The Edge of Nowhere (11 page)

“Never went to school in Uganda,” he said. To Becca’s question of what he did instead, he said with a shrug, “Got by,” and that was it. She could tell he didn’t want to talk more about the subject, although she heard the whisper
rejoice
coming from him as well and she thought that anything worthy of rejoicing about was surely something a boy would want to talk about.

At the end of the day, Derric walked her out to the parking lot. Jenn wasn’t with them. This gave Becca a chance to thank him for hanging out with her, especially during lunch. He returned with, “It’s cool. It’s tough to be new. Especially here where everyone already knows everyone else.”

Derric’s name was called. Jenn was just coming out of one of the six double doors at the end of the school building, and as she approached, Derric said quietly to Becca, “Hey, don’t let Jenn freak you. She’s pretty much okay.”

This was about the
last
thing Becca was ready to believe because it felt like quicksand all around her as Jenn came up to them.

Before she had a chance to make a comment, Becca asked the girl, “D’you know where the water treatment plant is?”

“Why?” Jenn inquired. “Thinking of finally taking a bath?”

“It’s where I’m meeting my ride,” Becca told her.

“At the water
treatment
plant? Whoa. Someone must not want to be seen with you.”

Derric said kindly, “It’s just across Maxwelton. We can show you if you—”

“No we can’t,” Jenn said. “
You’ve
got jazz rehearsal and I’ve got cross-country.”

“S’okay,” Becca said. “I c’n find it. Thanks.”

“Mrs. Grieder picking you up?” Derric asked.

“Yeah. She said—”

“
Derric
. Come
on
.” Jenn was clearly unhappy about any conversation between Becca and the boy.

Derric ignored her. He said to Becca, “Josh’ll be with her. I need to say hi,” and he added to Jenn, “See you later, okay?”

Jenn’s face was stony. But she turned and walked off. Derric accompanied Becca to the truck. From a distance, Josh’s voice cried out, “Hey, hey, hey!” as they approached. Debbie was standing next to the SUV, smoking a cigarette as she waited for Becca to join them.

Josh was out of the car in a flash at the sight of Derric. He yelled, “High fives!” and Derric laughed and obliged. Then he put his arm around Josh and rubbed his head. “You want to listen to some jazz?” he asked.

“Yeah!”

Derric said to Debbie, “Band practice. Can he come? Mom’ll bring him back to the motel when she picks me up.”

“Please, Grammer,” Josh said. “I never heard Derric play sax yet.”

Debbie agreed, casting a rare smile at her grandson and the Ugandan boy. “Maybe you can teach him something,” she said.

“Like in the street band!” Josh cried.

Derric said he’d see what they could do about that, putting his hand on the back of Josh’s head and giving it a playful squeeze. Then he removed a small folded paper from his pocket and handed it to Becca.

He said, “I’ll probably see you at Debbie’s a bunch when I come over to hang with Josh, but here’s my phone number if you ever have any questions about school.”

Debbie raised her eyebrows with an expression that said
this
was an interesting development. Becca put the paper in her jacket pocket, said thanks, and turned away quickly, the better not to reveal her blush.

Once in the SUV with Chloe between them, Debbie said with a grin, “Aside from
that,
how did it go?”

Becca said it went fine. She told Debbie that Derric Mathieson had been her escort for the day. Debbie said, “Darlin’, how’d you get so lucky so fast?”

“’Bout what?” Chloe asked. “Grammer, why’s she lucky?”

“She got to spend the day with Derric,” Debbie told her.

“Like Josh, you mean?”

“Not at
all
like Josh.”

Becca knew Debbie was teasing, but it was okay. For she could see that Debbie felt lighter for once, with some kind of burden lifted from her shoulders.

Chloe wanted to know if Becca was going to be their permanent babysitter. She said, “Grammer goes to lots of meetings and she doesn’t like to leave us on our own. Sometimes we go but we have to sit in the car and we
hate
to do that. Don’t we, Grammer?”

“Sometimes,” Debbie said. “That’s how it is.”

“Are you going to live with us for always?” Chloe asked Becca hopefully. “Where’s your mom? We live with Grammer, see. That’s ’cause our dad’s in prison.”

At this Becca felt the barrier come down between Debbie and her, just like one of those gates in a castle. Her previous lightness disappeared. Becca said, “I didn’t know that, Chloe. That’s too bad.”

“Yeah,” Chloe said. “He’s got to straighten himself out or he’s going to die, huh, Grammer? And our mom—”

“That’s enough for now,” Debbie said.

Chloe began to protest. “But you said—”

“Enough!” Debbie snapped.

Chloe shrank into her seat. She felt bad, Becca saw, like someone who’d made a serious mistake.

She was sitting right next to the little girl, so Becca reached for her hand. It was warm and damp and rather like the inside of a puppy’s ear. She squeezed it lightly. Chloe looked up at her. She squeezed right back.

NINE

B
ecca never expected to hear from Derric or to see him outside of school hours, aside from the time he spent with Josh. There was also no way she intended to call him. It had been nice that he’d handed his phone number to her, but she understood that
nice
was actually all that it was. Reading anything into it other than just a friendly gesture would have been extremely dumb.

Still, he made it a habit during her first week to check with Becca and make sure that she was finding her way around the school all right. When this happened, Becca felt Jenn’s baleful glare upon her.

Jenn kept making sure that she was by Derric’s side as much as possible. So the only time Becca actually saw the boy at school without her was during Yearbook, which was the only class other than Eastern Civilization that they shared. In Eastern Civilization, too, Becca spoke to Derric occasionally. Although he talked to her in the same way he talked to everyone else, she could still tell Jenn didn’t like it.

Becca wasn’t sure why Derric continued to show her friendship. There was no way he was attracted to her, not with how she looked these days. She wanted to tell him he didn’t need to keep a watch over her if that was why he was being so nice, but she didn’t do that because she liked him, and she felt so strangely secure in his presence. Plus there was
rejoice
to consider. He said it over and over again, like a mantra.

Rejoice
was practically his only whisper. He said it the way other people said to themselves
stay cool
or
don’t blow it
or
keep a straight face
. The fact that he had to keep reminding himself to be happy was a puzzle, though. To Becca, it seemed to indicate he was hiding something. That, ultimately, made him just like her.

Laurel was Becca’s secret.
Where are you, Mom
was her
rejoice
. She’d been phoning Laurel three times a day since that moment she’d learned that Carol Quinn was dead, but not a single one of her calls went through. She was trying very hard not to panic. Her mother, she knew, would
never
abandon her. She’d finally concluded that Laurel had purchased the wrong kinds of cell phones altogether when she’d picked them out at the 7-Eleven in San Diego. As Becca recalled, Laurel hadn’t asked a single question about them. She’d just handed over her credit card and that had been that.

After school each day, Becca was keeping up her part of the bargain with Debbie. She’d been cleaning the motel rooms. Just ten days into her stay there, she found five dollars left on the dresser in one of them. She also found a sweater hanging behind the door in the bathroom, and she took it to Debbie as soon as her work was done. Debbie was supervising homework in the kitchen of her apartment. Josh and Chloe were at the table.

Becca showed Debbie the sweater she’d found and Debbie’s whisper in return was
have to send . . . more frigging . . . money . . .
from which Becca figured she was going to have to send the sweater back to its owner. This prompted her to hand over the five dollars she’d found on the dresser as well. But to her surprise, instead of taking it, Debbie said, “No way. That’s a tip for you, darlin’,” and not a single whisper contradicted that.

Debbie’s whispers, Becca was finding, contradicted her words a lot. Despite what she’d told Becca about lying, Debbie wasn’t always completely honest herself. Becca didn’t know why this was the case. She
did
know that it had to do with Reese, Debbie’s daughter.

When the phone rang, Becca went to join the kids at the table, scooting Chloe over on the bench. She said, “Math homework? Yuck,” and Chloe agreed as Debbie answered the phone.

She said to someone, “Sure. She’s right here. How’s your mom?” and listened for a minute. She went on with, “Tell her not to work so hard,” and then extended the phone to Becca. She wiggled her eyebrows to communicate that someone special was on the line, and in a second Becca found out who it was. Derric Mathieson was calling her.

She figured it had to do with homework. Eastern Civilization or Yearbook, she decided, and to her horror her mind went blank.
Did
they have homework? What was it?

But it turned out not to be homework at all. Derric told Becca that “a bunch of us are meeting at Goss Lake to do some bike time trials. Want to meet us there? We’re taking our bikes. Well, obviously, since it’s bike time trials.”

Becca didn’t know what he meant, but she could tell he was a little nervous calling her, and she found this sweet. Then, though, she heard the unmistakable snarky sound of Jenn’s voice in the background, and Becca quickly said that she wasn’t sure she could go. She needed to find out what else had to be done around the motel, so could she call him back in a couple of minutes?

He said sure and added, “You still got the number, right?”

She didn’t tell him that she had it memorized. There was lame and then there was
lame
.

When she hung up, she said to Debbie, “Some of the kids are meeting at Goss Lake and—”

Debbie said, “
What
kids?” because her whisper wanted to know if
drugs . . . OxyContin these days . . .
was part of what was going on.

Becca could tell that
whenever
kids got together Debbie worried no matter who the kids were. She said reassuringly, “It’s just some kids from school, Derric says,” which wasn’t exactly the truth but it wasn’t a lie either.

Debbie asked how she was going to get there and her whisper added
don’t ask me.

To this, Becca accidentally responded, “Oh, I don’t need a ride,” before she realized what she’d done. To cover up, Becca added, “I’m riding my bike. That’s what everyone’s doing, Derric said. They’re having time trials.”

“Darlin’, there’s no way you can make it to Goss Lake on your bike,” Debbie said. She went on to tell Becca it was miles and miles and the road was completely Whidbey Island. From this, Becca knew it was hills and curves all the way.

She said, “Oh,” and she knew she sounded sad because she
felt
sad although she didn’t like to think why this was the case. It was, after all, just a bunch of kids riding their bikes around a lake, and the fact that Derric Mathieson had called to include her meant only that she was supposed to be part of the time trials herself. She knew she’d blow
that
in a very big way, so it was actually better she didn’t go. Besides, although her bike riding skills were definitely improving since it was her only mode of transportation, she was still far away from being able to manage miles and miles of hills.

Good news for Jenn, Becca thought. She would hardly have been thrilled to see Becca King show up.

ULTIMATELY, BECCA WENT
to the Star Store. It was a very short bike ride from the motel. Inside, she wandered a bit, with her five dollars in tip money asking to be at least partially spent. She snagged a large bag of Doritos for herself and two miniature pumpkins for the kids. She was at the checkout counter, getting ready to pay, when a voice said to her, “Those’re sort of small for carving, wouldn’t you say?” and she found Seth Darrow behind her. He grinned. “Thought that was you. How’s it going? Still hanging around with dogs?”

This confused her till she remembered her first night in the doghouse and how she’d smelled the next morning. She said, “You were right. I’m staying at the motel. Debbie’s great.”

“I figured she’d help you.”

When she made her purchases, Seth walked outside with her. He pulled his fedora out of his back pocket. He reshaped it expertly and put it on. He said, “Everything okay then? What’re you doing with your time?”

“Nothing much,” she said, and he looked disappointed for some reason. She didn’t understand what he wanted to know or why, even, he might want to know anything. But she was grateful that he was a friendly-type guy, so she added, “Well, I was
s’posed
to go out to Goss Lake today to meet some kids from school, but I can’t.”