Chapter Ten: Gretchen's Thanksgiving Break

Gretchen had thought about it long and hard and finally concluded that the best course of action was telling her parents about her horrible grades right up front – like ripping off a band aid or biting the bullet or any other random cliché. However, when her parents pulled up outside her dorm, her mother bursting with excitement, she just couldn't bring herself to talk about it yet. Instead, she explained her various club activities, everything she had learned in Rainforest Bio and Women's Studies and her potential "thing" with Mike from Modernist Poetry.

As her parents listened intently, they were practically beaming with pride. When had this ever happened? Certainly not when she first showed them her schedule, which got a pretty expected reaction of "what the actual hell?" What was she ever going to do with a class about Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Her father had asked condescendingly – so condescendingly, in fact, that Gretchen had actually dropped the class online and had only re-registered for it after Greg and Graham said they thought it sounded like the most amazing college class they had ever heard of.

But suddenly, Gregory Wieners, a man normally so reserved that she had been expecting a handshake from him when he picked her up from school rather than a hug, was all-ears about Buffy class. If Gretchen hadn't known better, she would have thought that her parents had actually missed her or something.

As it turned out, dinner was also not the best time to open up about her potential D's and F's because Graham, Steiner and Logan had come over. Although three-year-old Logan Murphy (an unfortunate name for one of the girliest girly girls Gretchen had ever met) was pretty much always the center of attention at gatherings due to her obnoxious, princess persona, she had been relatively normal and quiet that night. Therefore, Gretchen had been the undisputed star of the evening as her family listened, peppered her with questions, and even laughed at her jokes.

After she and Logan watched Cinderella, Logan snuggled up against her with thumb in her mouth, Gretchen fell asleep feeling both vaguely happy and also vaguely horrible, because she knew her grades would feel like a betrayal to everyone. Then again, maybe she could get away with not telling anyone yet and just letting it be a surprise over Christmas. Perhaps it would be worth it to keep everyone's pride intact. Because much as she wanted to believe her family loved her no matter what, she had always known their attention came with the condition that she didn't screw up. As her Sonata finally started to kick in, she had made up her mind to postpone a discussion about her grades until they showed up online. Cowardly? Maybe. But Gretchen knew that, at heart, she had always been a major scaredy-cat.

In her dream, Gretchen was in Modernist Poetry, although the class seemed a great deal larger than real life. This was, of course, a major understatement. She somehow knew that every single person currently alive on the planet attended this class – kind of like in her oldest fantasy of having a sleepover with everyone in the world. "Miss Weiners," Professor Maxwell said, "your poem?"

As she stood in front of the audience, which seemed to grow larger and larger by the second, fear welled up in her throat and she shook uncontrollably. She hadn't memorized anything. Not a single word.

"Well?" Professor Maxwell asked, his eyes narrowed.

"Um…" she said. She cleared her throat loudly. "Do you ever feel like a plastic bag? Drifting through the wind, waiting to start again?" Huh, she thought; had she really come up with that? That was a pretty damn good metaphor, actually! "Do you ever feel? Feel so paper-thin like a house of cards, one blow from caving in? Do you ever feel already buried deep? Six feet under, scream, but no one seems to hear a thing?" This, too, was pretty good. Maybe she wasn't Sylvia Plath or anything, but grave imagery was always a nice touch. "Do you know that there's still a chance for you? Cause there's a spark in you. You just gotta' ignite the light and let it shine! Just own the night like the Fourth of July! Cuz' baby, you're a firework! C'mon let you're colors burst!" She suddenly froze. No wonder her "poem" was so good. She hadn't written it at all! How did this never occur to her?

"Uh…" she said, suddenly losing every ounce of confidence. "NO! That wasn't what I was supposed to say! I did memorize my poem!"

"Well, may we hear it?" snapped Professor Maxwell.

Gretchen cleared her throat. "Um…okay…Salagadoo mechicka boola bibbidi-bobbidi-boo! Put it together and what've you got? Bippity-boppity-boo!" Well, this certainly wasn't any better. It was just a bunch of nonsense words! Even Gertrude Stein or e.e Cummings probably wouldn't have been able to pull this off.

The class broke into hysterical laughter. "You suck!" shouted Cao Boi from the front row.

"No, hey GRETCHEN!" her father snapped. "That doesn't even make any SENSE!"

"I guess maybe I was wrong about you being smart," said Mike, shaking his head in disappointment.

"F," said Professor Maxwell.

Normally after such dreams, Gretchen felt a sense of relief that she didn't really have such a terrible assignment and/or class. Unfortunately, this dream had been suspiciously similar to what Professor Maxwell actually wanted them to do. And even more unfortunately, she had not written nor memorized a single syllable.

Because it was only 8:30 in the morning, she opened a new word document and glared at the screen. I am not leaving this room, she told herself, until I have written this poem.

But only a few minutes later, she was distracted by checking her current favorite website – Oberlin's Blackboard site with up-to-date grades. She wasn't overly worried about Rainforest Biology. If she kept up what she was doing, she was looking at a B- at the very lowest. Meanwhile, she was definitely getting an A in Glass Blowing because everyone got an A in that class. Scuba Diving was pass/fail and she already knew that it was a lost cause after she missed more than two classes. She wasn't even going to bother with the final, which to be honest, was somewhat of a relief.

This left Women's Studies, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Modernist Poetry and Japanese 101. If she pulled off an A on the final papers for Women's Studies, Modernist Poetry and Buffy, she could hopefully score a C in each of them (maybe a C- in Modernist Poetry, but although, not ideal, at least this was still a passing grade). Unfortunately, she didn't think anything could save her in Japanese 101, especially since they had an oral portion of the final. So very, very not Kawaii.

She stared at the grades as if she could will them to change through magic. Her heart pounded in her temples. I am not leaving this room until I have written half of this poem.

Gretchen wished she could crawl into her mother's bed and sob in her arms while Lisa stroked her hair and patted her back and told her that they all still loved her no matter what. She had seen Steiner do this for Logan the night before after the cat from Cinderella scared her. Unfortunately, Gretchen knew she and her mother had never had that kind of relationship – not even when she was Logan's age.

When Gretchen was younger, her parents used to call her their "surprise baby," which was just a nicer way of saying she was an accident. She had always gotten the feeling that Lisa resented her – at least to a degree - for forcing her to change diapers again when the twins were just entering their terrible teens (although, as far as Gretchen was concerned, Greg and Graham had never been hell raisers of any sort) and to go out trick-or-treating again when the twins entered college (although, Gretchen seemed to remember she usually went with her friends anyway) and to deal with ridiculous high school bullshit again when Greg and Graham were both planning their weddings (this was fair – Gretchen definitely had more than her fair share of stupid high school drama).

Gretchen rubbed her eyes and sighed. I am not leaving this room until I have written one stanza of this poem. But where was she even supposed to start? I am not leaving this room until I have written one line of this poem. She wondered if Mike had finished his yet. It was probably beautiful. She couldn't wait to hear him recite it in front of the class – especially since he rarely talked all semester. Although, she told herself, she would probably too nervous about her train-wreck of a poem to even pay attention, let alone enjoy it. Maybe she would volunteer to go first. Wouldn't that make Professor Maxwell grade her less harshly? Or would he just think she was overly-desperate/annoying? I am not leaving this room until I have written one word of this poem. "Shit," she typed and then slammed the computer screen down.

When Gretchen arrived in the kitchen, Gregory was sitting at the table, reading Science Weekly. "Hey, kiddo," he said – which was bizarre because her father had never called any cutesy nicknames. Regina's dad called both Regina and Kylie "Princess" or "Pumpkin" or "Sweetie," but Gregory was so boring and formal that the furthest deviation she could expect from her given name was "Gretch" and even that was uncommon. He looked up from his paper and smiled. "I made strudels. You want one?"

Although Gregory Weiners was the inventor of toaster strudels, he had apparently gotten up early to make homemade ones Grandma Olga style: flakey and light, filled with spicy cinnamon and apples and strawberries and drenched with melted sweet butter and bittersweet chocolate syrup.

"Okay," Gretchen said, although she knew very well that she didn't deserve it. Besides, her stomach was in knots and her throat was partially closed up. Gregory handed her the plate and sprinkled some extra powdered sugar over the strudel. He also poured her a mug of hot chocolate and even remembered the whipped cream. "Um…so, dad?" she said staring down at the plate. "I need to talk to you about something."

Gregory's smile disappeared and he slowly pulled out the chair across from her and sat down. "Okay," he said.

Gretchen's stomach leaped into her throat where it proceeded to engage in all kinds of acrobatic flips. "I'm kind of not doing that well in some of my classes," she said.

"What do you mean kind of not so well?" asked her father.

Gretchen sighed heavily. "Um…well…it's not all of them. I'm getting an A in Glass Blowing and probably in Rainforest Biology, too."

Much like Regina and Naomi, Gregory was a master of the silent treatment. He looked at her with stone cold eyes. "Okay," he said again finally.

"But…um…I've been so busy with clubs and friend stuff and well…I might be getting a less-than-awesome grade in Women's Studies." She wasn't sure why she mentioned this class of all things first – perhaps because it was objectively both the most difficult and most relevant. "And Japanese," she added quietly. "And Modernist Poetry." She figured it would be better not to bring Buffy into it at all. Or Scuba Diving, for that matter.

"What exactly does less-than-awesome mean?" asked Gregory. "Are we talking a B-?"

Gretchen stared down at her plate, her eyes filling with tears. No, she thought bitterly, a B- is going to be one of my higher grades this semester.

"C?" Gregory asked, his voice rising.

Gretchen just shrugged.

"D?" Gregory's voice went all high-pitched and got three times louder.

"Yeah," she whispered – or to be more accurate, practically squeaked – like a scared little mouse. "Maybe." There was no reason to tell him about her probable "F" in Japanese.

Gregory ran his fingers through of his perfectly gelled hair. "Gretchen, do you know how much your mother and I are paying to send you to Oberlin?" This was a slightly unfair question, given that they were practically millionaires. "This is unbelievable," he said. "Your brothers always got on the Honor Roll every single semester – while having full social schedules. And me? I worked full-time all throughout college and I didn't get D's!"

"I'm going to do better next semester. Really I am! Could you maybe not tell Mom?"

"Could I not tell Mom?" Gregory repeated, his voice dripping with contempt. "Of course I'm going to tell Mom. LISA!"

Gretchen's mother stuck her head through the doorway. "What's going on in here?" she asked.

Gregory stared at Gretchen. "I don't know. Why don't you ask your daughter?"

Gretchen sniffled and let her tears glaze the strudel.

"She's apparently failing some of her classes," said Gregory.

"Not failing," Gretchen said her voice barely above a whisper.

"I don't understand how she could be failing," Lisa told Gregory as if Gretchen wasn't even there. She looked at Gretchen, her lips in a straight line. "You always got straight A's in high school."

"College is harder," Gretchen said lamely.

"Look," said Lisa, rubbing her temples. "I don't know if you realize this, but failing a college course is a BIG deal. It's not like in high school. This is going to affect your GPA forever. And why are you just telling us about this now?" she added snappishly. "Shouldn't you have mentioned it last night when you were going on and on about how much you loved your classes?"

"Yes, why are you just bringing it up now?" Gregory agreed.

Gretchen sighed. Perhaps her initial instinct to tell them right upfront had been correct after all. "I um…I didn't know," she said, her heart sinking into her stomach. "I just checked my grades earlier this morning." Bad! She thought to herself. It was a ridiculous lie and wasn't going to protect her from their anger.

"Well," Lisa said after a long while. "You have to do a lot better next semester or you're not going to that school anymore."

Gretchen was well aware that she had gotten off pretty easy, all things considered. Yet, as the day went on, her parents decided to just ignore her completely as her mother prepared the dinner and her father watched football.

Gretchen sat at the table, staring at nothing. She knew very well that she should have been working on her poem – wasn't self-loathing supposed to be a great recipe for deep poetry? But she couldn't bring herself to get up from the table as Lisa chopped vegetables. "Could I help with anything?" she asked.

Lisa sighed. "Why don't you go watch the game with your father?" she said.

"Oh," Gretchen said, "okay." She had never actually watched football with her dad, but didn't she like football now? Since Mike was on the team?

Although Gregory was a huge football fan, he didn't show his enthusiasm openly. He looked slightly bored, even, as he sipped his sparkly water and stared at the screen.

"Hey, Dad," Gretchen said, perching next to him. "Who's winning?"

"Cowboys," Gregory mumbled.

"I know someone named Cao Boi," said Gretchen, wishing she could slap herself in the face. What an idiotic thing to say. "So…did I tell you Mike plays football?" Also a semi-stupid thing to say, but at least semi-relevant.

Gregory turned up the volume and Gretchen leaned back, her arms crossed. Her father inched away from her and continued staring blankly at the screen. Apparently Gretchen wasn't even close to all-cried-out yet, because tears welled in her eyes. She cleared her throat, which Gregory ignored. He turned up the volume again. Gretchen sighed much louder and heavier than she meant to.

"No, hey Gretchen," Gregory snapped. "If you don't like it, don't watch! Why don't you see if your mother wants help in the kitchen?"

"She doesn't," said Gretchen.

Gregory rolled his eyes. "Well, Graham, Steiner and Logan will be here in about an hour. You know Logan loves brown rice with Thanksgiving dinner." Gretchen didn't have the slightest idea why he expected her to know that, but who the hell wants brown rice at Thanksgiving? She wrinkled her nose. "Why don't you make for them? I'm pretty sure your mother forgot all about it," Gregory added.

"Oh, um, yeah, okay."

Lisa had run out to buy more pumpkin filling, so Gretchen was alone in the kitchen and alone with her thoughts. What the hell was going to happen to her if she didn't improve her grades and had to leave Oberlin? Just last week she would have thought it was for the best – it wasn't like anyone (aside from possibly Simon and Regina) would miss her or even realize she was gone, but now that she had Mike in her life (okay, maybe that was an overstatement at the moment), things had changed. And if her grades didn't improve next semester, what would that say about her? Lisa was right about Gretchen's high school grades – and if she thought about it, she had been just as busy in high school trying to fit in with the Plastics, but still managed to be almost at the top of her class every semester. Had she somehow lost her intelligence?

Suddenly, the smoke alarm blared and the room was filled with black smog. She quickly turned on the fan and moved the pan off of the stove, smoke filling her lungs. The rice had turned from brown to black and smelled vaguely like ammonia and smelling salts.

"What's going on in here?" Gregory's voice boomed.

"It…um…burned," she mumbled.

Gregory gazed into the pot. "God, Gretchen," he snapped. "Can't you do anything right?"

Thanksgiving dinner probably could have sucked a lot more than it did, Gretchen realized, but she still couldn't say she enjoyed a single millisecond of the experience – even when she got to tell Greg and his stuck up wife Natalie about Mike – because the whole thing just seemed tinted with resentment, frustration and barely-contained anger. After the night before being completely the Gretchen show, she had gone back into obscurity. She said a lot, sure, but it was all stuff like "wow, cool!" and "that is SO weird" and other reactions to whatever the rest of the family was saying. No one asked her any questions and the one time she tried to bring up school (that is, her relationship-ish thing with Mike), she was quickly interrupted.

Other things happened, too, she supposed. Grandma Olga ate her salad with a spoon, Lisa and Logan sang "Part of Your World," Natalie bitched at Greg for spilling a few specks of wine on her new cashmere sweater, Logan screamed like a banshee and threw an epic tantrum where she kicked her feet and pounded her fists all because her cranberry sauce was touching her mashed potatoes. Gretchen asked her mother to pass the gravy at one point and after pretending not to hear her for several minutes, Lisa practically threw it at her, so that it splashed all over her blouse. Luckily, it wasn't too hot – although, Gretchen reasoned, if it had been so scorching that it burned her, at least she would have gotten some attention.

Then, after dinner but before dessert (why there was a break between dinner and pie, Gretchen didn't know – this was highly unusual even for her family), they dispersed and Gretchen felt more out of place than she had at the Pre-Thanksgiving International Club Potluck. For a few minutes, she hung out in the kitchen with Grandma Olga, Grandpa Gustav and her father, who were apparently deeply engaged in a discussion about real estate, politics and finally the stock market (although her father did 99% of the talking). Gretchen did get to ask "so, why are we taking a break between dinner and dessert?" but she really, really just wanted to hear her voice again because she hadn't for awhile and it was making her feel horribly lost.

"Because everyone is full," Gregory answered, "and also, it's never an alright idea to complain."

"I'm not complaining," said Gretchen, "do you think I'm complaining? I'm not."

"I never complain ever," Grandma Olga said in her thickly intimidating German accent. "It just doesn't look good on a woman. You should be contented with your life. You have it so good. When I was your age, I had a lot to complain about, but I never did because what is the use in complaining? I taught your son that."

"My son?" Gretchen repeated, even though she knew Grandma Olga had fairly advanced Alzheimer's.

"She meant HER son," Gregory sneered. "Your father."

Meanwhile, Greg and Graham played pool in the basement. "Hey, guys, could I play?" Gretchen asked, even though she didn't know a single thing about the game.

"Oh, sorry, Squirt," Graham said, ruffling her hair (yes, he still did that). "It's a two-person game."

"You could keep score if you want," said Greg. "And then you could play the winner."

Gretchen nodded silently as her brothers laughed about Greg's recent visit with Natalie's family. Finally, she made her way up to the living room, where Lisa was reading The Three Billy Goat's Gruff out loud to Logan, complete with different voices for each character. "Who's that crossing my bridge?" she growled in a deep, rumbling voice. "It is I! The smallest Billy Goat Gruff!" she continued in ultra-high-pitch, causing Logan to burst into hysterics.

Gretchen was sure that her parents used to read to her when she was little – what parents didn't? But she was also sure that Lisa never enjoyed spending time with her even a quarter as much as with her granddaughter.

Her heart sped up and a deep ache settled in her chest. What was wrong with her? Jealous of a three-year-old? Back in fifth grade when Gretchen first joined the Plastics, she had gotten in a weird habit of constantly thinking – and sometimes saying out loud – that her mother hated her. It was partly tweenage melodrama, sure, but she also often felt that it was true to her very core.

It was only ten degrees outside, but Gretchen went out and stood on the porch anyway - without a jacket or anything – because she couldn't cry in front of her family. But although her throat was filled to the brim, she couldn't shed a tear.

"Hey, Gretchen," her sister-in-law Steiner said, coming outside to join her. "We're having pie now. Aren't you cold out here?" she added, her voice so delicate that Gretchen actually did start crying so hard that she started shaking. "Oh, Sweetie," Steiner said, suddenly wrapping her arms tightly around her. "Are you okay? What's the matter?"

Gretchen wiped her nose on her sleeve. "Um…" she stammered and sniffled loudly. "I burned the rice."

"What?" asked Steiner.

Gretchen sniffled again and buried her head in Steiner's shirt, which probably made her seem even younger than Logan. "You know how Logan likes brown rice? I was supposed to make it for tonight but I b-b-burned it." She was a little worried about the force of her sobbing – she couldn't even breathe and she was sure she looked like a crazy person.

"Oh, Gretchen, that's alright. Don't worry about it," Steiner said. "Logan can have brown rice any time. That's not really what's going on, though, is it?"

"I can't do anything right," Gretchen said softly.

Steiner shivered. "We should go in," she said. "It's so cold."

Gretchen nodded. "I'm failing like…all my classes. Well, not failing and not all of them, but I'm just so…bad at everything."

"Man," said Steiner. "I remember feeling like that my freshman year, too." She patted Gretchen's back. "It gets better, though. Can we go in, now?"

The rest of the night was somewhat less eventful. The mincemeat pie that Grandpa Gustav had made tasted bland, but no one said anything accept for Natalie because Natalie was a bitch and also apparently drunker than a skunk. "Did you forget something?" she sneered, "like maybe the most important ingredient?" She laughed like a hyena until poor Grandpa Gustav admitted he'd forgotten the sugar. "Maybe you should make sure you're not getting demented, too, Grandpa!" Greg glared at her, shook his head and apologized that his wife was behaving like a raging harpy.

"Wow, Natalie, that's not very nice," said Gretchen because someone had to defend her poor Grandpa, who she had always had a soft spot for.

"I wasn't talking to you," said Natalie because apparently she and Cao Boi were founding members of the "Gretchen sucks and we're not talking to her club."

"Nat," Greg said sharply.

Then, Grandma Olga had poured gravy on her pumpkin pie, but that was practically a non-event.

After everyone had left, Gretchen lay awake, her mind on the repetitive track of "Can't you do anything right?" "Can't you do anything right?" "Can't you do anything right?"

Can't I do anything right?

And suddenly, she had the first line of her poem.