Rocking the Pink by Laura Roppé Page B

were to pursue others’ projections of me to fruition, rather than what bubbled inside me like molten lava, how would I ever achieve Judy-dom? Over time, I reconciled the conflict this way: In addition to winning the Academy Award one day, I’d also invent the next Ziploc bags or achieve some other history-changing feat, too. That seemed like a fair solution.
    With each passing year, I felt the strain of my inner conflict: Should I surrender to the allegedly analytical and conventional person others seemed to value in me, or let my freak flag fly and unabashedly pursue my name in lights?
    On the first day of my senior year of high school, I sat in Mr. Brown’s trigonometry class, a Cheshire cat–like grin across my face, smug about the fact that, unbeknownst to anyone else, I’d staged an
illicit protest. I had been slated to take calculus that year, but instead I’d covertly signed up for trigonometry—one step behind the advanced algebra course I’d completed the year before.
    I’d spent the last three years of high school studying myself into a stupor, and, by God, I was going to enjoy my senior year, especially now that Brad was embarking on a party-filled freshman year at the local university. Besides, I needed to free up more time for the one thing that had unlocked my soul more than anything else: singing. I had starred in every high school musical, and I’d reveled in every minute of every performance—except for the time when my shirt fell off in the middle of a performance, leaving me standing, aghast, at center stage in my Maidenform bra and the audience gasping, “Oh!” in unison. And so I had decided, at least for my senior year of high school, that it was high time for my heart to reign supreme.
    As Mr. Brown drew a figure on the white board, the classroom door opened and the calculus teacher stormed into the room. The class looked up at him expectantly, full of dread. The calculus teacher surveyed the room, until his eyes fixed on me.
    â€œYou,” he said, pointing. “You’re supposed to be in calculus. Come with me.”
    Please! Don’t hurt me. “I’m not taking calculus this year,” I said meekly.
    He paused, assessing me. “Tell that to Mrs. Beldam.”
    With all eyes staring at me, and a few scattered snickers, I excused myself and made my way to the assistant headmistress’s office.
    Mrs. Beldam was a stark woman who invoked terror in every student—even more so than the actual headmaster, who happened to
be her husband. Even her smiles were chilling. Think Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Or maybe, more aptly, the Wicked Witch of the West.
    â€œYou are supposed to take calculus this year, Laura,” Mrs. Beldam said, her voice steely. It was petrifying to hear her utter my name. “Trigonometry is a step backwards for you,” she continued. “This is most unlike you, Laura.” Again, terror.
    â€œI’m not . . . really . . . interested in taking calculus this year,” I answered.
    She let this information set in. Her expression was one of disappointment and disdain; apparently, I was not the scholar she had presumed.
    â€œDo your parents know about this . . . my pretty?”
    â€œYes, they do.”
    Well, implicitly. When a kid barricades herself regularly in her room to study for hours on end, there’s no need for parental pressure, is there?
    â€œIs calculus a required course?” I asked, but I knew the answer. You can’t make me!
    â€œNo,” she answered with reluctance. She was pissed.
    â€œOkay, well, then, I’ll just stick with trigonometry.”
    And with that, I hurled a bucket of water at her face and then leaped back in horror as she started fizzling and melting into a puddle on her desk.
    â€œOh, what a world, what a world!” she howled amid the rising steam.
    â€œMay I go back to class?” I asked, sweetness