Two of a Kind by Yona Zeldis McDonough

Jake Horowitz, Jake just tapped a hand to his forehead. “You’d better get some help, man,” he’d said. “Because you’re nuts.” Oliver never brought it up again.
    Cunningham was still talking; just the sound of his voice made Oliver desperate to be somewhere, anywhere, else. “So what you’re saying is that Oliver has to see a school-recommended therapist once a week over the summer and that this person will be providing a full report of his progress in September?” said Andy. Oliver knew his dad liked to sum things up quickly; he got antsy when you took too long to explain something.
    â€œAs a condition of his remaining here with us for his senior year, yes.” Cunningham pinned Oliver with his gaze; Oliver looked away.
    â€œAnd in September, he’ll resume his sessions with you and you’ll be reporting back to me,” Andy said to Ms. Warren, who nodded.
    â€œI’ll keep you in the loop about grades,” Mr. Pollock said. “Right now they’re erratic.”
    â€œI’m missing physics now,” Oliver said. “Maybe I should go.”
    â€œAll right,” Cunningham said. “Back to class with you, young man. And I expect to see some improvement—substantial, even
radical
improvement—very soon. Is that understood?”
    â€œYes, sir.” Oliver decided to toss in the
sir
; it was an easy enough concession to make. It seemed to work, because Cunningham gave him this big, phony grin and clapped a hand on his shoulder; Oliver had to resist the urge to peel it off.
    After physics, which by this time would be pretty much over, Oliver had a free; he could use it to hunt down Delphine in art class. The hand remained on his shoulder, though, weighty as a slab of raw meat.
    â€œI’m hoping you’ll have a productive summer,” Ms. Warren said.
    â€œDude, we’re all rooting for you.” That gem was delivered by Mr. Pollock. What an a-hole.
    â€œI’ll see you tonight.” His father stood up and checked his watch.
It must have been hard to ignore it for so long, Dad,
Oliver wanted to say.
Just think of all those minutes going by and you
had to miss them.
But he just nodded and, as soon as Cunningham removed his paw, made for the door.
    When he had bounded up to the art room on the top floor, Delphine was not there. Her friend Rebecca volunteered that she was home sick. “What’s wrong with her?” Oliver said anxiously.
    â€œI don’t know,” Rebecca said. She was intent on her acrylic rendering of some turdlike fruit and this hideous vase. He left the art room and clattered down the school’s central staircase and into the boys’ room on the lower level. There he used his cell phone to call that florist his dad always used and ordered a
mammoth
basket of flowers, some with names he had never even heard of, to be delivered to the Central Park West apartment where Delphine lived.
    After his free, he had lunch, and then English. They were reading
King Lear
, a play Oliver actually liked, though he kind of thought Lear deserved what he got from his daughters Regan and Goneril; what kind of father asked those questions anyway? Though maybe they did take it a little bit too far in the end; that scene of Lear wandering around the storm was, like, too much. He raised his hand.
    â€œYes, Oliver? You have a question?” The English teacher, Ms. Konkel, looked at him expectantly.
    â€œWhere is their mother?” he asked. He knew Ms. Konkel liked him.
    â€œExcuse me?”
    â€œThe mother of Cordelia, Regan, and Goneril?”
    â€œShakespeare doesn’t tell us, does he?”
    â€œNo, which is weird. The play is all about the king and his daughters. But what about his wife? The mother of his children? Is she dead? Or did she, like, run off with one of the courtiers or something?”
    A few kids laughed and Jake lobbed a tiny spitball in his direction; it eluded Ms.