Ms. Hoffman smiled and nodded. Beth played with the pleats of her tartan skirt and wondered what next.
“Did you bring your lunch?” Ms. Hoffman asked. “You can spread it out on my desk if you’d like. I don’t mind.”
“I’m not hungry,” Beth said. “Am I in trouble?”
“I don’t think so. Should you be?”
“Micki is. She got suspended.”
“And transferred out of school, I understand.” Ms. Hoffman watched Beth as if she expected her to dance or scream or fall down dead. “Would you like to leave Arcadia?”
The direction of the conversation alarmed Beth. Maybe she was in trouble because of Kimmie. Were her grades that bad in just six weeks?
Ms. Hoffman cocked her head to one side like a big-headed bird. “You’re not hungry, you’re sleepy all the time, your grades have gone down, and there’s a tone in your voice that I recognize . . . from other girls, and a look in your eyes—”
“What kind of look?”
“Distracted, Beth. Your mind is elsewhere, I think.”
“I’m here—how can my mind be anywhere else?”
“Beth,” Ms. Hoffman’s tone was calm but cautionary, “I think you know what I mean.”
Beth chewed her lip.
“I think you’re depressed and—”
“There’s nothing wrong with me.”
“Not physically, no. But the last couple of years have been very hard for you and Micki. Anyone would be depressed.”
“I told you, I’m fine.” Beth stood up. “And anyway, it’s none of your business. You’re just my teacher.” She sat down and waited for Ms. Hoffman’s reaction.
Ms. Hoffman did not seem mad, but Beth could tell that she was figuring out what to say next.
“Can I go now?”
“No, Beth. Stay a little longer, if you wouldn’t mind.”
Beth did mind, but she said nothing. Kimmie was waiting for her but Beth did not really want to see her. All she talked about was her birthday party and how Beth didn’t have to try crystal if she didn’t want to, no one would force her. Beth sat back in the chair and fiddled with her hair, began to braid it.
“You’re fourteen, Beth. I was twelve when I lost my father.” Ms. Hoffman paused to look at her daffodils a moment. “My mother had no money, no way of earning much of a living, so we moved to Boston and lived with my grandmother who, as it happened, was just as glad to see my father go. She never liked him at all.”
“How come?” Beth asked without thinking.
If the direct question fazed Ms. Hoffman, she gave no sign. “She was a practical, old-world type who did not have much time for more than basic education. She thought Papa was a ne’er-do-well because he preferred to read rather than work in a factory.” Ms. Hoffman’s yellow-green eyes sparkled. “Maybe he was, but he certainly instilled a love of lit’rature in me. No matter how she tried, my grandma could not drum it out. Sometimes, even now, when I take up a new book, I hear my father’s voice in my head telling me I’m a good girl.”
Beth stared at Ms. Hoffman for a second and then burst into tears, and though she wanted to stop them, she couldn’t. Ms. Hoffman put a box of tissues on the edge of the desk.
“Just listen, Beth. If you listen for his voice you will hear it in your head. But you have to listen first.”
In the food court she looked down at the blank sheet of paper before her. The assignment from Ms. Hoffman was to write an essay based on the title of the book the class had just finished reading, The Things They Carried. When Beth realized it was about Vietnam, she could not read it, didn’t try. Her father had been in Vietnam.
Ms. Hoffman might know Beth hadn’t done the reading, but if her essay was creative, she wouldn’t make a fuss, although what she had said in her office about grades worried Beth. Her mom would freak if her grades weren’t good. She had not gotten her most recent book report back yet, or the twenty-point Friday quiz, but she knew the report, written on the morning it was due, was sloppy and she had not studied for the punctuation test at all. Going in she had believed she knew all there was about commas and semicolons, but when she looked at the test sheet, her mind went blank and she couldn’t stop yawning. She had better put some effort into this essay.
So: if Beth had to go somewhere, leave everything behind, what would she carry with her? Right now there was nothing in her life she valued, nothing she wanted to hold onto. It actually sounded like a good idea to walk off into the world with only the clothes on her back. How long would it take, she wondered, to forget everything, to go blank in the mind like a baby?
She decided to write about carrying nothing except the one thing she didn’t want to forget. Her father. She decided to write about carrying her father’s voice in her head.
She had been writing for a few minutes when the sound of Kimmie’s squeaky voice interrupted her concentration. “I can’t believe how much you study.”
Beth stifled her impatience at the silly remark. She put down her pen and said, “Can I borrow a couple of dollars?”
Kimmie grinned. “You don’t have to say it. You want a cinnamon roll, right? It is, like, so not-possible to hang here without eating one of those things.”
Beth watched Kimmie walk across the court to the shop where they made thousands of sticky cinnamon buns every day between noon and ten P.M. There was a line but Kimmie never minded waiting. She liked to be where boys and men could see her. Beth watched the way she moved her body, sticking her butt out and twisting from the waist, looking over her shoulder as if something off to the right fascinated her. She kept clothes in her backpack and changed after school in the bathroom at Bella Luna. She said she’d rather walk through the mall stripped naked than wear her Arcadia uniform. In her short, tight black sweater, a pair of shiny black leather pants that rested on her hip bones, and high-heeled boots, she thought she looked hot. Beth thought she looked like a wannabe hooker. Not that she had ever seen one except on TV and in movies.
Kimmie came back with two rolls and sat down.
“What did the Gusher want?”
“She thinks I’m depressed.”
“Listen, Beth, everyone’s depressed in America. Being depressed is a sign of intelligence.”
“Micki isn’t depressed. My mother isn’t.” At least Beth did not think they were.
“Your mother is so scary.”
“You always say that and it’s just stupid. You don’t even know her.”
“Hey, I didn’t mean anything—”
Beth felt sorry for calling her stupid. That was the thing about Kimmie. She acted tough but she had tender feelings.
“It’s just that your house is like the Brady Bunch. I can’t help it if it creeps me out.” Kimmie tore off a strip of cinnamon roll and stuck it into her mouth. She licked her fingers. “Now listen, here’s the deal. Strider called me during fifth period. Saturday night’s on for sure. Can you fix it?”
“No way. I told you, Ma’s in her Gestapo mode. You know that. I can’t breathe around that place without getting the evil eye.”
“Make up a story.”
“Like what?”
“Beth, you’re the A-student—”
“Not anymore. That’s one of the things Hoffman thinks proves I’m depressed.”
“Give me a break, will you? Do you want in on Saturday or not? I mean, Damian will be really bummed out if you don’t show.” She laughed. “Talk about depressed.”
“I told you, I’m under total surveillance.”
Kimmie stared at her, stricken. “I need you to come. You’re my best friend. It’s my birthday. You have to come.”
Beth thought of Kimmie alone with Strider and Damian, someone named Tex, and all his friends from Tucson. She said it was her birthday and maybe it really was. Why would Kimmie lie about something like that?
“I’m telling you, she won’t let me—”
“Forget it,” Kimmie said. “I’ll think of something.”
Beth thought sh
e could probably eat for a month and never get enough. At dinner that night she layered shredded lettuce, chili, salsa, sour cream, guacamole, and cheddar cheese on her baked potato. Since she and Micki were little, their mom had called this dinner Baked Potato Sundaes. Aunt Kathryn and the cousins were eating up at Grandma Stella’s.
“I’m glad to see you’ve got your appetite back,” her mother said.
“I’m glad you started cooking again.”
Her mother laughed. “I have, haven’t I!”
Beth and Kimmie had smoked a joint in the park less than an hour earlier, and between them they had come up with a way to get Beth out of the house on Saturday. As she ambled home afterward, listening to the hum of traffic and smelling the Santa Ana smell of dry earth and mentholy eucalyptus, rosemary and sage, and a whole hedge of mock orange with bees all over it, Beth thought that after Saturday night she was going to stop telling lies. She skipped through a chalked hopscotch grid drawn on the sidewalk in black chalk, stepped on a line, and went back and did it again. I will go to this party and then—she didn’t know how she would cool it with Kimmie but she would definitely figure something out.
In the kitchen the phone rang.
“I’ll get it,” Beth said, and hopped up.
Micki looked at her.
“Hello.” Beth counted to five and then handed the receiver to her mother. She felt her cheeks flush. “It’s Mrs. Taylor.”
“Do I know her?”
“Kimmie’s mother.”
Lana raised her eyebrows and took the phone. After a few moments, she said, “It does sound like a good time, but I wonder sometimes . . .” She turned her back. Beth could still hear her. “I’m not sure the girls are a good influence on each other.” Another pause. “Well, I’m glad you’ve spoken to her. Beth and I had a conversation, too.” Lana listened and laughed. “I’m glad we finally had a chance to speak. Yes, of course. Good-bye.”
After she hung up, Lana stared at the receiver a moment. Beth watched her, pretending not to.
“You didn’t tell me Kimmie’s mother was English.”
Beth put a forkful of food in her mouth and chewed like crazy.
“She seems nice.” Her mother held her wineglass to the light. “Do you want to go, Beth?”
Beth nodded.
Micki was giving her the hawkeye.
“Do you know what church?”
“Kimmie wants you to go to church with her?”
“A teen dance,” her mother told Micki.
Beth felt embarrassed for her mother, that she could be so easily fooled by Kimmie’s sister and an English accent.
“And you do want to go?”
“I guess.”
“Can I trust you? Do I have your word of honor?”
Beth felt Micki watching her. She swallowed. “Yes.”
Micki said, “You don’t even know how to dance.”
“Shut up, punk.” Beth kicked her sister under the table.
“What’ll you wear?” Lana asked.
Beth thought of showing up at Kimmie’s in a white satin prom gown and started to giggle, almost lost it. She took another mouthful.
“What’s the matter, Bethie?” Micki snickered.
“Mrs. Taylor said she’d take you there and pick you up afterwards but be sure you take your cell with you.” Her mom swirled her wine. “If there’s any mixup you call me, okay?”
Beth finished her potato, skin and all. “Is there ice cream?”
“Help yourself.”
“Did you buy more chocolate sauce?”
“In the pantry. Rinse your plates when you finish.”
After dinner Micki walked into Beth’s room without knocking. She closed the door and stood in the middle of the carpet with her knuckles on her hips.
“You’re stoned. You practically inhaled that potato. Plus you lied to Ma.”
“Mind your own business.”
“You’re not going to any church dance with Kimmie.”
“What d’you mean? You heard Ma talking to Mrs. Taylor.”
Micki scuffed the toe of her trainer into the carpet. “You’re just going to hang at Kimmie’s, right?”
Beth looked at the ceiling. “Yeah. After.”
“That is such bullshit. You and Kimmie figured this out so you can stay over.”
“What are you, my warden?”
Micki stared until Beth could not help but fidget.
“This is my bedroom. You didn’t knock.”
“I should tell Ma. About the grass, too.”
“What’s it to you, anyway? I don’t mess around in your life.”
“You got it from Kimmie, right?”
“What’re you, a drug cop?”
Micki ignored the piled clothes and books on Beth’s bed and lay down beside her. “She’s a creep, Beth. She’s a skag.”
“You don’t know that.” Beth hit her in the shoulder.
“Jesus, why’d you do that?”
“You don’t know anything about Kimmie.”
“I’ve seen her boyfriend hanging around after school. That’s enough for me.”
“Strider’s cool.”
Micki crowed. “You are such a liar. I know you, Beth. You’re my sister and my sister—”
“You’re adopted, remember?” Beth was pleased to see Micki’s expression freeze for a moment.
“We grew up together. We’re the same as blood sisters.”
“Except you have your very own private father.”
“Is that why you’re acting so hinky?” Micki sat up. “You’re jealous?”
“You don’t know what it’s like to have your father die suddenly. It changes everything.”
“He was my father, too.”
“So what’s Eddie, then?” Beth asked nastily.
Micki sighed. “I don’t know. Exactly. Except he’s not my father, not like Daddy was.” Micki sat Indian style, resting her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands. “I miss Daddy all the time. I even hear him talking in my head.”
Beth sat up. “Me, too.” She told Micki about her conversation with Ms. Hoffman and afterwards let out a heavy, relieved sigh. “Sometimes it makes me crazy.”
“But we’re both listening. That’s good, huh? I wonder if Ma is.”
“No way. She’s too busy taking care of things.” Beth held her palm up and pretended to check things off it. “Makin’ lists and checkin’ ’em twice.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure.” Micki held a hank of magenta hair out from her head and stared through it at the ceiling light. “Stuff’s going on with her. Tinera says she gave Uncle Dom hell when she was over there. And you should have heard her tell off Mamoulian—she was awesome.”
Beth rose from the bed and went to sit on her desk chair. She did not want to be too near her sister for too long. Something—she had no idea what—would happen. “You’ve got your birth father, and after a while you won’t think about Daddy so much.”
“How can you be such a jerk-off?” Micki’s glare burned her and she had to look away. “I mean, Beth, everyone gets it that Eddie French will never be my real father. He gets it, Ma gets it. How come you’re the fucking holdout here? I think you’re jealous.”
So maybe she was—so what? Didn’t she have a right to be? “This is my room and you can’t come in without permission. Daddy made that rule. My daddy.” Beth pointed across the room. “There’s the door.”
Micki stared at her, and then she rolled off the bed and walked to the door. “Know what, Beth? You may be smarter than me, but sometimes you’re really really dumb.”
Chapter Thirty-three
On Wednesday, Lana drove Micki to Balboa High School to make her public school enrollment official. Lana’s reaction to the school was instantly negative, surrounded as it was with concrete walls and chain link fencing and every gate watched over by a dour security guard Lana suspected was carrying a concealed weapon. Televised images of school shootings and surreptitious drug exchanges in graffitied toil
et stalls rose from Lana’s subconscious and she almost lost heart.
There were other schools, private schools.
But as they walked across the inner quad on the way to obtaining a security pass, the sight of so many young people of so many races—Muslim girls in Levi’s, their heads covered in scarves, boys in pants that hung perilously low on their butts, the sounds of all the young voices speaking a dozen languages—reminded Lana of something she had read a dozen years before about high school being a preparation for the real world. Surely this rich stream of humanity fit that description more than the sanitized waters of Arcadia School.
“What d’you think, honey?”
Micki grinned at her, grimaced, and grinned again, wider than before. She bounced on her toes with palpable eagerness to wade into this new life. Lana released a small, tight sigh. She had always known she would have to give her daughters to the world eventually, but she had not expected it to be this world, and not so soon.
Mrs. Gant, the director of the baccalaureate program, sat in a cubbyhole office without a window, bumf piled high around her. Immediately, Lana felt an affinity for her. She had a delicate-featured, round, dark face and each of her shiny cornrows ended in a bright blue bead and swung like tetherballs when she turned her head. She looked at Micki’s transcript.
“Well, I guess we can agree you’re not a math or science genius, huh? You must’ve been sleeping in biology.” She looked at Micki over her half-frame glasses. “You qualify for special classes in English and history, though.”
“Are the regular classes very large?” Lana asked.
Mrs. Gant looked at Lana. “Very. Close to forty in tenth-grade algebra.” She was not trying to sell the program to Micki or Lana. It was obvious she did not care one way or another if Micki enrolled. The school was already overcrowded. Even the IB and AP classes were too large. And the amazing and wonderful and unique Micki Porter was no one special to Mrs. Gant.
Lana looked at Micki.
Micki grinned. “I don’t care, Ma. I’m still gonna learn.”
“There’ll be a lot of distraction. . . .”
“Ma-a.”
The Edge Of The Sky Page 31
