Read Between the Lines (12 page)

The other problem is that she replaced a dead guy. Mr. Weidenheff. He taught here for ages, and then all of a sudden he just went and offed himself at the end of last year. Shot himself in the head. It was kind of insane. Everyone has a different theory for why he did it, but of course no one knows for sure. I had him last year, and I don’t remember him seeming depressed. Frustrated, maybe, that none of us seemed to care as deeply about
Moby-Dick
as he did, but honestly, is that a reason to call it quits — permanently?

I can’t really imagine what it must be like for poor Ms. Lindsay to sit at that desk in the front of the room, knowing that it belonged to a dead person. I wonder if he stored his gun in there. I wonder if she wonders the same thing.

“Mr. Messier, who do you think the true hero is, Kurtz or Marlow?”

I look up from the doodle I didn’t even realize I was making on the corner of my notebook.

“Uh,” I say. I turn a few pages of our book,
Heart of Darkness
, and try to remember who’s who. “Uhhh,” I say again.

She sighs. “Ms. Mead?”

Lacy Mead blushes and shrugs.

Ms. Lindsay looks like she’s going to cry. She searches the room for someone more reliable.

“Ms. Lear? How about you?”

Grace Lear, of course, has a lengthy opinion delivered in a way that does not invite anyone to disagree with her. She probably signed up for this class for fun. I tune her out and stare at the empty desk in front of me.

It belongs to Claire Harris.

Damn.

Claire.

I’ve had a crush on her since second grade when we were paired together on the school field trip to the Science Museum. We had to hold hands from when we got off the bus until we reached the front steps of the museum. Those were the best four minutes of my life.

OK, so I’m exaggerating. They probably weren’t the best four. But they were pretty great, all things considered. She was in the grade above me, so already she had an air of mystery. She had long hair back then, and she wore it parted on the side, with a little blue barrette that she constantly unclasped, then smoothed her hair across her forehead, and clasped the barrette again. She did this all the way to the museum. She was so cute. Still is. The teacher paired us up and told us we had to hold hands with our “buddy” until we got to the steps of the museum. When the chaperone paired me with Claire, I felt the way I imagined it would feel to win the lottery.

When she took my hand, hers was warm and soft and surprisingly strong. She wasn’t afraid to hold on tight. She took her task as my buddy very seriously, as if I needed extra protection. I didn’t mind. I remember not being sure if I should squeeze back or not. I concentrated on returning the squeeze in equal measure. I didn’t want her to think I was a wimp, after all. We walked side by side, following Cal and Dylan. They didn’t want to hold hands. They kept letting go when the chaperones weren’t looking. But Claire was a rule follower, and I was happy to let her hold tight. Cal and Dylan kept turning back to make kissy faces at us. They were so jealous it was oozing out of them. I just smirked.

I’m not sure when our arms started swinging as we walked, but it felt natural. And happy. Like this was something Claire and I did all the time. But when we got to the door and the teacher said we could let go, the magic disappeared. My hand was empty again. I tried to feel the ghost of hers in my palm, but I couldn’t. All I felt was the cold emptiness she’d left there. She skipped off with her best friend, Grace, without turning back, and I didn’t see her again until the end of the day, when once again we held hands, arms swinging, all the way back to the bus.

As soon as we were all settled in our seats, she fixed her hair again. She was sitting in front of me, and I watched how she carefully finger-combed her hair to the side, then slid the barrette in place. I was close enough to hear the click of the clasp. She stared out the window, even as Grace chattered at her. It was as if she’d gone off someplace else. Like I do sometimes. Only right then, I’d wished we’d gone off together.

For a long time after that, I’d find myself staring out the window trying to imagine what she was dreaming about that day — and if it was ever the same thing as me.

Sometimes now, when I watch her around school, I’ll catch her eye and she’ll smile at me, and I think she sees the real me. It’s probably wishful thinking. For all I know, she’s just smiling at me out of pity. But sometimes when I see her hanging out with her friends, I think she looks like how I feel when I hang out with my friends: just a little apart. A loner, even though she isn’t alone. Like she’s looking for something but she’s not sure what. Just like she did on the bus when we were seven years old. Just like I still do sometimes, when I’m hanging with Cal and Dylan. Sometimes when they’re talking, it’s like I’ve heard the same comments, the same stories, the same jokes and insults so many times, they’ve lost their meaning. Or maybe I have.

I just want to hear something new for once. Do something new.
Be
something new.

Sometimes I imagine risking everything and asking Claire out.

Hey, Claire
, I’d say.
How’s it goin’?

Hey, Jack
, she’d say, and smile and fix her hair the way she’s been doing since she was seven.

Did you know I’ve had a crush on you for, like, eight years?
I’d ask confidently.

She’d laugh and push me in a flirty way. And then I’d say,
So, will you go out with me?

And in my dream, her eyes look into mine.

I thought you’d never ask
, she’d say.

And then we’d both laugh and magically be the couple I always dreamed of. And Cal and Dylan would be jealous but not in a horrible way. And Claire would join us in the car and sit in the Look How Ugly You Are seat, only she wouldn’t mind, because she’s beautiful. She’d lean her head on my shoulder as we drove through town, and we’d know, as we looked out the window, that we were both dreaming about the same thing. Our life, together, someday, away from here.

The bell rings and we all get up in our typical herdlike way. Desk legs scrape as we try to disentangle ourselves. Backpack zippers thrum in unison. The line bottlenecks at the door. Ms. Lindsay goes back behind her desk and ruffles through papers. She gathers them together and taps the pile on her desk to straighten them. She seems a bit overly tidy.

“Stop being obvious,” Dylan mumbles in my ear.

“Huh?”

He nudges his head in Ms. Lindsay’s direction. “Checking her out.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Why not? Everyone else does.”

“Never mind.”

I finally squeeze through the door and step into the slow and somewhat steady flow of people walking to their next class. Mine is gym with Cal and Dylan. We all tried to get out of it, but now that we don’t play sports, no such luck. Cal’s already in the locker room when Dylan and I get there.

“You two are late enough,” he says.

Dylan drops his backpack on the floor. It sounds like a bag of cement hitting the ground.

“Jesus, D. What the hell do you have in there?” Cal asks.

He shrugs. “Just stuff.”

Cal pushes it with his foot.

“Don’t touch!” Dylan says.

Cal laughs it off, but I can tell he really does wonder, and now I do too.

We change and meander out to the gym. A bunch of people are already shooting hoops. Ms. Sawyer, the gym teacher, looks extra frazzled.

“I heard some freshman broke his finger in first period,” Cal tells us. He smirks. “His middle one.”

“Awesome,” Dylan says.

We shoot some hoops until Ms. Sawyer breaks us up into teams, and as usual I end up wearing a stupid red pinny. It smells like a hundred different people’s sweat. I don’t think she ever washes the things. It makes me want to puke.

We spend the next thirty-five minutes halfheartedly dribbling the ball up and down the court. No one really seems to care who wins. Half the time, whoever has the ball dribbles around in circles and tries to show off, acting like a Harlem Globetrotter reject. Then Ms. Sawyer blows her whistle, and we all go back to the locker room to change. No one showers because no one dares to set foot in the shower stalls, which make the pinnies look like they just came from the dry cleaners.

I wonder if the girls’ locker room is this scary.

Cal pushes his toe against Dylan’s bag. “What the hell’s in there, anyway?” he asks again. This time, he doesn’t bother to wait for Dylan to answer or stop him. He bends down and grabs the bag.

“Hey! That’s private!” Dylan lunges for it but misses.

Cal gets this weird look on his face, then reaches in and pulls out a gray brick. It looks like one of those pavers people use to line their gardens or driveways or whatever. “What the . . . ?”

“Why the hell do you have a brick in your bag?” I ask.

Dylan grabs it from Cal and puts it back inside. “None of your business.”

I can think of only two reasons someone would have a brick in their bag:

A. To break a window.

B. To break someone’s head.

Since Dylan is not a violent kid, I’m going with A. But why?

“Talk to us, D.,” Cal says.

Dylan slumps down on the bench between us. “It’s stupid,” he says.

“True.” I sit next to him. “There are no good reasons to carry a brick in your bag. Unless you plan to build a fort, which, well, is not much of a fort if you only have one.”

“Who’s the unlucky bastard you plan to use this on?” Cal asks.

“He’s not using it on
anyone
,” I say.

“I’m not going to
hurt
anyone,” Dylan says. “I just . . . never mind. You wouldn’t understand.”

I reach for the bag, but he grabs it away.

“Whoever it is isn’t worth getting in trouble for,” I say. “And you know that’s exactly what will happen.”

He stands up. “I’m doing this,” he tells us. “And if you guys are my friends, you won’t try to stop me.”

We watch him, then look at each other for some wordless agreement about whether to tackle him for the bag. But before we can get our telepathic communication at the right frequency, Dylan bolts and is out the door with a lead on us that means we will never catch him.

“Wow,” Cal says. “That was weird.”

“What are we gonna do?” I ask.

He shrugs. “A guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do, I guess.”

“Shouldn’t we try to stop him?” I can’t believe Cal’s so nonchalant.

“I say we follow him from a distance and see what he’s up to. If it looks bad, we’ll step in.” He nods, like this is a brilliant plan.

He seems a little too hungry for some excitement, all of a sudden.

Why am I the only one who sees this for what it is: insane?

We rush out to the hall to see which way Dylan went. It’s the end of the day, so the halls are a madhouse, with people shoving their way out of our group holding cell. Luckily Dylan is tall, and we can see his mop of shaggy brown hair bobbing between the traffic up ahead. We shove our way through as best we can, keeping enough distance so he doesn’t realize we’re following him. Normally after school we meet up in the parking lot at Cal’s car, but today Dylan goes out the exit where the bus pickup is. I turn to see what Cal wants to do. He motions for me to keep going.

Just as I think we are being totally covert spies, Dylan is standing in front of us. “Fine. If you’re just going to follow me anyway, let’s take the Great White.”

Cal nods and we go back to the other parking lot and climb in.

The car has been sitting in the sunny lot with the windows rolled up, so it’s hot inside and stinks to high heaven. As soon as Cal starts the engine, we all roll down our windows and hang our heads out.

“Told you it wasn’t my feet,” says Dylan.

“Well, they don’t help, that’s for sure,” I say.

“Where to?” Cal asks.

Dylan sticks his head out the window and takes a deep breath. “No questions. Just go.”

“Why?”

“No questions. Just go.”

Cal shrugs and pulls out of the parking spot. We drive through the lot with the music blasting, as usual.
Boom bah-bah, BOOM bah-bah.

I lean forward to see Dylan’s reflection in the side mirror. He seems to have a far too serious and determined expression on his face to be up to anything good.

As always, the school parking lot is packed and completely bottlenecked at the one and only exit. It’s a really good thing that our school has never had one of those crazy shooting sprees because no one would be able to escape. The car idles. The cool November breeze mixes with the usual school smells of stale cologne, cafeteria, and car exhaust, and drifts through the car.

“Dylan!” a girl yells. Sammy, his sister, runs toward us. She’s wearing her cheerleading uniform and looking extraordinarily hot, as usual. What is
un
usual is the fact that she is not only acknowledging Dylan’s existence but using his name and coming toward us. The outcasts. Sammy sits at the jock table surrounded by basketball players and cheerleaders. She does not acknowledge our existence. Ever.

She runs over to Dylan’s side of the car and leans her head in. Her perfume mixes with the ugly and banishes it.