Down and Across: Prologue–Chapter 6

It was one of those moments that should have felt important. I should have said to myself: Hey, Self! You’re having a Pivotal Moment in a Sentimental Place.

Still, the table reeked, so I knew they cleaned it with a dirty rag. This conundrum hijacked my focus. On one hand, sure, it was better for the environment to clean hard surfaces with a rag. But then, wasn’t the rag just transferring gunk from one surface to another?

“She discovered that the best predictor of success isn’t IQ or how wealthy your parents are, or even your grades. It’s grit. Do you know what that is?”
“Nope, but I’m sure—”
"It’s a person’s ability to stick with something. To focus. To really follow through. Tahammol. It’s treating everything you do like a marathon, not a sprint.”

"Scott,” I said curtly. “It’s Scott. I’ve been going by Scott since kindergarten.”

I held my breath as a stream of shortcomings bogged down my mind. My grades. My SAT score. The Earth Club I let wither away like the ozone layer.

The bus smelled cheap. It didn’t reek, but it had a sterile stench that was on par with the cleaned-by-a-rag whiff of a McDonald’s table.

Virtually every seat was filled with strangers, and for the first time in my life, I saw an extra layer of meaning in that word.

Not that there’s anything inherently strange about a man in a business suit drinking wine straight from the bottle, or an all-girls punk rock band, or a person with teardrops tattooed on his face, but when you put these unique individuals together inside a moving box...voilà. Strangers.

I was stuck between “Very much like me” and “Mostly like me,” which sounded like the same answer. These options were sketchily subjective.

I was stuck between “Very much like me” and “Mostly like me,” which sounded like the same answer. These options were sketchily subjective.

Since her website wouldn't tell me how to improve my grit score, I would solicit her guidance in person.

"Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m in a weird place right now. I’m kind of discombobulated from my nap and from life and—"
“Discombobulated from life?”

“Aw, shucks. I guess this means we can’t be seatmates. You could try switching seats with someone up front, although I recommend steering clear of the Asian guy with dreads. I’m suspicious of anyone that culturally juxtaposed.”

I thought Fiora would keep moving along, so I stopped to pull up directions to the hostel I had found online the night before.

Dupont Circle was many things: bustling traffic circle, commercial hub, sprawling park with kids running around carelessly and a gushing fountain in the middle.

“Well, do you want it? This bike is your access to DC, your manifest destiny.”
Fiora would have made a great salesperson, because instead of questioning her use of “manifest destiny” or telling her I didn’t need a bike, I asked: “How much does it cost?”

My room in the hostel was remarkably plain, with linoleum floor tiles and four empty bunk beds.

Her desk, in stark contrast to the rest of the office, was uncluttered, with a picture frame and an abacus occupying the corners.

I collapsed on a bench, burying my face in my hands. Hyperventilating.

The vertigo came rumbling back, and I hurled into a trash bin.

I hated my bushy eyebrows—unyielding caterpillars that lurked over my watery black eyes.

I probably dreamed of botching my performance—which I did.

It was about one hundred yards long—one of those chode roads they use for drug deals and gang violence and now my impending death.

Unless he had plans to strangle me with an argyle sweater, I was pretty confident this stranger wasn’t going to kill me.

Trent bent over to pick up what was left of my bike—a mangled clump of aluminum, chain, and wheels.

We passed important government agencies whose names were too convoluted to bother reading in full: The International Something Policy Something, the Federal Mediation and Something Else Center, among others.

Trent’s hopeful gaze melted into reluctant cynicism when I asked him how a person gets into politics in the first place.

He complained that it was impossible to land a job in DC without the right connections—like being the daughter of a Kennedy, or roommates with the second cousin of a slimy oil magnate.

Most of the class exchanged skeptical looks, but Kevin, Jack, and I were sold.

We spent our lunch breaks studying for her Human Rights Violations (pop quizzes) and guessing what antics she would pull next.

Who would have thought you could demonstrate cultural hegemony and strengthen your friendship with seventy-five packs of Haribo gummy bears?

The situation in the Middle East is bleak.

Flip. Speculation about who’s running for president.

I should have known from the name, Thomas Foolery, that it would be a silly establishment, but I thought adults were subtler about these things.

At least half her forearm was covered in bracelets—multicolored, beaded, gold, spiked, eccentric—and they jingled as she waved her hand in front of my dazed and confused face.

“Well, you’re welcome,” Fiora said smugly.

So Fiora, in all her presumptuousness, got out of her seat and walked over to the bar.

“Fiora, the cruciverbalist, conveys the profound metaphor that life is a puzzle,” I said, using my finest sarcastic voice.

“No, Saaket, I’m just explaining why I don’t have my panties in an existential bunch like you.”

“Our lives aren’t so different from a crossword puzzle, sure. But the thing about life is we don’t get to draw the grid; we take the rows and columns we’re given. Our bodies, parents, mental health issues, all that. What we do get to do is fill the cells. And rather than filling mine with anxiety over medical school or Greek politics—instead of feeling trapped by my circumstance—I fill them with arbitrary words..."