CHAPTER 1
September ...
... in which We Meet Matthew, a Boy with a Dream
Monday, September 30
People Who Ruin My Life
My dream is to be a writer, not to work for one.
So what the hell am I doing here?
"Thank you," I say as I slide SheldonCraig's debit card back into my wallet. It's his "businessaccount" card. I'm not quite sure what "business" he'srunning, but I can certainly tell you that being a publishedauthor does not necessarily constitute being a capitalist.Especially not in Sheldon Craig's case. Then again, I guesswhen you're as acclaimed and successful an author asSheldon Craig, you can do just about anything that you damnwell please and get away with it. On more occasions than afew, Sheldon likes to leave articles from the New York Timesor Time Magazine or Writers Weekly lying around that renownhim for his, as he puts it, "impeccable literary craft." But as areader, I can tell you that I've read most of his books, and it'smore like impeccable literary crap.
The man has written seventeen novels—three of whichwere a trilogy-turned-movie-franchise that made Harry Potterand Katniss Everdeen cry like newborns—and now writes forone of the biggest and most popular homoerotic magazines inthe nation.
Maybe there's more business to this than I thought.
After taking Mr. Craig's dry-cleaning from the stout Asianman behind the counter, I step out onto the hot pavementof Houston, Texas, and make my way to the "company"vehicle with which Mr. Craig has supplied me. Sure, maybeI shouldn't stop complaining. After all, if it hadn't been forSheldon—which I am never allowed to call him to his face,or to any of his colleagues, friends (assuming that he hasany), or employees—I wouldn't be driving the newest JeepGrand Cherokee that I'm walking toward, not to mentionnot spending a single penny on the gas. Thank you, BusinessAccount.
Oh, shit—literally.
As I'm stepping off of the curb to hang Sheldon'sdry-cleaning in the back of my car, I catch myself steppinginto a pile of dog poop. It reeks. And of course it is now onmy shoe.
I can hear my friend Karlee in the back of mind saying,"Always keep a change of clothes and shoes in your car. Younever know what's going to happen to you between home andschool."
Hey, Karlee, why didn't you mention the dry-cleaners?
As it happens, I'm going to have to risk being late toschool so that I can drive back home to change my shoes.There's no way I'm going to walk around school beingPoo-Shoes all day. It's not worth the mass of people pullingtheir shirts up over their noses and fleeing from me in thehallways.
I wipe as much of the crap off of the bottom of my footand onto the curb as I can—who lets their dog take a dump inthe street anyway?—and search my backseat for anything toput my shoes into. There's an empty lunchbox, but somethingtells me that my size-thirteen shoes aren't going to fit insideof it. There's also my backpack, but there's homework inthere. Although, English homework smeared with dog shitmight serve Ms. Castro right for giving me a D—on mynarrative.
Don't assign me a story at the beginning of the schoolyear and give me the freedom to write about whatever I wantto if you're only going to give it a D-. Clearly, Ms. Castrodoesn't recognize a writing prodigy when she encounters one.
Okay, "prodigy" might be a strong word.
But I am a damn good writer.
I'm an award-winning writer. And not those stupidawards that they give you in elementary school that comewith a certificate and a book-shaped sticker either. Thesewere legitimate awards in which I competed against some ofthe most talented young writers in the state. And twice I won.Suck on that, Ms. Castro.
The story that I wrote for Castro's class was about a boymoving to a new town with his estranged aunt after the deathof his parents. Shortly after moving to the new town, he met ayoung girl whom he fell madly in love with. Despite this, thegirl died of leukemia just after she professed her love for him,driving the boy into a mad depression.
Ultimately, he killed himself.
The only nice thing Ms. Castro wrote on my paper wasthat when she usually read something that dark and twistedthe law required her to report it to a counselor. However,she wasn't going to because she didn't want to fill outall the paperwork. That God-sent woman truly has herpriorities in line.
Castro's sort of a Nazi.
She too is a writer. I've never actually read anything thatshe's written because she's very private about her work andhas never been published. But she has her master's degreein English and teaches not only high school level Englishcourses, but college courses in rhetoric and composition aswell. I'll never tell her this, but I kind of want to be betterthan her someday. I mean, c'mon. Every student must surpassthe teacher eventually, right?
And I'm sure Ms. Castro was never the personal assistantof one of the world's most renowned authors. She definitelywasn't one as a senior in high school.
If you ask me, I may just be doing something right for once.
After a change of shoes, a Starbucks coffee, and twocigarettes, I'm pulling into Sam Houston High School'sparking lot over an hour after the first bell has rung. I wouldn'tbe quite this late if it weren't for Karlee's car breaking downon the side of Highway 59. I had to go and pick her up beforea sex trafficker did. After all, this is Houston.
I put my cigarette out on the back of a jet-blackmotorcycle. I'm pretty sure that it's Ms. Castro's, but concernisn't one of the many emotions that I'm feeling right now.And trust me when I say that there are many. I have theemotional capacity of a teenage girl watching Titanic andeating Velveeta right off the block. I'm kind of a hot mess, bythe most traditional of standards.
"How late are we?" Karlee asks as she puts a cigarette outon the sidewalk. It's menthol because I'm too poor to affordcigarettes and gum. Karlee doesn't even smoke, typically. Ithink this day has just really gotten off to a bad start for her.Not that it's my job or that of my cigarettes, to make it anybetter.
"Have you lost the ability to tell time?" I ask her as Ipower walk toward the front doors of Sam Houston. Karlee,lulling and lagging, is thirty feet behind me as she tries toapply lip-gloss, look into her compact mirror, and walksimultaneously. I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but Karleehas the mental capacity of a fourteen day-old infant, minusthe vomit and the diapers. She's not overtly stupid; she justclearly lacks a great deal of common sense, which oftenmakes others around her think that she's ditzy.
"Walk faster!" I yell back at her.
She does not pick up her pace.
"Why are you yelling at me?" Karlee asks from behind. Islow down to give her time to catch up to me.
"Why did your car have to break down this morning?Of all the mornings it could have broken down, it had tobreak down on the one day that I had to pick up Sheldon'sdry-cleaning and step in dog shit."
"You pick up Sheldon's dry-cleaning twice a week. So Ireally don't even want to hear about that. And how is it myfault that my car broke down?" Karlee stops to gather herthoughts for a minute. "Better yet, how is my fault that youstepped in dog shit?" Karlee shakes her head back and forthat me. "You need to get a grip on your life. It's a mess."
Oh, how true those words are ...
I give Karlee one final look as she stops in the middle ofthe parking lot. She pulls a compact mirror out of her purseand begins examining herself before being thrust into thestereotypical jungle known as Sam Houston High School.And for just a moment, as I'm watching her toss her hair toone side, I catch myself admiring Karlee. She carries herselfwith such grace and poise—two I was either born with andsustained until being held far too close to a microwave, ornever had to begin with. I wish I could be a little more likeher. Elegant and outgoing.
Once inside, I dart upstairs to my college-level Englishcourse.
"You're late," Ms. Castro says as I walk into her room assecretly as I can. She's making her way around the desks andtelling the class to pull their homework out to turn in. Mostof the kids in the room pull papers out of their binders andbackpacks. The ones who neglect to do so get to hear oneof Castro's infamous minilectures. "Failure begins with onemissing assignment," or her favorite, "You won't be laughingwhen you're the only twenty-year-old in the twelfth grade."
I reach into my bag to pull my English binder out.Unzipping the backpack and rifling through its contents, I finda flatiron, five tubes of lip-gloss, a Justin Bieber compositionnotebook, and an autographed copy of Fifty Shades of Grey.
This is not my backpack.
It's Karlee's.
"Ms. Castro," I say as she stops at my desk.
"Where's your paper?" she asks me with her handpushed so close to my face, I flinch in fear that she's going tobitch-slap me.
"I accidentally grabbed Karlee's backpack this morningwhen I got out of the car."
"How did you do that?" Castro asks as though thisscenario is completely illogical.
I point down at the blue backpack on the floor. "We havethe same backpack. We got them last week when we went toshopping for school clothes. Kohl's had them marked down50 percent, and then I had twenty dollars Kohl's cash. WhenI had gotten through the checkout line, Kohl's owed memoney."
Ms. Castro rolls her eyes, and then asks me, "Are yougoing to bring me the essay today?" I nod and extend mypinky.
"Pinky swear!"
The corner of Castro's top lip rises up, making me thinkshe's going to smile for just a moment. However, I quicklyrealize that this is simply a nervous twitch. She shakesher head and walks away from me. She's lucky I even didthe damn assignment. By the time I got home from workyesterday, I was so tired that I didn't even want to thinkabout homework. Sheldon asked me to make grammaticalcorrections to the first markup of his new novel last night. Ididn't leave his office until ten-to-twelve.
And while I'm on the subject, what kind of novelist askshis high school senior assistant to correct the grammar in hisnovel? He has more employees than Donald Trump at thebeginning of each season of The Apprentice, most of whichhave degrees and those who don't aren't even in this countrylegally. Why pick me?
Sheldon Craig employs two personal assistants—a homeassistant and an office assistant—along with an office chef,a story organizer, two people to revise and edit what thepublishing houses tell him to, an office manager, a securityguard, an in-office accountant and CPA, and a personal dogwalker that not only lives with him but is probably sleepingwith him. And the trouble is that I know there are morestaff members. These are just the only ones I've ever had toencounter. He's basically three French hens away from havingone very merry Christmas.
The bell rings, dismissing the masses from the classes,and I stand and stride toward the hallway. When I cross thethreshold from hell to hallway, Karlee is standing there withmy backpack. Clearly she recognized the exchange as well.
"You have my backpack."
"I know," I respond. "Let me have mine so I can giveCastro my homework real quick." I snatch my bag out ofKarlee's hands. "I'll see you at lunch!" I tell her as I slip backinto the room.
Ms. Castro is sitting at her desk. Her red pen is movingfuriously over a paper that she's staring at rather intently. I cantell, however, that she's repulsed by whatever she's reading.She keeps scoffing and making noises that could only meanshe either loathes the very words written on the paper or shedrank expired milk and her body is slowly turning against her.
"Ms. Castro," I say, knocking on the open door.
She looks up at me and gives a half-smile. It sends ashiver down my spine.
"Got that paper?" she asks.
"Yeah," I reply, walking across the room to hand it toher. "It's probably not very good though. I was working untilalmost midnight last night, and by the time I got home tofinish it, I was exhausted."
"How's that going?" she asks me.
"Work?"
Ms. Castro nods.
"It's okay. I mean, Sheldon Craig is a bit ... um ...what's the word?"
"Selfish?"
"No."
"Arrogant?"
"Not quite."
"Dumb?"
"Not exactly."
"Needy?"
"That's it!" I exclaim. It's no secret to me that Ms. Castrodespises my boss. I don't know if it's because he's a publishedauthor and she's not, but Ms. Castro makes no bones aboutthe fact that she utterly detests Sheldon Craig. On severaloccasions, she has remarked to the class that he writes like aseven-year-old, and that the first time she tried to read one ofhis novels, she tried to set the book on fire and then slide itinto her pants.
Ms. Castro's a bit dramatic, but she's a writer like Sheldonand me. Therefore, it makes sense.
"Your job seems to be taking up a great deal of yourtime," she points out as if I don't already know this. "We'reonly two weeks into the school year, and I can tell already thatyou're not keeping up with your work the way you did lastyear." Castro was my English teacher last year as well. "Youmay want to consider asking for less hours. For someone whohas a lot of potential, you're wasting the education that willhelp you turn that into something."
I sigh an overexaggerated sigh. "I know. But this jobcould really pay off someday."
It's Castro that sighs now.
"Matthew, sit down. I want to ask you a question," Castroorders, no longer wanting to discuss her quasi-archenemy. Itake a seat on top of an empty desk next to hers. I drop mybackpack into the chair tucked behind it and fold my armsacross my chest. This is my serious pose.
"What's up?" I ask her, trying intently to raise aneyebrow and squint the opposite eye at the same time. Imostly just end up twitching but finally pull it off withmoderate success. Castro looks at me, blowing some hot airout of her lungs and shaking her head and then looks back toa student's paper. She continues to grade it but all the whilespeaks to me.
"You're a very good writer, Matthew," she tells me.
I want to say thanks, but I can sense an oncoming "but" or"however" or, my favorite, "despite this." Although, Castrosays none of these things. She tells me, "You're not a greatwriter, but you have the potential to be so. I mean, last yearthere was a story or paper that you wrote that I was impressedwith on some level. If nothing else, I was impressed at it incomparison to those of your peers."
"Well, I do want to be a writer," I explain to her.
"Incorrect," Castro snaps like a shark on Shark Week.
Wait. What the fuck just happened?
I must look confused because Castro follows this with,"As long as a person writes as much as they breathe and putstheir heart into every word that falls onto the paper beforethem, they shall never want to be a writer. They are simplyjust that."
Again, I must look confused because she then puts it intolayman's terms.
"You are a writer, Matthew. Don't kid yourself." I want tosmile, but I know that Castro doesn't approve of smiles. Shealso doesn't approve of happiness, joy, glee, ambition, love,or puppies. It's kind of her thing.
"Anyway," she continues, "that's why I need to talk to you.You know I teach tenth-grade English as well, correct?" I nod.I actually didn't know this, considering it's only the secondweek of school, and I didn't even know that Castro was goingto be my teacher again until seven days ago. Last year hadbeen her first year at Sam. But I didn't know that Castro wastaking on more than one course this semester. You go, girl.
"I have a student in my sophomore class who's strugglingwith an assignment I've given her class. She's very intelligent,but English is just not her strong suit. Anyway, I tried helpingher with it, but she doesn't seem to understand what I'mtrying to explain to her. I thought that maybe if it came fromsomeone closer in age, she might see things differently—"
"Now, wait a minute," I cut Castro off. "If you're about toask me what I think you're about to ask me, you can forget it.I have a job that requires almost every available hour of mytime and a family that makes the Addams look like WASPs,okay? I don't have time to tutor some spoiled brat for free."
Castro, frustrated, looks down at her papers again. Shescribbles something across one in such a dark red ink that I'msure it's the blood of pupils past. But then she looks up at meand replies, "If you do this for me, I will not only give you extracredit, but I will do any favor that you ask of me. Any favor."
I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean, but I'msecretly hoping there's no sexual connotation behind it.
