For some reason, that remark about her not knowing anything makes me really, really angry. “It was already there for her!” I shout. “She was a dancer! It wasn’t just a dream! She was doing it! God damn it! In Los Angeles! More than me, more than you, more than anybody, she was not just dreaming about it, she was living it!” Mr. C. holds out his hands to protect himself, but it’s too late. “Melody Grimshaw from the trash up on the hill and all the brothers in jail, and she’s not doing it anymore. That’s the fucking tragedy! And nobody gets it!”

He bows his head. This was supposed to be our big conversation about capitalism and the class system, in which I defend my year’s work and tie it all together, since I failed to do it on paper. But Mr. C. is crying. His eyes are tight shut, and his face has turned red. I pick up the box of Kleenex off his desk and place it on the register in front of him. I know I should apologize for taking it out on him. It’s not his fault. Mr. C. takes off his glasses and wipes his face with a pocket handkerchief. He blows his nose and clears his throat.

“I picked up your yearbook for you,” he says. “It was the last one there, and we had to close up.”

He hands it to me. It’s gold with the letters CHS in lavender in the upper right-hand corner. I flip through to the seniors to see if I can find Grimshaw’s senior picture. They were taken in November. She wore her cheerleaders’ uniform.

She’s not in there. I look up at Mr. C. He was the yearbook advisor.

“The news came too late to commemorate her in any way,” Mr. C. says. “Or we would have. It was already at the printer’s.”

I turn the pages and find Angel’s picture, and then Rack’s. “How come Claudette Mizerak is in here, and Melody’s not?” I ask him. “They left school around the same time. The same day, actually.”

“Well, Claudette, you know, made arrangements, and she’ll get her diploma along with the rest of you.”

“Did Claudette pass Western Civ?”

“No,” Mr. C. says quietly.

“I see.”

I stare at him. Does he really not get it? No. There’s too much to get. You can’t get any of it, unless you get all of it, and if you get all of it, you just want to blow the whole thing up. So unless you’re prepared to blow the whole thing up, you’re just sorry.

“Yeah. I’m sorry, too.”

Mr. C. taps the cover. “I took the liberty of signing yours.”

“Where?”