weeks.”

“Cool,” Marianne deadpanned. “No problem. Done and done.”

“But yes,” Vi relented, her face slightly fuzzy on the screen. “Team-building is good, too. Math now?”

“Hey,” Marianne said, trying to change the subject to stop her breath from quickening again, “did your parents get to watch the recording?”

“Um.” Vi paused. “I emailed it to them, so I assume so.”

“They didn’t say anything to you about it?” Marianne asked in shock.

“They congratulated me on the win. Upped my allowance,” Vi added.

“Whoa, that’s awesome. You get paid for stuff? No wonder you want good grades,” Marianne blurted out.

“That has nothing to do with it,” Vi said. “I’ll give you the money. Want it?”

“Yeah,” Marianne laughed.

“Moving on,” Vi said.

“Wait, are you serious about giving me the money or no?” Marianne joked.

“If you don’t have math in you tonight, I have other ideas,” Vi moved on.

“Anything else, please,” Marianne begged her.

“Alright. Then tonight we discuss…” Vi took a big, dramatic pause. “Evolution.”

“Monkeys!” Marianne belted out. “I know about this one. And I do love monkeys.” This was the good stuff.

Vi sighed. “Here we go.”

“Aw, come on, Vi, you know you’re starting to love me,” Marianne cooed into the screen.

Vi paused. “You have more merit than initially meets the eye,” she said, and then dove into Darwin.

11

A C MINUS: 73.5 percent.

That was what she earned in Mr. Garcia’s second-to-last test.

No tears, no tears, no tears …

But for a brief time, she’d gotten used to the idea of something different. And that was her mistake.

Her mom was wrong: Uncle Sean wasn’t terrible. He simply saw her for what she was.

An MRS degree. Ha. She should’ve laughed. It was funny! He was obviously just joking. He probably just meant she was pretty, which was a compliment, right?

Did girls really go to college just to find guys to marry? Did those girls still get their degrees, or no? If they got into college in the first place, they had to be pretty smart.

Marianne pictured herself in one of those 1950s dresses, cinched at the waist, big skirt, going, “Steak’s for supper, dear!” Maybe that kind of life wouldn’t be so bad. You could probably watch TV all day.

Marianne took her pencil and transformed the red C into a crescent moon and the minus into a star.

It was the best grade she’d received all year in math and yet it wasn’t good enough. She wasn’t good enough.

She kept her eyes on the marked-up wood on her table: RL WAS HERE, two gross carvings, a penciled airplane, SAVE ME …