Cassie mounts the drawing, and when she’s done, she sits beside it, breathing deeper, her shoulders no longer curled in defeat.
Nathan wipes his hands on a napkin, stands, and gives me a lopsided grin. “Not how you planned your morning, huh?”
I shake my head, too full to speak. For a second I think I might cry, but then Cassie grabs Nathan’s arm and hugs him, quick and fierce. “Thank you,” she whispers.
He hugs her back, careful and gentle. “You did most of the work.”
The judges approach. Cassie straightens, ready. She starts her presentation, voice clear and strong, while Nathan and I stand to the side, just far enough away to let her have the spotlight.
I lean close and say, “I think you just saved the day.”
15
Diane
I hover near the back row of parent seating, where every other mother seems to be equipped with a camera or camcorder, tracking their child’s every move.
Nathan sidles up next to me, cradling a pair of Styrofoam cups of coffee. He hands one to me and says, “She’s a natural.”
“She’s petrified,” I whisper back, afraid the force of my hope might jinx her.
Onstage, Cassie begins her pitch. I can see the muscles in her jaw clench and unclench as she pushes through her opening lines, eyes flickering from judge to project and back. She’s prepared, but she’s also thirteen, and the words trip over themselves in their hurry to be worthy. The judges lean in, peering at the sandbar, the swarms of tiny hand-drawn sanderlings, the reconstructed ocean scene. One of the women asks a question, and Cassie’s answer is a little too loud, like she’s surprised to find her voice still functioning. The words tumble out—facts about brackish marshes, why piping plovers nest on the leeward side, how jellyfish stings don’t actually kill you, but it really hurts, and here’s a fun story about my last summer vacation. The narrative wobbles but never falls.
I study her posture, the way her hands start to move as she gets comfortable, sketching the shape of the ocean and wind in the air. Her hair has come loose in the front, and a thin sheen of sweat is already forming at her temples. The judges are smiling, not condescending but genuine, taking notes with their school-issued pens.
“She’s killing it,” Nathan says.
The pitch ends, and the judges thank her, moving on to the next table. Cassie stands rooted, then slides down into the folding chair behind her project, face in her hands. I can’t read her expression from here, but her body language is pure relief, the aftershock of surviving an avalanche.
Nathan and I walk the perimeter of the gym, pretending to admire the other projects, but our attention is fixed on Cassie’s corner. When we finally approach, she looks up with eyes red and shining.
“I said ‘fecal matter’ in front of everybody,” she stage-whispers.
“Honestly, that’s the most accurate term,” says Nathan. “You’d be surprised what passes for scientific language in the adult world.”
Cassie giggles, then covers her mouth, cheeks bright. “Do you think they liked it?” she asks, her gaze darting between us.
Nathan smiles, cool and easy. “Are you kidding? They ate it up.”
I want to hug her, but the gym is full of witnesses. I settle for a hand on her shoulder, squeezing just enough for her to feel my pulse through the bone. “You did amazing, honey. Really.”
She looks at the project, at the place where the repair is obvious, and traces the blue seam with one finger. “Do you think it matters that it’s broken?”
“Nah,” he says. “I think it makes it better.”
Cassie’s face scrunches up. “How?”
“Because, it shows that no matter what happened, no matter the setbacks, you persevered. Instead of crumbling, you faced a challenge and didn’t let it defeat you. That’s something to be proud of. Not everyone could do that.”
There’s a lull,the hour between presentations and awards, where parents crowd the bleachers, and kids trade compliments or critique, depending on their blood sugar. Nathan disappears briefly, returns with two cans of soda and a donut from the teacher’s lounge. “Sugar rush,” he says, handing them over like contraband.
Cassie breaks the donut in half, gives me the bigger piece, then perches on the edge of the chair, legs swinging, eyes locked on the judges huddled at the front of the gym with their clipboards and whispers.
At the next table, a boy demonstrates his Rube Goldberg machine, which works beautifully until the final step, when the balloon pops prematurely, and the dominoes scatter sideways.
All the while, Cassie’s project stands, imperfect but proud, the new ocean horizon sketched by Nathan catching the overhead lights in shifting shades of blue. I wonder if it will ever come home, or if it will wind up on some forgotten shelf in the school, an artifact of this day.
Finally, the judges step up to the microphone, their faces composed into neutral optimism. The science teacher, a man with a mustache so assertive it could anchor a bridge, does the introductions. First, there are the Honorable Mentions, which go to a potato battery and a surprisingly accurate model of a tornado alley trailer park. Then, the ribbons, which aredistributed with fairness. Everyone gets one, color-coded to soften the blow.