Black Creek Crossing

by John Saul

  Her homeroom was here in the main building, and so was her locker, and with a half hour before the first class started, she had plenty of time to find all her other classrooms, so at least she wouldn’t have to suffer the embarrassment of being late and having everyone stare at her. She even got to her first period classroom early enough so she was the first one there.

  “ ‘Angel,’ ” the teacher said, reading her name off the registration form. “That’s a pretty name. I’m Mrs. Brink.”

  Angel was about to say that her name was Angie, then realized that Zack Fletcher knew what people called her and might make fun of her.

  She decided to say nothing at all, and after the first bell rang, Mrs. Brink introduced her to the rest of the class. A few people turned to look curiously at her, and a couple of people actually nodded to her, but within a couple of minutes the teacher had begun a lesson on diagramming sentences, and for the rest of the hour no one even looked at Angel.

  Nor did anyone speak to her after class, but Angel told herself it was only because everyone was hurrying to their next classes and they only had ten minutes.

  The morning raced by, and when the bell for lunch rang, Angel could barely believe the day was half over. And though no one had exactly gone out of their way to talk to her, no one had turned their back on her either.

  Nor had she heard people whispering among themselves as she came down the hall, only to fall silent when she came close, turn away as if even looking at her would somehow be wrong, then start giggling as soon as she’d passed.

  Stowing her books in her locker, she found her way to the cafeteria, picked up a tray, and got in line. Five minutes later, with her tray laden only with cottage cheese and a fruit salad that didn’t look very good, but at least didn’t look as fattening as the macaroni and cheese, she looked around for a place to sit.

  And saw Zack Fletcher sitting at a table on the far side of the cafeteria with a still-empty chair right across from him. When he looked up and beckoned to her, a great wave of relief flooded over her—she wasn’t going to have to sit by herself, even on the first day of school. She started making her way toward his table, threading between tables and chairs set so close together that half a dozen people had to squeeze up against a table in order to let her by. And then, when she was only a yard from the empty chair at Zack’s table, a girl with exactly the kind of long, straight blond hair that Angel had always envied but knew she would never have—any more than she would have the blond girl’s small features and slim figure—came from the other direction, set her tray down, and slipped into the chair opposite Zack.

  Angel stared at the girl, but she gave no sign that she’d even seen Angel moving toward the chair.

  Angel waited for Zack to say something, to tell the blonde that he’d been saving the seat for his cousin.

  But Zack wasn’t even looking at her—he was staring at the blonde with the kind of stupid grin on his face that boys in Eastbury always had when Nicole Adams was around.

  Zack hadn’t been saving her the seat at all! In fact, he probably hadn’t even been waving to her—he’d probably been waving to someone behind her.

  Someone like the blonde who was now smiling at Zack the way Nicole Adams had smiled at the boys who were always fawning over her. “I’m so late,” she said. “I couldn’t get my locker open, and then I got stuck talking to Seth Baker, and then—”

  “Hey, chill, Heather,” Zack broke in. “Would I let anyone else sit there?”

  Heather, Angel thought as she quickly turned away, scanned the room for another chair, and started working her way toward an almost empty table on the far side of the cafeteria. Of course her name is Heather. And of course she’s pretty, and of course she’s Zack’s girlfriend. As she pushed her way between the tables, she heard someone grumble about her going some other way next time, and she was sure two other people shoved their chairs backward when she was trying to get past.

  By the time she got to the nearly empty table, she was certain that everyone in the cafeteria was watching her, and she didn’t even ask the one boy who was sitting at the table if she could join him. Instead, she simply set her tray down at the other end of the table, sat down with her back to the room, and started poking at her fruit salad.

  The boy at the other end of the table was eating a heaping plate of macaroni and cheese.

  Angel poked at the fruit salad again, and finally put a piece of grapefruit in her mouth.

  “That stuff any better than it looks?”

  For a moment, she didn’t realize the words were directed at her.

  “I mean, I like fresh fruit, but when it’s out of a can, it always tastes tinny to me.”

  Angel finally looked up to find the boy on the other side of the table looking at her, his head slightly cocked. “You should’ve gotten this,” he said, pointing at his heaping plate. “It’s really good.”

  “It looks good,” Angel agreed. “But—”

  “So I’ll get another plate, and you can have some of mine. I got way too much anyway.”

  Before she could protest, the boy was gone, and a minute later he was back, an empty plate in one hand, and a knife and soup spoon in the other. Sliding his tray down the table until it was across from Angel’s, he used the soup spoon and knife to move half his macaroni and cheese onto the empty plate, then set the now half-full plate in front of Angel. “There—now you don’t have to eat that crappy fruit salad. Unless you want to, of course,” he added, flushing. “I mean, you can eat anything you want, but—” His flush deepened, and he started to get up again. “Look, if you want, I’ll go sit somewhere else.”

  “No!” Angel said, and felt herself flushing as she realized how loudly she’d spoken. “It’s okay.” As the boy sank back into his chair, still looking uncertain, Angel smiled at him. “You’re right—the fruit salad sucks. But I shouldn’t eat the macaroni and cheese. I’m trying to . . .” Her words trailed off and she shrugged, certain she didn’t have to finish the sentence.

  “So who cares if you don’t look like Heather Dunne?” the boy asked. “If you ask me, I think she’s bulimic—probably pukes her brains out right after lunch every day.” The boy leaned forward and dropped his voice. “S’pose your cousin can taste it when he kisses her?”

  Angel’s eyes widened as she stared at the boy, and though she tried to suppress the giggle that rose in her throat, she couldn’t. “That is so gross!” she finally managed to get out between giggles.

  “Not as gross as kissing someone who’s been hurling lunch,” the boy said.

  “How do you know he does that?” Angel asked.

  The boy rolled his eyes. “It’s hard not to know when they’re doing it right in front of you,” he said. “Right after fifth period. They’re both in my math class, and they practically get it on in the hall before the bell rings.”

  “How do you know she barfs up her lunch?” Angel asked.

  “You saw her, didn’t you? And did you see her plate? An elephant couldn’t eat that much. Believe me—she’s barfing.”

  “So how’d you know Zack’s my cousin?”

  “Everybody knows,” the boy said. “He’s been moaning about—”

  The boy cut his words short as he realized what he’d been about to say, but it was too late. Angel felt her eyes stinging with tears, and she struggled not to let them overflow. Wishing she could sink through the floor and vanish forever, but knowing she couldn’t, she started to stand up, intent on getting far from the cafeteria as quickly as she could.

  But before she was even out of her chair, the boy said, “Don’t do it.” He said it softly enough so no one but Angel could hear him. “Don’t give them the satisfaction.” As she hesitated, he explained: “Hey, I saw what happened over there. You think Zack didn’t make sure there wasn’t going to be enough room for you at his table before you even came in? I know he’s your cousin, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a jerk.”

  He fell silent for a moment, his eyes scanning
the room, then went on. “There’s a lot of jerks around here,” he said, then shrugged helplessly. “I guess maybe I’m a jerk sometimes too. My name’s Seth Baker.”

  “I’m—” Angel began, but cut herself off before blurting out her true name. “—Angie,” she finished.

  Seth frowned. “I thought it was ‘Angel,’ ” he said uncertainly.

  Angel felt her face burn. “I hate it,” she blurted before she even thought about it.

  “Well, you’re wrong,” Seth said. “It’s a beautiful name.”

  “It is not,” Angel shot back.

  “It is too. You just hate it because it’s yours. Everybody hates their own name.”

  Angel stared at him. “How can you hate ‘Seth’? It’s a good name.”

  “Even if it were, it’s not what they call me.”

  Now it was Angel’s turn to frown. “What do they call you?” she asked. Seth said nothing, but his face reddened, and now it was Angel who cocked her head. “Come on, what do they call you?” Without thinking about it, she began blurting out the taunts she’d heard all her life. “They always used to call me ‘Daddy’s little Angel,’ and ‘Mommy’s little Angel.’ ”

  “That’s not so terrible,” Seth countered.

  Angel raised her eyebrows. “Then try ‘Mangy-Angey’!” she added, again speaking before thinking.

  Seth winced. “That’s pretty harsh,” he admitted. “But it’s still not as bad as what I get.”

  “I bet it is,” Angel said. “So tell me what they call you.”

  Seth was silent for several long seconds, but finally his eyes met Angel’s. “Maybe I will,” he said softly, and Angel saw all the pain she’d ever felt reflected in Seth Baker’s eyes.

  All of it, and more.

  Chapter 13

  EY, SULLIVAN! YOU GONNA GIVE ME A HAND WITH this or just sit on your ass all day?”

  Marty Sullivan flicked his cigarette butt into the puddle that had formed under the cement mixer, then ambled over to the spot where Jack Varney was readying the huge header that would span the double front door of the house they were working on. In the five hours since Ed Fletcher had brought Marty to the site of the half-dozen new houses he was building on a cul-de-sac a mile east of the village’s center, Marty had figured out exactly what was wrong not only with the house he was working on, but the whole project as well.

  And the problems all started with Jack Varney, who was supposed to be the foreman of the job.

  For the first couple of hours this morning, Marty had tried to do pretty much what Varney wanted him to, but it hadn’t taken long before he figured out that Varney was giving him all the crap jobs because he was the boss’s brother-in-law.

  First it had been building forms for the bases of the columns that would eventually support the roof of the Colonial-style house, and no matter what Marty had done, Varney found something to bitch about. Initially, it had been the forms themselves, which Varney insisted weren’t squared perfectly. “What the hell does it matter?” Marty argued as Varney had shown him that the form was a quarter of an inch wider on one side than the other. “The thing’s going to be buried in dirt anyway!”

  “Ed’s got a reputation, and I got a reputation,” Varney replied. “We build things right, whether you can see them or not.”

  “And piss away half your profit,” Marty muttered.

  Varney had acted like he didn’t even hear him, and made him knock the form apart and start over again. Marty had done it, though he knew it was a waste of time.

  Then Varney started in about the way he’d put the rebar in the forms. “You need twice as much—I don’t want that thing breaking when we put the columns on them.”

  “They’re not gonna break,” Marty countered. “I used plenty.”

  “You got a degree in engineering?” Varney asked, loud enough for three of the other guys on the job to hear him.

  Once again Marty had seethed, and once again he’d done what he was told. But as the morning wore on, he’d come to the conclusion that Varney had it in for him.

  All morning long Varney made him do everything over again, always claiming there was something wrong, when Marty knew damned well there wasn’t. But what really pissed him off was that Jack Varney was at least ten years younger than he was. What the hell was Ed Fletcher thinking of, putting a kid like Varney in charge of the whole project, then making his own brother-in-law work for the kid?

  What Ed should have done, Marty thought, was put him in charge. If he was running the job, these crappy houses would get put up in half the time, and they’d make twice the profit. Everywhere he looked he saw guys using screws where nails would have done just as well, and measuring over and over to get the studs just the right length when any idiot knew you could shim up the headers to fill the gaps where the studs were too short. If it all looked okay when it was finished, who cared if a few things didn’t fit perfectly under the siding and plasterboard?

  And the frosting on the cake was that everybody else seemed to just go along with Varney.

  Now Varney was yelling at him again, just because he’d taken a couple of minutes to have a smoke. “Can’t a guy even take a break around here?” he grumbled as he started to pick up one end of the twelve-foot beam that would form a header strong enough to support three times the weight that would be put on it.

  More stupidity.

  Less profit.

  If Ed put him in charge—

  “You put on a brace?” Varney asked just as he was about to lift the end of the beam.

  Marty glowered at him. “What kind of sissy wears a brace just to pick up a piece of wood?”

  “I do,” Varney replied, tapping the thick leather device strapped around his waist to give his back extra support.

  “What are you, some kinda pussy?” Marty shot back. Twenty feet away, Ritchie Henderson looked up from the stud he’d been about to cut, his Skilsaw hovering in the air.

  Varney’s eyes narrowed. “Why don’t you try not arguing with me just once, okay?”

  “If you had any brains, I wouldn’t have to argue with you,” Marty countered, clenching his fists and feeling a rush of pleasure as he saw the foreman’s face redden.

  Varney took a deep breath. “If you’re looking for a fight, go somewhere else, okay? And I’m tired of arguing with you—we’ve got work to do here.” He raised his voice. “Hey, Henderson! You want to give me a hand with this beam?”

  “Be right with you,” Ritchie Henderson replied.

  But before the other man could get there, Marty Sullivan bent down, tipped the beam enough to get his fingers under it, then lifted it into the air, hoisting it above his head and getting his other hand under it just before it toppled back to the ground. “Where do you want it?” he growled. Without waiting for a response, he started toward the upright studs that flanked the doorway, staggering under the weight of the beam.

  “Jesus, Sullivan!” Varney yelled, moving quickly toward one end of the beam, which was now starting to twist in Marty’s grip. “What are you trying to—”

  But it was too late. A spasm of pain in Marty Sullivan’s back made him suddenly jerk around, and one end of the beam clipped Varney’s chin, cutting off his words and knocking him to the ground. At the same instant, Marty let out a howl of agony and dropped the beam, which missed Varney’s head by a fraction of an inch as it crashed down.

  Swearing, Ritchie Henderson knelt down next to Jack Varney. “You okay, boss?”

  Varney reached up to rub his jaw, then sat up. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  Now Henderson stood up, his fists clenched as he glowered at Marty Sullivan. “Are you nuts? You coulda killed him!”

  “It was his fault,” Marty yelled. “If he hadn’t made me lose my balance—”

  “His fault? He wasn’t the one who—”

  Jack Varney was back on his feet, stepping between the two angry men. “Okay, okay, let’s all calm down,” he said. His jaw was throbbing and he could taste blood in his mout
h from where his teeth had cut into his cheek when the beam had smashed into him. “Nobody’s dead, and my jaw’s not broken.”

  “You coulda broken my back, throwing me off balance that way,” Marty said, rubbing at the cramped muscle in his lower back. “I should—”

  “You should take the rest of the day off,” Varney told him. When Marty started to say something else, he shook his head. “Just leave it alone, Sullivan, okay? Maybe it was your fault and maybe it was my fault, but either way, it’s over. Just go home, take it easy, and we’ll start fresh tomorrow.”

  Two minutes later Marty Sullivan was gone, but as he left the job site, he knew he wasn’t about to go home.

  Not right now anyway.

  Right now he was going to have a drink.

  Chapter 14

  S THE CLOCK ON THE WALL TICKED TO EXACTLY THREE o’clock, Angel checked her work one last time. When Mrs. Holt had first announced the pop quiz, a sinking feeling had come over her, and it only got worse when the algebra teacher went on to say that since it was her first day in class, Angel didn’t need to take the quiz. She unconsciously sank a little lower at her desk as she felt the rest of the class staring enviously at her. But a minute later, when Mrs. Holt began writing the five equations on the blackboard, Angel relaxed. She’d solved the first equation in her head before Mrs. Holt had even finished writing the other four on the board, and five minutes after the quiz began, Angel was finished, the equations and their solutions neatly laid out on a single sheet of paper, while all around her the rest of the class seemed to be going through page after page.

  Twice Mrs. Holt warned the two girls behind Angel that if they kept talking she would fail both of them, but even as the minute hand ticked closer to three o’clock, Angel could still hear them comparing answers and knew why they hadn’t stopped talking: neither of them had any idea of how to solve the problems.

  “Time,” Mrs. Holt said. “Pass your papers forward.” As Angel took the stack from the girl behind her and added her own, the teacher spoke again. “I thought I told you that you didn’t need to take the quiz, Angel.”