The Difference Next Door

Prologue

Today’s youth are being indoctrinated by mediocrity, and it shows.

Exhibit A: the too-colorful poster on the classroom wall that says All that matters is trying your best!

Spoiler alert: Trying is not all that matters, results are. If I try to drive safely but run over someone, will I be praised for effort as the unassuming pedestrian gets zipped up in a body bag?

I will not.

And it’s not just the posters—it’s the windows covered with handwriting worksheets that consist of mostly illegible chicken scratch yet boast excellence with gold stars.

Based on the book I just finished reading by Dan Korem, I’d say the teacher in charge is out to maintain harmony, not improve work quality.

If I were running this class, only—I squint to read the name—Holly Langford would have a gold star.

Her penmanship is perfect; she earned that sticker.

But what do I know? I’m only seventeen. Maybe this kind of placating is required to get kids to become useful members of society. Maybe I was just as bad as they were. Doubtful.

My gaze skips from alphabet cards to colorful posters to scribbled work before settling on the open notebook on the child-sized table in front of me.

It’s the only thing in the room that makes sense.

The college-ruled lines are filled with the list I’ve spent my entire senior year curating: my life’s checklist.

Graduate top of class

Get bachelor’s degree in finance

Get MBA

Get a kick-ass job

Make enough money to retire at age thirty-five and buy any Fontain winery I want

Find perfect man to marry and start a family

Rub it in my sisters’ faces how rich I am

I’ve done the math—I have the first one in the bag. Five months from graduating and my grades cannot be beat. All that’s left is conquering the rest. I will. I always do because excellence is a choice. At least that’s what my dad always says.

And since I agree with him, I plan on choosing it every day of my life.

Amanda leans over from her table and eyes the paper, her vanilla body spray wafting toward me as she does. “Why are you still carrying that thing around?”

The list was a throwaway career exercise from the guidance counselor.

While most of my classmates—Amanda included—wrote vague goals or nothing at all before pitching it, this list has morphed into my entire life’s blueprint.

The cornerstone of my future. The anchor I go back to when I think of blowing off an assignment or pissing money away at the mall.

A cheap tee today isn’t going to get me designer clothes at thirty and a winery at age thirty-five.

“It’s called being focused,” I remind her. “Maybe if your tongue wasn’t always down Greg’s throat you would know.”

She wiggles said tongue then asks, “Do you think you’ll really make enough money to buy a winery by thirty-five? And retire?” Her brows raise in skepticism. “My grandpa is seventy and still working.”

I look at her sideways. The fact she’s been my best friend since kindergarten and still questions my resolve is beyond me. Also, her grandpa has a gambling problem. “Have I ever not done something I said I would?”

She laughs, loud, not a single edge of it restricted, not even the snort that comes at the end. “Every Friday night when I ask you to come out with us and you say you will, but you end up doing homework or picking up an extra shift at the diner, actually.”

She has me there. “Those extra shifts are going to be what help me buy a winery, thank you very much.” Before she can argue, I add, “Where I’ll charge you double for doubting me.”

She sits back in her space. “Having kids is too far down on your list.” At my look, she shrugs.

“What? I’m just saying you don’t know how long it will take you to—” She cranes her neck to reread.

“Find the perfect man. What if you’re too old?

My kids will be adults already. How will they play together? ”

I scoff, regarding the glittery butterfly clips covering her head. “I won’t be too old. I’ll be thirty-five.” I point to said number on my list. “Right here. After I retire while you and your grandpa are still working.”

She rolls her eyes but says nothing else. She’s been dating the same guy—Greg Nickels—since we were sophomores. She wants to go to beauty school, get married, and never leave Fontain.

I, on the other hand, have to leave Fontain in order to return.

It’s not because I hate it—why would I plan on coming back if I hated it?

—there’s just no opportunity. A small North Carolina town filled with vineyards and wineries won’t be the place I make all the money I plan on making in the amount of time I want to make it.

And while the difference between Amanda’s and my life plans may seem radical, we’ll both end up back here with families someday. We’ll laugh from rocking chairs and drink the wine I grow while our husbands grill burgers.

I’ll just have a lot more money than she does.

Amanda stares at the classroom door like one of her beloved boys of NSYNC are about to walk in. “I can’t wait to meet them.” She squeals an eee! that makes me wince. “Are you so excited? Greg’s brother is in the program.”

“Greg’s brother is ten years younger than him?” I forgot about that. “Sounds awful.”

“One of those surprise babies.”

I hate surprises.

She laughs at my grimace. “He’s a handful but adorable.”

I roll my eyes. “Sounds fun.”

“God, Ree. If I die and you have to raise my kids, I hope you have a better attitude about them.”

I barely look her way. “Maybe don’t die and we won’t have to worry about it.”

Amanda signed up for the mentoring program because she genuinely loves kids.

I signed up because volunteering to read with kids will look great on a college application.

Not only will I be well rounded on top of having excellent grades in advanced-level math classes, it will negate the fact that I loathe team sports and refuse to participate in extracurricular activities.

Why would I willingly sign up for something that requires me to pick up everyone else’s slack?

I doodle a three-dimensional cube in the margin of my notebook.

“I can’t wait to have kids,” Amanda says to nobody.

I eye the forty-two clips in her hair and the box of crayons on her desk. Even if I didn’t know she was crazy for kids, the confession tracks. And she’ll be a good mom.

“I want two,” she continues. “A boy and a girl. Maybe three.” She smiles with all her teeth. “How many do you want?”

Her joy is genuine and gives me the same glimpse into her future as it always does.

She’ll go to beauty school then marry Greg and they’ll immediately have the kids she wants.

They’ll be her greatest achievement until they grow up and leave her, forcing her to spend the rest of her life regretting not prioritizing her career because she and Greg no longer have anything connecting them.

Maybe she’ll do hair, but probably not at the level she wishes. Her happiness will peak at the exact same moment I’ll be hitting my stride. At forty, she’ll be lost and looking for her purpose, spending her days clipping coupons and split ends.

Meanwhile, I’ll have it all: a winery, a family, and a bank account filled with money.

She’ll visit me and cry on my shoulder, and I’ll have a really hard time not reminding her about all the times she made fun of me for planning my future so perfectly.

I click my pen and study her, debating if I should tell her the harsh realities of her future now or hold them over her head later. I opt with later. “Undecided.”

Future Amanda will figure it out, but I already know when the time comes for me to reproduce, I’ll never sweat the money. Unlike my parents who count every dollar and save half of every cent, I’ll be able to spend without thinking.

Disney World? No problem.

Brand new Nikes? You got it.

An overpriced dessert off the menu at a restaurant on any given Tuesday? No shared plates needed.

“Class,” Mrs. Whitmore, the teacher heading the mentorship program, calls for our attention.

“Miss Green will be bringing the student mentees in. You’ll be meeting with the same child every Thursday for the semester.

” The door opens and a woman I assume to be Miss Green—sadly wearing pink—stands with a line of six- and seven-year-olds behind her.

“You’ll be helping them with literacy goals.

Fluency and comprehension, especially.” She pauses. “Any questions?”

As per usual in a room of high school seniors, asking questions is public enemy number one.

In our silence, Miss Green leads the line of students in, pairing each of them with each of us.

The other mentors ooh and ahh at how cute they are, but I’m indifferent; I just want to get this over with.

I might want kids one day, but I want my own kid, not somebody else’s. And I definitely don’t want them today.

We were instructed to bring reading material to share, but as Amanda pulls picture books out of her backpack, I wonder if my copy of Newsweek missed the mark.

A little boy sits next to me wearing a raccoon-tailed hat, and we regard each other. I read his name tag, but since I don’t know how else to start the conversation, I ask, “What’s your name?”

He lifts his little chin. “Davy Crockett,” he says, hint of fight in his voice.

That’s not what his name tag says but I don’t care what I call him.

“The king of the wild frontier?”

His little brow furrows.

“That’s who Davy Crockett was, right? At least according to the song?”

“Yeah,” is all he says.

He has sandy hair, freckles, and good eyelashes. My mom always says kids get the best lashes, and up close, I see what she means. It’s pretty unfair.

I look over his head at Amanda and she mouths, You have Greg’s brother.

The handful, how nice.

“I’m Miss Reese.” I swallow my gag at the required title. “I know your brother. I’d let you call me Reese, but it’s the rule. You’re a kid.”

“I’m not a kid,” he argues. “I’m seven.”